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“increasing participation in civic and political activity”?
That is a worthy aim with which no one in the House would disagree, but it could mean one thing to one man and something else to another. I hope that all those problems will be resolved before the Bill reaches its remaining stages.
The Bill duplicates some existing measures. The Government White Paper, “Strong and prosperous communities”, provides local authorities with greater autonomy, enabling them to make key decisions in their region. The Bill, however, has many merits, and I applaud the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood for the personal interest that he takes in the matter. Many of my hon. Friends agree with him, particularly with his belief that local shops and producers are essential to maintain a sense of community. The concept of community and social inclusiveness is, and always has been, one of the cornerstones of our society. Given their initial scepticism about the need for a Minister for Social Exclusion, I am heartened that the Opposition now take the issue as seriously as the Government. I welcome many of the Bill’s proposals, and I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to consider them seriously and pursue them in whatever legislative form he considers suitable. I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), who has called for the spirit of the Bill to be incorporated in an all-party measure, as the problems that our communities face today can best be tackled when all parties work for a greater sense of community for all.
12.44 pm
Mr. Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con):
I associate myself with the concluding remarks, and many others, of the hon. Member for Hove (Ms Barlow). In that spirit of cross-party co-operation, I shall speak in support of the Bill. I congratulate its promoter, my
hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd). It is an honour to be a co-sponsor of the Bill.
We have heard a number of interesting speeches, one of which will go into my personal record book for its length. I lost track of the points that the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. David) was making after about half an hour, and the will to live after about 40 minutes. Nevertheless, I commend him for whatever operation was going on.
I compliment the hon. Members for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy) and for Stroud (Mr. Drew) on a key point that they made in support of the Bill—that it does not represent a trickle-down, Lady Bountiful approach to giving power to local authorities. It presents a challenge to local government, as well as empowerment. It is a challenge to communities and local government to address local problems, and it is a challenge to Government to promote the Bill’s premise that communities and councils are the experts on their own problems and the solution to them. It was that premise which took me into local government, and it is a theme of what I have been trying to achieve in my constituency.
The solution to what has been called “ghost town Britain” lies not in this place or in Whitehall, but with those living in communities. The Bill is about trusting those people. Hon. Members who support the Bill tonight—[Hon. Members: “Today.”] Indeed, today. It feels like tonight, after the speech from the hon. Member for Caerphilly. Hon. Members who support the Bill will be judged for that trust. Those who oppose it will have to face the rainbow alliance of organisations that supported it and the many people in their constituencies who have called for the principles of the Bill to be enacted.
Many people look at tiers of government—Westminster, regional, county, district and parish government—in linear form. I prefer to see it as a pyramid, with a large number of councils getting closer to the people at the base of the pyramid. The Bill seeks to invert the pyramid, making central Government act in support of local government. That principle finds a ready home in the hearts of Members in all parts of the House. I commend it to all sections of the House.
Among the written depositions in support of the Bill are a number from rural communities. There is a myth, which needs to be dispelled, that the Bill is directed at rural communities. My constituency is largely rural, but the Bill is as important, and in some respects even more important, for many urban communities. My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood would not introduce a purely rural Bill.
Stephen Williams (Bristol, West) (LD):
As a Member—possibly the only one on the Opposition Benches today—who represents a large city, Bristol, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Bill is directly relevant to an urban community and a city centre, particularly in respect of planning classifications for housing. My hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy) mentioned rural housing and second homes in Cornwall. We have the same problem in the city centre of Bristol, where whole streets are being bought up by buy-to-let companies to let to people who come into the city on a short-term
basis. If the planning laws were changed and local government could decide for itself whether that contributed to a balanced and sustainable community, our cities, as well as rural areas, would have a balanced population.
Mr. Benyon: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I echo those sentiments with reference to my own constituency. Half the population there lives in towns such as Newbury, Thatcham and Hungerford. In Thatcham and suburban parts of Newbury I see the same pressures on those communities, and the need of local people to feel that Government understand them and that Government are empowering them to solve those problems. I have seen government work from the bottom up. West Berkshire council has achieved beacon status for its promotion of parish plans, which are delivering, in microcosm, precisely what the Bill seeks to achieve. The people involved are not the usual suspects—they are brought into the process from across the community. They identify the problems in that community and hold the next tier of local government—as well as organisations such as the police and the primary care trust—to account for the solutions. That is the principle of shifting the balance of power downwards that my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) mentioned a moment ago.
Martin Linton: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that in many cases inner-city high streets are the new villages, because they are populated by people who do not want to go further away to a supermarket but want to have a baker’s shop, a fishmonger and a butcher on their doorstep, in their high street? The problem is not, as it is in many villages, depopulation, but rents that are too high because of the sheer popularity of those streets. However, it comes down to the same thing—it is difficult for people to get what they want, and what people in every village want, which is a high street that enables them to shop in independently owned local food shops serving local produce.
