Clause
40
Discharge
of
functions
Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
Alistair
Burt:
I have a couple of general questions. I am not sure
what is behind the substitution of the title “senior executive
member” for “elected mayor” in the clause, and I
would be grateful if the Minister could let us
know.
Mr.
Woolas:
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. To
which provisions is he referring
specifically?
Alistair
Burt:
Throughout the clause, the term “elected
mayor” is taken out and “senior executive member”
is substituted. I wondered what the rationale for doing that was. It is
a genuine question—I simply do not
know.
Mr.
Woolas:
Perhaps if I explain the purpose of the
clause, that will answer the question.
Sections 14 to 16 of the 2000
Act deal with how functions are discharged by the executive of a local
authority. Specifically, they provide that functions that are the
responsibility of an executive may be discharged by members of the
executive, committees of the executive, or officers of the council.
Currently, where there is a mayor and cabinet executive, the mayor can
either discharge a particular function or arrange for that function to
be discharged by the executive, an individual member of the executive,
a committee of the executive, or an officer of the authority. By
contrast, where there is a leader and cabinet executive, it is the
authority as a whole that makes those decisions unless, of course, it
leaves those decisions to the leader.
Clause 39,
which we have just debated, makes changes to the form of executive
arrangements in England. As a
consequence, clause 40 provides that, in future, all decisions about how
executive functions will be discharged should remain in the hands of
the mayor in the case of a mayoral executive; similarly, they should
rest with the leader in the case of either a leader and cabinet
executive or an elected executive, as in the model that we have just
debated. That means
that, in future, all council leaders in England will have the same
powers as mayors currently have to decide how executive functions are
discharged. The arrangements in Wales, subject to the caveats that I
referred to earlier, will remain unaltered. Therefore clause 40
strengthens the role of the leader and will help to deliver the
conditions for the strong and accountable leadership that we have been
discussing.
The
provisions in the clause apply to all three models, so it is helpful to
have a single term that refers to all three models, because the Bill,
if Parliament allows it, will place the executive power in the
leader’s office, whether that be a mayor, a directly elected
leader of a directly elected executive, or an indirectly elected
leader. It is simply common sense to have a single term.
Question put and
agreed
to.
Clause 40
ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 41
Changing
governance
arrangements
Andrew
Stunell:
I beg to move amendment No. 33, in
clause 41, page 24, line 16, leave
out ‘move to executive
arrangements’.
The
Chairman:
With this, it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments: No. 34, in
clause 41, page 24, leave out lines 19 to
31 and insert—
‘(2)
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 33A and 33B, any principal
council may submit a scheme of internal governance appropriate to its
circumstances which shall stand deferred until the next election to the
council.
(3) Where no
recognised group has overall control, it shall be competent for the
council to implement other arrangements as it may
determine.’.
No.
100, in
clause 41, page 24, line 26, leave
out from ‘is’ to end of line 28 and insert
‘eligible for alternative
arrangements if it is a district council or a metropolitan
borough.’.
No.
99, in
clause 41, page 24, line 28, leave
out ‘85,000’ and insert
‘850,000’.
No.
101, in clause 41, page 24, leave out lines
29 to 31.
No.
35, in clause 41, page 24, leave out lines
36 to 38.
No. 36, in
clause 41, page 24, line 41, leave
out from ‘arrangements’ to end of line 1 on page
25.
5
pm
Andrew
Stunell:
I remind the Minister that he has now admonished
the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire, the hon. Member for Ludlow
and me, asking us to come out of our centralist mindset. I am not sure
whether he has suggested that other Members should do the same. I am
giving the Minister a chance to walk the walk, as well as talk the talk
about coming out of his centralist mindset.
I
shall start my remarks by saying that clause 41 is six and a half pages
long. Whatever else, there should be a law against that. Consequently,
the Committee should carefully consider the amendments to see precisely
what I intend to achieve. I shall simplify matters by explaining that
amendments Nos. 33 and 34 would give local authorities freedom to
determine their own system of governance; amendments Nos. 99 and 101
would give authorities the option of having the committee system in
certain circumstances; and amendment No. 100 would extend the
eligibility of special arrangements to district and metropolitan
boroughs without regard to their
size.
The Government
propose that small authorities should be able to retain what is
commonly called the committee system, although most people understand
that the system of 25 years ago is not what we are talking about. We
are debating an enhanced committee system. My amendments would open up
the options for local government of all sizes and classes, first, to
decide their own system of governance entirely; secondly, to decide
their system of governance and to have the committee system, if they
are district councils or metropolitan boroughs regardless of size; and,
thirdly, to be able to adopt the committee system if their population
exceeds, not 85,000, but 850,000. Both numbers are arbitrary, but my
intention is to show the direction in which I believe the Minister
should be encouraged to
go.
Let me deploy the
arguments in favour of self-government. As I said on Second Reading, we
conceded it long ago to Australia, Canada and colonies throughout the
world, and it seems to work. They get on with it, so the Minister
should have a little more trust in local government and its capacity to
deliver and show leadership. It became clear on Second Reading that
many of his colleagues share that view and feel that he is being too
prescriptive, in particular by not allowing the possibility of the
enhanced committee system to be an option for consideration by
authorities unless they are in the smallest category. He is denying
local democracy an
opportunity.
There is
plenty of anecdotal evidence of the dissatisfaction in local government
about the executive arrangements. I tried to follow the 69 per cent.,
the 74 per cent. and the 89 per cent. figures that the
Minister rattled off when referring to various studies. I do not know
what the sample groups were when those were undertaken, but I have yet
to find outside the membership of the executives themselves councillors
who would agree with that analysis. Most of them consider that they
have been excluded to some degree by the new arrangements. Many
councils believe that they should have the option of the committee
structure, one that is much more inclusive and inclined to consensus
building than the executive model and much less remote from the
communities that they
serve.
I
am not an unadulterated supporter of the committee system. I am far
from saying to the Minister that every local authority should have it.
I am certainly not arguing that we should go back 20 years and start
all over again. However, if what he says about opening up local
government and giving it more choices and options really means
anything, he has a simple, practical way of
doing that, which is by extending a system of governance that is tried
and tested—and certainly not failing—into other council
areas.
I
want to make the pure gospel point that governance should be entirely a
matter for local councils, but I listened carefully to what the
Minister said on Second Reading and to what has been said in Committee
and I know that his Department has struck a deal with other Government
Departments about devolving functions and decision making to local
government. To some extent, that deal is dependent on the Department
for Communities and Local Government being able to show other
Departments that the bodies to which it will be transferring powers and
decision making have the substance and the effectiveness to carry out
those functions. Therefore, a deal has been struck, and perhaps the
governance issue is one of the prices that local government is expected
to pay to achieve that.
