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Mr. Denham: The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. He says that the Government say that they support Total Place, but the Government invented it. We are driving Total Place forward, and I am grateful for his support for it.
I will come to Total Place, the lessons that we can learn from it and how it fits into the wider picture in due course. However, it is important in a debate on local government to set the policy scene behind the demand for local information. The hon. Member for Meriden wrote in August urging Conservative-controlled councils to go slow on making land available for housing and jobs. That was an act of gross and irresponsible economic vandalism, but it speaks volumes about the Conservative party's approach. Any discussion that we have about local spending information needs to set in that context.
Mrs. Spelman: Actually, the Secretary of State is going the right way about committing his own economic vandalism, by misrepresenting the policies of the Conservative Opposition and stoking unjustified fears about our clear plans to provide more housing and more jobs, which his Government have failed to provide.
Mr. Denham: Given the support that the hon. Lady gave to Conservative councils to resist attempts to provide land for housing, she has some difficultly in trying to explain how that would provide the land needed for housing.
The second point about local spending plans is that the Opposition would like there to be a lot less local spending. They are on record as saying that my Department should have its spending cut by £1 billion this year-not next year or when we look at deficit reduction, but this year. That is hugely damaging. I agree that making local spending information available is important, but it is also worth noting that the Conservative party fundamentally believes that there should be far less spending, although it has never been open and straightforward about its plan. The Opposition proposals are wrong, because they would damage recovery and lead to further huge cuts in housing, on top of their desire to block housing.
The background to this debate is that Government Members believe in strong, accountable and effective local government, able to influence the whole of public service spending in its area. We believe in devolution on principle, but we also believe in it for a purpose: to deliver high-quality public services while making each taxpayers' pound work as hard as it can. We see devolution as a way of entrenching people's entitlements to public services and ensuring that they are delivered. The proposals that I set out last July to extend the scrutiny power of local government will ensure that councils and councillors have the power to challenge how every pound of local public service money is spent.
The Conservatives couple the localisation of power with the abandonment of any concept of, or commitment to, the standards of service that citizens have a right to enjoy. That is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It is a charter to make the postcode lottery the founding principle of conservatism in local government. The Conservatives have given the green light for "Ryanair councils", where people have to pay twice-once in tax and then in an extra tax-to get a decent service.
I make that point because although the hon. Member for Meriden spoke a great deal about local spending, she said almost nothing about information on the quality
of local services. That is not a surprise, because as part of their package, the Conservatives have promised to abolish targets, end standards and stop entitlements. They have also promised to stop inspections: they do not want to check on standards because there will not be any. Government Members support local spending reports, but I am sure that they agree that it is the outcome of the spending-the quality of service that our constituents receive-that matters most.
Mr. Dorrell: We can have a debate about local quality reports another day, but could we come to local spending reports-something to which the Secretary of State has so far made only glancing references? That is the subject of the motion on the Order Paper.
Mr. Denham: The Conservatives are uncomfortable when it is set out in front of them what their policies mean for the quality of local public services, so I am not surprised that I am being urged to move on. I will do so, but it is important to put this on record. There is a great deal of interest in the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill outside this Chamber, and it is important to put on record the fact that there is no cosy consensus between us and the Conservatives on the future of local government and of local government services; there is in fact a big divide.
Before we knew the subject for today's debate, I had already arranged to speak at the Royal Society of Arts, and I gave a lecture there last Wednesday on the future of local government. If I may, I should like to read from the part of that lecture that is directly relevant to today's discussion. I said:
"Public data is an essential tool in creating pressure to drive improvements in public services-on the old principle that knowledge is power. It puts all the information, and therefore the power, in the hands of users, service providers and would-be providers-including social enterprises. People should be able to compare the outcomes and the costs for their own local services with the services delivered elsewhere, and suggest means of improving and driving change. An open data policy as part of our broader efforts towards democratic renewal is important for creating a culture in which Government information is accessible and useful to as many people as possible".
That is a statement of principle that I am happy to restate in this House. It is, of course, exactly what local spending reports are about.
I want to set out what we have done so far, what the next steps will be and, crucially, how the Government's wider policies for the reform of local government, local public spending and public data openness will continue to transform the availability of public data. As the House knows, we have completed the first stage of local public spending reports. There has been some suggestion in this debate that the Government have in some way significantly deviated from promises made at the time the Sustainable Communities Bill was being discussed, and that we have backtracked on them. In the debate on 2 May 2007, the Minister then responsible, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East and Saddleworth (Mr. Woolas), rightly said:
"The local spending report would cover all public expenditure in each local authority area in so far as it is possible to define it." --[ Official Report, Sustainable Communities Public Bill Committee, 2 May 2007; c. 46.]
In that same debate, which many hon. Members attended, he also entered a number of caveats- [ Interruption. ] This is relevant, because the suggestion has been made in this debate that the Government's response to that
legislation was dishonest or disingenuous. It is therefore important to remind the House of the reasonable and practical qualifications that the then Minister made when talking about the public expenditure reports.
Mr. Letwin: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Denham: I should like to make a little progress, then I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman.
