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Mr. Gummer: Has the hon. Gentleman thought that those areas most likely to vote for an elected assembly are those where the region itself is most sensible and most clearly correlates to local feeling, and those regions that are least likely to be a sensible unit are those that will be least likely to vote for a democratic system? In that circumstance, will not the Deputy Prime Minister be forcing on the most inconvenient area a non-democratically controlled system simply because he has got the region wrong?
Mr. Davey: The right hon. Gentleman anticipates my argument. My concern throughout our debates on the Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill was that the Government are accepting the boundaries that the right hon. Gentleman's Government produced for completely different reasons. I know that the Minister is worried that regions outside the three northern regions—for example, the west midlands, the south-west and the south-east—are unlikely to vote for a regional assembly because their boundaries are so bizarre and reflect no regional identity or community that could conceive of itself as a region.
If the Secretary of State imposes fire and rescue authorities on regions defined by the current boundaries, and boundary reviews are carried out for those regions—as will be necessary if there are ever to be elected regional assemblies, because on the current boundaries many of them will never vote for them—a huge waste of public money might be involved. For example, regional control rooms could be set up to serve all the millions of people who live in the south-east. In future, people may look at that region and say, "This won't work—no one is going to vote for an elected regional assembly for the south-east, so we need to break it up into two regions." The response will be, "Hold on—we've got this new all-singing, all-dancing, expensive fire control room, so maybe we won't redesign the regional boundaries." Giving the Secretary of State the power to impose regional fire authorities in certain regions might prejudice a future regional boundary review, which would be completely wrong and would go against democratic reforms of the sort that the Government say they want to introduce.
Mr. Raynsford: I put three considerations to the hon. Gentleman. First, he chose several regions to illustrate his thesis that, on the current boundaries, people in regions other than the northern regions will not be attracted to vote for assemblies. Does he not recognise that the eastern region—East Anglia—has a real sense of cohesion, although the evidence from our soundings suggests that at the moment it has little appetite for an elected regional assembly?
Secondly, we have obviously made it clear that we are committed to establishing a regional framework only where there is a vote in favour of an elected regional assembly. The reserve powers are to ensure effective regional co-ordination on matters such as anti-terrorism preparation that have to be dealt with if the voluntary regional management boards do not deliver.
Thirdly, I know that the Liberal Democrats would love to throw everything up in the air and begin to reconsider all the boundaries, but will the hon. Gentleman tell the House how it is possible to proceed quickly, as he urges, to establish the new arrangements for the fire and rescue service, while opening up an inevitably protracted and difficult discussion about boundaries, which, whenever it has happened in the past, has resulted in years of utterly fruitless debate?
Mr. Davey: I shall deal with the Minister's points, then give way to the right hon. Gentleman, because I know that he wants to help me in answering the Minister.
The Minister accuses Liberal Democrats of trying to have it both ways. That is not so. We have no argument with the Government's quickly putting in place tough measures to deal with the terrorist threat, but as I told the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge, their proposals on regionalisation in the absence of an elected regional assembly go much further than that. There is nothing wrong with regional management boards considering the terrorist threat and ensuring proper co-ordination is in place quickly, but we do not support the Government in going much further than that. Our position is entirely consistent.
The Minister keeps saying that the provisions on regional management boards and regionalisation outside areas that have a referendum are simply anti-terrorist measures, but it does not say that in the Bill or in the draft national framework. In fact, as I suggested to the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge, the Government are saying that if local fire and rescue authorities do not proceed very quickly—within the next quarter—along the Government's lines, these measures, which go way beyond terrorism, will be imposed. Either the Minister has not read his own draft national framework or he is not being completely transparent with the House.
Mr. Gummer: The eastern region contains both Caister-By-Sea in Norfolk and Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire. How can there be, as the Minister suggests, connections of any kind between, for example, Luton and Trimley St. Mary in my constituency? That shows just how remote from reality he is. I do not think that he has been to the eastern region at all. Most people there would find it inconceivable to be lumped together in that way. After all, it only exists because there is nowhere else to put Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire.
Mr. Davey: I am not sure that there is nowhere else to put Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, but I agree that the eastern region is not the same as East Anglia. That is what the Government are trying to pretend, but the more they try, the more they dig themselves into a hole. [Interruption.] The Minister suggests from a sedentary position that I should stop digging, but I am afraid that the Government have a lot of questions to answer, and if they do not, it is they who will be in a hole.
What does the Minister intend for combined fire authorities this year? Clause 2 gives him many new powers to create those authorities, but requires them to have their own budgets, separate from those of local councils, and they will have to build up reserves in order to operate separate financial accounts. As far as I am aware, he has not clarified, in this House or elsewhere, the potential impact on council tax rises and the position that the Government will take in respect of capping. As he knows, fire authorities are already under severe pressure as a result of the impact of pension rises and wage rises, and requiring combined fire authorities to build up reserves could lead to large council tax increases. He suggested that the new reserve requirements could be phased in, but will he cap authorities if, in trying to meet his requirements, they annoy him in relation to council tax?
Mr. Raynsford: The hon. Gentleman is probably not aware that on Friday I wrote to all fire and rescue authorities—they will probably have received that letter by now—to provide helpful advice on issues such as reserves and revenue contributions towards new dimension work, about which authorities have felt uncertainties that might lead them to take an unnecessarily cautious view of the need for provisions in their budgets. I hope that once he has seen that letter he will realise that we are dealing with the matter. We
expect fire and rescue authorities, like other authorities, to budget prudently and not to impose unreasonable council tax increases.
Mr. Davey: The Minister is right—I was not aware of his letter. Will he make arrangements for it to be placed in the Library? It is germane to the debate on Thursday week about the local government finance settlement.
The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish mentioned transitional funding. Some of us have been unhappy with the Government's approach to giving help to those areas that are trying to modernise.
The Minister knows that during the debates at the time of the dispute, Liberal Democrat Members kept raising that issue. We argued that some areas where modernisation had already happened, especially rural areas that rely mainly on retained firefighters, could not generate the same sort of savings as many urban authorities. Yet the Government are not managing their transitional funding to give extra protection to those fire authorities. Instead, they use the current allocation in the revenue support grant, which is clearly inappropriate. The Minister will say that that is under review, but it will affect authorities this year.
Mr. Raynsford: In agreement with the Local Government Association.
Mr. Davey: That does not make it right. Some authorities will be under severe financial pressure. The Government knew that because we warned them time and again, but they have done nothing about it.
Mr. Raynsford: Here we go again. The Liberal Democrats argue both that we must act quickly to get money to fire authorities—we intend to do that—and that they want a new formula to take account of the variations. We have discussed that, as the hon. Gentleman knows, with the LGA, and it was accepted that there could be no agreement on an alternative formula in the immediate future. The priority was therefore to ensure that the interim or transitional payment was made to fire authorities early in the coming financial year so that they could have it at the earliest opportunity. That is another example of the way in which one cannot have it both ways: one must either act swiftly or have endless debate and talking shops, which the Liberal Democrats love, and no action. We believe that it is right to take action.
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