I think that the whole
Committee would benefit from a clear exposition by the Minister of
exactly why neither he nor his Department is prepared to give any
flexibility for the enhanced committee system. The amendments explore
different options and different ways of achieving essentially the same
thing, which is to widen the choices available to local government.
They are not looking to bring in a system that is untried, untested and
clearly dysfunctional, but to bring in something that is tried, tested
and that demonstrably produces leadership results now in small
authorities and which historically has done the same for more than 100
years in the largest authorities in the land. I am very happy to speak
to the amendments and to listen to what the Minister has to
say.
Alistair
Burt:
I am pleased to support the tenor of the amendments
and to thank the hon. Gentleman for introducing them. Although we might
be covering some old ground, I hope that they will encourage Committee
members to reaffirm their commitment to the importance of choice in
local government and to express again their concerns that a key
manifestation of that choice in the present context would be to allow
councils that so wished to propose and maintain an enhanced committee
system.
The witnesses
whom we heard expressed no doubt that that option would be broadly
welcomed. Let me give some examples from their evidence. We had a
debate that involved the three representatives of the Local Government
Association. Jeremy Beecham was not keen to go back, so that is one
vote against an enhanced committee system. When asked about his
position on the options, Richard Kemp, the Liberal Democrat
representative, said that
“it would be an option that I
would support. I do not think that anyone wants to go back to the old
committee system”—
the point made by the hon. Member for
Hazel
Grove—
“I
do not think that anyone pines for that system, but an enhanced
committee system, based on the experience that we have now, would be
possible.”
So, that is
one each. However, Simon Milton, representing the Conservatives on the
LGA, said:
“I
regretted the fact that councils were not given the option to have a
committee system under the original Local Government Act. To be
consistent, I would welcome that option, although I am not sure whether
my council would go back to that
system.”——[Official Report, Local Government
and Public Involvement in Health Public Bill Committee, 30 January
2007; c. 20.]
That is two votes in favour of
choice.
I will return
to a familiar theme that the Minister must now hear echoing in his
dreams. I do not know whether he caught that wonderful programme
“Sleep Clinic” on the television last night that looked
at the extraordinary contortions that people go through when their
sleep is disturbed, what they hear and what they do not hear. I hope
that the hon. Gentleman is hearing in his dreams, “choice,
choice,” and at some stage tonight that he will share again that
champagne moment that he gave to the Committee earlier when, as members
of the Committee will recall, he spread open his arms and said,
“I am a devolutionist, let them have the choice.” He said
that in relation to a different part of the Bill, but, as the hon.
Member for Hazel Grove said, all we are asking is that the Minister
finds again in his soul that moment. He made that comment in relation
to offering the choice of a committee system. He was not talking about
forcing it upon anyone, not demanding that anyone has to have it, but
simply giving people at local level their opportunity to choose a
committee system for
themselves.
Another
voice from one of our witnesses was that of Gordon Keymer. The very
name strikes a chord in all our hearts. Asked about the committee
system and the problem of involvement, he said:
“What is happening too
much at the moment in the executive system is that council meetings are
dominated by two or three people and the rest are spectators. The
figures speak for themselves—note the turnover of people who
stay for only one term and leave because they are frustrated. The
trouble is that we are trying to produce a whole lot of mechanisms to
keep them happy by extending scrutiny and so on. If you look at it
quite cold-bloodedly, all those things could be covered by active
membership in the committee system. It is a great shame. People are not
easily fooled.”
He said
that when he goes down to watch his local council committees at work of
an evening he thinks,
“Here are people who,
from the very beginning, can involve themselves in local government,
learn to speak and debate with officers and graduate to the council
chamber and the full council
meeting.”——[Official Report, Local Government
and Public Involvement in Health Public Bill Committee, 30 January
2007; c. 41.]
That is
what Gordon Keymer used to see on the committees on his council that he
oversaw. That opportunity to learn and grow is not there
now.
Tom
Levitt (High Peak) (Lab): I get the impression that the
hon. Gentleman is talking about the difference made by a well run
council that engages councillors, be they there principally to make
decisions or to scrutinise. That is the real difference that he is
describing. Is there not a great danger of assuming that scrutiny is a
lesser role and therefore less satisfying when, in fact, scrutiny is an
important role when it is done and managed
well?
Alistair
Burt:
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, but a
slightly distracting one. I am not seeking to prioritise the business
pursued by committees over the functions of scrutiny and overview. The
point is that local authorities should be allowed to make a choice
about the structure that they believe is right for them, so that well
run councils can make a judgment about the allocation of functions and
their efficacy. The question asked by the amendments, following the
points raised by hon. Members on both sides of
the House on Second Reading and by the witnesses who came before us
prior to the formal Committee stage of the Bill, is: why not give
people the choice? That is all. A committee system may not be right for
all councils. For example, it may not suit councils that have moved on
to a different system and do not want to go back.
The
overwhelming impression I had was that while it suits the leadership of
a council to have a tightly controlled system, and a leadership will
naturally support and understand an executive system that concentrates
power, those who see the other purpose of a council as involving
councillors so that they have more of a role than that of back-bench
councillor—a role that people warmly welcome, but which keeps
them out of the loop in the system—want the chance to do
something more. I am sure that grass-roots resentment does not
necessarily surface in those councils in which the executive and
cabinet system works well, and which have mechanisms to get people
involved, but to deny that there is resentment would be to shut
one’s eyes to what is going on in local authorities.
I come back
to the point made so well by Gordon Keymer about the frustration of
people who come on to councils and feel trammelled in what they can do.
We have enough evidence from over the years of people who have gone on
to councils and then complained that they get told what to do by
central Government too much and that they are frustrated by it. They
then go into a system in which they cannot even express themselves
through committees, and they feel constrained. No wonder people are
walking out the door.
There is a simple mechanism
that we can use. It is not to force councils to go down a particular
route, nor to demand that there is a particular structure of local
governance that they should all follow; it is to add another element to
the mix for effective government. If the Minister is going to argue
that he cannot in any circumstances foresee that a committee structure
could provide effective leadership in the manner of the models already
presented, I have to say that I doubt that such an argument will be
supported by the broad mass of people who have been involved with local
government over the past few
decades.
5.15
pm
Earlier, the
Minister made the point that the issue is about quality of leadership
and individual powers of persuasion in many cases, but the right
people, the right structure and the right officers can make a local
authority work. I do not see any reason why the Bill should not contain
the option for authorities to have the opportunity to run the committee
system if that is what they want to do.
