Clause
44
Elected
executives
Andrew
Stunell:
I beg to move amendment No. 105, in
clause 44, page 31, line 25, at
end insert—
‘(5A) Such
termination shall not take place until the end of a period of three
months after the elected leader ceases to hold office or until the
election of a new elected executive, whichever is the
sooner.’.
The
amendment relates to what happens when the leader steps down. The Bill
provides that when the leader steps down the entire executive falls
with him. I said in an earlier debate that if the leader was to go
under a bus today, with the budget being in three weeks’ time,
it would be somewhat inconvenient. If, in an election year, the leader
were knocked down by a bus on 11 November and were due to retire from
the council the following May, under the six-month
rule—
6.40
pm
Sitting
suspended for a Division in the
House.
6.54
pm
On
resuming—
Andrew
Stunell:
I realised during the Division that I am trying
to improve the unimprovable. Therefore, I would like to hear why the
Minister feels that amendment No. 105—and in due course
amendment No. 106—should not be accepted by the Committee,
bearing in mind that his scheme will be totally unworkable unless he
does.
Mr.
Woolas:
The passion of the hon. Gentleman’s
campaign against directly elected executives continues to grow. I will
defend the Government’s proposals and the schemes of my
colleagues in Stockton and elsewhere.
In tabling the amendment, I
think that the hon. Gentleman is trying to provide greater stability
for the council that has adopted the directly elected executive model
so that, if the elected leader ceases to hold office during the four
years, for whatever reason, there can be stability and the remainder of
the executive can carry on. The Government are keen to support
stability in councils so, on the face of it, it would seem that I
should accept the hon. Gentleman’s amendment. However, I have to
resist it. I shall explain
why
The Committee
knows that the Government’s view is that directly elected forms
of executive arrangements provide the strongest and most visible
leadership and are therefore the most accountable. As with a mayor, a
directly elected executive allows people to understand who is
responsible for taking difficult decisions—in other words, they
know where the buck stops. People would elect a directly elected
executive on the basis of the manifesto that has been produced and, of
course, they can hold that executive to account. However, under that
system they expressly elect a leader and members of the executive. When
they cast their vote they are choosing the person—the executive
leader—whom they want to be in charge of delivering a manifesto
and policies with the help of the executive members on his or her
slate, if I can use that word.
The executive powers of the
council rest in the office of the leader in those circumstances as in
the other two options, and it is therefore essential that if that
person ceases to hold office, the electorate are able to choose whom
they wish to replace that leader. Of course, that would result in a
by-election, and I suspect that it is part of the hon.
Gentleman’s concerns about this model. However, I think that
that is right. If the electorate have chosen an executive with a
leader, and that leader resigns or leaves office for some reason, they
should be able to choose a successor. That is a good thing and it will
help to achieve the improvement of local democracy that we all say we
want.
The provisions
relating to the filling of casual vacancies occurring in the office of
the elected mayor are contained in regulations; they were not included
in the 2000 Act. Broadly, those regulations state that an election to
fill the vacancy shall be held within 35 working days of the
date that the office was declared vacant. Until such an election has
taken place and the vacancy has been filled, the office is filled by
the deputy mayor. Therefore, it would be inconsistent to include in the
Bill the arrangements for such by-elections; to remain consistent, such
provisions should be contained in regulations in order.
I would like to reassure the
Committee, and take the opportunity to place on record, that we intend
to provide for the filling of vacancies in the office of the leader of
the directly elected executive in exactly the same way that is used for
the office of mayor. Where there is a vacancy for the office of leader
of an elected executive, an election for a new executive would have to
take place within 35 days of the date that the office was declared
vacant. That would be an election for a new leader and a slate of
candidates. Until such an election had taken place and the new
executive had taken office, we would intend to provide for the old
executive, led by the deputy leader, to continue. Requiring the
election of a new leader and executive within 35 days provides the
stability required in an authority and, crucially, the transparency and
accountability that I hope we all want to achieve. That is my
explanation of how to make a workable proposal even more
workable.
