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3.52 pm
Mr. Alan Hurst (Braintree) (Lab): I am grateful for the opportunity to make a few observations about the fragile health of local government. Like many Members—although, I suspect, none who are present now—I have served on the borough council in Southend-on-Sea, and also on the county council. One of the disadvantages of maturing in years is that one's ideas appear to be outdated until they come back into fashion. I await the time when what I am about to say comes back into fashion. When I was elected to the borough council in 1980, I had the privilege of serving on the bus committee because we had a fleet of buses. I had the pleasure of serving on the airport committee because the council had its own airport. I had the pleasure of serving on the amenities committee because we had theatres, piers, bandstands and a range of municipal enterprises run by the local authority. I did not serve on the housing committee; had I done so, I would have been in a position to consider housing policy in the borough, and decide whether to admit people to tenancies.
Over the years, the situation has changed. No one can deny that. The hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess), who is present, knows full well that we no longer have a fleet of buses, an airport or many of the other facilities that were once operated directly by the council. However, I think that the decline in local authorities' ability to influence the lives of those whom they serve has been diminished in an even more important way. One of the pleasures of all councillors was to serve on a planning committee. I say that it was a pleasure, but it was not a pleasure to be contacted by all and sundry about the decision that one was about to make. Whatever decision was made was almost invariably wrong in some people's eyes. Nevertheless, one had the ability to make a decision on what should happen in the community, based on local knowledge and representation. The present doctrine requires one to sit there like a puisne judge and regard the whole thing as a quasi-legal process, staying clear of any electors who might approach one, lest one disqualify oneself from making the decision by listening to them. As a consequence, yet another function of the locally elected councillor has been diminished to the point at which it lacks any democratic vitality.
I do not wish to paraphrase the great former Member Aneurin Bevan, who kept trying to see where the power was as he moved up local government, but I then served on the county council. When I first went there, the county council had a police committee, on which I served. Elected members had a major responsibility for considering not the operational details, but the general direction of the force within their own county. The county council also operated the fire brigade, as it was then known, in the county. Local authorities also ran colleges of higher education. All of those matters have been stripped away from local authorities to the various bodies to which my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Llew Smith) referred in relation to the Principality.
Is it a surprise that fewer people now take an interest in serving on local authorities or in taking part in the election of those few who wish to serve on them? Alas, what I have said is not even the end of the decline. The decline has gone on apace under Governments of both political persuasions. We now have cabinet-style government in local authorities. That was to be the dynamic engine to drive local government into the 21st century, as the cliché has it. There always was a cabinet in local government. The leaders of the controlling party would meet to map out the course it was to take; they would then have the devil of a job steering policies through the committees because their own supporters would wish to promote local matters.
That appears not to be so now. We have cabinets—a grand-sounding name which, to those of us unlikely ever to serve on one, has a certain distance. The cabinets make all sorts of decisions before they are ever discussed by elected representatives, either in the county or the borough. We have scrutiny committees, which ape the mode in this place. As far as I can understand from councillors I know, it is difficult for the scrutiny system to be effective. In any event, the decisions have been made already.
We have novelties such as elected mayors in some places—fortunately, the county of Essex has not been burdened with such an idea—but they have not always turned out as people imagined. The major parties thought that people were bound to elect one of their own, but they have found that a Liberal, a member of the Green party or, in one case, an official monkey might be elected.
I do not know how powerful some of those mayors are. We have heard about the former Member for Brent, East in his position as Mayor of London. The great leaders of the London county council such as Herbert Morrison would have been dismissive of the puny powers of the Mayor. We must consider what the non-mayors who led the county council achieved in the past, not just within the London but way out in the surrounding community. Their monuments are still there to be seen today. It is premature yet to judge whether the Mayor of London will achieve that.
I do not believe that the purpose is to destroy local government. I believe that carelessness has slipped in over the past 20 to 25 years. If we allow that carelessness to continue, we should not be surprised if people are disinclined to take part in elections, however many postal votes we introduce or however many times we change the election date from one day to another. Each change in a way humiliates local government, as the
election is tagged along with another election. I hope that the spirit in which I say that alludes not to the errors of judgment of any political party, but to a collective philosophy that we all share. It is perhaps now the time to say, "No more". Let us consider what local accountability and local democracy are really about.4 pm
Mr. John Greenway (Ryedale) (Con): Before the House adjourns, I should like to raise the case of my constituent Major Richard Perkins, on whose behalf I have been corresponding with Ministers in the Ministry of Defence for more than four years. Major Perkins was discharged from the Army in 1959, following service with the Royal Leicestershire Regiment in Malaysia. In December 1958, a medical board pronounced him
- "unfit for any form of military service".
In October 1998, as many colleagues know, the Army personnel centre in Glasgow wrote to several hundred retired Army officers, drawing attention to an error in the tax treatment of the pensions of a number of former Army officers who had retired on health grounds before 31 March 1973. Major Perkins received such a letter, which said:
- "Our records suggest that you may be affected by this error."
The pensions appeal tribunal subsequently overturned that decision, and on 15 August 2001 it ruled that his medical unfitness was "attributable to service" and that he had at the time suffered a "major depressive episode". The Veterans Agency wrote to him immediately to inform him that he was therefore entitled to tax exemption and refunded the tax that he had paid on his pension since the date of his appeal in 1999. The agency, for some inexplicable reason, then undertook an assessment of his disability now. It determined that he had a 0 per cent. disability and that in consequence, he was not entitled to tax exemption after all. Tax deductions have recently been reinstated.
I advised Major Perkins to appeal against that decision, as did the Forces Pension Society. I also wrote to the Armed Forces Minister on 19 December—my most recent letter—asking him to review the case again and pointing out that the ruling of the pensions appeal tribunal could not have been more clear. What is the tribunal for, if its rulings are not to be honoured? At the time of his discharge in 1959, Major Perkins's medical unfitness was attributable to service, and successive tax statutes have confirmed that pensions payable in such circumstances should be exempt from tax. Indeed, the most recent such statute, the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003—yes, it is that recent—specifically states:
- "No liability to income tax arises on . . . retired pay of a disabled officer granted on account of medical unfitness attributable to or aggravated by service in the armed forces of the Crown".
In the meantime, completely out of the blue, on 8 January the Veterans Agency advised Major Perkins that it had decided to revise its earlier judgment of 0 per cent. disability to a judgment of 15 to 19 per cent. disability, and granted him the appropriate level of war disablement gratuity. That should put beyond all possible doubt Major Perkins's entitlement to tax exemption, so why the continuing delay? That happened almost three months ago, but nothing has been done to confirm his entitlement to the tax exemption.
By wrongly taxing Major Perkins for more than 40 years on what is an extremely modest pension, the MOD has significantly undermined his quality of life. My constituent is now 86 years old. The Government should surely refund the tax and pay to him without further delay the compensation that they have given to others, while he has the chance to enjoy it.
Major Perkins lives at Lastingham, in the North York Moors national park, and I want to discuss the livestock farmers of that area, who will be critically affected by the Government's proposed reforms to the common agricultural policy. My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) raised this issue in a Westminster Hall debate a couple of weeks ago, and I should like to endorse all that he said about the problems that producers face in what the jargon describes as a "severely disadvantaged area". They face a significantly greater cut in support payments than will apply to lowland producers—to the extent that they will get even less support than lowland farmers. That is not only unjust; it simply does not make sense. The support system has always recognised that upland farmers need additional help because of the difficult climate and landscape conditions under which they farm. They cannot grow quality crops, but access to good grassland in upland areas has enabled them to become the backbone of the beef and sheepmeat industry. Many in this country believe that that industry is the best in Europe, if not the world.
The North York Moors national park committee is concerned that if these farmers are forced out of business—as many will be—the park's environment and landscape will be adversely affected. I am aware that representations are being made to Ministers, and many colleagues have raised their own concerns, but I should be grateful if the Deputy Leader of the House passed on my concerns to his colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and urged them to think again. I will be meeting some of these farmers in Ryedale during the Easter recess. They deserve to be reassured that, at the very least, the Government will re-draw the boundaries applicable to qualification for support payments in such a way that upland and lowland farmers will be treated more equally.
The third issue concerns the town of Pickering, which lies at the foot of the North York moors and suffered severe flooding on no fewer than three occasions in the past three years: in March 1999, in October and November 2000, and in August 2002. Following the October 2000 flood, which colleagues will recall was particularly bad across Yorkshire, DEFRA Ministers agreed in February 2001 to fast-track eight flood defence schemes in the Yorkshire and Humber region. Pickering's is the only scheme that has not been
progressed. The reason why is that it is both difficult to engineer and less easy to justify financially, because fewer properties there are affected by flooding than are affected in the more urban areas.At a recent meeting, the Yorkshire regional flood defence committee, on the advice of the Environment Agency, decided to defer the scheme for further technical appraisal. However, the fast-track status of February 2001 expired yesterday, and even though the new points-scoring system—introduced by DEFRA in association with the Environment Agency—is less onerous than before, the considered view is that Pickering is unlikely ever to qualify for a scheme without the Government recognising that it is a special case and that the normal rules need not apply. Indeed, that is why special status was awarded three years ago. There is widespread disappointment and dismay at the fact that the Minister with responsibility for floods and his Department have declined the flood defence committee's request that special status be extended for a further two years. You will recall, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I presented a petition on this matter only last week, as I think you were in the Chair at the time. To all intents and purposes, the Government promised Pickering a scheme. I hope that the Minister with responsibility for floods will, in time, respond more positively to help us to deliver on that promise to the town's residents and affected businesses.
My final point—I shall be as brief as possible—is about a more national and pressing matter relating to terrorism insurance. I remind the House of my long interest and experience in the industry. Members may recall that, following the IRA bomb at St. Mary Axe in 1993, insurers withdrew from providing insurance cover for property damage caused by terrorism. The all-party insurance and financial services group, which I have chaired since 1992, persuaded the then Government to set up a Government-sponsored insurer—Pool Re, a company which has worked extremely successfully. Following a number of approaches from the insurance industry, Pool Re's remit has recently been extended to cover business interruption, the point being that many businesses cannot trade for long periods if their premises are destroyed by a terrorist bomb.
The Treasury is endeavouring to make that important change without the need for further primary legislation, which is a wholly laudable aim. However, I want to suggest to the Leader of the House that significant difficulties of definition have led to uncertainty within the London insurance market as to the cover provided. The Reinsurance (Acts of Terrorism) Act 1993 was written to deal with the threat posed by the IRA, not by al-Qaeda, so there are problems over the definition of organisations. In 1993 atrocities were caused by terrorist bombs; the atrocity at the World Trade Center in New York was caused by impact. There is also a desperate need to cater for public and employer liability, particularly in the area of bodily injury.
Insurers and their clients need greater certainty than is felt within the market at present. I am aware that there are ongoing discussions with the Government and the industry and I very much hope that the Leader of the House will expedite the matter.
Discussing terrorism on the floor of the House is always difficult, but if the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and Ministers are warning us that a terrorist
incident in one of our major cities may be inevitable, the preparations that we make for such an appalling eventuality must surely incorporate being ready for the financial consequences. That problem has to be resolved with real urgency and I hope that what I have said will help to achieve that.
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