The matter that we are debating
is one of the strongest arguments against the Minister’s belief
that he is a devolutionary Minister of a non-centralising Government
who are prepared to take a risk in local government. If the Minister is
true to the moment that he gave us with such splendour before
lunchtime, this is the opportunity for him to relive that moment, to
confess himself to be a true devolutionist and to say in a heartfelt
manner, “Let them choose.” I am therefore delighted to
support the amendments, and I hope that we can hear something from the
Minister and indeed from his Back-Bench colleagues that will echo the
sentiment of setting our local councils
free.
Mr.
Burrowes:
I rise to support my hon. Friend and the hon.
Member for Hazel Grove. I have the benefit of 12 years’
experience as a local councillor, first as an opposition councillor
under the old committee system in Enfield, then in control as a cabinet
member. Having been on two sides of the fence, I can give my view, both
as a new councillor who was one of the youngest councillors elected in
a committee structure and as a cabinet member.
The benefit of the committee
format was that, at the very least, one knew where to go for
information. The Minister has put forward in favour of an executive
type arrangement the benefit of strong leadership. As a cabinet member,
I certainly saw that, but there was a concern about those who were left
behind. There was a feeling among other councillors who were newly
elected under the cabinet model, which Enfield council adopted at an
early stage, that they were left behind. Many well qualified
councillors felt that they were not able to access information and were
not party to decision making. They had to play catch-up to find out
where the decision had been made and then subject it to scrutiny. New
councillors do not feel sufficiently part of the scrutiny arrangements
that form part of cabinet-style government. Councillors in Enfield
often felt disfranchised and inadequately served by the scrutiny
process. For all its imperfections, I say that the committee system
suits every model of governance. It was certainly of value in Enfield,
because people knew where to receive information.
When the Minister talked about
sample groups that support the new executive arrangements, he did not
mention the public. One should not forget that turnouts for local
government elections have not dramatically increased across the board,
despite some steps having been taken to improve leadership. There is
still a major issue concerning community engagement, both of the public
and of individual councillors on their behalf. When one talks about
leadership, it is not only about executive leadership; it is about
community leadership.
I understand that part of the
intention of the 2000 changes was that community leadership should be
upheld also by local councillors, as community advocates, who are not
necessarily part of the executive. Without the option of a community
system, they have felt increasingly disengaged. Without such a system,
when the public are looking for information and seeking to find out
about debates before decisions have been made, they are left to
encourage councillors to call in a decision or to be part of a scrutiny
process, which often feels inadequate. An option for a local authority
to have a local community system should be
provided.
One looks in
desperation for consistency in the Bill. If the Minister is consistent,
when he says there needs to be a stronger local voice for councils
serving a population of more than 85,000 I presume he also thinks there
should be a stronger local voice for populations of fewer than 85,000.
What is the logic of not allowing a committee system for populations of
fewer than 85,000? Why does it come down to the size of the population?
Surely that stronger local voice should be there for them. If the logic
of the Minister’s argument is that the option of a committee
system
should be taken away from those smaller population communities, it does
not make sense.
Certainly
the committee option available to populations of under 85,000 should
also be there for those over 85,000. The option should be there for the
sake of not just executive leadership but community leadership. It is
important for individual councils to feel properly empowered and
engaged in the process. If that means an option of a committee, so be
it. Let the Minister take off the shackles of the centralising
tendencies he sees in us and ensure that there is true choice for local
communities. I support the
amendment.
Sir
Peter Soulsby (Leicester, South) (Lab): It was clear from
the way that my hon. Friend the Minister spoke about the
Government’s intentions in bringing forward this range of
governance options that they are rightly concerned that local
authorities should be capable of strong leadership. That strong
leadership should be stable and visible. Those were the words that the
Minister used to describe the sort of leadership we would want to see.
He also spoke convincingly about the need for local authorities to
provide, as many already do, strong leadership not just within their
organisations but in the wider communities that they
represent.
I am
convinced that all hon. Members share the desire that local authorities
should provide that leadership both internally and externally. I am
also sure that no hon. Member would wish to see a return to the
committee structure that many of us used to know, with all its
frustrations and its inability to provide the sort of leadership that
we would all wish for in local government, or, in many cases, to
provide the accountability which we would also wish to see
strengthened. It was often difficult to tell who was responsible for
taking decisions within the committee structure, with each committee
often able to blame another for the byways and alleyways that decision
making was going
down.
Dr.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD): The hon. Gentleman might be
exaggerating a little. I can recall things called policy and resources
committees that used to make all the hard decisions that other
councillors feared to make. It was very similar to the modern
cabinet.
Sir
Peter Soulsby:
I do indeed recall the strengths of that
system as well as its weaknesses. I am convinced that those strengths
can be used to produce a reformed committee structure and a system that
would enable the leadership and accountability that we have all said we
would wish local government to deliver. The two great advantages of the
committee system were that it enabled a wide range of members to become
engaged in the decision-making process in a useful way and, equally
importantly, that it enabled opposition members to sit around the table
to debate and to vote on matters on which decisions were being
taken.
One of the
great frustrations of the present structure for councillors, whether in
opposition or part of a controlling group, is that they cannot directly
participate in the decision-making process. They cannot speak and vote
at cabinet meetings in many situations. Obviously the political make-up
of many councils occasionally enables them to take part, but in many it
does not.
5.24
pm
Sitting
suspended for a Division in the
House.
5.39
pm
On
resuming—
Sir
Peter Soulsby:
I stress again that I am not arguing for a
return to the committee structure as it was 20 or 30 years ago, but for
the committee structure, much modified and modernised, to be included
in the range of options open to local government. We do not need to
think very hard to come up with some excellent examples of powerful
leadership in councils with a committee structure and we do not need to
think too hard about examples of effective community leadership being
provided by councils with a committee structure. That leadership can be
provided externally as well as
internally.
The
committee structure, much modified and much modernised, is not a
panacea, but it ought at least to be an option. I also argue that the
governance options that have been put forward by the Minister and the
Government in the Bill are not a panacea either. They, too, are capable
of being expanded to increase the range of opportunities open to local
councils.
There is no
doubt at all that it is vital for councils to be able to provide
leadership to their local communities and for there to be strong and
effective leadership within local authorities. There is no doubt at all
that it is vital that whatever governance structure is adopted, it is
accountable both internally and externally to the wider community and
that the major issue of how the majority of members are engaged in the
council’s process needs to be
addressed.
Dr.
Pugh:
The hon. Gentleman is making me quite nostalgic for
the committee system. One of its advantages for scrutiny and
accountability was that officers’ recommendations, which often
turn out to be what the council actually does, were subject to
extensive examination from back-bench and opposition councillors, which
simply does not happen today. I find that there are few pleas from
officers to go back to the committee system, and there could be a good
reason for
that.
Sir
Peter Soulsby:
I certainly believe that when opposition
members, if there is overall control, or coalition members if there is
not, sit round a table in public discussing recommendations put in
front of them by officers and are required to debate them and answer
questions about their attitude towards them and the reasoning behind
their position, that provides a degree of clarity and accountability
that is not always provided in the current system. In at least some
authorities, cabinet meetings are little more than a staged ritual in
front of the present public, with decisions in fact being taken
elsewhere.
Patrick
Hall:
When I was on Bedfordshire county council there were
many advantages to the committee system. However, one of the
disadvantages was the amount of time that it sometimes took for a
decision to be taken because of the interminable sub-committees and
perhaps sub-sub-committees—I cannot remember how many there
were. I invite my hon. Friend to elaborate
a little on what some call an enhanced committee system or, as I believe
he called it, a modernised committee system. We need to know more about
that because I do not believe that any suggestion of returning to the
old system is
credible.
Sir
Peter Soulsby:
I thank my hon. Friend for that
intervention, which gives me an opportunity to re-emphasise that I am
not seeking a return to the system as we used to know it. I envisage a
system with a much reduced number of committees and an enhanced central
committee, be it called a policy and resources committee or a policy
committee, that is clearly in control of the overall direction of the
authority, with perhaps a limited number of sub-committees reporting to
it. Such an arrangement would enable a local authority to have both the
leadership role whose importance we have stressed and the
accountability that is made possible by members debating across a table
the direction of the authority’s
policy.
To conclude, I
am arguing that there should be a wider range of choices than is
included in the Bill. I do not support the amendments, because there
are a number of arbitrary elements to them, as the hon. Member for
Hazel Grove acknowledged, which make them unsatisfactory. I hope that
the Government will recognise that it would benefit good local
government if there were a wider range of choices of governance than is
currently offered. I hope that the Minister will agree to reconsider
the proposals and recognise that the range to be offered is too limited
and prescriptiveto local government. We have an opportunity to
allow local government greater freedom in how it responds to local
circumstances, to the local political environment and to local
communities.
5.45
pm
Robert
Neill:
I want to pick up where the hon. Member for
Leicester, South left off. I agree with him and I commend much of what
he said to Ministers. His experience as a former leader of a large
local authority should weigh heavily with them, especially given the
Minister’s comment when he intervened on an observation by my
hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire who said in the
context of the Gordon Keymer scenario that the key test is contrasting
a well run authority, whatever its structure, with a badly run
authority. As my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate said, we
should not work on the assumption that the committee system can work
only in small authorities. There is no reason why it should not be
applied in large local authorities in its enhanced form.
The point was made about clear
political leadership and we all sign up to that. There was never a
larger local authority in English history than, first, the London
county council and then the Greater London council, nor were there
local authorities with a stronger tradition of clear political
leadership and direction. Herbert Morrison was as strong a local
government leader as one could find operating under the old committee
system, so were Ike Hayward, Desmond Plummer, Horace Cutler
and—dare I say it— Ken Livingstone.
All those people gave very
clear political leadership and direction to their authorities under the
old
committee system, never mind the modernised and enhanced one which, I
agree with the hon. Member for Leicester, South, should be an option.
If it could work then, why cannot it work now? Does it not come back to
the quality and calibre of the politicians and the senior
officers? My
experience chimes with that of my hon. Friends and others. If we want
to keep good quality people in local government, they have to think
that there is a worthwhile role for them. I do not denigrate scrutiny
and I take the point, but if people believe that the only time that
they will be able to take a decision and make a difference in a
substantial and meaningful way is by waiting to become a member of the
executive, it will put a lot of very good people off—hence the
turnover, which is a real
concern.
Some local
authorities try to get around the problem because they want to be
involved in scrutiny but a good council wants to be involved in policy
development too. In Bromley, we call our scrutiny committees policy
development scrutiny committees, which is an attempt to get members
involved at an earlier stage. We could do that in the context of the
leader and cabinet system and of the enhanced committee system
too.
As I said, I
spent 16 years as a member of a London borough council and for eight of
those years I was chairman of one of the large service
committees—first the environment committee and then the social
services committee. It was under the old structure, but we gave a
pretty clear political steer. We had a leader, who chaired the policy
and resources committee; the chairmen of the five or six service
committees were on the policy and resources committee and the
opposition were also represented on it.
We had a system of delegation
that enabled urgent decisions to be taken and we should look again at
the legal problems that sometimes get in the way in that respect. We
made sure that members—usually the chairman or the vice-chairman
of the committee—were involved if urgent action had to be
taken,. We also had a system whereby the leader and the service
committee chairmen could meet senior officers and give them a steer, or
direction.
The point
is well made that, in the policy resources committee, not only could
the opposition debate the issue and question the officers on their
recommendations, but the officers had to account for them. That worked
in a very large local authority—London boroughs were almost the
same size as the city of Leicester, for example—and it worked on
a bigger scale for the London county council and the Greater London
council, so I do not understand why we are closing that option
off.
I say to the
Minister that there is a contrast between the Government’s
approach to this clause and to the previous one. If we accept that the
option can work for small local authorities, why close it off
arbitrarily for larger local authorities? Would not the decentralising,
localist option be to leave it open for all classes of local authority
and, as the Minister said earlier, let them
decide?
Andrew
Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab): I rise to offer my
comments on this part of the Bill, on which we have had an interesting
debate.
Only the
first two of my 11 years as a local councillor—between 1996 and
1998—were spent under the old committee system. So my experience
of the old system is very limited. I grew up politically with the new
cabinet system and its birth pains when first introduced. However, I
must say from my two years’ experience that I think that we tend
to hark back to a golden age that never existed. That was not my
recollection of how the committee system worked. Members certainly felt
more involved; that is correct. They had all the reports and tended to
discuss issues with other members on different committees in the
members’ room or at other meetings. Therefore, they had a
general overview of what was happening in the council that perhaps they
do not have now.
In my
experience on the committee, however, decisions were made at the
chairs’ briefing, which were bounced through the group meeting,
sometimes with a row behind closed doors. Nevertheless they were
bounced through and were rubber-stamped at the committee meeting open
to the public and opposition often under the hard stare of the whips if
there had been a row in the group meeting. I am all too familiar with
hard stares from Whips, because I have been told to be brief. However,
that was my experience of the old committee
system.
The new system
was undoubtedly a culture shock for those who had lived with the old
one for a number of years. They had become familiar with it. It was
very comfortable. The new one has taken time to bed down and in some
authorities it is still not there. But where it is working, scrutiny
and support for members not in the cabinet is certainly in place and
working well. I take the point of the hon. Member for Bromley and
Chislehurst about pre-decision scrutiny. When I was a scrutiny chair in
Tameside, we took the decision to lead the way on scrutiny in our
borough. Afterwards, it was perceived to be a success and the executive
asked us to do more of it. So where it works, it works well. However, I
accept that it has taken time to bed down.
I shall turn
to the information, which is there. Any councillor can ask for the
background information to a cabinet decision in advance of it being
taken. Information on the officers, who to contact and so on is all
there in the forward plan. Certainly in Tameside—although it
might be different in other authorities—the forward plan is
debated at full council so there is the opportunity for all members,
including back-bench members in the controlling group and all
opposition members, to debate issues before the cabinet makes a
decision.
Finally, I
shall turn to amendment No. 99 tabled by the Liberal Democrats. I
accept that the hon. Member for Hazel Grove said that the upper limit
of 850,000 was arbitrary, but if it is right that some metropolitan
district councils, which are currently prevented from having a
streamlined committee system, should adopt one, it should be available
to all of them. It should not be discriminatory. Of course, setting the
target at 850,000 would mean that 35 out of the 36 metropolitan
district councils in England could opt for the committee
system—poor Birmingham would be left out. So if someone is going
to argue that it is right for metropolitan councils to have that
facility, it should be for all of them, and not all except
Birmingham.
Mr.
Dunne:
I, too, do not wish to detain the Committee, but to
make one point. I rise in support of the amendment in the name of the
hon. Member for Hazel Grove. The point that has just been made is a
telling one, however, and I hope that he will comment on it before he
presses the amendment, if he chooses to do
so.
We are looking at
rearranging certain local government structures on a unitary basis,
which means that a very many councillors will be participating in a new
structure for the first time. In my view, it is likely that a number of
councillors will not have participated nor had previous experience of
either structure. I am delighted to have the opportunity to mention the
possible restructuring in Shropshire where, as I told the Minister last
night, we are possibly looking at a council of 96 councillors. One has
to ask oneself what all those people are going to do in a council of
that size that does not have any committee structure other than for
overview and scrutiny. How are they going to get engaged and
participate in decision
making?
The points
that have been made by other hon. Members are valid, so I shall not
rehearse them—councillors will have a lack of opportunity to
develop and grow and to participate in debate. So it is entirely
appropriate to have a committee structure option on a hybrid
basis.
Mr.
Woolas:
The debate is important, and it is being echoed in
council chambers, in members’ rooms and in the wider local
government family, so it is important that the Government present the
arguments clearly. I hope to persuade the Committee that the ideas on
which the amendment is based are ill-founded and would not achieve what
the mover of the amendment intended.
I hope that I have already
explained in our debates on previous clauses the Government’s
intention and thinking in relation to the executive arrangements that
we have proposed. However, let me repeat one point for emphasis. If one
is truly ambitious for local government, one believes that local
government can take up a strategic leadership role and a delivery role
across the range of services, across the portfolio of economic
regeneration of an area, across crime and disorder partnerships, across
the children and young people’s agenda and the health and
elderly people’s agenda. However, even medium-sized local
authorities are being asked to give strategic direction over hundreds
and hundreds of millions of pounds of public money, so the limit on the
Government’s willingness to devolve power is that we can do so
only when we are convinced that decision-making arrangements are in
place by which responsibility for such matters can be taken. If people
wish to portray that as an anti-devolutionary or centralist policy, I
will have to live with that, but we are debating the subject of the
barriers to devolution. The hon. Member for Hazel Grove takes an
entirely consistent position—that councils should decide, but I
want to persuade him that that is not in their interests.
Several hon. Members have said
that strong leaders existed under the old system. That is true—I
said it of the mayoral model in New York. My argument is not that
strong leadership follows necessarily from an executive arrangement, or
that an alternative
arrangement cannot produce a strong leader. I think that strong leaders
come out of strong political parties and a healthy body politic, which
I think all of us have an interest in fostering. My argument is rather
that the Government’s proposals are more likely to lead to
strong and accountable leadership and are more likely to be fit for
purpose for the new responsibilities and the extra powers that we
intend to give to local authorities.
On Second Reading,
the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) said
that if one is serious about devolution, one has to talk about money,
because power flows from it. It is precisely because we are serious
about devolving power over public money that one has to have confidence
in the executive
arrangements.
I
have referred often to the 2000 Act, which we are building on by way of
the Bill. That Act provided the types of executive arrangements, and
separated the role of back-bench councillor from the executive
councillors. As we are doing now, the Government took a devolutionary
and pragmatic approach in 2000. That is the answer to the points made
by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate, who asked why there should
be smaller councils. Ultimately, the figure of 85,000 for
population—it is population that counts, not the
electorate—is an arbitrary one. The cut-off date was 30 June
1999. If an area had a population of fewer than 85,000, it could adopt
what were referred to as alternative arrangements, also known as the
committee structure. In the event, of the 86 eligible
authorities, 59 adopted the alternative approach. Since then,
three authorities—Cotswold, Fylde and Rossendale—have
moved from alternative arrangements to executive arrangements, and have
adopted a leader and a cabinet. I have looked in vain for a common
thread between them but I could not find
one.
6
pm
The 2000 Act
also provided for alternative arrangements as a fall-back position in
case of a no vote in a mayoral referendum. That is the situation in
Brighton and Hove, and I know that it will listen closely to this
debate. But—and this is where we come to the core of the
argument—the amendments would not allow the enhanced committee
function to which my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South
referred. Indeed, under the existing arrangements, it is possible for
an executive to devolve executive powers to sub-areas. That is an
important part of the devolutionary approach and of involving people
and bringing them closer to their local authorities. An executive can
already devolve executive powers by
area.
In other
authorities—the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst
mentioned his own—the role of overview and scrutiny involves
policy development and what are commonly called task and finish groups,
through which recommendations can be made not just about traditional
areas of council activity but about the wider activity of the area, the
local authority and its partners. That is the nub of it.
I shall comment on the
rose-tinted glasses that my younger colleague the hon. Member for
Denton and Reddish mentioned, but the old internal decision-making
committee structure, whatever its strengths and weaknesses, was a
decision-making structure for the council as an institution and not for
the area as a whole. It would not be able to take responsibility for
the strategic direction of health, crime and disorder and children and
young people, never mind social care or other responsibilities. One
should see decision-making executive structures in the context of the
wider, enhanced role that we are increasingly inviting local
authorities to take. I think that that answers the point, because
smaller areas do not take on the
responsibilities. A
number of other points were made, which I shall try to answer. The hon.
Member for Ludlow asked what the other councillors should do, as those
who are not on the executive can feel excluded from decision making. It
is precisely because councillors across the political spectrum too
often spend more time in committees in the town, city or county
hall—or, to be fair, in districts—and not as champions of
their wards that we are in a situation in which too many councils have
become distant.
The
new functions that I have mentioned of overview and scrutiny and of
policy development and reports across the whole range of services
provide a fantastic opportunity for local authority back-benchers to be
involved in decision making. Indeed, if one attends the overview and
scrutiny committee, which is now a major annual event in the calendar
of local government, there is excitement and a buzz about the potential
role of overview and scrutiny.
I endorse strongly the point
that my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish made.
Inadvertently, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst backed up
his point when he mentioned a policy and resource committee made up of
the deputy leader and chairs of the committees. What is that if not an
executive by another
name?
Sir
Peter Soulsby:
It is precisely right to liken that to a
cabinet. The difference, however, is that opposition members were able to
question directly both the executive and the officers on the thinking
behind their recommendations to the committee. Surely, that was its
great strength—and that is lacking in the cabinet
system.
Mr.
Woolas:
I disagree with my hon. Friend on two counts.
First, a functioning overview and scrutiny committee allows such
questioning to be carried out in a way that is similar to the process
in the House, although I would not take the analogy too far. Secondly,
and more importantly, the public did not know what the policy and
resources committee was. Because of the local government
decision-making process that existed, the chairs of the committee took
decisions, often in private, often involving two or three people and
often not in the council building. The hon. Member for Bromley and
Chislehurst looks perplexed, but he cannot, with his experience of
local government, believe that Herbert Morrison took his decisions
openly in committees in every instance and debated them and did not
have a preconceived idea of what he
wanted.
Robert
Neill:
I am perplexed about the Minister thinking that
Londoners do not know who Herbert Morrison was. That surprised
me.
Mr.
Woolas:
If I did not know who Herbert Morrison was before
I arrived in London, his grandson certainly taught me about him. I
invite the hon. Gentleman to name one other chair of the committee from
the London county council at the time of Herbert Morrison. Unless he is
a complete local government anorak, which he is not, he will not be
able to do
so.
Robert
Neill:
Freda
Corbett.
Mr.
Woolas:
The legendary Freda Corbett is called in aid of an
argument to return to the committee system. At least the hon. Gentleman
is a conservative with a small ‘c’. I commend him for
wanting to go
backwards.
In
answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South, there is a
serious point to be made about accountability and visibility. The
amendment does not take us back, as he says, to the old committee
system. Nobody has spoken in favour of the old committee system, which
leaves we Committee members with the difficulty of not having a
definition of what an enhanced committee is. I believe strongly that
those councils that have grasped the executive arrangements and the
overview and scrutiny opportunities are already finding ways to involve
newer, and often younger, members in the decision-making
process—Tameside is a good example—and are getting the
benefits of that strong, speedier decision
making.
I think that I
have answered the points that have been made, if not to the
satisfaction of hon.
Members.
Dr.
Pugh:
The Minister made some pertinent, relevant
assertions, including that cabinet members are far more visible than
committee chairs ever were and that there is enthusiasm throughout the
land for scrutiny and overview. Those are contestable assertions. It
would be sensible to do some polling or evidence-based research to
justify those claims and find out whether cabinet members were any
better known to their local communities than committee chairs were and
whether there is enthusiasm among back-bench councillors. The evidence
is probably to the contrary, but has his Department commissioned any
research to find out whether the Minister is
right?
Mr.
Woolas:
The hon. Gentleman asks a legitimate question. I
have mentioned some of the surveys relating to this matter. Of course,
the Department has taken up such research, as has the Improvement and
Development Agency, the Leadership Centre for Local Government and, I
think, the Local Government Association. One has to test the whole
circumstance, including the overview and scrutiny and the executive
arrangements. My real evidence is in the improvement of performance of
local authorities. There is a correlation, which the research tends to
show, between better executive decision-making structures and the
enhanced performance of local government. I could throw in the 39 per
cent. real-terms increase in grant as well, but Mr. Benton
might accuse me of point scoring. I am not saying that there is always,
necessarily cause-and-effect between the two things. I concede the
point that the hon. Gentleman made reasonably. Strong leaders can
emerge under any structure, but I am concerned with what is most likely
to achieve that objective.
Mr.
Burrowes:
I am struggling to understand the
Minister’s logic when distinguishing between those smaller
councils that have alternative arrangements and the larger councils. He
suggests that councils with a population under 85,000 do not
necessarily involve themselves in strategic issues. I question that,
and I am sure that those authorities would question whether he is right
that they are not involved in strategic issues about children and young
people, crime and disorder and social care. They fundamentally are, and
they would question and challenge the idea that they do not have a role
to play in the strategic leadership of their local authority just
because they are smaller.
Is it not true that the
Minister is more worried about the budget and how much central money
councils have to deal with? One answer would be to make them fully
accountable and autonomous and to make them raise their own revenue.
The other option would be to have a cut-off link of 85,000 based not on
numerical population, but on the budget that it
receives.
Mr.
Woolas:
The hon. Gentleman tempts me down the road of the
other clauses on finances and on money-raising powers. If he will
forgive me, I shall resist.
I said that, to some extent,
the 85,000 figure was arbitrary. The hon. Gentleman rightly says that
it is based on population not on electorate. All such councils, with
the exception of one, are lower tier authorities. They are not involved
in the big strategic issues to which I referred, although they are
involved increasingly through enhanced two-tier working and under the
auspices of the local area agreement. It boils down to a pragmatic
approach. The one exception is the county of Rutland, re-created by a
former Prime Minister out of—probably worthy—nostalgia.
Rutland certainly has not asked for executive arrangements.
I concede to the Committee that
the question is where one draws the boundary and how far one involves
executive arrangements. I recognise that point, but it is right that
the Government, and indeed, Parliament should draw the line at some
point. Otherwise chaos would ensue.
The amendment that the hon.
Member for Hazel Grove has tabled would not achieve what he wants, and
that is because of the way in which it is written. Crucially, it would
not achieve what my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South would
like. What it describes as the enhanced committee structure can be
achieved under existing executive arrangements in the 2000 Act. If I
have the opportunity, I shall put into context those arrangements,
particularly the points about Brighton and Hove, which is I imagine
waiting with bated breath to find out how it fits into the clause. On
that point, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his
amendment.
Andrew
Stunell:
I said at the beginning that the clause is
six-and-a-half pages long. Perhaps I made it more difficult for hon.
Members by offering three different options, but some criticism of the
amendments did not, perhaps understandably, appreciate that.
