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If the Minister is going to tell us that we do not need to spell that out because the transfer of functions allowed by new clause 6(2) or new clause 1(3) will automatically and implicitly not only allow a local authority to determine the policies to deliver the objectives of the function, but give the local authority the money to carry out the function, thus fulfilling the purpose of new clause 6(4)(a), it seems to me there will be ample room to achieve agreement in the other place on drafting that will leave that in no doubt. We do not need to do that todaywe can do it later. If the Minister agrees that there will be a shift of not only the function, but the money, and that the local authority will be able to decide how that money should be spent, we can achieve agreement on the drafting anon. If, on the contrary, the Minister actually believes that new clause 1(3) and new clause 6(2) do not automatically imply thatI do not think that they dowe have a point of enormous substance between us, which we shall have to continue to discuss over the summer. If
that is the case, I hope that the Minister, or his successor, will eventually change his or her mind, because otherwise the Bills main purpose cannot be fulfilled.
If a transfer of function merely allows a local authority to be and to do exactly the same thing as the central authority was being and doing, nothing will be achieved. That will not get us to where we need to be. Given that that is the main point of the Bill, we will have to keep discussing the matter until it is crystallised in another place. The Government will have to decide whether they are for or against the aims of the Bill. What we must not have is a fudge where it looks like we have the Bill, but in fact we have a Bill that does not do the job that it is meant to do. That is why the Ministers comments about new clause 6 will be important.
Lynda Waltho (Stourbridge) (Lab): I understand what the right hon. Gentleman is saying about a body such as Business Link, but perhaps he or other members of the Public Bill Committee will be able to help me with something with which I am struggling. If the community in Stourbridge decided that the local Jobcentre Plus was not fulfilling its function, what safeguards would there be to prevent the local council from charging an employment agency to take over that function? I am worried about the consequences of dismantling of the important mechanisms of state that are in place for the most vulnerable.
Mr. Letwin: The hon. Lady asks a serious and pertinent question that has been at the centre of much of our discussion as the Bill has progressed. She can be reassuredthis is not a bone of contention between the Government and the rest of usby the fact that under any version of the Bill, a local authority will be able to propose that it should spend money differently, but will not have the right to determine that it should do so. The Secretary of State of the Government of the day will be able to consider the proposal. If that Secretary of State thinks that the proposal is zany and that local people should not be able to elect a government that would do such a thing, he or she will be able to say no and that will be the end of the matter. The hon. Lady can relax, because there is no potential for monkeys to distribute peanuts instead of jobs.
However, let us say that we are talking not about a lunatic proposing nonsense, but about a genuine disagreement of view between the centre, whoever is in government, and local government, no matter what its political composition may be, about how an objective is best met. Let us take the example of employment that hon. Lady mentioned. In our version of the Bill, the local view would generally prevail. However, the Secretary of State could still battle it out and say no, if they were really determined to do so.
Let me give the hon. Lady an example of where such a process would be useful, not dangerous. In Kent, because of the local area agreement, one of the most productive things that have happened is in the field of employment. Through agreement in the local area agreement framework, the county council has taken the lead in changing some of the ways in which are people got into jobs, so that people have more sustainable jobs
for longer, which has saved the Department for Work and Pensions and the Treasury benefit and tax credit expenditure. Under the local area agreement, that can be recycled into yet more efforts to help more people into sustainable jobs. That is clearly a virtuous circle on which she and I would agree.
Mr. Woolas: I am grateful for the right hon. Gentlemans comments; they are very helpful. It may reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Lynda Waltho) to know that, in the Kent example, when the target is metwe can have a debate about how many targets there should be another timethere is a reward, financed through the local area agreement, to give an incentive for achieving outcomes in the jobs market.
Mr. Letwin: That is absolutely right, and it is one of the reasons why that virtuous circle was set in motion in Kent. That is a point of agreement between us. However, as the Minister would accept and as I certainly accept, the consequence of that is that there will be times and places in which the Government of the day, whoever they may be, think that the obvious way to achieve an objective is x, and the people who have been elected locally and are answerable to the local electors think that the way to achieve it is y. We are asking the Government to take the risk, although they will be able to veto the decision if they must, of leaving local people, generally speaking, to make that decision for themselves. The system will not always be perfect and it will not always produce perfect results. It will be a political risk for the locals who take that step and a risk for Government, as they will be letting go of some of their powers, but the point of the Bill is precisely to achieve that.
If the hon. Member for Stourbridge is asking whether there are safeguards, the answer is yes. If she is asking whether those safeguards will always ensure that the policy machine of the Government of the day determines the outcome, the answer is no. The effect would be that, very often, locals would get a say in how the system was operated, although the Government of the day might or might not thoroughly approve of that.
