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Session 2006 - 07 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Local Government and Public Involvement in Health |
Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:John
Benger, Committee
Clerk
†
attended the Committee
Public Bill CommitteeTuesday 6 February 2007(Morning)[Mr. Joe Benton in the Chair]Local Government and Public Involvement in Health BillWritten Evidence to be reported to the House LGPI 06 NHS
Confederation
LGPI 07 Local
Government
Association
10.30
am
Alistair
Burt (North-East Bedfordshire) (Con): On a point of order,
Mr. Benton. I have looked carefully at the amendment paper,
but I can find neither an amendment nor a new clause tabled by the
Government in relation to the limitation of their powers to direct,
which was a central part of our previous discussions in Committee
leading up to the debate on clause 2. It is a vital part of the Bill
and I am extremely surprised that, after all the promises and offers to
limit the power, nothing has been tabled to deal with it. Will the
Minister consider our adjourning until such an amendment is tabled, so
that we can debate the matter and get on with the
job?
The
Chairman:
Strictly speaking, that is not a point of order
for me. It is something for the Opposition to sort out with the
Government.
Clause
1 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause 2Invitations
and directions for proposals for single tier of local
government
Andrew
Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD): I beg to move amendment No.
92, in
clause 2, page 2, line 5, after
‘invite’, insert ‘on or before 31st March
2007’.
I am
delighted to be opening the batting after the swift passing of clause
1. First, to respond briefly to the point of order raised by the hon.
Member for North-East Bedfordshire, let me say that most of the debate
on clause 2 centres on three fundamental queries about the
Government’s proposals. The first relates to the time—the
Minister referred to “the window” when he gave evidence
to the Committee. The second relates to geography and which councils
can or cannot produce proposals and what limitations there should be;
and the third relates to the power of direction to which the hon.
Gentleman referred. Amendment No. 92 relates to the time; no doubt,
there will be opportunities for discussions on geography and the powers
of direction on a separate occasion.
We can see from the number of
the amendment that it was tabled after several other amendments, which
in some ways are more central to the concerns that have
been expressed, had been tabled. However, the trick of parliamentary
selection means that amendment No. 92 comes. It gives us the
opportunity to look at the process that the Government are launching
under clause 2, its limitations and what amendments might be
necessary.
The Liberal
Democrats do not seek to stop the process. It is right that there
should be an opportunity for local government to take a look how it
organises itself and, when there is clear consent, for it to be enabled
to make changes to be more efficient, more effective and, most
important, more representative of local communities and better able to
deliver what they need. I must declare a personal historical interest
in the sense that I do not have an axe to grind, having served on a
lower-tier authority, an upper-tier authority and a unitary authority
in my time. I have seen pluses and minuses to each of those types and I
do not come with any baggage about what should happen next. We
therefore welcome the intention behind clause 2. The purpose of the
amendment is certainly not to derail the clause or thwart that
intention.
As the
Minister has said, it is absolutely right that there should be a
window. There is no doubt that the actual process of considering such
matters is a painful one for local authorities of all sorts and often
takes their eye off the ball of providing services and representing
their local communities. I would not mind betting that with, one or two
exceptions—we heard from the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and
Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) on Second Reading—there is a
pronounced lack of engagement in the process by the local communities
concerned. It is very much an insider’s issue—I might
even venture to say that it is an anorak’s issue. The time that
an executive spends on a proposal cannot be spent on issues more
fundamental to the communities that local government serves.
We think that the process
should be permitted, and we agree with the Minister that there should
be a limited window of opportunity but, bearing that in mind, we are
surprised that that view is not incorporated the Bill. That brings us
to amendment No. 92, which proposes that the Secretary of State only be
able to extend an invitation on or before 31 March 2007. The Minister
would be right to say that that is in the Bill; however, what is not
stated on the face of the Bill is when the Secretary of State will lose
that right to extend an invitation. The wording of the amendment is
such that we will support the Opposition amendments in another group to
remove the power of direction.
We believe
that there should be a power of invitation and we are happy that clause
2 will permit the Secretary of State to exercise such a right, but the
power should be limited in time. The purpose of amendment No. 92 is to
limit the time in which the Secretary of State can extend an invitation
to 31 March this year. In other words, the power of invitation would
lapse at the end of this financial year and would not be available to
him or his successor in primary legislation next year, or in five
years, or 10. A Secretary of State would have to return to the House
and explain that circumstances had changed such that there should be
another opportunity for local councils to make proposals.
The limitation in time is
necessary for the protection of local government and local communities,
and in particular so that the disruption and confusion, and
the diversion of resources and effort that the process of coming
together to make a bid involves, can be avoided. I hope that the
Government will accept the amendment in the spirit in which it was
tabled, and to hear what the Minister meant when he said:
“We are working on
parliamentary counsel instruction to have a power of direction that is
defined in both geography and time to the satisfaction of the
LGA.”——[Official Report, Local Government and
Public Involvement in Health Public Bill Committee, 1 February
2007; c. 87.]
The Minister is
still waiting for parliamentary counsel, so we thought we would do him
a favour and save him some hefty fees by tabling an amendment about
time. I am looking forward to hearing what he has to say to this simple
and straightforward amendment, which has a clear purpose and which
matches exactly his own intentions.
The
Minister for Local Government (Mr. Phil
Woolas):
I think it is right to say that, although we have
had sittings in the other room, it now feels as though we are back in
more familiar territory. I look forward to serving under you,
Mr. Benton, and under Mr. Chope. I wish to put on
record my thanks to the Committee for the sensible way in which the
evidence session was approached. The Government found it useful, if at
some times awkward, but that is the purpose of the new Committee
procedures. I also note that the tone of consensus lasted approximately
two and a half seconds before the hon. Member for North-East
Bedfordshire reverted to his role of opposing the Government by raising
a point of order. I was pleased that you commented on that,
Mr. Benton.
Let me try to explain
what the Government are trying to do, because the hon. Member for Hazel
Grove has made a reasonable point about the time, geography and powers.
I will also try to expand upon the point made by the hon. Member for
North-East Bedfordshire, even though it was not a point of order. Three
groups of amendments are coming up on that point, so perhaps in the
round we shall see the outcome.
Both the Secretary of State and
I have made clear on several occasions our view that restructuring
should be off the table after the current window of opportunity. That
was my right hon. Friend’s commitment to local councils and
Parliament. I am therefore happy to reassure the Committee that we have
no plans to launch a further round of reorganisation following
consideration of the Bill. On the face of it, amendment No. 92 would do
no more than make an absolute reality of that assurance. It would
perhaps be reasonable of him to expect me just to accept the amendment,
but there is a good reason why I shall have to disappoint him. None the
less, but the intent of his amendment is accepted.
We believe that we need to
retain the ability to invite councils to make proposals for structural
change, not because we as the Government want such change in itself,
but because in certain circumstances councils might want and need a
structural change to make sense of a boundary change. Clauses 8 to 10
provide a mechanism for changes to be made to local authorities’
boundaries. As members of the Committee are aware, there are certain
places where local authority boundaries are no longer
sensible—for example, where
the pattern of development around towns or urban areas means that
boundaries are simply out of date and where some change would result in
boundaries that better reflect community identities and provide a more
sensible basis for the effective and cost-efficient delivery of local
services.
Following
her statement on the White Paper, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of
State said in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for
Leicester, South that she recognised that the option of a boundary
review should always be available for dealing with too tightly drawn
boundaries of urban areas. However, without the continuing ability to
make structural change, that option would not always be available. Let
me explain and give some reassurance. That issue would be before us
were it not for the debate that has been prompted by the
amendment.
The
provisions in clause 8 to 10, to which I have already referred, allow
the independent boundary committee for England to recommend a boundary
change following a review. However, without safeguards, a simple power
to make boundary changes could also enable structural change to be made
by the back door. For example, the boundary of a unitary authority
could be altered to such an extent that it swallowed entirely a
neighbouring two-tier district. That would not be right. We firmly
believe that structural change should be a bottom-up process, built on
the proposals that authorities themselves make. That is why clause 8
contains safeguards that ensure that structural change cannot be made
by the back door. Those safeguards take the form of
restrictionson the kind of recommendation that the boundary
committee can make. In particular, they preventthe committee
from recommending expanding the boundaries of a unitary council to the
extent that the residual neighbouring two-tier area was no longer
viable and hence should be
abolished.
10.45
am
Andrew
Stunell: I thank the Minister for givingway and I
appreciate his thorough briefing on clauses 8 and 9. However, those
clauses refer to a process that is triggered. Clause 8 (1)
says:
The Boundary
Committee may, either on its own initiative or at the request of the
Secretary of State or a local authority, conduct a
review”.
