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8.2 pm
Mrs. Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside): The Bill is about reviving local government and local democracy after a Tory onslaught that continued for 18 years. It is difficult to take seriously any comments made by the Opposition, given that they were part of that onslaught, and given that we heard again this evening--in reply to a question from me to the right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard)--that they still intended to abolish local education authorities. The Tory track record in local government is about destruction, and the Tory promise for the future is about further destruction and running down.
The Bill is about revitalising local government, but it is also about preparing local government for change--change that will be very important if local government and local democracy are to lead developments in the new century by ensuring that local authorities work as effectively as possible, and by leading local communities.
The Government have already recognised the importance of local authorities as providers of local services, either directly or indirectly. The replacement of compulsory competitive tendering by best value is a welcome indication of that. But the Government have also recognised the importance of leadership and innovation at local level. I welcome the new powers giving local authorities a duty to promote social, economic and environmental well-being.
Nevertheless, I ask my hon. Friends to recognise that local government also has a proud record of innovation and creativity. During the 1980s, it was local government that pioneered major changes for the benefit of the community, against a background of Tory Government hostility to local government, both generally and specifically.
In the early 1980s, when I was leader of Lancashire county council, I was involved with not just my local authority but county councils in areas such as the west midlands, West Yorkshire and Merseyside. Despairing of the Tory Government's inaction and their uncaring attitude to rising unemployment and the destruction of our local economies, the local authority sector worked with private enterprise to set up local enterprise boards, the precursors of regional development agencies.
The most spectacular achievement of Lancashire Enterprises was the saving of Leyland Trucks when it collapsed in the early 1990s. Lancashire Enterprises, the Labour authority-controlled local economic development company, worked with the private sector to preserve truck making in Lancashire, which continues to this day. We did that through judicious investment, rather than grant or subsidy. Moreover, we preserved thousands of jobs--the jobs of workers at Leyland Trucks, and of workers in the hundreds of feeder companies operating not just in Lancashire but throughout the north-west. That is an example of what could be done by the local government initiatives set up in the early 1980s. They showed that manufacturing could be saved by local authorities working with the private sector, although the Government of the time opposed what was happening.
I can give other examples of my experiences in Lancashire local government during those years, showing what local authority initiative can do. Lancashire country council, working with Greenpeace, pressed for a public inquiry into the proposed nuclear reprocessing at Sellafield, because we did not accept the statistics given to us by British Nuclear Fuels. We were not successful in that regard, but we were successful in securing new legislation: from that day on, European environmental law became United Kingdom environmental law. I believe that the sad events of recent months fully vindicate the stand that we took in calling for an inquiry into Sellafield all those years ago.
I could give many more instances of Lancashire's innovation against the background of a Government who did not care, did not listen and tried to impede. I am sure that many other Members can give examples from their own experience. I emphasise that all those initiatives, and many more, were taken under a Government who wanted to impede us. I welcome the powers in the Bill to encourage local authorities to take a leadership role, to work with the private and voluntary sectors, and to show the way forward for the community. However, I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to consider whether those powers are sufficient to give the new leadership role the strength that it deserves.
Although the Bill gives wider powers to local authorities, there appear to be no proposals to look again at the legislation imposed by the Conservatives restricting local authorities' interests in companies. That is an extremely important issue. If local authorities are to play a full part in regeneration and if there is to be accountability for public money that is spent, it is essential for legislation relating to authorities' interests in companies to be revisited, and for authorities to be given stronger powers.
I ask for that in general terms, and also specifically. We should consider how local authorities can play their part in urban regeneration and, in particular, in the activities of the urban regeneration companies proposed in the Rogers report on urban renaissance. One such company already
operates in Liverpool. I want that project to be fully supported, but I also want the local authority to have sufficient powers in regard to that company, and other regeneration companies, to ensure public responsibility and accountability for the money that is spent.I ask the Minister to consider whether local authorities will, through the Bill, be properly equipped to take on that leadership role and to tackle financial issues. If they are to take on real leadership, show the way forward and innovate, they will need access to funding that is flexible. Although I accept that there are cases where specific grants to local authorities are justified, it is wrong for the vast majority of central Government funding to local government to be prescribed.
In the past, local government has innovated against the odds. This Government want local government to innovate, but, to do that, it must have legal powers and the financial flexibility to be able to identify the funds to allow it to pioneer a new way forward.
During the debate, much has been said about the new structures. It is much easier to say what is wrong with existing structures than to find new ones that will solve all problems. I share many of the concerns that have been expressed. It is important that local authorities move forward with all members feeling that they are part of one authority. It is important that there is access to relevant information. It would be wrong if there were unnecessary divisions within councils, so I add my voice to those of hon. Members who have asked for another look at some of the detail of how the structures may go forward.
There is provision in the Bill for directly elected mayors where local people feel that they are appropriate. Given the new structures and the emphasis on new powers of community leadership in local government, there is a role for a directly elected mayor, provided that the people of the area want one. A directly elected mayor could bring new focus, direction and confidence to local authorities, but it is essential that the powers given to directly elected mayors are sufficient to make a difference and are exercised for the benefit of all the people of the area.
The Bill presents new challenges. It tries to revitalise local government, which was almost decimated by the Conservatives over all those years, but it also offers a new way forward. That new way brings opportunities, but also new challenges.
I ask the Minister to recognise the great achievements of local government in the past and in the present. I ask the Government to maintain their support for local democracy through directly elected local government, and I ask local authorities to grasp the opportunities that are offered.