As I said, amendment No. 34
would effectively provide all councils with the self-rule option;
amendment No. 100 would provide self-rule to all district and
metropolitan councils; and amendment No. 99 would provide self-rule to
all councils of any shape with a population of up to 850,000. They were
options, and perhaps if I had focused on just one, we might have had a
slightly different debate, although then no doubt the criticism would
have been that I had not taken account of other
options. 6.15 pm
I started by saying that I
should like the Minister to come out of his centralist mindset, seeing
as he has talked to the rest of us about doing so, and I am
disappointed that he has not. The debate has brought out some accurate
points. It is certainly true that my amendment does not define an
enhanced committee system, but if close definition of the outcome had
been intended in the Bill, we might have expected from the Government a
little more precision on the directly elected executive. Given the
response to the last debate, a lack of precision should not be a reason
for ruling such a system out.
The Minister set aside 100
years of local government performance—until at least 1948,
although we could take it further forward—when local authorities
in places such as Birmingham, which has been mentioned, and Manchester
were controlling utilities, transport and health as well as all the
services that they now control. They did that using the committee
system and, on the whole, they did it well.
I am disappointed by the
Minister’s response. He recognised that the debate is important
and crucial, but unfortunately he has come down on the wrong side of
it. Once again, he has raised the red herring that there is some
connection between performance or outcomes and the governance system.
In a previous debate, I think I heard him accept that there was no
connection; that is certainly the view of the Audit Commission, which
believes that there is no connection between the governance system and
outputs and outcomes.
Andrew
Stunell:
I shall be happy to give way to the Minister, but
just now he seemed to resile from what he had conceded in the previous
debate and to be saying that there was a difference in
performance.
Mr.
Woolas:
I said that there was no necessary cause and
effect and that it was, in my view, more likely that stronger executive
arrangements would lead to enhanced performance. That is the view that
the Department’s research has backed up. It is also a
common-sense view, given the increase in the performance of local
authorities as measured by the Audit Commission over that
period.
Andrew
Stunell:
Perhaps we need to discuss this in some other
place, but my understanding is that the Audit Commission is clear that
when it looks at its ratings and comprehensive performance assessments,
it cannot detect any difference in the performances of authorities
based on their existing leadership model. That includes those with the
alternative arrangements. They are neither noticeably worse nor
noticeably better,
and the same can be said for each of the categories. If the Minister
wants to say that the Audit Commission has got that wrong or that I am
misinterpreting what its data show, perhaps he will have another
opportunity to put his point.
Alistair
Burt:
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the debate has
been characterised by the Minister’s giving good reasons why he
does not prefer that particular model? He would prefer a choice of
others. However, he has not given a good reason why the choice should
not be there for authorities to take if they
wish.
Andrew
Stunell:
Absolutely. I thought that having given the
Minister, in my big-hearted way, three possible options to pick, he
might at least indicate that one or another might be slightly
preferable to him. However, he has not chosen to do so. I do not intend
to detain the Committee a great deal longer, but I want to press
amendment No. 34 to a Division.
The
Chairman:
Let us deal first with amendment No.
33.
Amendment
negatived..
Amendment
proposed: No. 34, in clause 41, page 24, leave out lines 19 to 31
and
insert—
‘(2)
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 33A and 33B, any principal
council may submit a scheme of internal governance appropriate to its
circumstances which shall stand deferred until the next election to the
council.
(3) Where no
recognised group has overall control, it shall be competent for the
council to implement other arrangements as it may determine.’.
—[Andrew
Stunell.]
Question
put, That the amendment be
made:—
The
Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes
11.
Division
No.
4
]
Blackman-Woods,
Dr.
Roberta
Smith,
Angela E.
(Basildon)
Question
accordingly
negatived.
Andrew
Stunell:
I beg to move amendment No. 37, in
clause 41, page 25, line 12, leave
out from ‘must’ to end of line 14 and insert
‘hold a referendum of local
government electors in the authority’s
area.’.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments: No. 42, in clause 41, page 27, line 32, leave out
from beginning to end of line 9 on page
28.
No. 44, in
clause 41, page 28, leave out lines 16 to
26.
No. 46, in
clause 42, page 30, line 30, leave
out subsection
(3).
Andrew
Stunell:
I seem to be having a good innings this
afternoon, but I will leave you in peace later on, Mr.
Benton.
The amendment
gives the Minister his second opportunity to come out of his centralist
mindset in relation to the requirement for a referendum before a
mayoral system can be introduced. The clause removes that requirement,
but the intention of the amendment is to restore it. Again, the debate
was rehearsed to some extent on Second Reading. There have been 32
mayoral referendums, but only 12 of those have been successful, in the
sense that they have approved a mayor, while 20 have been
unsuccessful. In the cases of four of the 12 successful referendums,
there are vigorous campaigns to get rid of the mayor. The Minister said
on Second Reading that it is of course possible to get rid of a mayor,
which led me to have a careful look at the wording. It is indeed
possible to do that, but only provided that the mayor agrees, because
the council has to sign off any such
change.
That is the
current situation. Whatever the merits of the mayoral system, at least
this completely novel form of local government required endorsement by
the public before it was put in place. As the Library note states, Lord
Hattersley has
said:
“Originally
the idea of switching from a proper council to an elected mayor had to
be endorsed by the local people...But the rules have been revised.
If a local authority wants to hand over its responsibilities to one
individual supported by anonymous councillors with emasculated powers,
it is now free to do so. The obligation to organise a referendum has
been scrapped. Too many referendums produce the wrong result. That
decision was, we must hope, the death throes of New Labour’s
novel definition of local democracy—the right of the people to
choose as long as they make the choice that the government
wants.”
I could hardly
have put it better
myself.
It is
extremely difficult to see any decentralising or empowering tendency at
work. Local people, who have so far said by two to one that they do not
want mayoral systems, will not be given the chance to choose, as it
will be for councils to decide. I want to hear the Government’s
answer to the criticism that they are proceeding simply in order to
force through more mayors in the face of popular dissent. The facts are
very clear. There is no need for me to go on any longer, but if the
Minister would like to comment in passing on the way in which proposed
new section 33N would be used to get rid of a mayor under the present
system, I would be interested to hear his
explanation.
Mr.
Woolas:
Thank you, Mr. Benton. I am grateful to
the hon. Member for Hazel Grove for tabling the amendment and giving us
the opportunity to debate this issue. The first premise of his speech,
and of the amendment, is that the Government want more local
authorities to take up the mayoral model, but that is not our policy.
Our policy is that local authorities should have strong executive
arrangements and that it
should be up to them to decide whether they are within the boundaries
that we have debated
today.
Neither
the Government nor I see what the hon. Gentleman described as the loss
of a referendum as a defeat. It is good that some local authorities
have taken up referendums. When the result has been against the mayoral
model, it has helped to enhance the democratic process and to reconnect
the local authority with the people. To think that that is the
Government’s objective is to misunderstand what we are trying to
achieve in prompting the debate about executive arrangements. We do not
prompt the debate about mayors in order to impose—via the front
door, back door or a side door—a mayoral model. It is evident
from our policy decisions and debates that that is not the case. We are
saying to local authorities, “We want you to have more power,
but we want you to have in place the arrangements that would best suit
that
purpose.”
At
the heart of the debate is the hon. Gentleman’s second premise,
on which we differ, although it is an honourable difference. When he
moved the amendment, he said that there should be a requirement to hold
a referendum. In other words, were the amendment to be passed, we in
central Government and Parliament would tell a council what it had to
do in such circumstances. There is a similar debate on the unitary
proposals. We are not saying to councils what the public test has to
be. If one is a devolutionist, one has to trust the council. I imagine
that if a council were to resolve to move to a mayoral model and that
model was unpopular in the area, the public would have their say at the
ballot box—indeed, I am certain that that would be the case.
Therefore, the premise on which the hon. Gentleman has based his case
is not where the Government are coming from. There may be, or may have
been, people in the Government who thought that it would be a good idea
to have mayors everywhere and to impose their introduction, but that is
not Government policy.
Andrew
Stunell:
The Minister has, to some extent, pre-empted me,
but the Prime Minister is not yet a former post holder. The Prime
Minister seemed extremely keen on this form of government. Indeed, it
has been suggested that that might be why the measure was first
introduced.
Mr.
Woolas:
Again, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. There
is a danger in politics that the Opposition believe their own
propaganda too much. Our manifesto makes our intention very clear. The
prompting of the debate about mayors is not so that the Government can
impose their favourite model, but to ensure that there is debate about
executive
arrangements.
The hon.
Gentleman has taken a perfectly consistent position, and I commend him
on it. He has said that the decision should be by referendum, and it
will still be possible under the Bill for the public to petition for a
referendum. Also, executive arrangements that have been determined by
referendum may be changed only by another referendum. The clause adds
to our manifesto commitment that local authorities should be able to
make that choice, which is why we reject the notion put forward in the
hon. Gentleman’s amendment.
6.30
pm
The hon.
Gentleman asked me specifically about proposed new section 33N to the
Local Government Act 2000, which is set out in clause 41 of this Bill.
It ensures that changes to the governance arrangements of mayor and
cabinet executive or elected executive—he would not like to see
those, but in such circumstances, this would apply—cannot be
made without the specific consent of the elected mayor or the elected
executive leader, both of whom have a direct mandate from the
electorate of the whole council area.
The effect of the
hon. Gentleman’s amendment would be to enable an authority to
make changes to its constitution, such as changes to the allocation of
responsibility for functions between the full council and the
executive, without needing to ensure beforehand that the executive was
content with that. That would undermine the accountability of the
executive. Those are the reasons why I reject the point of view that
the hon. Gentleman has put forward.
Mr.
Dunne:
Will the Minister clarify whether proposed new
section 33N(2) would mean that if an elected mayor or leader lost a
motion of confidence in his own performance, he could thereby prevent
the change in structure and keep himself in
post?
Mr.
Woolas:
A directly elected leader, be they a mayor or an
executive under the arrangements that we were discussing, can be
removed only by the electorate, unless criminal or other such activity
is involved—similarly, a Member of Parliament is elected for a
period of office. We are saying that an indirectly elected leader would
be elected by the full council for a period of four years, unless they
lose the confidence of the council, which would be expressed, as
happens now, through a resolution. Our intention is minor, but it is
symbolically
important.
At
the moment, a council leader faces re-election by the full council
every year. That normally happens at the annual general meeting on the
Saturday following local elections, although it sometimes occurs in the
following week. In practice, where there is majority control the
decision is made by the majority group. Where there is no overall
control, which is the case in a significant number of councils, that is
subject to the arrangements. The council leader needs re-endorsement
each year.
Under this
proposal, the constitution of the council would assume that the leader
would stay in office for four years, unless there is a motion of no
confidence in them at any council meeting, so the presumption is the
other way round.
Andrew
Stunell:
That would move towards the old Scottish system
of a four-year convenorship, as opposed to having one-year leadership.
Does the Minister intend or recognise that that will simply be bypassed
in real life by the way in which we do things in England? Will he be a
little more explicit about why he thinks that we need this provision
rather than just leaving things as they
are?
Mr.
Woolas:
The hon. Gentleman has made a good point. Because
of the process of dividing the role of the
executive from the role of back-bench overview and scrutiny, the council
as a corporate body requires its executive power to be accountable, and
the presumption of leadership for four years enhances that. I admit
that that is more symbolic than practical in the real world, and some
local authority leaders have said that they would prefer an annual
endorsement as part of their strong leadership, which is a reasonable
point of view. To answer the hon. Gentleman’s question directly,
placing that executive power in the office of the leader will enhance
accountability and the council’s ability—let alone its
leader’s ability—to implement its strategic objectives
with its
partners.
Andrew
Stunell:
I very much appreciate the Minister’s
generosity in giving way. I want to take him on to a different issue:
will he confirm the point in the Library briefing that the only way to
change an existing electoral mayoral system is if the existing elected
mayor agrees to it under proposed new section 33N(2)(a)? That seems to
be the
model.
Mr.
Woolas:
Let me explain again the principle behind the
policy that we are pursuing, as laid out in the Bill. The route by
which an executive arrangement has been made is the route by which it
can be undone. Of course, some stability for that must be built in and
an elected mayor can resign or face other circumstances that would
render him or her incapable of holding the office. In the absence of
that—this is the case in Stoke-on-Trent—the elected
mayor, who was elected directly by the population and whose office was
created by the referendum, must stay in office until the end of the
period.
Andrew
Stunell:
May I press the Minister on that point? Proposed
new section 33N is apparently a clear statement that a proposal to
change governance arrangements cannot be implemented unless the elected
mayor has given written consent to the proposed change. In the event of
a campaign against a mayor or popular consent against a mayor, he or
she is entrenched unless they sign something according to that
provision. Will the Minister tell me whether that is
correct?
Mr.
Woolas:
The hon. Gentleman slightly misunderstands what
proposed new section 33N does. It does not apply to changing the model
of governance, which is not what it refers to. The hon. Gentleman has
quoted proposed new section 33N(1), which is not about changing the
model of
governance.
Andrew
Stunell:
Perhaps this is a matter to take up outside the
Committee. However, the fact is that according to the Library note and
my reading of proposed new section 33N(2)(a), the mayor cannot be
dislodged and a new system cannot be proposed by the council unless the
mayor gives assent to
that.
Amendment
negatived.
Clause
41 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clauses
42 and 43 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
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