Lynda Waltho: Following that, what happens if the system goes wrong? That is my concern. Whose fault would it be, who would shoulder the blame, and where would we go from there?
Mr. Letwin:
It is interesting that, although we are having a debate that is deeply relevant to new clause 6 I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for letting us have itit also relates to the centrepiece of the Bill, because the question that the hon. Lady asked is the main question raised by the Bill. What happens if things go wrong? The responsibility would be with the local authority that had caused things to go wrong and it would answer to its electorate. If she is saying, Oh dear. The Government may allow some public money to be given, via tax, to the local authority, which may spend it in ways that fail and it may then be accountable to its population. Oh dear, dear, I would say the following to her. FirstI do not say this in a partisan spiritthings frequently go wrong for Governments of all hues. I will not trouble her with the many things that have gone wrong in the past 10 years,
and I hope that she will not trouble me with the things that went wrong in the years before that. Governments of all hues get things wrong, as do local authorities. Actually, Governments get things wrong on a bigger scale than local authorities, because Governments cover more ground and have more money, so when things go wrong for Governments, they very often go wrong more comprehensively.
Secondly, a local authority that goes wrong is pretty directly answerable to its people, in the sense that they can see what it has done locally. Thirdlyand this is the guts of the whole theory and culture of the Billuntil and unless we are willing to say that local people should be able to make their own mistakes, and should be answerable to their local electors when they make those mistakes, we will not ensure that our population is seriously engaged in local democracy and local participation. It is because of the hon. Ladys fears that Governments of various persuasions have for many years fought shy of giving local people real control. As a result, local democracy has become less and less effective and participatory. The Bill seeks to change that, and that is actually in tune with the Governments general objectives. That is the effect that the Minister is trying to achieve, as he has frequently said in debates on his other Bills. We are saying that the single most important thing that we can do is to achieve that effect by giving locals real power of the purse, and that is what the provisions seek to do.
My last point is that I hope that the Minister will at least make it clear which side of the line he is on. Is he saying that we have misunderstood, and that his new clause 1(3) does the work of the whole of our new clause 6, including subsection (4), in which case we are simply talking about a drafting issue, which we can resolve in another place, or is he saying that our new clause 6(4) is not acceptable to him, because it does more than new clause 1(3)? In that case, we have a point of substance to resolve in another place. It would be really helpful to know which of those situations we will be dealing with in the coming months.
Philip Davies: First, may I formally congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd) on introducing a Bill that gives more power to local peoplesomething that I believe is immensely important? Like my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), I think that new clause 6 goes to the heart of what my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood is seeking to achieve.
I support my hon. Friends Bill and his new clause, but I would like to explore in a bit more detail some of the contradictions in the Bill, because as the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) has said, it is a compromise, and there has been an attempt to ensure consensus. I am not quite as big a fan of consensus as the hon. Gentleman is. SomeoneI am struggling to remember who it wasonce said, My father taught me the value of consensus; there is no value in consensus, and I endorse that quotation wholeheartedly. Most of the biggest disasters in political life have been brought about through all-party consensus, so, unlike the hon. Gentleman, I am a bit more doubtful about its merits.
The difficulty with the new clauseand with the Bill, to a certain extentis how much power it gives to local people and local authorities. I support the
determination of the leader of my party, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), to ensure more localism. I endorse that aim. The one problem with the new clause and the Bill is that we are still investing an awful lot of power in the Secretary of State. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset that true localism is about giving real power to local people, and perhaps even allowing them to make their own mistakes from time to time, but within a democratic framework, so that if people do not like what the local authority is doing, they can vote it out at the local elections. If people had some real power, there might be higher turnouts at those elections.
Julia Goldsworthy: The problem is that many of the powers that we want to devolve are held by a Minister or the Secretary of State. We cannot simply take those powers off them by revolution; there must be some degree of consent. That is why there is a need to co-operate with the Departmentunless the hon. Gentleman is proposing revolution, of course.
Philip Davies: The hon. Lady may have noticed that I am a Conservative and I do not believe in revolution. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) once said that if it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change. That is a sentiment that I tend to endorse.
I accept the point that the hon. Lady makes. The tension in the Bill is that we all want to see local authorities and local people being given a greater say in what goes on locally. That tension is partly illustrated by the points made by the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Lynda Waltho) when she asked about the safeguards if much more power were invested in local authorities. I would not like to see the new clause or the Bill being used by some overbearing local authorities to start empire building and adding to their role.
