| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
18 Dec 2002 : Column 939—continued
9 pm
In my constituency, before the last general election, a proposal was floated—and chatted out by the local Labour party—that there should be a new unitary authority called Greater Ipswich. If there is one thing that the people of Felixstowe like less than the idea of being part of a region called East Anglia that includes Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, it is becoming part of Greater Ipswich. Anyone who has ever experienced the complete incompetence of Ipswich borough council will understand why the people of Felixstowe do not want to be part of it. The Minister may make faces, but one reason that people do not want that change is that their council tax will go through the roof.
Mr. Lansley: Another thing that my right hon. Friend's constituents may not like is the fact that they could be asked such a question at a time when they did not know where the seat of regional government was to be. If they would not like to be part of Ipswich, they would probably not like to be governed from Cambridge—part of which I represent—or still less, from the big new city the size of Milton Keynes that the East of England planning body proposes to establish in the eastern region. Perhaps the East of England is proposing the Brasilia option.
Mr. Gummer: Without following my hon. Friend too far down that route, I merely note that although the East
of England planning authority is proposing the establishment of that new city, it is unwilling to tell us where it would be, in case the proposal is unpopular with anyone who lives there at present.If two questions are not included in the referendum, the Government will get a much lower vote in a number of areas. People can see the difference between the two questions. I shall vote no to both of them, but that will not be true of everyone in my constituency. Obviously, I want to give the proposal a fair wind; I should not dream of doing otherwise—I want people to have the chance to choose. I am sure that the vote will be overwhelmingly against it, but we should let people have the chance.
What is wrong with asking two questions when the alternative is the interesting preamble to the referendum question set out in clause 2(2)? I want to make some points about the preamble, Mr. Winterton—[Hon. Members: XSir Nicholas."]—I beg your pardon, Sir Nicholas.
Mr. Raynsford: The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) emphasises the importance of giving people choice. Will he tell the House how much choice he gave people at the time of the Banham review, over which he presided? Was there an option for a referendum in any electoral district of the country under the Conservative Government's reorganisation?
Mr. Gummer: As the right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well, because I have told him privately on several occasions, I neither wrote the terms of the boundary commission's operation, nor did I approve of the way in which they were drawn up or of the people who drew them up. If he thinks that I shall defend the structure, he has another think coming—I have never done so anywhere.
Happily, we are not discussing the Banham review but the Bill. I realise of course that the Minister would like to discuss something else because he does not like the Bill. That is the problem. I always know when the right hon. Gentleman does not like what he has to do; his smile becomes broader and deeper and he becomes more avuncular and much more charming than he ever is when he is really keen on something.
The right hon. Gentleman is not keen on the Bill and the reason is the extremely peculiar piece of writing to which I referred. I am sure that he did not write the statement himself—it is not elegant enough. Why was it included? Because the Government are very afraid that faced with the simple question,
- XShould there be an elected assembly for the region?"—
I do not know whether the Minister has noticed how long it normally takes people to vote at a polling station, but if they all have to sit down and read and understand the statement—
Mr. Lansley: There will be no queues.
Mr. Gummer: Of course not, because so few people will vote that there will be plenty of time. Perhaps that
is what the Minister hopes. Perhaps he hopes that less than 20 per cent. of the electorate will bother to turn out so the queues will not be too long.
Mr. Jack: Does my right hon. Friend see a picture where someone may seek help and an interpretation of those words at the ballot box? How would that matter be resolved?
Mr. Gummer: I do not know. Indeed, those who are unfortunately disabled in one way or another may need the normal arrangements that help them to vote to be extended in some way, and I do not know what the Minister would do in those circumstances. Will someone be there to read the preamble to anyone who is partially sighted, for example? That is a serious question. This is a different kind of voting from that which we have had before.
Mr. Edward Davey: I think that the right hon. Gentleman does a disservice to the Minister. The Minister wants a lot of people to vote; it is No. 10 Downing street that does not.
Mr. Gummer: None of us can entirely know what is going on in No. 10 Downing street, so I should not like to follow the hon. Gentleman down that path.
The preamble exists because the Government are uncertain that the public will understand what they are being asked to do. The preamble might be justified if it helped to make things certain, but it does not, which is why I support the amendments that relate to the preamble's wording.
- XYou can help to decide whether there should be an elected assembly in"
The referendums will be advisory. At the very least, the preamble, if we are to have one, must say that the referendums are advisory and that the public are partially helping and making a bit of a contribution. However, even fewer people will vote when they understand that, but saying it is worth while.