That is
entirely different in concept and outcome than the proposal in clause 2
(1) that
“The
Secretary of State may invite or direct any principal authority to make
one of the following proposals”.
We are not proposing an amendment to
clause 8 or 9, although those clauses will no doubt be discussed in due
course. We are proposing something that goes to the heart of the
Secretary of State’s power to invite, and indeed the
Minister’s and the Minister’s successors’ power to
invite. I have not done the homework on how many Local Government
Ministers there have been in the past 10 years, but they come and go. I
should like the Minister to address clause 2, not clause
8.
Mr.
Woolas:
To say that the number of recent local government
Ministers is related to the clause might be stretching things. There
have been three, with a longer
tenure so far than chief executives of local
councils—a point that I shall be making at the SOLACE dinner
that I am attending this evening, before swiftly leaving to return to
the House. After that remark, however, I am not sure how my own tenure
will affect the
average.
The hon.
Gentleman’s point is sensible. Irrespective of the present
debate, however, the Government’s intentions remain the same. If
a boundary committee makes a recommendation to the Secretary of State,
the Secretary of State has three options under the current legislation:
to reject it, to accept it, or to modify it—but the definition
of the word “modify” is such that it is not possible to
change the substance of the recommendation; any such change could be
challenged. In plain English, that means that if the a boundary
committee recommended that a boundary be moved to take into account,
say, a housing estate or a school building, the Secretary of State
could make a modification in relation to such small matters, but could
not do so in relation to substantial matters. In particular, the
viability of the neighbouring area—in practice it would most
likely be a district but it could also be a metropolitan or a unitary
authority—could not be threatened.
I ask the Committee to be
patient, because the jigsaw puzzle will become clear as we continue,
and I believe that I will be able to answer the hon. Gentleman’s
point.
Mr.
Robert Syms (Poole) (Con): The building blocks for the new
structures are the existing districts or counties. There could also be
cross-boundary structures. The Minister’s remarks about the
boundary committee probably refer to existing unitary authorities, such
as Leicester or Poole, expanding their boundaries if those boundaries
are too tightly drawn. Presumably, therefore, the Minister wants to
leave in the Bill the ability to annex adjoining
areas.
Mr.
Woolas:
I am wary of the word “annex”; I do
not think that Bournemouth would annex Poole in any circumstances. Some
people in Bournemouth might like to, to get hold of the—I will
go no further.
Let me
briefly explain the Government’s policy. The process that I am
describing in response to comments of the mover of the amendment, the
hon. Member for Hazel Grove, is designed to retain the ability of the
Government and local authorities to allow for slight
changes—tinkering with boundaries—through the independent
boundary committee process. The process of the invitation to propose a
change to unitary status, however, makes it clear that that will be on
the basis of existing boundaries. Invitations to bid are based on the
possibility of abolishing boundaries if, for example, two or three
districts join together or if there is a county unitary proposal, but
not on proposals to move boundaries, although a number of authorities
asked whether the latter might be possible under the process. The
issues are related, but the processes are separate. It is because we
are proposing the replacement of legislation that I am making these
caveats, but if the Committee bears with me I think that I can answer
the point.
We
recognise that there might be circumstances in which redrawing a
unitary area boundary might be right for that area even though it cast
doubt on the
viability of the residual neighbouring two-tier area. In such
circumstances, the sensible option might be to provide that the
remaining area should be abolished and merged with either a
neighbouring unitary or a two-tier area. In such a situation we would
want to be able to invite the authorities to say what they thought
should happen and make proposals for change.Hence, we would
need to issue an invitation under clause 2—the process that is
underway—but that option would not be available if the amendment
were made.
In summary,
we have no plans for a further round of restructuring, but, as I say,
there may be circumstances in future where a limited structural change
is necessary to enable a sensible boundary change. In such
circumstances, we need the power of invitation under clause 2 to allow
that
change.
Tom
Levitt (High Peak) (Lab): I am grateful to my hon. Friend
for making it clear that another wholesale round of structural
change—indeed, another window for invitations—is not
intended. He has now said that on the record and can be quoted. That
statement will be welcomed, particularly in Derbyshire, where there is
a two-tier system, which we believe works and can work even better. All
the district councils in the county have agreements to make it work
better. Does he agree that that process is healthy and indicates the
healthy environment in which the debate about restructuring has gone on
over the last few months, in contrast to the enforced but failed move
to unitary status under the Banham procedure that the previous
Government attempted several years
ago?
Mr.
Woolas:
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Our
discussions with Derbyshire county council and the districts within
Derby show that two-tier working has improved, that services have got
better and that the council tax payer is the beneficiary. I should make
it clear that when the Government talk about the status quo not being
an option for two-tier areas, that does not relate to the structural
relationships, but to our wish to see movement towards even better
working together. Our pledge is to remove legal and other obstacles to
two-tier working where they can be identified. I hope that we will, in
a later sitting, get the opportunity to explain the pathfinder projects
in more detail.
I do
not want to detain the Committee with discussions about the Banham
process, but its fundamental problem was that it linked boundary
movement with boundary abolition, so the procedure took a long time. As
I tried to explain in the evidence session, that is a serious, worrying
prospect for local councils, trade unions and the recipients of
services.
I hope that
I have persuaded the Committee that the limited procedure set out in
the clause is required, not as a procedure for restructuring, but as a
sensible procedure for boundary changes, which is in current
legislation. I ask the hon. Member for Hazel Grove to withdraw his
amendment, which is
unnecessary.
Andrew
Stunell:
I thank the Minister for an elegant explanation,
some of which made sense and some of which was more elegant than
sensible. It is good to hear that he has no further territorial
ambitions in Europe. That is great.
Our problem is that, in building
in a power that can be exercised long after the Minister has become,
presumably, the occupant of No. 10 and then moved on to some yet higher
sphere, his successor will be able to exercise the power as they see
fit and not necessarily with the same motives in mind as the current
Minister. Although I understand his point about clauses 8 and 9, he has
tempted me to table some amendments to those. He obviously envisages a
process of growth and expansion of urban areas, taking out neighbouring
district councils and perhaps making them unviable, resulting in
further reorganisation being needed. Although that would no doubt be
popular in some areas, I am quite sure that it would be controversial
in others.
I should
perhaps say to the Committee that my own constituency of Hazel Grove is
in Greater Manchester and is neatly jammed in the corner between
Derbyshire and Cheshire. Those of us with long memories will remember
Poynton’s long fight to stay in Cheshire; it was successful and
was therefore not incorporated into my own borough of Stockport. The
hon. Member for High Peak intervened; there are certainly covetous eyes
cast on part of his constituency in New Mills in
Derbyshire—[Interruption.] Did the hon. Gentleman say I
could have
it?
Andrew
Stunell:
I am well aware of the issue that the hon.
Gentleman described. Perhaps from what I might call the point of view
of personal territorial aggrandisement, I should be thoroughly in
favour of what he is saying. If I could take Poynton and New Mills,
that might be good news for me.
We should be very careful in
giving Ministers an enduring power to meddle in these matters. It would
be far better to have a provision whereby, if subsequent change is
needed, there is a requirement to come back to Parliament. Therefore,
much as I enjoyed the Minister’s reasoning, I am going to ask
that we test it in a
Division.
Question
put, That the amendment be
made:—
The
Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes
12.
Division
No.
2
]
AYESNOES
Question
accordingly
negatived.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments: No. 2, in
clause 2, page 2, line 37, leave
out ‘or
direction’.
No.
3, in
clause 2, page 2, line 40, leave
out from ‘invited’ to the end of line
41.
No. 26, in
clause 3, page 3, line 2, leave
out subsection
(1).
No. 27, in
clause 3, page 3, line 5, leave
out subsection
(2).
No. 5, in
clause 3, page 3, line 12, leave
out from ‘2’ to ‘an’ in line
13.
No. 29, in
clause 3, page 3, line 17, leave
out ‘or
directions’.
No.
6, in
clause 3, page 3, line 18, leave
out ‘or
direction’.
No.
7, in
clause 3, page 3, line 19, leave
out
‘or comply with the
direction’.
No.
8, in
clause 3, page 3, line 20, leave
out ‘or
direction’.
No.
9, in
clause 3, page 3, line 22, leave
out ‘or
direction’.
No.
10, in
clause 3, page 3, line 24, leave
out ‘or
direction’.
No.
11, in
clause 4, page 3, line 27, leave
out ‘or
directions’.
Alistair
Burt:
I echo the comments made both by the hon. Member for
Hazel Grove and the Minister in welcoming you, Mr. Benton,
to the more familiar surroundings of Committee progress in Committee
Room 12. Having safely got a vote under our belt, we already feel that
we are in much more familiar territory, including a hostile
intervention from the hon. Member for High Peak. Therefore, we feel
like we are up and running, and that is a great start to this phase of
the Committee.
