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David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden): I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for making his statement and for giving me prior sight of it. I, for one, accept his apology for the leaked letter. I commend him for realising that a matter of such constitutional importance requires a Minister to come to the House to announce it. For once, perhaps, the Prime Minister should take a lesson from his deputy.
The events of the past two weeks have shown just how much the Government believe in consulting before introducing major constitutional change. It was apparent with the euro, the European constitution and the strange events of last week. All those matters show a Government at odds with the people whom they govern. To date, they have held 34 referendums on a range of subjects, but how do they choose the issues on which to hold a referendum? Clearly, they do not do that on the basis of constitutional importance or what matters to the public. They choose on only one basis: when they believe that they can win. However, today, they may have got that judgment wrong.
We believe that the Deputy Prime Minister has instigated referendums in the north-east, north-west and Yorkshire and Humberside that will deeply embarrass him and the Government. Such a measure will do little more than pour millions of pounds of taxpayers' cash down the drain as the Deputy Prime Minister blindly chases his obsession with what will undoubtedly become an expensive white elephant. Rather than a solution, it is a symptom of Labour's failure to deliver decent public services. It is a desperate attempt to create legitimacy for an idea for which there is no argument, advantage or appetite. As Lord Whitty said, elected regional government is not an issue
- "in the pubs and clubs"
The Government received a dismal total of 8,000 replies nationally to their consultation on whether referendums were needed—surely even the Deputy Prime Minister could take the hint. That was after the Government extended the deadline for submitting replies from March to May because of lack of interest in the exercise. In March, they had received 5,500 replies—fewer than the number of people who voted for the Monster Raving Loony party at the last election. In May, the Deputy Prime Minister had received a mere 7,000 replies. However, when my office rang last week, we were told that 8,000 replies had now been received. It appears that the cut-off date for the replies has been extended yet again in a desperate attempt to stimulate interest. Will the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that? Is it now Government policy to leave the polls open until they receive a result that they like? Eight thousand replies after three attempts from a population of 42 million is a pathetic figure. The Deputy Prime Minister's dream appears to put everyone else to sleep.
Let us put the issue in context. The Daily Mail sells 2.4 million newspapers every day and has received well over 1 million votes for a referendum on the European constitution in only one attempt. The Deputy Prime Minister's sounding exercise had a derisorily low turnout, yet he has announced that he intends to plough ahead regardless, despite promises from the Minister for Local Government and the Regions that the Government
- "wouldn't feel bound to proceed if the turnout was that low."
The people of my constituency in the north, like those around them, work hard, pay their taxes and expect a fair deal in return. Instead, the Government will waste their money on another pet project. Will the Deputy Prime Minister state precisely how much the Government intend to spend on promoting those ideas? Will he undertake to provide an equal amount to promote the other case in the referendum campaigns? Will he comment on the allegations that the north-west and north-east regional chambers have been using
taxpayers' money illegally to promote an elected assembly and on other political campaigns? Will he detail the steps that he is prepared to take to ensure that such misuse of public funds does not continue during a referendum campaign?People do not have any idea what a regional assembly will mean for their locality. Many people support a regional assembly only because they believe that it will mean more money for their region. Yet the Minister for Local Government and the Regions stated:
- "Regional assemblies won't get preferential treatment. The funding will be the same as for those without them."
The Deputy Prime Minister tries hard to represent regional assemblies as a decentralising measure, yet recent polls conducted by the Local Government Chronicle and the Local Government Association show that more than three quarters of those in local government believe that regional assemblies would strip powers away from councils, which would get nothing significant in return from national Government. Are they right or wrong? The Government have still not satisfactorily answered the West Lothian question, yet today they have created a new constitutional problem—what we might call the North Yorkshire question. How will the Deputy Prime Minister stop the metropolitan majority in one part of a region dominating the interests of another part? For example, if a massive majority of the people of North Yorkshire vote against the plans for a regional assembly, will he still force them to join?