- Xthe regional assembly would be responsible for a range of activities".
I noted the fact that the Minister referred to a number of very real powers, but he did not mention what those powers would be. He also said that there would be a number of opportunities to advise, but which opportunities, which circumstances and would anyone
bother to listen? All that is unclear. The preamble is a load of old guff and, what is more, those reading it will realise that it is.
Mr. Streeter: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the people who will vote in the referendums do not need a preamble? What they need is an Act of Parliament to be passed, spelling out the functions and responsibilities of the elected regional assemblies, and an executive summary to be made available to them so that they know exactly what they are voting for.
Mr. Gummer: I want to ask why that will not be done, because it is so obvious. I suspect that it will not be done for exactly the same reason as why the Government were so coy about the powers of the Mayor of London: they do not want to say what the powers will be.
Jim Knight: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
The Government do not want anyone to be too certain about the powers because they may not wish to provide so many powers, or they may wish to be more vague about them, so that they can find out who voted for the regional assembly before defining them. I noticed that, when the person whom the Government had hoped would not be chosen was elected as Mayor of London, he got rather less power than the mayor might have got if another gentlemen had won. I think that that is what this is all about.
The Bill is about not defining the powers too precisely so that the Government can see what happens. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) should remember that, if they were defined in an Act of Parliament, there would not be much give and take at the edges. If they are defined simply by a few words from the Minister and Labour party headquarters and by a comforting remark from the Prime Minister, no doubt, the powers can be adjusted according to region.
Do we know whether the powers will be the same in every region? Or perhaps those regions that generally seem to be on the Government's side may be given a bit more power and those that do not support them a bit less? A real, constitutional reason therefore exists for saying that the preamble is a fudge designed to make sure that the Government do not get hoist with their own petard.
My last point is in relation to the reorganisation of local government as hidden in this preamble. I have said that I would like two questions, but I do not know who will understand this preamble. A single tier can mean a range of things. In Suffolk, people would generally prefer the counties. Whatever the right hon. Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West said, in Suffolk, when the local reorganisation to which she referred took place, the historic county was replaced, because, in the 1870s, it was divided into two—East and West Suffolk—and the historic county came back into operation in 1974. I want to remind her of her history, however, because the proposals of the then Conservative Government were much closer to the historic counties than the proposals put forward in the Redcliffe-Maud report, which was a very socialist report—I think that
you and I, Sir Nicholas, are the only two Members present who can remember those great days. That report would have swept away many of the structures that we are discussing, and would have been a recipe for a new socialist Britain, much of which, happily, we managed to defeat.The fact of the matter is that those of us who live in historic counties do not want to lose them. I know that because of my experience in local government reform. I did not choose that task—it was one of those things that was handed on—and I have always believed that local government reform is a disaster for anyone who does it, in any circumstances, ever since it has been done. This Government will find that as well. It is one of those things: a fact of life. It is no good thinking that is a party political question. Whatever the Minister says about the last Government, local government reform is always difficult because there are lots of people out there who want something totally different from lots of other people, and there is no way of satisfying everybody. The Minister will be very unpopular, and nobody will like the reforms much, but that is the nature of local government reform, not the nature of the Bill.
This Bill and question, however, are worse than most. That is because they do not do the job that the Minister wants. He should think about his love of history and the accumulated wisdom of the past, about which I have heard him talk on a number of occasions, and say to himself, XIsn't it odd that this will be the first kind of referendum that needs a whole lot of guff before we can get anybody to vote on it?" Would it not be better to throw it out and replace it with two simple questions? The first question should ask whether there should be an elected assembly for the East Anglian region—I use my region as an example—and list the counties of which that region would consist. Everybody would then know what was being talked about. When one refers to East Anglia in Suffolk, people think that that means Norfolk, Suffolk and possibly Cambridgeshire. It certainly does not include Essex, as we never include Essex in any circumstances, and none of us has ever thought that Bedfordshire was in East Anglia.
The second question would be very simple: should the local authority now be a unitary authority called, for example, Greater Ipswich? One of the reasons my majority increased at the last election was that I mentioned, because I thought it right, to everybody in Felixstowe that the Labour party wanted a Greater Ipswich. The vote on that subject was very satisfactory. I cannot therefore promise the Minister that he will make progress very fast in that area.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |