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Mr. Edward Davey: Can the right hon. Lady confirm that, in areas that did not have all-postal ballots, there has always been a requirement for a witness statement? In the rest of the country, they are not a new thing.

Joyce Quin: I can confirm that what the hon. Gentleman says is right. When people have applied for postal votes, they have gone through that procedure. However, the sudden introduction of the requirement caused a great deal of confusion in an area that had successfully piloted all-postal ballots for three years without witness declarations. It also caused irritation, because some people felt that perhaps they were not now trusted with a postal ballot, although they had voted in that way without any difficulty in all the previous all-postal experiments.

Mr. Clifton-Brown: Can the right hon. Lady confirm that there were indeed problems in her area? Her area has been all-postal for some considerable time, yet the turnout this time was 7 per cent. lower than at the previous local election. Can she also confirm that 18 public libraries had to be opened to take postal ballot papers because the ballot papers had been delivered late, despite the fact that her area has been an all-postal pilot area for several elections?

Joyce Quin: Indeed; I believe that the drop in turnout was related to the witness requirement, which had not operated in the past, and to changes that were imposed on the local authority at the last minute and which it tried heroically to deal with. On the hon. Gentleman's point about ballot boxes, the council has actually provided ballot boxes in libraries and other locations at
 
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every all-postal election, so that—contrary to what the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman said about people being forced to vote by post—people would have the option of going to their town hall or elsewhere to vote in person if they so wished. That is a very satisfactory way of doing things, because it allows people who want to vote in person the chance to do so. I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman would welcome that.

I would have liked to make many other points, but my time has run out. I shall conclude by saying that, while previous Governments have attempted with varying degrees of success to devise effective regional policies at national level, what the present Government are doing is perhaps unique. That is because they are endeavouring to combine an active national regional policy with an active policy of devolution of power, empowering the regions to make more decisions themselves in the light of their own needs, problems and opportunities. It is my strong belief that, in adopting such an approach, the Government deserve our full support.

3.49 pm

Alistair Burt (North-East Bedfordshire) (Con): It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Joyce Quin), whose speeches are consistent and who has represented her area extremely well. She made a speech that indicates why the House will miss her when she eventually moves on and stands down. She gave a cogent explanation.

Having listened to the right hon. Lady, to the Minister for Local and Regional Government, and to the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), however, I am not persuaded. I recognise that there is a regional element to the United Kingdom and to its governance, but I am not persuaded that this is the best way to deal with the expression of regional opinion. I represent North-East Bedfordshire. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois), I represent an area that has taken a decision not to have a referendum and not to be subjected to a regional assembly. I resent the petulant way in which the Minister dismissed my hon. Friend, who sought to intervene on the basis that we were not having a referendum for a regional assembly. We are either ahead of the curve in deciding not to do so, or behind it. It is our country, too, however, and our views on regional government are just as valid as anyone else's. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider the way in which he dealt with my hon. Friend.

I go back to first principles. What government is all about is providing the clearest connection between the voter and those who are elected. One of the problems that has emerged in our society is that people feel, for all sorts of reasons, that that relationship has become stretched and strained. They therefore become resentful of it. I am not convinced that adding this tier of representation will do anything to deal with that particular problem.

My experience has been varied. As many Members of the House know, most of my life has been spent in the north of England, where for a number of years I represented Bury, North—a metropolitan area, where
 
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all the services were provided through one form of unitary authority. For a period, I was also sponsor Minister for Manchester, Salford and other areas in the north-west, so I had an understanding of the work of the regional office and the regional programme, which the previous Conservative Government put in place. I would say to the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton, who has probably not spent too much time outside his area, that the improvements made in Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle—the extraordinary growth and development in the late 1980s and 1990s, through a variety of programmes—have helped to make those cities the modern cities that they are today.

Having come to Bedfordshire, I now have experience of parish, town, district, borough and county. I am not convinced that extra tiers of government necessarily make governance any better. I am not convinced that an extra tier of regional government will clarify for people what they expect from their regional assemblies and local authorities.

I have not heard any real clarification from the Minister today. We do not know precisely what will be done by the assemblies. For instance, we did not get an answer as to whether learning and skills councils will be taken under the control of the regional assembly, as the Deputy Prime Minister apparently wants, or not, which appears to be the preference of the Department for Education and Skills. Which is it to be? Until those things get answered, constituents in the areas affected are entitled to understand—

Mr. Dhanda : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Alistair Burt: Only once, because a lot of Members want to speak.

Mr. Dhanda: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman giving way. He makes the point about the various tiers of government, and says that adding one would only make things worse. He also describes some of the real developments in the north-west, where there have been unitary authorities. Does he not agree that by taking out the district and county authorities, as this structure will do, and having a single unitary authority, we are reducing the number of tiers of government by having a regional assembly?

Alistair Burt: I take the hon. Gentleman's point, but it is not mine. My point was that the activity of a Government who were really interested in those cities, combined with the local authorities that were there, made sure that the investment took place and that changes were made that produced the modern cities that we see today. Regional government was not necessary to achieve that.

What evidence is there that larger, more regional tiers of authority deliver better services, and that, were they not there, things would be worse? In my experience, we had the creation and then abolition of the Greater Manchester council, which the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) will remember well. When the abolition of that council, which covered a wide area, was proposed, there were complaints from politicians that services would deteriorate and that
 
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nothing would ever be the same again. From the population, however, there was not a peep. As far as I am aware, when the council was abolished there were no proposals to bring it back. If those who represent the unitary metropolitan authorities in the area wish to do so, the House would like to hear from them. In any case, I do not think it can be proved that better services are delivered when a tier of authority covers a wider area.

When the European constituencies changed from single-Member to regional, was there any evidence that constituents identified more closely with those who represented them? No. Most of us have just been through the horrific experience of the European elections—going around with candidates in areas where they were barely known, and where there was no relationship between them and the electors. The percentage of people voting in those elections has continued to fall. I see no evidence that the regional relationship has improved the relationship between voters and those for whom they vote. A Labour MEP in the eastern region, Eryl McInally, resigned her seat before the elections, citing as one of her reasons the lack of connection between the region and her electors. I think that the same problem is likely to occur in regional assemblies and governments.

It is tempting to believe that a Government known for their centralising and rather authoritarian tendency have found a new way of casting some of their problems on to the proposed assemblies. Most of us would agree that one of the most difficult things with which our local areas deal—by and large we do not deal with it, for which we are grateful—is planning. We know of the problems that planning generates. The Government have asked Bedfordshire to take 51,000 extra houses by 2021. The local authorities have been bypassed; this is a Government decision. At least that means that the Government will ultimately be responsible, and that electors can express their opinion at the ballot box. Regional assemblies, however, will prove convenient to the Government, who will be able to slip proposals over to them. The real accountability for decisions will move, and the Government will not take the hit that they deserve to take.

It is a convenient dodge to move the planning function from those who are most responsible for it at local level, and who know most about it. If the Minister suggests in his winding-up speech that there will be no such dodge, I shall be very interested; but most people think otherwise. We cannot imagine that a Government who have been as centralising and authoritarian as this really want to hand anything down. They talk of powers moving from the centre to local government. Chapter 4 of the White Paper suggests that regional assemblies will have responsibility

"for issues such as investment and regeneration, improving housing and public transport and developing tourism."

It claims that

"functions are generally not being taken from local government, which will continue to focus on local service delivery and community leadership".

Most of those functions are handled at local level, but most local councillors want to make decisions rather than being responsible only for delivery, which is what they have become over the years.
 
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What will happen, surely, is that the regional bodies will make the decisions and expect the delivery to be handled by local councillors. What, then, is the point of local councillors? And if all regional assemblies are to do is have influence with others, what is the point of being on a regional assembly? The assemblies will have power, but if they take power from anywhere it will come not from here but up from local level.

I could be completely wrong about regional government, of course. I might have been carried away by my own party's policy and my experiences over the years. I could be alone in my view. I took the precaution of asking the Deputy Prime Minister, through a written parliamentary question, how many letters he had received from individuals supporting an elected east of England regional assembly. I wanted to test my opinion. Had I got it terribly wrong? Did thousands of people think differently?

The eastern region—consisting of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Essex and the jewel in the crown, Bedfordshire—has a population of 5.4 million. Can the House imagine how many of those 5.4 million people rallied to the side of the Deputy Prime Minister by writing to him in support of his proposal for a regional assembly? One. One individual, out of 5.4 million, thought that what the Government were coming up with was a good idea. In all fairness to the Deputy Prime Minister, in the light of that response the ODPM decided not to propose a referendum on an elected assembly in the eastern region.

That is marvellous, but the hunt is on. Who was that one person in the six counties? I am announcing today a search to find that one individual in the six-county area who stood shoulder to shoulder with the Deputy Prime Minister. Is it a relative? Is it a friend? Who it is we do not know, but there are a lot of Labour MPs in that area, and they obviously did not write in. Whoever it was, we need to find them.

The serious question is this: at the end of the day, will regional assemblies and regional government provide what the people are asking for? Will there be one more policeman on the beat because of a regional assembly, one more nurse in a ward, one more bus on the road or one more train on the track? We all know the answer. There will be more politicians, more money and no answers to the problems that people want solved. That is why regional assemblies are a bad idea, whether in Bedfordshire, which has already said no, or in other places, which I hope will say no very soon.

4.1 pm

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