8.13 pm
Mr. Simon Thomas (Ceredigion): I am pleased to have the opportunity to take part in the debate. Like many other hon. Members, I cut my teeth in local government, both as an officer working for a local authority and, later, as a county councillor. Therefore, having worked on both sides of the local government fence, as it were, I appreciate, and pay tribute to, the hard work that officers and councillors in particular undertake voluntarily, working for local democracy, local governance and continuing devolution in Wales.
Wales is in a unique position with regard to the Bill because it has universal unitary authorities, the National Assembly and the Partnership Council: again, a unique way of working involving the structure at both parliamentary and local government level. I hope that, because of the interest in Wales in what is happening in local government and in the Bill, there will be good representation from Wales on discussions of the Bill in Committee.
In the White Papers in both England and Wales, the Government set out four main planks for modernisation; I hesitate to use that word after some criticism has been made of it, but let us accept it for the moment. The four main planks were: the introduction of the executive style of decision making; new standards of conduct for officers and members; the introduction of community planning; and the introduction of best value.
Best value has had a hesitant start in Wales. The beacon council schemes had to be put back a year because of the plethora of bureaucracy, papers and difficulties. Local government has sometimes been asked to respond and to change perhaps a little too quickly after the recent shake-up of local government structures in Wales, but the Bill sets out the rest of the changes. I was pleased in particular to hear the Minister's comments on community planning. She confirmed that the intention is to place a duty on local authorities to bring in community planning and made positive comments about that.
That duty is important. It is not in the Bill as amended. It is a pity that the Government did not use the other place to table their amendment, so that we could see what they meant by that. Nevertheless, the intention has been made clear and confirmed today. Therefore, I look forward to seeing the Government amendment to introduce the duty on community planning. [Interruption.] Excellent; the Minister has returned to her place. She is just in time. I bring to her attention what is perhaps an oversight in the Bill.
I take it that, if community planning is to be a duty in Wales, clause 4 will be amended. Therefore, it will have to be brought within the ambit of clause 92, which gives powers to the National Assembly to make regulations and so forth. Otherwise, community planning in Wales will be run by regulations from the Department in England. That cannot be right. We need to look carefully at the matter and to tidy up that provision.
On the whole, so far, what we have seen from the Government on local government is strong rhetoric about hearing local voices and enabling local decision makers, but weakness on practical methods of achieving that. The only way to involve local communities is to involve them at the earliest part of service delivery planning, so that they look at the options, are part of the vision of the future, and debate the different ways forward. That extends to businesses and voluntary and community groups.
Executive structures on their own are no guarantee of greater local accountability. Indeed, they could tend to isolate councillors one step further from local people, and we must avoid that. Therefore, one of the key modernising requirements--that word again, I am afraid--must be to move local government from its tendency towards oppositional decision making to a more collaborative and consensual process.
I appreciate that that is what the Government are trying to achieve in the Bill, but, without that key requirement, its other welcome measures could tend to strengthen, or
even to fossilise, current ways of doing things. The replacement of one set of, as it tends to be, slightly older men by one individual who is also likely to be a man, will not bring about the changes.Reference was made to the report by the right hon. Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) on the number of women in local authorities. I regret that a local authority in Wales, Ynys Mon, or Isle of Anglesey county council, has the lowest number of women--just 8 per cent. of its members are women. My own local authority only just creeps above that: four of its 44 members are women, about 9 per cent. That has been unchanged for eight years; there has been no improvement in the amount of women represented in Ceredigion in the past eight years.
We must change that. The key way forward is to modernise our councillor profile. Community planning is an important step along that way. It can open up local government and encourage more balanced and informed participation.
How do we achieve that? One of the ways is to change the way in which we elect councillors. The encouragement towards annual elections is to be welcomed--I know that not everyone in Wales agrees with me on that. We have little experience of elections by thirds, although the old Rhondda district council did elect by thirds.
In the Representation of the People Act 2000, the Government introduced a rolling electoral register. That is welcome, but more important than all those changes--it is singularly lacking in the Bill--is the need to move towards proportional representation in local elections. That would be the single most important influence for change in local government. An amendment to the Bill to allow the National Assembly for Wales to experiment and to introduce PR would be a tremendously powerful tool for change.
I know that the Government have experimented with the way in which the May elections in England will happen. There are different days and ways of polling. The London elections will take place over several days. Those changes are all welcome. We look forward to the detailed reports on how they have worked. However, Plaid Cymru has long supported the single transferable vote, and we see no reason why it should not apply at local authority level.
My comments on the Government's proposals on the executive are perhaps not so warm. I welcome the Bill as amended in the other place. We should be seeking not to impose new structures on local government, but to establish best practice and to encourage local authorities to adopt it. Although I accept that the three new executive structures--potentially with a fourth or more--are flexible, that in itself does not greatly recommend them. We should be moving towards a system that allows local people to choose the local structure that suits them best.
In Wales, about 19 of the local authorities are either introducing a shadow system or experimenting with one. I think that Flintshire and Powys have said that they want to keep a "new look" committee structure. I do not know whether Blaenau Gwent has joined those authorities in that, but it may well have done. However, I feel very strongly that the National Assembly for Wales should decide what systems of local authority should operate in Wales, and that the decision should be an example of devolution and subsidiarity--to use a now rather old-fashioned word--at work. As the hon. Member for
Cardiff, North (Ms Morgan) who has left the Chamber said earlier, it is an excellent opportunity for the Government to put into action their new-found appreciation--announced in The Observer, on Sunday--of the lessons of devolution.Elected mayors are a case in point on those lessons. The idea of elected mayors is quite popular in some of the larger cities in England--
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