Andrew
Stunell:
It is always good to see Houdini in fine form. I
understand the points that the Minister has made. I am pleased to hear
that there will be suitable regulations. I am sorry that they are not
to be in the Bill, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Andrew
Stunell:
I beg to move amendment No. 107, in clause 44,
page 31, leave out lines 35 and 36 and
insert—
‘( ) The number of
members of the executive which is to be elected shall be the number of
persons included on the proposed executive that is declared elected,
but that number shall not exceed
12.’.
I
alluded to this amendment before. It deals with the question whether
the Minister has a fixed determination that a set size of slate should
be put before the electorate when the directly elected model is used,
or whether he would prefer the approach that the Liberal Democrats see
as right, which is that that, too, could be a matter for competition
between the competing teams who seek to run the authority, and
that the legislation should therefore allow for the executive being of
the size of the winning slate, provided that it is not above a fixed
number. We have said 12, but the Minister might prefer 10 as the
cut-off number. It is a straightforward matter. Would it not be right
to give the council and the electorate the right to choose the size of
the executive team that they have, as well as their political and other
composition?
Mr.
Woolas:
I again congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his
amendment, because councils that may be looking to adopt different
models would wish to know about these important matters. My own point
of view was influenced significantly by discussions with county council
leaders of different political groupings who pointed out the geography
of county councils and the distances that members had to travel. In one
case, the chair of the county council has to do a 120-mile round trip
to chair a meeting of the council or, indeed, a sub-committee of it. It
was felt that it would be better to have directly elected members who
could carry out functions in the administration, as well as the ward or
division councillors who could concentrate on their patch and travel
less frequently. There are other arguments in favour, and I do not
dismiss those arguments. It is important that we have that
flexibility.
That
brings us to the hon. Gentleman’s interesting suggestion, which,
if I understood him correctly, would allow competing slates to be of
different sizes and give councils greater flexibility. Of course, one
would have some flexibility. If a group wanted to have an executive
slate of 10 including the leader, and in fact to give a portfolio only
to four or five of those, that would be possible under the arrangement.
We have already debated the wider issues behind directly elected
executives and I have not convinced the hon. Gentleman that the
proposal is desirable and workable. I will keep trying, but not for too
long.
Clause 39
sets out our intention to extend to elected executives the current
provisions that determine the maximum and minimum number of executives
for mayoral or leader and cabinet models. That means that elected
executives will, including the leader, contain a minimum of three
members and a maximum of 10 members. The number of executive members
that a council has is set out in its constitution and is determined by
the full council. In determining the number of executive members,
councils should have regard to certain factors, including the need to
exercise their functions and the size of the council. The number of
candidates on a slate will therefore be identical to the number of
executives set out in the council’s constitution, which will
have been subject to the consideration of the full council. We have put
the cart before the horse, in other
words.
Andrew
Stunell:
I am sure that the Minister can easily envisage
circumstances in which an opposition group might say that it had a
different way of running the council, with a different number of
executives, with different departmental allocations, and that that
might be part of a legitimate—indeed, perhaps
essential—theme of value for money or some other argument that
they would wish to deploy. However, they would be trapped by a prior
decision to have an executive of a certain size. I wonder whether the
Minister would consider that situation.
Mr.
Woolas:
I confess to the Committee—I hope that my
Whip will not make a note of this—that I debated this issue with
the Liberal Democrat leader of a county council late one night in a
restaurant somewhere in south-west England. The argument that I made
then was as follows. The full council takes the decision on what model
it will use. The full council takes that decision before the electorate
have chosen which political colour of slate they want to run the
council. In doing so, the council cannot pre-empt the decision of the
electorate. Therefore, the number of people on the elected executive
and what resolution the council forms in setting up that executive
will, of course, come before the people have had their say. The
executive’s obligation, therefore, is to include in the number
of the directly elected executive members the equivalent number to that
which would be in the cabinet of the leader, or indeed hypothetically
the mayor, paying regard to the functions, the geography of the place
and so on.
In
practice, if a slate did not want to adopt that full role and wanted to
change those functions, it would have to justify that to the council in
the first instance. However, it would be wrong to allow a council to
pre-empt the decision of the electorate by changing the constitution in
such a way that a fair comparison could not be made. That was the
conclusion of the late-night debate in a hotel in south-west
England.