I would like to see power devolved from national Government to local government, from local authorities to parish councils, and perhaps also from local authorities to the voluntary sector and the charitable sector. I want to see power going one waydown, with no scope for power to go up. That is the thrust of what my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood is trying to achieve in the Bill and why I welcome it so much. I would not like to seethe point that the hon. Member for Stourbridge was makingcouncils empire-building and taking on additional functions that could be done better at an even more local level. That was a fair point.
Anne Main (St. Albans) (Con): My hon. Friend is pointing out some of the merits of the Bill and perhaps some of the drawbacks. One of its huge merits is that the Bill has opened up a debate on what is sustainable. Part of the problem is that local authorities have had sustainable stuck in front of many of the policies delivered to them, have been expected to implement them and have had very little say over how sustainability works locally. I welcome the Bill because it allows local people to have an input into what is going on in their area, instead of being told prescriptively how they must do things.
Philip Davies: I agree. As usual, my hon. Friend is right about that. We would all like local people to have a greater say in what happens in their community.
One of the topics that I wish to explore through new clause 6 is the potential for local authorities to free themselves of some powers and hand them down to parish councils. I have a number of parish councils in my constituency. I should declare an interest. My wife, Debbie, was recently elected to Baildon parish council when it was newly formed earlier this year. I would not want anyone to think that I was trying to empire-build for my wife. She has enough power at home, without building on her powers in the local community.
There is great value in local authorities giving up some powers and handing them down to parish councils, which are the bodies most closely linked to the local community. Their members have a vested interest in the sustainability of their local village and their local community, and are usually best placed to know what should be done to further that. I hope my hon. Friend, the promoter of the Bill, will confirm that he would like to see the new clause being used to help parish councils gain more powers from the local authority.
Mr. Hurd: My hon. Friend may take some comfort for the thesis of his speech. Clause 3(3) puts in place a mechanism to ensure that the voice of parish councils is heard in the formulation of recommendations by local authorities to the Secretary of State for input into a national action plan for sustainable communities. The thrust of the Bill is that in formulating a response to community breakdown and promoting the development of more sustainable communities, the strategy to counter social problems must be driven from the bottom up. Specific mechanics are in place to ensure that that can start with parish councils.
Philip Davies: I thank my hon. Friend for that helpful and reassuring intervention.
New clause 6 and the Bill as a whole can help with the worrying lack of involvement locally. Not only turnout for local elections, but the number of people putting their names forward for election to parish councils, for example, have gone down. The Minister will recall that we had a lengthy discussion about the role of the Standards Board in that. If we can give parish councils more decision-making powers over what happens in their village and their local community, more people would want to get involved in parish councils and to join in events in the local community.
Mr. Greg Knight: Is not the problem something for which we cannot legislate in the Billthat councillors on district and county councils are often unwilling to see powers go from the authority on which they serve to the parish council, when they should be standing up to their officers and arguing for the power or function to be devolved?
Philip Davies:
My right hon. Friend goes to the heart of the issue. He is right. Local authorities often wish to empire-build, as we saw in the debate on district councils and unitary authorities. Often, the bigger
council wants a unitary authority because it would have more power, and it has difficulty handing powers down.
My next point concerns the role of the Secretary of State. It is always Opposition parties that want Governments to give up power, but when those parties get into government, they often forget that and think it essential that they hold on to those powers because they will use them better than the previous Government. The Bill invests an awful lot of power in the Secretary of State, and contains no guarantee that local authorities will get more power from the Government or that local people will have more say. To a certain extent, it is at the whim of the Secretary of State whether that is allowed to happen. I have great respect for the Minister, and I believe I speak for the whole House when I say that. I have no doubt that he would be prepared to give more powers to local people, but we are still at the whim of any
Mr. Letwin: I hope my hon. Friend will accept that it is not quite a question of whim. A Secretary of State who is faced with the situation in which local people can see how the money is being spent, and who then resists local plans to spend it better, faces a certain political penalty in the area if he or she rejects the local plan or local proposals. I hope my hon. Friend will recognise, therefore, that there is a mechanic in the Bill that is politically and practically quite powerful.
Philip Davies: My right hon. Friend makes a fair point. I very much hope that that is the way the Bill will work, but there is still a tension. We need a Secretary of State who genuinely believes that local people know best about what happens locally. I flag that up, although I accept the point that my right hon. Friend makes.
My final point relates to the character of the Bill. I was slightly concerned by what all the previous speakers have said. My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood said that new clause 6 was a compromise and was not as radical as clause 5. The hon. Member for Stroud said that it was a compromise on a compromise, and the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne touched on the matter as well. There seemed to be a feeling that the Government were trying to water downthat was the phrase that my hon. Friend usedthe effect of the Bill.
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