Mr. Benyon: The point that derives from that is that it is easy for people on higher incomes to travel to purchase the goods that they would otherwise have bought from those shops, while people on lower incomes suffer. Too often in modern life it is tougher to be poor, sick, old or mentally ill in relatively prosperous areas, such as parts of the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and parts of mine, than it is in more deprived areas.
In talking about ghost town Britain, we often, rightly, refer to the loss of shops and post offices, but it is also about services. That has recently been brought home to me in my constituency. The local magistrates bench used to sit in Lambourn and in Hungerford as well as in Newbury but, perhaps for entirely proper reasons, it no longer sits in Lambourn—where the accused and everyone else used to help to set the chairs up, which was probably not the best way of running a court—and has withdrawn to Newbury. Now, there is pressure from above—from central Government—to move that court service from Newbury to an all-purpose court in Reading. That is probably at a more beneficial cost to the taxpayer, but it is symptomatic of the problem addressed in the Bill. Not only does the
community in Newbury suffer the loss of a civic entity, and the proportionate loss of a sense of self-worth, more importantly, the people of that community are much more remote from access to that service. Where does that leave, for example, a victim of crime living in a remote village in my constituency who currently has to travel to Newbury to give evidence but in future, under the proposals that are being pushed forward, will have to travel a great distance to Reading?
Mr. Kevan Jones: I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman’s point about justice being dispensed at a local level, but can he tell me how the provision of magistrates courts would be affected by the Bill?
Mr. Benyon: I certainly can, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to do so. Clause 4(3) states:
“The Secretary of State may by order define the services or types of services which are of primarily national significance for the purposes of subsection (2)(c) and shall give reasons for all such definitions.”
I hope that that satisfies the hon. Gentleman. As the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Caton) said, these matters should be discussed further in Committee.
Mr. Letwin: There is another answer to the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones). Under the Bill, if a local community thought that it was a priority to keep a local magistrates court open, and if the Lord Chancellor’s Department thought that it would save money by doing so, it would be open to the local community to propose as part of its plan a subsidy scheme to keep the court local.
Mr. Benyon: As always, my right hon. Friend puts it so much more eloquently than I could, and I entirely agree with his point.
Throughout the country, other services are being lost—for example, ambulance stations being removed in some communities. We have always been told that all these reorganisations are for our greater good, but when something like that happens, as it did in Hungerford 10 years ago, the result is often a less than perfect service. In order to comply with Government targets on response times, it is much better for ambulances to be hanging around big urban areas such as Reading—and the people of Hungerford and other smaller towns across the country lose out.
Whether we call them “reforms”, “reorganisations”, “reconfigurations” or whatever, they are always driven from the top down and they always militate against local people in smaller communities. They are too often done for the convenience of the organisation than for the people it serves.
I would like to comment on an earlier intervention by the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) in which he spoke about traffic and congestion. I shall provide one example of how the Bill will help to resolve some of those problems. In Newbury some years ago, there was a movement plan. Consultants were brought in and a plan to improve the movement of traffic around the town was developed. A presentation was made, at which all the great and good were present, and
everyone agreed that it was a good plan. At the end of the meeting, however, an official stood up and explained that the plan had to go to the Government office for the south-east and to the South East England regional assembly to have their imprimaturs put on it. I asked myself—a lowly citizen in those days before I was elected here—why on earth we live in a world in which a regional government, either the Government office or the regional assembly, has to tell us how the Bone Lane roundabout in the middle of Newbury is configured. That is ludicrous.
The Bill provides an opportunity because, under it, local communities can be empowered to do things for themselves, which is why I commend it to the House. I could raise many other issues, but I want to give other hon. Members time to speak. We must pay attention to the enormous breadth of organisations that support the Bill. We must remember that hon. Members on both sides of the House support it. Ultimately, what it is all about is trusting local people to make the right decisions for their communities.
12.58 pm
The Minister for Local Government (Mr. Phil Woolas): Let me start with the traditional, but nevertheless sincere, congratulations to the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd) on securing top place in the ballot—something that I never got anywhere near; perhaps I will in the future, as who knows what that holds—and on choosing this subject for his Bill. He has brought together a coalition around an issue that is touching a lot of nerves—not only in the House but in the country at large.
The fact that we were able to keep the Chancellor waiting on the line this morning while the BBC interviewed us about the Bill may not have been a career-enhancing move for me—even less so now that I have said it—but it reflected the degree of interest in the hon. Gentleman’s Bill, so I congratulate him again. This week’s Local Government Chronicle also reports on the consensus that the Bill has generated across councils and parties.
The all-party Local Government Association’s welcome for the Government’s own Local Government Bill shows that the two Bills are moving in the same direction. I am therefore placed in a somewhat difficult situation in respect of complying with your strictures, Mr. Deputy Speaker, about focusing today’s debate on the Sustainable Communities Bill when it may be helpful to the House if I referred at times to the Local Government Bill. I suppose I am asking for your indulgence in that respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Indeed, our debate today is one side of the coin. On Monday, we have the Second Reading of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill, when further debate on this subject will take place.
Serious commentators accept that the Government are devolving power to local government and locally elected councillors over not only their institutions and budgets but the objectives of the partner organisations, many of which are Departments working through our local offices.
It is also widely accepted that we believe that devolution, which builds on the measures that we have already introduced—we heard a strong contribution
about the impact of that on Wales—should be increased. We want to devolve power beyond the local authority to neighbourhoods and parishes. The right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) acknowledged that and I support his remarks. Our plans have been dubbed “double devolution”, although I am not sure whether the good people of Oldham and Saddleworth quite grasp what that means.
Jonathan Shaw (Chatham and Aylesford) (Lab): Double Diamond.
Our proposals to increase devolution are prominent in the Government’s Bill through the proposed introduction, subject to the will of Parliament, of the best value duty to involve, devolve and consult. That provision, along with another on the duty of co-operation, would make the Government’s commitment to devolution legislative reality.
The Government have been accused of not taking the Sustainable Communities Bill seriously and opposing it because it is not a Government measure. The hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood described it as a “not-invented-here” opposition. In so far as we oppose the measure, we do not object to its policy intent. Indeed, we strongly believe that the concept of a sustainable community is our invention, especially that of the Deputy Prime Minister, who has made it reality through the policies that we have pursued and the regeneration of many of our towns, cities and other areas.
Anne Main: On the Government’s duty to consult, does the Minister have any sympathy with the views of my constituents, who believe that consultation is undertaken and often ignored? The principle behind the Bill is that, after consultation, action that communities want would be taken, rather than actions being imposed on them. My constituents would welcome that shift of power back to the communities instead of being asked for their views and then ignored.
Mr. Woolas: As elected representatives, we all recognise the hon. Lady’s point. It is always desirable to implement the outcome of consultation. However, although it is important to consult and, when possible, go along with the results, financial reasons and contradictory implications mean that that is not always possible. One could consult the neighbourhoods in the hon. Lady’s constituency and ask whether they would like a new library or a swimming pool, but resources would not allow them to be built everywhere. The council would find itself having to agree with one group and disagree with another. The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) made about Stockport council was valid, despite the jeering of some hon. Members. The problem applies, whatever the political colour of the leadership. However, I understand the hon. Lady’s point.
If the public body undertaking the consultation does not believe that it can comply with the results—in other words, it leads people to have false aspirations—that further diminishes politics. The right hon. Member for West Dorset made just that point. How to make good
those points is a question with which we are all grappling. I believe that the best value duty to involve and consult is a powerful way forward. The idea not just of devolving but of enabling from the bottom up is at the heart of our Bill.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD): The Minister will recall that, before the last general election, the Deputy Prime Minister ran a consultation road show on regional devolution, for which there was not great enthusiasm. However, the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd) has introduced a Bill that has come from a grass-roots campaign for which the enthusiasm across the country is clear, as has been reflected in meetings held in my constituency, for example, in Kendal. Surely the Minister should embrace that enthusiasm, which stands in contrast to the failure of the Deputy Prime Minister’s campaign before the election.
Mr. Woolas: I am sorry if the hon. Gentleman thinks that I am not embracing that enthusiasm. The Government should be commended for promoting a localist agenda. I always find it ironic that the hon. Gentleman criticises the Deputy Prime Minister for promoting a referendum and abiding by its result, and in the same breath accuses him of not consulting or ignoring consultation. I guess that that is just politics.
I shall take one more intervention and then I must make progress.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con): I am grateful to the Minister for the time that he is giving me to raise the issue of a referendum in Shrewsbury on unitary status. However, will he reiterate that he will take careful account of those results and support what the people of Shrewsbury decide?
Mr. Woolas: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his campaign and on his ingenuity. I hope that the House will accept that I should not go down the route along which he tempts me. Hypothetically, if two districts had referendums that had contradictory outcomes—I am not saying that that will happen in his area—the Secretary of State would be damned if she did and damned if she did not do as he suggests. That goes to the heart of the paradox that we are trying to resolve.
Shona McIsaac: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Woolas: If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I shall make some progress.
As I hope that I have made clear, the Government accept the desirability of the intention behind the Bill. It is important that the Bill is debated, but we have some serious concerns about it. Our advisers have expressed concerns about its drafting, as its authors would expect me to say because they are open about its deficiencies in that respect. We are also concerned about the chosen methods. If I may, I shall concentrate on the latter.
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