I come now to the cost of the regional assemblies. Will the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that the Mayor of London is hitting council tax payers with bills five times larger than the Government estimated? Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what he estimates the extra cost to taxpayers in the regions will be as a result of the regional assemblies? He has sought to represent regional assemblies as a mechanism for encouraging economic growth, yet the Confederation of British Industry believes that they could actually damage regional economic growth, and the Institute of Directors says that they will only add another layer of bureaucracy. Are they right or wrong? The fact is that the assemblies will not bring extra money to the regions; they will only take extra money from local residents. At a time when residents and businesses want less tax and less bureaucracy, the assemblies will only bring about the opposite: more tax and more bureaucracy. At a time when the regions should be unleashing their potential, they could be held back by a monster of the Deputy Prime Minister's own making.
Many of the people of the north of England will be surprised that the Government have now apparently placed regional assemblies at the top of their agenda, particularly at a time when people's real concerns lie with issues such as health, education and crime. The regional assemblies will not deliver one extra teacher, one extra nurse or one extra police officer: not one extra
nurse in the north-west, when hospitals such as the Liverpool Women's hospital have seen the number of patients waiting for admission rise by more than 40 per cent; not one extra teacher in the north-east, when one in three 11-year-olds leave primary school in the area unable to read, write or count properly; and not one extra police officer in Yorkshire and Humberside, where robbery has risen by more than 40 per cent. in the last year alone. People want public service reform, not public sector proliferation.Regional assemblies are an answer in search of a question, a solution in search of a problem and a policy in search of someone to love it. This misuse of referendums is an attempt to give a false legitimacy to a fraudulent idea. The people of the north are yet again being asked to pay more for less. Just as the Prime Minister's attempt last week to pass off botched institutions to members of his Cabinet failed, this attempt to do the same in the north will also fail. This is no way to treat the people of the north of England. They deserve better; they deserve a fair deal. That is why we will fight the Deputy Prime Minister's proposals every inch of the way. They are a payback for politicians and a burden for the people, and when the people of the north are presented with the proposals, we are confident that they will give the Government the very same hand gesture that we have come to expect from the Deputy Prime Minister.
The Deputy Prime Minister: Pathetic! I think I prefer the quiet man. The right hon. Gentleman asks why we should do this. Let me make it clear: it was in our manifesto. I have been involved with this question, rightly or wrongly, for more than 20 years. We have debate after debate in which we decide things in our party. We then put the proposals in an election manifesto, and at the last two elections we made those commitments.
As I understand it, we had overwhelming victories in those elections. These proposals were part of our promise, part of our agreement and part of our manifesto, and I am delighted to be here carrying out that promise.
The right hon. Gentleman talks about promises and says that we have never put forward a referendum that we lost, but I am bound to say about entry to the Common Market that—unhappily at the time, as I opposed Britain's entry—we lost that one. However, we gave the people of this country the chance to make a decision on probably the most important constitutional issue facing Britain: whether we were to be a member of the Common Market. The Tories, when they were in government at that time, refused to have any referendum or consultation with the people. We gave the people that choice and they made it. They wanted to be part of Europe.
A lot has happened since then and an awful lot of agreements were passed by the previous Administration—treaties that have affected the laws of this land—although there was never a referendum. In fact, referendums were refused by Governments of whom the right hon. Gentleman was a member, so it is a bit hypocritical to come along here and lecture our party, which believes in consulting people. This is one of the processes of consultation—a referendum to give the people a choice—that we put in our manifesto.
The arguments are not unique and I think that the right hon. Gentleman has been reading up on some old speeches—they are all the same. The Tories have said, "It costs too much, it is not legitimate, it is not the talk in the pubs, the people don't want it." He said all that today, but he said it about Scotland, he said it about Wales, he said it about London and he said it about the regional development agencies, but each time the Tories have come round to accepting it once it has been done. What hypocrisy!
The right hon. Gentleman talks about the regional vote and asks what people will do in North Yorkshire. Has not North Yorkshire county council agreed to have a referendum? His own Tory council in North Yorkshire has said that it would like a referendum. Basically, it is the only Tory council in North Yorkshire and it wants a referendum.
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