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Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way at this relatively early stage in his remarks. He will correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that under the proposed regime, only key decisions will have to be made in public. For my enlightenment and edification, can my hon. Friend offer any indication of what the definition of "key decision" is likely to be?
Mr. Waterson: My hon. Friend has characteristically cut to the heart of the regulations. If he will bear with me, I will deal with his point in detail in a moment.
As the Local Government Chronicle put it recently, the cabinet system is failing to impress, let alone the regulations about secrecy in local government cabinets. It said that a survey of councillors by Bristol city council found that many were unhappy about the replacement of the committee system with five scrutiny commissions. Some 86 per cent. of the 22 councillors who responded said that scrutiny was less effective. No one thought that it was more effective. One councillor said:
It is only because the Government were forced into a partial U-turn by the Opposition, the Lords and their own Back-Bench rebels that we have these new regulations and the concept of key decisions to which my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) has referred. Our position on key decisions has always been the same. How do we differentiate between a key decision and a non-key decision? Who is to choose what is a key decision? Even more importantly, why bother making that distinction? If matters are really important, they should be debated in the full glare of the public eye unless there is some circumstance of confidentiality, as is the situation now. If they are not that important, why should they be conducted in private?
The Minister for Local Government and the Regions (Ms Hilary Armstrong): Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House who takes the decision now as to which decisions are taken in public in committee, and which are not?
Mr. Waterson: As the right hon. Lady well knows, the majority of issues on a particular agenda are heard in
public. Usually, at the end of the meeting there are items that may be subject to confidentiality. [Interruption.] The right hon. Lady will have a chance to defend these bizarre and byzantine regulations in due course, if she can just contain herself. As she knows, most agendas have items at the end which are dealt with confidentially--and for all the usual reasons of confidentiality, quite properly.The Government are in a real mess over secrecy in local government because they are not big enough to admit that they got it wrong and to return to the status quo. Let us remember what leading members of the Government have said in the past about secrecy and openness. The Prime Minister, no less, said:
Here is another interesting quote from the Minister for the Environment, the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher):
When all those worthy statements of intent actually hit reality, we found a different kettle of fish. Let us not forget the comments of the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Ms Hughes). In last December's Municipal Journal, the hon. Lady stated:
Last May, in an interview with the Local Government Chronicle, the Minister mused on the purpose of her proposed reforms. I cited the interview during the Standing Committee. The right hon. Lady said:
The Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985--also passed by a Conservative Government--allowed the public access to key council papers three days before meetings. It is no wonder that Mr. Andrew Ecclestone of the Campaign for Freedom of Information remarked:
Even in the teeth of such criticism, the Minister carried on. We heard comments such as those made by Sir Jeremy Beecham of the Local Government Association who talked of witnessing the "strange death" of local democracy. The Society of Editors noted that, as a result of the reforms, there would be a reduction in the flow of information to the public and to the media.
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold): During the John Smith memorial lecture on 7 February 1996, was it not the height of hypocrisy for the Prime Minister to say:
Mr. Clifton-Brown: Was it not totally inconsistent and contrary to the high public standards that one would expect from the Minister who is first among equals in this country when the Prime Minister made the following comment? In 1996, he said:
Mr. Waterson: My hon. Friend makes a telling point. After four years, we are used to such hypocrisy from the Government.
Several independent organisations criticised the Government's proposals. The National Union of Journalists noted that cabinets or executives meeting behind the closed doors that are being imposed will deny basic access to local democracy. The Society of Local Authority Chief Executives also criticised the proposals. The list goes on: the Local Government Information Unit, Charter 88 and the Campaign for Freedom of Information all criticised what the Minister was about.
There has not been much improvement. In the teeth of a Back-Bench rebellion--from the vast swathe of empty Benches behind the Minister, I assume that it has been seen off--the Government got themselves into a terrible mess; since then, they have been bashed from pillar to post trying to find a solution--to satisfy not the Opposition or local government, but the Labour rebels on the Back Benches and in local government. They rushed out draft regulations, relying on the bizarre distinction between key and non-key decisions.
Most of us will have received a briefing from the Campaign for Freedom of Information, which has a distinguished record on dealing with such issues over the past six to nine months while the legislation was going through the House. The CFI points out that
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