11
am
I would like to
begin the discussion on this set of major amendments by referring back
to the point of order that I raised earlier. This is a
central part of the Bill. A certain amount of our
discussion of amendment No. 92 concerned what is left on the face of
the Bill in an attempt to understand what effect the Government are
looking for. Our central concern is that the Bill provides the
Government with significant, unlimited power to make directions to
local authorities to merge and change shape, and effectively to redraw
the local government map of England and
Wales.
The fact that
that power to direct was not mentioned in the White
Paper—everything was to be by invitation only—came as a
surprise to the local government world when the Bill was
published.
Alistair
Burt:
As my hon. Friend says from a sedentary position, it
came as a shock. Ever since then, in a series of statements, the
Government have backtracked to a degree and suggested that the power
would be limited in some manner. We have now had a great deal of time
to see evidence of that, however, and we have not seen it. The evidence
that the Committee,
the House and, ultimately, the public will be able to trust is what is
written in the Bill, not good intentions. I should mention two or three
reasons to back up our concerns and to show why we feel so strongly
that the reassurances and explanations for the power of direction that
have been given are not enough. The power of direction ought to be
removed
altogether.
Why are we
suspicious of this process and the Government? We cannot disregard the
way in which we have got to where we are: the work done on the White
Paper to build up the pressure to go for unitaries. Most hon. Members
are aware of a lengthy process conducted by Ministers, who approached
not the elected politicians in local authorities, but the senior
officers, to explain the plans for restructuring local government. That
process was entirely designed to encourage progress towards unitary
government. It would have been far better if the Government had said
that that is what they wanted to do. However, they went to authorities,
building up hopes and expectations, saying that, if the authority
covered a small area, that was just about the right size for a unitary
authority and, if there were many hundreds of thousands of people more
in a borough, that too would be the right size for a unitary authority.
The former Secretary of State was skilful in delivering a series of
expectations and hopes to senior officers in local government, all of
whom—not just some—stood to benefit through the
reorganisation process and could be relied on to sell the process to
their
politicians.
Dr.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab): From my
experience in Durham, I do not recognise the process that the hon.
Gentleman is outlining. We had a referendum some time ago in which
local people said that they wanted a unitary county. A lot of the
pressure came from local people: because of the confusion experienced
in some two-tier areas, they were not sure which council did what and
were convinced by arguments for the greater efficiency of unitary
status. There is not necessarily a top-down approach everywhere;
certainly not in
Durham.
Alistair
Burt:
I am grateful for those observations. I bow to the
hon. Lady’s superior knowledge of her own area, which has had
the benefit of a public referendum to give effect to the wishes of the
people. It is almost unique in that regard. There are not many
authorities in those circumstances. If her officers were not
sweet-talked by the Department, they missed out on an interesting part
of the process. In plenty of other areas, local authorities and Members
of Parliament can testify that, in the early stages of the process, the
Department talked to officers to convince them about the process long
before it got to elected members. That softening-up process was
designed to produce a certain amount of pressure and encourage certain
areas to consider the possibility of unitary authority
status.
We have heard
from a number of witnesses and hon. Members and we know about the
disruption caused by local government reorganisation. My party
certainly understands that; the Conservative Government were part of
that process. We understand the pain and difficulty that that can
cause, which is why we have
tended to learn the lessons of history and do not wish to repeat them.
We know about the problems and difficulties that can be caused, the
amount of anxiety that there is and the huge sums spent on the
possibility of change. That is why we, as a party of caution about the
whole business, believe that the reorganisation of local government at
this time is a distraction from the other things that local authorities
need to be getting on with. It is an expensive distraction and the
Government know exactly what they are
doing.
The Minister
said in his opening remarks that he had no plans to launch a new round
of restructuring. Well, I thought that the whole purpose of the measure
was to give effect to grass-roots opinion—people coming forward
to the Government and clamouring for such an opportunity—not, as
the hon. Member for City of Durham rightly pointed out, to launch a new
round of local government restructuring through some top-down
operation. However, that is what has covertly happened. A new round has
been launched by the invitation set out in the White Paper and repeated
under the Bill.
We
doubt that there is financial benefit to the exercise. That issue came
up a lot during our previous discussion when we asked various witnesses
about the financial benefits. Last Thursday, I asked the
Minister
“Do
you think that we would be right to be wary of those who wave cost
savings at their electors as the potential good news behind a
restructuring, going by all our collective
experience?”
The hon.
Gentleman had the decency and good grace to say with a smile in
response:
“The
answer to that is yes.”—[Official Report, Local
Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill Committee,
1 February 2007; c.
88.]
Of course it is. When I
asked the chairman of the Conservative district councils whether in all
his experience of local councils he had come across savings in local
government reorganisation, he said, in what I thought was a remarkably
cogent and objective performance before witnesses, “No, none
whatsoever”. Yet, the Minister is saying from his considerable
experience that we should all be wary about such matters. There are no
financial
benefits.
Andrew
Stunell:
I think that the hon. Gentleman needs to pause
after making such a breathtaking claim. I support a great deal of what
he is saying, but while it is true that the witness gave that evidence,
he also said that he lived in a two-tier area that had not been subject
to reorganisation
anyway.
Alistair
Burt:
The witness said that he lived in a two-tier area
where discussions had taken place and that he had decided not to put
forward any bids. It is not an enforced process. It is a process that
has been encouraged in the manner in which I described. It is clear
from authorities that have decided not to take the bait or be sucked
into the reorganisation trap that that can still happen. The Government
have set the limit themselves by encouraging a relatively small number
of bids to come forward. My point about how the process has been
carried through is still
valid.
Let us consider
the written evidence on the cost of restructuring. Professor Malcolm
Chisholm of Cambridge university put forward a series of concerns in
his paper when he said:
“There is no reason to
suppose that the conversion of districts to unitary status would be
particularly relevant in raising the performance of councils in the
discharge of their current district functions...Reorganisation
costs will be in the range of £121 per head...In financial
terms, however, the evidence shows that it is unrealistic to suppose
that the creation of a single unitary council in an otherwise two-tier
county area would generate financial savings, and that there is every
prospect that on-going costs would in fact be
increased”.
We are left
puzzled about the financial benefit from the process that has been
encouraged and kicked off by the
Government.
Dr.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD): Is the hon. Gentleman against
reorganisation in principle? He seemed to say that there were never any
benefits from it. Alternatively, is he against this particular mould of
reorganisation?
Alistair
Burt:
We believe strongly that the reorganisation of local
government at the present time is the wrong thing in the wrong place.
The Government can claim that local government is outperforming
virtually every other part of their empire in delivering efficiency and
the results that they have been looking for. We cannot see that at the
Home Office or in the health service, but we can see it in local
government, in which councils have made tremendous efforts working
under a very tight financial regime. Councils have been delivering. The
hon. Member for High Peak spoke about the success of his local two-tier
councils in delivering performance improvements and in working hard
under the Government’s regime. But at present there is no
evidence that local authorities should have to go through what they are
being asked to go through.
Sir
Peter Soulsby (Leicester, South) (Lab): Does the hon.
Gentleman accept that, for all the failings of the Banham process and
the previous reorganisation rounds that have been mentioned, the
unitary authorities that they created have demonstrated significant
economies as a result of the change to unitary status? That applies to
some unitary authorities in shire districts of precisely the type that
he referred to, and the economies have been broadly welcomed by members
of all parties in those authorities.
Alistair
Burt:
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but that is not
a universal view. There is plenty of evidence that the financial
pressures of restructuring do not of themselves produce economies.
There have been economies across the board because the Government
control the purse strings to an extraordinary extent. The hon.
Gentleman will remember that Mid-Bedfordshire district council was
rate-capped last year because its band D council tax went up by
£1 per month. In percentage terms that was deemed to be above
the limit, so controls were imposed. If one is working under that
degree of financial control it is no wonder that economies are
happening across the
board.
The question is
whether restructuring of itself achieves the job that it is meant to
achieve, and on that the jury is well and truly out. There is no
current reason to go down the road that the Government want to go down,
and we are wary of the consequences to which savings will lead. The
Minister has confirmed that all of us would be right to be wary of
those who back up their plans for reorganisation with claims of
savings. I
presume that he is right in that proposition, and that the hon. Member
for Bedford is rising to support him in making
it.
Patrick
Hall (Bedford) (Lab): I am rising to deal with the hon.
Gentleman’s argument that there is no need for the process
because existing councils are super-efficient. I suggest that he listen
to his own constituents and to mine. He knows well that in Bedfordshire
there is a bottom-up view that the county council is performing not at
all well, and that there is general support for reform. I am happy for
my view on the matter to be put to the test. The hon. Gentleman and I
keep in touch with local people and he must surely be aware of the
dissatisfaction with the performance of Bedfordshire county council and
of the general wish of businesses and residents that we take advantage
of the opportunity to
restructure.
Alistair
Burt:
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, which
raises the question of how on earth we are to determine what
constitutes a broad cross-section of support in relation to a
particular proposal. He has his view, but Bedfordshire county council
is fast improving, as the recent Audit Commission results have shown,
and I do not think that there is evidence to support his proposition.
It would be interesting if there were a referendum on the best form of
local government for Bedfordshire. The Minister is aware that there is
a plethora of proposals on the table. We can have any form or
configuration of local government we want in Bedfordshire, as far as I
can see—from three unitaries, if we include Luton, to one large
unitary. The Minister has powers to direct and could create two
unitaries—one based on Luton and one on
Bedford.
There is no
provision, however, for taking into account the views of the public and
for obtaining support in the manner that the hon. Member for Bedford
would plainly like. We agree that that, too, is a missing ingredient.
There is no public limitation on the power to direct, and no suggestion
that where it is applied it should be underpinned, as he suggested, on
a grass-roots, bottom-up basis, by seeking the public’s views on
the power to direct and on the creation of a particular geographical
area.
The Minister
could bring forward a proposal that none of the relevant councils in
the county or shire and the districts and boroughs had made. That is
what the Bill says. We do not know what will be done and there is no
limitation on that, for instance, through a power to call a
referendum.
11.15
am
Tom
Levitt:
The hon. Gentleman described my earlier
intervention as hostile. I thought that I was being forensic, but let
me try again.
I was
interested in the hon. Gentleman’s comments about public
opinion, and about learning from history. Will he take this opportunity
to say categorically and on the record that the Conservative Government
were wrong to direct the abolition of the metropolitan county councils
and the Greater London council without any public consultation
whatever?
Alistair
Burt:
Absolutely not. There are things one has to do. At
the time, I was a Member of Parliament for a seat in the Greater
Manchester council area, a council which was much unloved. The council
never achieved a base of public support or anything like that. Its
abolition was warmly welcomed by my constituents and has done little
harm since. I stand by that reform, but the hon. Gentleman is right to
raise the issue of the doubt in the minds of people about the powers of
government when there is no underpinning public support, or evidence of
public support through referendum or anything like that. I take that on
board as a warning to Governments who seek to exercise power in the
manner in which we were required to do by circumstances. Therefore, he
makes a fair point. However, as I say, there is learning from history
and that is what I am putting to the Minister in an effort to prevent
him from falling into some of the same traps and
difficulties.
Robert
Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con): I have only a short
point to make. Does my hon. Friend not agree that learning from the
recent history of this Government reinforces his argument? On the one
occasion when the Government have sought to change the structure in
relation to the number of tiers of government anywhere in the United
Kingdom, they had a referendum as to whether there should be a Greater
London authority and a Mayor of London. If that was good enough in the
London context, why should it not be
elsewhere?
Alistair
Burt:
My hon. Friend speaks well. He makes the point
extremely well about the underpinning of public support, of which we
see a complete absence in the Bill and in the Government’s
failure to bring forward an appropriate amendment at this
stage.
I now turn to
the assurances that have previously been given because I think that
they are important. I have described why we are suspicious, our concern
about the process, the dubious benefits that may come from it and the
worry about taking too strong a directive power. That worry would
appear to be shared by the Secretary of State and by the Minister
himself.
On Second
Reading, in answer to my hon. Friend, the shadow Secretary of
State’s concerns, the Secretary of State said
that
“we have already
given a commitment to the LGA that we will narrow the scope of the
power to direct, but that it may be necessary in the short term, as a
result of the current invitation, to deal with residual areas to make
the unitarisation proposal work. There is no intention to force any
council down aroute that it does not want to go
down.”—[Official Report,22 January 2007;
Vol. 455, c. 1159.]
During the
course of our witness sessions, I asked the witnesses from the Local
Government Association when this commitment was made. Sir Jeremy
Beecham
said:
“The
chairman of the association and I, together with the chief executive,
met the Secretary of State about a month
ago”,
so that would put
it at the very end of December.Sir Jeremy Beecham
added:
“The
Secretary of State indicated that intention in clear terms, and the
Minister for Local Government, present in this Committee, gave a
similar assurance at the LGA’s assembly meeting in December. We
have not yet seen any definitive
wording, so we wanted to stake out our position in theclearest
possible terms.”——[Official Report, Local
Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill Public Bill
Committee,
30 January 2007; c.
14]
Further, because
the LGA has not seen any definitive wording, the briefing that it has
given to this Committee stated very
clearly:
“We
are, however, resolutely opposed to impose restructuring and
consequently opposed to the proposed Secretary of State powers to
direct.”
There was
nothing in a brief written shortly before this Committee convened about
that limitation. Neither was there anything to suggest that it had been
given these reassurances and therefore it was qualifying our objection.
However, the LGA stated very clearly, because of the words in the Bill,
that it cannot give its support and is resolutely opposed to the
proposal.
Plenty of
suggestions have been made that some limitation will be made, but we
see nothing. The Bill was introduced weeks and weeks ago and, as my
hon. Friend the Member for Poole said, there was shock because of the
power to direct. Why has it taken so long? Why is there nothing there
to give effect to the words of both the Minister and the Secretary of
State that there would be some limiting power. Because of the absence
of that, we are left with
assurances.
Michael
Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con): Would my hon. Friend like to
speculate that perhaps the reason why the Government have not tabled an
amendment is that the time between the evidence stage and the scrutiny
stage is too short? Incidentally, it might be good advice to suggest
that there is a longer gap between the two stages in future
proceedings. Would it satisfy my hon. Friend if, in answer to his
arguments, the Minister were to say, “Yes, it is our intention
not to direct in the way that the hon. Gentleman suspects that we might
and, on Report, the Government will table an
amendment”?
Alistair
Burt:
My hon. Friend is exceptionally generous to the
Government and has provided an explanation that may not be in the
Minister’s written brief. I would be interested to hear what the
Minister has to say about the amendments.
The time scale has been short,
and that may be an issue, but I think that there is enough time. If the
Government have the will and the barrage of criticism makes them
uncomfortable, they have the opportunity to do something about it and
get something on the record. They can say to the Committee and the
House that they have taken the strictures seriously, and that,
“We can understand where you are coming from. This is how we
intend to go about it.” However, there is nothing at all in the
Bill. It has been weeks and, in all fairness, it should be there. The
Minister and his hon. Friends could have done better and avoided the
concern by limiting the powers in the manner in which they have been
discussed. However, they have taken no physical steps to do anything
about it.
We are left
with the Minister’s assurance and with his word. As the hon.
Member for Hazel Grove said, for us that is no problem. The
Minister’s word is his bond. There is no difficulty whatever
with this particular
Minister. He says that he will do something, and I accept it. His word
is like a gold bar in a sea of Government bankruptcy. [Laughter.]
His word is so good that I would dress it up in shirt and coat and
take it down Biggleswade high street because I would be so confident
that his word is an attractive proposition.
However, we live in difficult
times; we live in changing times. Who knows what is circling around the
Government at the moment that might propel the Minister from the
position he holds so admirably into something else? It is beyond our
ken. It may even be beyond the ken of the Metropolitan Police
Commissioner, but things can happen quickly that can change the
Government, and Minister and his right hon. Friend the Secretary of
State may no longer find themselves in their present roles. Where would
the assurance be then?
That is why, over the
centuries, we have rightly come to rely on what is written down in a
Bill and amendments as giving us more of a clue than the good
intentions of honourable and well intentioned Ministers. I say to the
Minister that, despite his assurances, there is nothing about the issue
in the Bill, and because of that, the directions ought to go. He either
adjourns the Committee now and makes a limiting proposal or we will
have to press the matter to a Division.
I am grateful to have had this
opportunity in Committee, and I think that the Minister can understand
why we are concerned. I hope to receive an immediate concession on this
most important point for the benefit of the Committee and the House as
a
whole.
Andrew
Stunell:
The Committee will note that the
amendments were also submitted in our name. I want to hear the Minister
say quite a lot more about what he intends to do with this power than
he did when he was giving evidence on such an important matter. In
replying to the earlier debate, he acknowledged that that power was one
of the key points arising from the clause. As I outlined earlier, the
Liberal Democrats do not wish to derail the process. We do not take the
view that the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire put to the
Committee a few minutes ago that the whole process should be
abandoned.
Patrick
Hall:
I want to clarify the point about the Liberal
Democrats’ position. The hon. Gentleman is adopting a
constructive attitude to the matter, so why did the Liberal Democrats
vote against the Bill on Second
Reading?
Andrew
Stunell:
I refer the hon. Gentleman to Hansard.
There are 100 and goodness knows how many clauses and 15 schedules in
the Bill. The principle of a window as outlined by the Minister is in
the Bill. With so many clauses, there are bound to be one or two with
which the Liberal Democrats agree. We are not objecting to the process,
although some of the mechanics of it are mistaken or have not been
properly defined.
We
are not against the process, but the power to direct is a serious
problem. The Minister acknowledged that in what he said in discussions
with the LGA and
others about finding more appropriate ways in which to express the
Government’s intention in the Bill. We are helping him to do
that by providing him with the amendments necessary to restrict the
powers of future Local Government Ministers and Secretaries of State to
interfere with the local government structure.
We can look at the matter on
several different levels. The 26 bids that have come in relate to 16
different geographical areas. I understand why the hon. Members for
Bedford and for North-East Bedfordshire would get into a bit of a tizz
about the process, because three separate applications have been made
to the Minister by the people of Bedfordshire. Those members of the
Committee are presented with a nightmare situation, and the hon. Member
for North-East Bedfordshire has chosen to wake up from the nightmare
and has said, “Let’s not do this at all” while the
hon. Member for Bedford wants to be set free from the terrible
Conservative-controlled county council. We do not have anyone in the
Committee from the other authority that has put in a bid. It might have
been more interesting had the Committee been more representative of the
hon. Members from
Bedfordshire.
The more
serious point is that the Secretary of State will be required to take
account of various criteria when judging a submission. In his evidence,
the Minister made the point that the overall cost of proposals will be
important, as will evidence of consent at local level. I am pretty sure
that the Government, and in particular the Treasury, will take the cost
argument very seriously. In fact, cost might well be an issue on which
to veto a proposal, and I presume that if the Secretary of State for
Communities and Local Government really wanted to, she would approve a
proposal even if the arithmetic looked a little dodgy. Cost is
therefore not an absolute criterion, however important it is.
The second criterion is
consent. There is a conflict between the power to direct and the
obligation to take account of consent. Let us suppose that the
Secretary of State determined that there would be structural change in
Bedfordshire. Whatever she decided, there would be some dissent in some
part or other of Bedfordshire, or in all of Bedfordshire. That being
the case, what exactly is the implication of the power to
direct?
11.30
am
The Minister
recognises that that is a problem, and that amendments to the Bill are
required. The Liberal Democrats, through the proposal to remove the
word “direct” from the Bill, are making it clear that the
balance of the argument over proposals should switch to local consent
rather than state direction. That is the right way to approach the
matter.
The hon.
Member for North-East Bedfordshire argued that it was some kind of
deliberate Government ploy to distract local government from the real
job of providing services. Machiavellian as this Government are, that
is, perhaps, going a little too far. I recognise that people in parts
of the country believe strongly that there is a need to reorganise
their local government structures to provide a better service. I
respect their right to hold that view and to promote it. The Secretary
of State is right to provide a limited opportunity for them to put that
case and for it to be judged.
Alistair
Burt:
Does the hon. Gentleman not feel that the
Government’s relentless pressure about costs and the way they
went about the process of encouraging councils to take a particular
line—because it suited them and the Treasury—puts
tremendous pressure on local authorities to do what the Government
want? Everything in their assessment process is designed to please
regional offices and the Department, as opposed to listening what their
local electors are saying. My concern about the Machiavellian skills of
the Government, if that is what they are, is well
founded.
Andrew
Stunell:
Dearly though I love my local government
colleagues, it is more like children being let out into the yard after
a lesson, playing a game that is, in many cases, not constructive. I
would not want to get into a competition with the hon. Gentleman about
assessing how Machiavellian the Government are, but local government in
some parts has been a willing contributor to what has happened since.
It would be naive of us to pretend
otherwise.
It is
important to ensure that the Government, in exercising the powers that
they will eventually get under the Bill, do so with proper regard not
just to securing the cost element on any proposals that are advanced,
but the consent element. They should also leave in a power of
direction, so that if a Secretary of State gets fed up with the row in
Bedfordshire he may decide, with the wisdom of Solomon, to cut it in
two. If I remember right, it was at that point that the mothers came to
their senses. Whether we shall see the same thing in Bedfordshire, I
should not like to
say.
We support the
group of amendments, not entirely for the same reasons as the
Conservatives, but because it is important to limit the
Minister’s power to override local views and opinions when
exercising his functions on the reorganisation of local
authorities.
Mr.
Woolas:
I found that a useful exchange to clarify the
views of hon. Members. I particularly welcome the support of the hon.
Member for Hazel Grove for the principle, which we are trying to
achieve, of creating a permissive, bottom-up regime whereby the
invitation to propose is exactly that. A number of authorities have
chosen to accept that invitation. As has been mentioned, the proposals
are not always compatible. Therefore, one must have objective criteria
against which to judge them. Would that it were the case that there was
consensus in each area. I suspect that the Secretary of State, my
colleagues and I would be grateful for
that.
The hon. Member
for Hazel Grove also mentioned territorial ambitions and gave examples
from his area. I should imagine that his constituents still say
strongly that they live in Cheshire, as hon. Members in that part of
the world will know. I warn him against territorial ambitions, because
a major impact of such a takeover, if that is the right word, would be
a direct effect on the council tax base, which he ought to study
carefully if he wants to go down that route. On the surface there might
be a positive effect, but there would be a negative effect on the
revenue support
grant.
Andrew
Stunell:
I do not want the Minister to think that a point
made by way of illustration in debate constituted a 27th application to
him. That was far from my intention.
Mr.
Woolas:
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman’s
constituents will be grateful for that
clarification.
The hon. Member for North-East
Bedfordshire seemed not to accept that the invitation process is a
permissive one. Given their record on previous local government
restructuring and reorganisation, Conservative Members such as the hon.
Gentleman seem unable to believe that the Government will not behave as
they did. It is interesting to debate the failings of earlier
reorganisations under previous Governments, so I shall do
so.
The hon. Member
for Bromley and Chislehurst referred to the creation of the Greater
London authority and of the role of Mayor of London, but he failed to
point out that Conservative Members voted against the proposal for a
devolutionary process. My hon. Friends in the Committee referred to the
abolition of the metropolitan counties and of the GLC, which took place
without a word of leave from the good people of Greater Manchester and
of other parts of the country. I could also point to Scotland—I
have not forgotten Wales—where unitary councils were imposed
without
consultation.
Robert
Neill:
I am grateful to the Minister for not forgetting
the good people of Chislehurst. I speak as someone who was in a
minority in my party in opposing the abolition of the GLC a long time
ago. However, if the Minister thinks that he is right to take me and my
hon. Friends to task on the basis of our stance on the GLA Bill, and if
it was right that there should have been a referendum on changing the
number of tiers of government in London, as perhaps in retrospect there
should have been, why is it not right to have a referendum on that
issue in one of our historic shire
counties?
Mr.
Woolas:
The hon. Gentleman is at least consistent. I did
not say only that it was right to criticise the Conservative Front
Bench; I said that it was good fun as well, and the hon. Gentleman will
see that there is consistency in my argument too. The hon. Gentleman
criticised the Government in relation to the north-east assembly
referendum, but I recall that the Deputy Prime Minister accepted the
result of that referendum, despite the Government’s known
preference, so I do not see how we can be accused of
inconsistency.
The
Banham review created local authorities without consultative processes,
and was again a top-down exercise, rather than a bottom-up one as
proposed in the Bill. The former Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Heseltine,
admitted in the “Local Government Chronicle” last summer
that the eventual decisions on boundary reorganisation were taken after
he had hired a helicopter to fly around England with some ordnance
survey maps to point out where the boundaries might be. The right hon.
Gentleman was admired for his cavalier attitude in many respects, but
in my constituency the ancient boundaries of Yorkshire and Lancashire
are still contested today, which is why I live at County
End.
Alistair
Burt:
Although this is good fun and entertaining, I do not
want us to move away from the central point made by my hon. Friend the
Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, which has not been answered. This
may be
a learning process for me, and my hon. Friend may be consistent in his
view about how to ensure the support of the people, but it comes back
to the same thing: finding some measurable form of consultation, such
as a referendum, to guarantee support for the proposals. Surely, after
the litany that the Minister has produced, he is not suggesting that
the Government should deal with the problems in areas where more than
one solution is being advanced by using a Government decision and
nothing else. We want to hear how he will underpin this provision
through the mechanism of a referendum, unless the experience of his
right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister in the north-east has been
so galling that he does not intend to allow the people to have their
say
again.
Mr.
Woolas:
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Of
course, the invitation to bid contains the criterion on public support.
The point made by the hon. Member for Hazel Grove, quite reasonably,
was that there can be contradictory views within a county area. It is
because of that that the power is required, in a limited way, to ensure
that a solution for one area of a county is not detrimental to another.
Again, under the previous Banham process, it could be argued that that
point was not taken into
account.
Let me deal
with the comment by the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire about
consultation with officials, rather than with elected leaders, because
that was made publicly and it is important to address it. The Secretary
of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend
the Member for South Shields (David Miliband), and I undertook a large
number of meetings and consulted local authority leaders at that time
to gather their views and try to find the best way forward. Perhaps I
can explain about the cost, because the cost argument is central and I
gave evidence on that. Let me emphasise, for the record, that the small
number of authorities that we expect to be able to move forward on is
based on the impact on local government assets and borrowing. It is a
macro figure. That point is not contradictory to the one also contained
in the criteria, which is that proposals advanced for a unitary
authority must be self-financing within the five-year period and must
not be detrimental on the council tax payer. That means an equalisation
down, not up, in those
areas.
I temper my
view on this matter, as I said in my evidence. One has to be wary about
local councils claiming benefits that could meet with the response,
“Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?” I hope
that the hon. Members for North-East Bedfordshire and for Hazel Grove
remember that principle when we are debating new burdens implications
in other areas of
legislation.
Alistair
Burt:
What ties the hon. Member for Hazel Grove and me
together is that our experience of the impact of new regulatory burdens
is pretty consistent: they put up costs. The impact on potential
savings is much more mixed and lends credence to our view, which is
that they do not materialise at all. They would say that about the
regulatory burden, wouldn’t they? But they have good reason for
saying so, because it usually ends up with the Government imposing
larger council tax bills.
Mr.
Woolas:
It usually ends up with local authorities saying
so. My point about new burdens is that one has to consider net new
burdens of cost, not the gross costs of new regulations. I receive many
letters from council leaders, but I have never had one saying,
“Dear Minister, due to the requirement no longer to practise
archery on a Sunday, I send a cheque for £200.” I could
give more serious
examples.
Alistair
Burt:
Can the Minister just remind us what the average
rise in band D council tax has been since his party came to
office?
11.45
am
Mr.
Woolas:
I can certainly re-emphasise that council tax is
set by local councils. The hon. Gentleman makes a point about the rises
in council tax when he is in the Chamber and claims credit for local
Conservative councils when he is out on the stump. He cannot have it
both ways.
The hon.
Gentleman said that there was no evidence of why we should offer the
invitation to propose. The evidence is in the proposals from councils.
It is an invitation. Proposals have come forward, and they are not
top-down proposals. It is up to councils to show public support, not
for me to dictate to them how they should do so. The hon. Gentleman was
kind—in fact, he was too kind—in his description of my
intentions, but he said that the Opposition were suspicious. I repeat
that that suspicion is based on their own behaviour under previous
Governments. There is no evidence whatever that there is top-down
direction to councils from Ministers and the
Government.
It has
been said that the Government are seeking a consensus with the Local
Government Association. We share the view of Sir Jeremy Beecham that
was put to the Committee last week
that
“the power of
direction should not extend beyond the current round of consideration
of reorganisation.”—[Official Report, Standing
Committee Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill,
30 January 2007; c. 13.]
That
view was expressly supported by Richard Kemp, the leader of the LGA
Liberal Democrat group when he gave evidence, and by Sir Simon Milton,
the leader of the Conservative group of the LGA. I know it to be the
view of the leader of the LGA, Lord Bruce-Lockhart. Indeed, Sir Simon
confirmed that the view was that of the LGA and was a cross-party
view.
As I made clear
on Second Reading and when giving oral evidence in Committee last week,
we are committed to clarifying this direction-making power. Our aim is
to make clear that the purpose of the power is to enable action to be
taken in the immediate follow-up to the current invitation process to
deal with residual areas to make a unitarisation proposal work. We are
clear that restructuring should be off the table after this current
window of opportunity. However, the proposals that we have received may
result in a situation when we need to use the narrow direction-making
power that I have
described.
If, for
example, in a county area, we receive proposals that would have the
effect of creating one or more unitary authorities for most of the
existing county area, but left part of the area unaccounted for, we may
need to use the direction-making power. We
have made it clear in the invitation document that, when judging such a
proposal against the criteria, our consideration must include that
residual area, and quite rightly
so.
It
may be that the proposed new unitary and the residual area stand up
against the criteria only if that residual area was unitary as well.
Rather than simply rejecting the whole package, we may direct the
council for the residual area to put forward a unitary proposal so the
way would be open to our resolving the issue by creating unitary
structures for the whole
area.
Andrew
Stunell:
I am trying to follow the Minister’s
argument. Let us consider a situation in which Bedfordshire has been
called into account, and all but one of the districts were to be in a
unitary authority and one district left over. Is he saying that that
remaining district would be directed to join the unitary or would be it
directed to form a separate unitary on its own? Or would it be either
of those
things?
Mr.
Woolas:
I thank the hon. Gentleman, because that is the
crux of the matter. The requirement to direct within the limited scope
has support among some local authority areas and councils. It is
important to recognise that support for such a power exists now and has
existed in the past. It is precisely because of his point that we need
to clarify matters and to have such a power. The answer is that a
residual area would be required to put forward its preferred option,
accounting for the potential of the proposal being accepted by
neighbouring areas—one might describe it as a least-worst
option, but it will ensure that there is fairness.
I cannot refer to individual
proposals because I suspect that my words will be used, but one can
imagine circumstances similar to those experienced in the 1990s in
Lancashire, when the unitary authorities of Blackburn and Darwen, and
Blackpool, were created out of the county area. Under the Bill,
consideration would have to have been given to the residual area of the
county of Lancashire. If there was no power of direction, the danger
would be that the Government would have an over-powerful lever, which
is what the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire fears. In such
circumstances, a decision could be made for one area within a county,
regardless of the effect that it would have on the rest of that county.
I do not think that Opposition Members would want the Government to
have such power, and I do not think that we
will.
Mr.
Syms:
There was an example when London county council was
extended via the Greater London council and Middlesex was included. One
part of Middlesex—Staines, Spelthorne—did not want to go
into the GLC, and eventually found itself in Surrey, where it is today.
Presumably, that is the sort of instance in which one would use the
power to direct. There might be one area that does not want to go in
the direction of others and, given public consent, it would have the
option of going into another authority.
Mr.
Woolas:
My knowledge of the geography of Staines leads to
me to conclude that the answer is yes. Members of the Committee may
understand that the
rateable business rate valuation in that part of Greater London is a
highly contested issue. I think that Hounslow and Hillingdon had a
boundary change on that basis. As I said, the answer to the question is
yes. The Government have a responsibility to ensure the well-being of
the whole area, as opposed to absolute consent, which is desirable but
not always possible.
Alistair
Burt:
I am grateful to the Minister because for some local
authorities this is the absolute meat of the issue. Is he saying that
the Secretary of State will have powers to give a direction that would
produce a solution that no authority has actually proposed? A solution
for an area may not, in the view of the Secretary of State, bring about
effective local government. Is the Minister saying that the Secretary
of State would have the power to propose a solution that was not
already on the table? In other words, will a response to an invitation
produce an opportunity for the withdrawal of an area at the Secretary
of State’s power of direction?
Mr.
Woolas:
The hon. Gentleman pushes a very important point.
It is the Government’s intention that the process should be
permissive. There is potential for decisions to create a situation in
which everybody is unhappy, rather than half of an area being happy. To
be honest, it is partly for that reason that the drafting of the
Government’s amendment and discussions with the LGA have not yet
appeared before the Committee, as was requested by the hon. Member for
Lichfield. He very skilfully brought up the point about the
two-weekends’ gap, and I congratulate him on getting that into
Hansard. We intend to table amendments to limit the scope of the
power to direct, along the criteria that the hon. Member for Hazel
Grove requested.
Andrew
Stunell:
This is the crux of a very important point, and I
appreciate the frankness with which the Minister is dealing with it.
Will he confirm that under the Bill a direction does not have to follow
an invitation? In other words, there is an invitation but somebody
else, who has not put in a bid, might be directed to do something
notwithstanding all
that.
Mr.
Woolas:
The hon. Gentleman is describing a jigsaw puzzle.
If one were to take a unitary proposal for a certain area in a county,
another district geographically distant from the proposal might
reconsider its own position. As the hon. Member for Poole mentioned, it
could do that across a county boundary. The intention of the Government
is to limit the power of direction to those areas directly affected and
not to allow areas that have not come forward with proposals to have a
second bite at the cherry. We are keen to avoid such a potential
disturbance to local government. Remember our policy on the three-year
stable funding period.
The Local Government
Association’s anxiety—it was a concern rather than a
shock, although I understand that people would say such things in order
to force a point—is about the unintended consequence of
Government policy. Again, that is why I am cautious about ensuring that
my reassurances to the Committee and the LGA are delivered by the
Government’s proposed amendments. I explain why they had not yet
been introduced in response to a point raised by the hon. Member for
Lichfield.
We are in
discussion with the LGA on that point. Following that and, to be frank,
this Committee debate, we intend to introduce amendments. We want to
hear from the Committee so that we can carefully consider the best way
forward. One possible approach would be to provide that the power be
available for one year after 25 January 2007—the date by which
proposals in response to the invitation had to be received. Of course,
that date has now passed. That amendment could be combined with a
formal undertaking to the House that, in that period, we would use the
direction power only to deal with residual areas in order to ensure
that a proposal received last month works
properly.
Dr.
Pugh:
I understand the Minister’s caution, but the
point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove, which was not
responded to directly, was perfectly clear. Under the Bill, as it now
reads, it seems logical that there could be a direction in the absence
of an invitation. A direction should be given only if there is an
outfall from invitations, but the Bill actually allows for more than
that. Is the Minister saying that he will bring forward amendments that
will preclude the possibility of such a direction being made in the
absence of
invitation?
Mr.
Woolas:
Yes. This Government are not a centralising one
and so I can answer that question in the affirmative.
[Interruption.] Opposition Members seem incapable of believing
that our motives are not the same as
theirs.
Patrick
Hall:
The point that the Minister has just made
underscores the necessity of time limiting the power of direction. The
honesty of the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire has warned us
that, should there ever be a change of Government, a centralising
direction would return. Conservatives thoroughly enjoyed moving in that
direction when they were in
power.
12
noon
Mr.
Woolas:
For 10 years I have believed that one of the major
failings of the Conservative party is precisely that it ascribes its
motives to us. I accept the flattering remarks about my own assurances
made by the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire, but there is a
record, over decades, of central imposition of local government
restructuring. For all the fine words and criticism about letting go,
the statement of the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr.
Cameron) to the LGA that there would be no ring-fenced budgets for
local government is breathtaking in either its naivety or its
disingenuousness. However, I can see you getting nervous,
Mr. Benton—although not as nervous as any potential
future local government would be under a Government with such a
policy.
The
Government’s approach is devolutionary. It is for local
authorities to tell us the best solution for their area. The reason for
that, apart from what is apparent,
is that the geographies and economies of local areas are very different.
It is precisely because the Government want to give, through the Bill,
greater powers to influence areas’ economy and cultural and
social well-being, that we must take a devolutionary approach; it is a
consequence of the
policy.
The local
authorities are the ones that understand their areas best. It should
therefore be for them to present more coherent proposals before the
Government involve the boundary committee. I am sure, or at least I
hope, that the Committee will agree that allowing local authorities to
be in control of their future is more desirable than leaving it to the
boundary committee to make a recommendation for an area. For those
reasons I believe that a narrow direction-making power is the most
sensible solution. The Committee will also be aware that the boundary
committee’s advice cannot be sought until after the Bill
receives Royal Assent, should that be the will of the House.
I hope that, with those
assurances and explanations, the hon. Gentleman will feel able to
withdraw the amendment, and move on to further
discussion.
Alistair
Burt:
I am grateful to the Minister for setting things out
so clearly and straightforwardly, as he tends to do. We still resile
slightly from the gibes about centralism. Unlock Democracy, which gave
evidence to us, states on the second page of its briefing:
“The Government have
made much of their belief in devolving power but seem unwilling in the
last instance to actually let
go.”
That last phrase is
one that we have heard more than once around this place, and if the
Minister believes that the Government are seen by the world outside as
a non-centralising Government and that the Chancellor is seen as the
great devolver of power, I suspect that the powers of self-delusion are
alive and well, and that Unlock Democracy has got it right.
It is precisely because the
Conservative party has learned some lessons about the changing nature
of the relationship between central and local
government—something that we discussed at the beginning of the
open witness sitting last week—that we have accepted that some
past approaches did not create a basis for the right relationship
between them. That is why we have moved on. It will be interesting to
note the Government response to the challenges in the Sustainable
Communities Bill, and how they will vote on it in due course, to
discover how devolving of power they want to
be.
I hear what the
Minister says about local authorities coming forward with proposals to
show how consent should be measured, but virtually everything else that
local authorities do is prescribed by statute, and I do not know why
that matter should have been left so open, beyond the fact that the
Government did not want to prescribe a referendum or anything of that
kind, so they have tossed it back to local authorities. Asking them to
come forward with the ideas now, when authorities have already decided
to make their bids, without having the chance to consult people,
suggests, again, a concentration of time scale that has not been good
for the process as a whole. I note that there is no suggestion that
anything can be put in the Bill now. Given where the Minister was
going, I was slightly worried about whether he wanted either to retain
all
the powers and just give the general direction that he has given in the
Committee or to prescribe them, but from what he has said I assume that
something will come forward.
In view of that, and on the
assumption that an amendment or a limiting power will be put to the
Committee before Report, we are happy to withdraw the amendment. It is
our intention to leave the debate open until Report stage if we believe
that the circumstances will allow. I do not know whether the hon.
Member for Hazel Grove feels the same, but I beg to ask leave to
withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave,
withdrawn.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments: No. 13, in
clause 2, page 2, line 18, leave
out subsection
(4).
No. 14, in
clause 2, page 2, leave out lines 25 and
26.
No. 15, in
clause 2, page 2, line 27, leave
out ‘or
C’.
No.
16, in
clause 2, page 2, line 39, leave
out ‘Type
C’.
No.
17, in
clause 5, page 4, line 14, leave
out ‘Type
C’.
No. 51, in
clause 23, page 14, line 18, leave out ‘Type
C’.
No. 18, in
clause 23, page 14, line 29, leave
out ‘Type
C’.
I had 15 years in local
government in the great city, and at one stage county, of Bristol, and
I went to school there as a boy. I remember clearly the local
government reorganisations of the early 1970s. A lot of them were
logical, but they crossed county boundaries and caused problems as a
result of that, simply because local communities felt ill at ease in
the local authorities that had been created, even though Parliament had
proposed them. When I was at school, there was a “Back to
Somerset” campaign for parts of north Somerset. Some people
wished to be in Gloucester, while Bristol regretted the loss of its
status as a city and county. In later years, when I was leader of a
district council, the Association of District Councils was bedevilled
with arguments from the larger district councils, many of which had
been county boroughs, about the return of their
status.
The
Government’s type C proposal, which may include a unitary
authority that crosses county boundaries, is extremely brave. Although
it is sometimes perfectly possible to construct a logical structure for
local government, all sorts of consequences come from crossing county
boundaries.
Michael
Fabricant:
On the very question of consequences, it was
revealing that when we asked that the boundary committee for England to
give evidence orally, we were refused. I wonder whether my hon. Friend
would care to comment on whether one consequence of crossing county
boundaries might be
the forced redrawing of parliamentary boundaries, which is a
particularly poignant issue, seeing as we have only just gone through a
boundary
review.
Mr.
Syms:
To pick up my hon. Friend’s point,
parliamentary boundaries are often adjusted to local government
boundaries, so if they were changed, there would be no immediate
effect. However, if we create the building blocks—which are the
local authorities for parliamentary seats—that might be relevant
in the longer term to how people are represented, if we maintain the
first-past-the-post system, as I hope we do.
The type C proposal, which
crosses county boundaries, will probably cause more grief than the
Government would like, simply because people do not like it. The
Minister mentioned the difficulties in the changes of the
’70s for those who considered themselves as Lancastrian or from
Yorkshire, but there are still those feelings even today, 30 or 40
years after the reorganisation, and there probably will be for many
decades
ahead.
Mr.
Syms:
Indeed. We have been political point scoring about
which Governments have done what to local government, but all
Governments have form in how they have dealt with local government. If
one believes in local government, there are strong arguments for giving
local authorities much more power to resist some of the things that
central Government want to do to them.
The Banham proposals unpicked
some of the proposals from the early 1970s that did not stick because
they did not have public consent. Humberside is logical, but people did
not feel part of Humberside. Avon is logical, but people still feel
that they are Bristolians or from Somerset or Gloucestershire. That is
what forced the Government to reconsider the issue, whether or not
there were referendums. Many of the Banham proposals had more public
consent than those that were imposed in the early 1970s and nobody
argued with that.
Our
anxiety about the type C proposal is that reorganisation across county
boundaries risks undermining public consent because people feel an
affinity with and a loyalty to counties or larger cities. I am doubtful
that any proposal would get public support across the county
boundary—I see that a number of hon. Members are nodding at what
I say.
I should like
the Minister to flesh out the proposal. Where would a type C proposal
be made? Does he have any examples? I am trying to tempt the hon.
Gentleman because some of the boundaries were drawn by the Victorians
and the Edwardians. Places have grown and things have moved on since
then, but nevertheless people feel loyalty to their local community,
which may create difficulties.
The amendment was designed to
test why the proposal is in the Bill and to have a decent debate on the
clause. Has the Minister thought of the longer-term consequences? I
should be surprised if there were any type C proposals; there were none
in the first tranche. If no one proposes anything that goes across
county
boundaries it may be better to debate the type As and type Bs. The
recent history of local government reorganisation has proved that
crossing county boundaries creates more grief, and in the longer term
the issue has to be revisited because there is no public
consent.
Andrew
Stunell:
These are interesting amendments because they are
irrelevant if the Minister’s proposals are limited by time as
none of them cross county boundaries. If the Minister loses his power
of direction or it is limited along the lines of our previous debate
the proposals lose their force. However, while there is no time limit
and we do not know what the direction restriction will be, the
amendments are relevant and they need to be tested. We will support the
amendments on the basis that without the time and the power
restriction, the geography restriction is needed as a
fallback.
The
Minister said that he lived at County End but he did not say which side
of the line he lived; perhaps he does not want to disclose it to the
Committee. The example of Middlesex was given and I gave the example of
Poynton. The Minister rightly said that many of my constituents like to
say that they live in Cheshire; others like to say that they live in
Derbyshire.
Those
historic boundaries have had great force and meaning for people for a
very long time. Removing type C in the current context is neither here
nor there, but the proposal is another prod to the Minister to ensure
that he gets the time and the powers sorted out so that he does not
have to fuss about the
geography.
12.15
pm
Mr.
Woolas:
The hon. Gentlemen have again made reasonable
points. It is straightforward in debates to talk about county
affiliations, but the issue is important, as they said. It is 35 years
since the legislation that changed the county boundaries went through
Parliament, and it is still debated in many parts of the
country—often with a passion that some of us do not
appreciate.
I shall,
if I may, indulge the Committee with the story of the Austerlands
cricket club, which is on the boundary of Yorkshire and Lancashire. It
is the second highest cricket club above sea level in the country. The
groundsman invited the local borough surveyor to ascertain whether the
club remained in Lancashire or had been moved to Yorkshire. One can
imagine the passion that that debate excited. The surveyor pointed out
that the stream to the east of the club was the boundary, and he
assured him that the club remained in Lancashire. The groundsman
replied that he was very relieved, because he had heard that they had
very bad winters in Yorkshire and he did not want his pitch to be
ruined.
One proposal
in the current round following the invitation crosses county
boundaries. It is the proposal from the East Riding authority in
respect of the Selby district, which is the county of North Yorkshire.
From memory, I do not think that the people of Selby think that they
are in North Yorkshire. East Riding itself was created by the process
that the hon. Member for Poole described: an unpicking of the 1972 Act,
when Humberside was created. That left the city of Hull,
north-east Lincolnshire, East Lindsay and Scunthorpe, I think, but I
shall check the latter. There is therefore a type C proposal in the
current proposals, and precisely because the legislation is
devolutionary, we wish to see type C proposals. It is not for the
Government to judge whether proposals should be restricted. Indeed, in
some areas of the country, some of the best two-tier working runs
across county boundaries with counties and districts
co-operating.
I
recently visited Breckland, where three districts—one in
Norfolk, one in Suffolk and one in Cambridgeshire—co-operate on
revenue and benefits. They have, by all accounts, one of the if not the
most efficient revenue and benefits departments in the country,
precisely because the geography of that part of East Anglia makes it
more sensible for them to co-operate. They have not made a proposal to
go unitary; they do not see the requirement for it. However, as we
encourage co-operation across boundaries, particularly on commissioning
policy, there are circumstances in which closer co-operation across
county boundaries makes sense. Authorities in such areas may wish to
put forward proposals, but it is for them to judge and, consequently,
for them rather than for central Government to take the
blame.
The Bill is
drafted to enable us to respond to the proposals made by the councils
themselves. They will have the opportunity to tell Government, and
through Government Parliament, the best solution for their area. They
are best placed to understand their areas, and it is therefore right
that they should be the ones who come forward with coherent proposals.
To support that approach, we have drafted the Bill so that local
authorities have the flexibility they need to frame any potential
unitary proposals, provided only that they use existing district
boundaries as the building blocks. That provision refers to the points
that the hon. Members for Hazel Grove and for North-East Bedfordshire
made on shifting and abolition of boundaries.
If the amendment were agreed
to, it would limit the options available to local authorities to make
the proposals that in their—not our—judgment would
provide the best structure to deliver effective and convenient local
government. The Bill will allow authorities a wide range of options to
make proposals for unitary government. Crucially, local councils will
not be constrained when they consider how best to administer local
government functions in their areas.
As I said, among the 26
proposals that have been referred to is one from East Riding to merge
with the neighbouring district of Selby. The permissive devolutionary
approach recognises the configuration of counties and the affiliation
that the public have with their areas. I concur with the wise words of
the hon. Member for Poole in that respect. It is a central tenet of the
Bill to create sustainable
communities.
Michael
Fabricant:
I am interested in the Minister’s
explanation, but I am still curious about the parliamentary boundary
question. Am I right in saying that a parliamentary constituency
boundary cannot cross county boundaries? If another district were
brought into a county, dividing an existing parliamentary constituency
between more than one county, would that necessitate a
change?
Mr.
Woolas:
I have been honest with the Committee this
morning, and I will be honest again—I do not know. I hope that
that reassures the hon. Gentleman that there is no Machiavellian plot.
However, immediately after the sitting, I will go to the Library, get a
map and find
Lichfield.
The hon.
Member for Poole answered that point. My understanding is that in the
long term, that could be the case. In the instance of Selby and East
Riding, one would have a very strong argument for asking not which
county but which Riding one was in. Hon. Members who know the county of
Yorkshire will know that that largely determines many people’s
affiliation.
Michael
Fabricant:
I would be grateful if the Minister
could come back in the next sitting with
clarification.
Mr.
Woolas:
I will do as the hon. Gentleman asks.I
hope that my explanation and the information that I have given about
bids means that we can move on. I hope that the debate has served to
explain the purpose of the provision. I therefore invite the hon.
Member for Poole to withdraw his
amendment.
Mr.
Syms:
I would like to pick up the point about the boundary
commission. I think that I am right in saying that the boundaries are
drawn on county boundaries, but if county boundaries change, it does
not invalidate the constituency until the next redrawing. For example,
Leominster, which is now in Worcestershire, and Hereford, which is now
in Herefordshire, were in one county. There is an adjustment of
boundaries in the current review: some 8,000 electors will go from
Worcestershire into Herefordshire simply to realign the boundaries with
changes resulting from the Banham review, so the question is a slight
red herring. However, if new county boundaries are fixed, it will
change things the next time the building blocks are revised.
To be honest, I have had so
much paper that the Minister should forgive me for missing proposal No.
10 on East Riding. Of course, it does not invalidate some of the things
that I was saying. East Riding is an area that has had rather more
local government reform and change than most others in the UK, what
with Humberside and a unitary Selby losing its northern bit into a York
unitary, creating a very small Selby authority covering 50,000-odd
people. The proposal may therefore be logical. I was sceptical at
first, but the Minister has convinced me that that type C proposal is
sensible. Specifically in that particular area of the country, there
may be arguments of local support and loyalty—that is
essentially the argument that I was making—that fit into that
particular
proposal.
Mr.
Woolas:
I am sorry to delay the Committee, but I would
like to clarify what the hon. Gentleman said about the boundary
commissions. Parliamentary boundaries would not change initially. The
parliamentary boundary commission could conduct interim reviews;
otherwise, changes could be made as part of the sixth general review.
The hon. Gentleman is
correct.
Mr.
Syms:
I thank the Minister for reinforcing my
comments. Having heard the explanation and looked at that specific
example concerning questions of interest, I beg to ask leave to
withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave,
withdrawn.
The
Chairman:
We come now to amendmentsNos. 23 and
24. I call Andrew Stunell to move the lead
amendment.
Andrew
Stunell:
Mr. Benton, the Clerks usually do an
excellent job, but the amendments are two strays that belong to the
second group of amendments. The issue has been debated as far as we are
concerned, and we do not wish to proceed with the
amendments.
Clause
2 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
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