Andrew
Stunell:
Again I am disappointed by the Minister’s
answer, because under the amendment the council would not be
pre-empting the electorate’s decision; on the contrary, under
his system, the council will be pre-empting that decision. It will
decide whether to have eight, 10, or whatever the number might be of
members, and it will have a constitution that is approved. Under the
system proposed in the Liberal Democrat amendment, the council would
not be pre-empting the electorate’s decision and it would be for
those who contested the executive election to put forward a slate that
they thought was appropriate to the circumstances of that council.
Under the system that I am proposing, far from the council pre-empting
the electorate’s decision, the situation would be exactly the
opposite. However, it is clear that the haze has not yet cleared from
that late-night hotel session and therefore I will not press the
amendment today. I hope that wiser counsel will prevail in the
ministerial office in due course. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
Mr.
Dunne:
I would like to ask the Minister a question about
the clause. My concern arises from the fact that the Minister envisages
a slate of people being elected under the proposed system. One has to
assume that many of those people will have been councillors, because
they are the people who are most likely to wish to take executive roles
with the authority, and that within a month or thereabouts there would
have to be a by-election for all those members of the slate who have
been elected as leaders of the council. Does the Minister envisage that
that will lead to greater public participation in local elections, or
to less? The only example that I am aware of in recent years of an
election taking place shortly after a another election in
which turnout rose was the case of my good friend and neighbour, my hon.
Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack). In
that election, the turnout soared shortly after the general election in
very peculiar circumstances.
When there are by-elections
shortly after an all-out election, surely the turnout will be greatly
reduced, which will lead to increasing apathy among the local
electorate for local elections. In any event, it is a challenge for all
those involved in local elections to encourage turnout. Does the
Minister have any examples of any authority anywhere in the world where
a similar system applies? It would be useful for the Committee to know
that.
Mr.
Woolas:
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising a serious
point about the by-election process that could result from this
directly elected model. I thank him for giving me the opportunity to
repeat my comments to The
Daily Telegraph last week when
I learned with great regret that despite the increased turnout at the
election, the Conservative party have ignored the advice of the
electorate in that part of the world and have tried to deselect the
hon. Gentleman. I said that it was a terrible day for Parliament when
hon.
Members—
The
Chairman:
Order Could I ask the Minister to come back to
the
point?
Mr.
Woolas:
Thank you Mr. Benton. I think you put
it more politely than my Whip was about to do. I have now completely
forgotten the question that I was asked. It was about by-elections. In
our model, if an individual stood both as a ward councillor and as a
member of the slate, he or she would risk winning and losing. In the
event of winning the executive election, they would have to resign the
ward election and in the event of losing they would, if elected at ward
level, carry on in that position. Those individuals would have to face
that decision and make that judgment. It is right that under this model
people cannot hold both offices, just as an elected mayor cannot also
hold a ward councillor position. It is part of the separation of
executive and policy.
Finally—this comes back
to the point that I have been trying to get across to the
Committee—it would be the council’s decision whether to
go for this model. If it was aware of the possibility of forcing
by-elections and took the view that it might be damaging to its
democracy because of turnout or other factors—it is not right
for me to pre-empt its considerations—I assume that it would not
go for that model. But it would be a consequence of the model that is
being put forward. I hope that factually answers the hon.
Gentleman’s
question.
Mr.
Dunne:
It certainly answers the first part of the
question. The second part of the question is whether there are any
precedents anywhere in the world for such a
system.
Mr.
Woolas:
The second part of the question was about the hon.
Member for South Staffordshire but you, Mr. Benton, will not
allow me to go down that road.
In this country the traditional
way of filling a vacancy is through a by-election and that is what we
are providing for, but there are other approaches in other European
countries. For example, in France some elected representatives have a
deputy elected alongside them. One could point to the example of the
list system in the European Parliament. Those two systems avoid the
need for by-elections, but I do not believe that that is a better
alternative. It is better to give the public the say at the end of the
day. While this model is not based on examples of by-election processes
in other parts of the world there are directly elected executive models
in parts of Europe, particularly in France. I hope again that that is a
factual answer to the hon. Gentleman’s
question.
Question
put and agreed
to.
Clause 44
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clauses
45 to 49 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
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