My hon. Friend went on to say that he was talking about
"expenditure that can be easily identified as relating to a particular area".
I have previously made the point about the desire of the hon. Member for Meriden to include the Infrastructure Planning Commission in this, but it would be difficult in an annual report to identify how much of that expenditure related to a particular area. My hon. Friend went on to say:
"We do not propose to create a new power to require additional information to be provided". --[ Official Report, Sustainable Communities Public Bill Committee, 2 May 2007; c. 51.]
He also said that the clause that was being discussed specified that the cost of producing the report must be limited.
I do not believe that what we have today represents the end of the process. I am simply making the point that it was clear from everything that my hon. Friend the Minister said at that time that there would be some limits on the data that were initially provided as part of this process. The important thing about today's discussion is to determine how we move forward from where we are.
Mr. Letwin: It was in response to me that the then Minister made several of those remarks in that debate. The impression that he gave was very clear to all present, and it was confirmed in discussions outside the Committee Room. It was that there would be detailed reports. There are detailed reports produced by others, which are based on Government information. That Government information has not been published. The Secretary of State cannot stand there and say that the Government have done what they committed themselves to do. I regret that, but that is the fact.
Mr. Denham: The Government made it clear at that stage that there were limits to what would be immediately provided, and that there were some absolute limits on what could be provided. This is an important point, and I will come in a moment to the case of Cumbria and to other examples. It is a completely wrong charge to suggest that what the Government have done so far represents a stepping back from the commitments that we made at that time. What we have now does not represent the complete process, but it does not represent a stepping back.
Julia Goldsworthy: Does the Secretary of State accept, given the large numbers of individuals and organisations that supported these measures, that this will have undermined their confidence in the process and made them less confident that it will be successful? Is not that the fundamental problem? If we are trying to encourage people to participate, will not this failure to meet their expectations undermine that?
Mr. Denham: When I was listening to the hon. Member for Meriden earlier, I certainly shared the concern that if that is what has been communicated outside the House about the reasonable expectations and the Government's attitude, it might well have had that effect. I share that concern, and it is something that I wish to address. It is important for Members of the House to provide information to those outside in a reasonable and balanced way.
Mr. Dorrell: I want the Secretary of State to address his mind to a specific question. The list of institutions relating to practical objections to the publication of this information locally includes the probation service. Will he explain what the practical objections are to publishing local information about the cost in each locality of the probation service?
Mr. Denham: The right hon. Gentleman makes a very fair point, and it is one that I wish to pursue in suggesting that the House support my amendment proposing a further report in December. I do not believe that the job is yet done in a number of areas.
Let me refresh the House's memory on where we had got to. The first stage of local spending reports was published on 29 April. The data that they contained were wider than those originally proposed in the first consultation. Although the House has been told the opposite this afternoon, they include data on spending by the Department for Work and Pensions. That was not on the list, and the House has been told that it is not on the list, but it is on the list. In addition to principal local government spending, the data include police, fire, waste disposal, passenger transport, park authorities, strategic health authorities, ambulance trusts, NHS trusts, primary care trusts and spending by the DWP.
That first stage covered the data that were held in Government at-or primarily at-principal local authority level, and which could be made available without incurring significant additional costs. There is an important point to be made here. It is at that local authority level that the focus of interest lies. The first port of call in the exercise involved the data that were already held in Government systems, aggregated at principal local authority area level, that could be made available.
It is clear to everyone that a great deal of local public spending is not covered by the first stage of the reports. That is why we are having the debate this afternoon. Given my commitment to openness of data-and the statement that I made last week, when I was unaware that this debate was going to take place-I want to share frankly with the House some of the challenges involved in moving to the next stage.
Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): Do Ministers know what these data would reveal? Are they therefore embarrassed for others to know about them? Or do they want to be in ignorance?
Mr. Denham: If the right hon. Gentleman had waited for just a moment longer, he would have heard me explain that these are serious and practical issues that are worthy of a proper debate. Given the experience of right hon. and hon. Members who will speak later, I hope that they will also address them.
First, there is the question of how we characterise the spending that takes place physically in one area but serves a much wider area. Universities and prisons
would be two contrasting examples. In one sense, leaving them out of the picture entirely is unsatisfactory, but pretending that the universities of Southampton and Southampton Solent are properly to be included only in Southampton's local spending report would be equally unsatisfactory. Some very significant areas of public spending do not fit neatly into local spending reports. It would be useful to hear in our debate-I am genuinely interested in this point-whether the mood of the House is that it would be better for this to appear as expenditure on two major universities in Southampton's spending report and nowhere else in the country, or whether it should be shared.
The hon. Member for Meriden referred several times to quangos. One quango that has had its expenditure doubled in real terms under this Government is the Higher Education Funding Council; I used to be responsible for it. I was once, for my sins, a member of Hampshire county council's education committee in the 1980s when the then Portsmouth polytechnic and the Southampton institute of higher education were funded by local government. One of the best things that the previous Conservative Government ever did in education policy was to move those significant higher education institutions out of local government control in order to fund them centrally. We now have two significant additional universities in Hampshire that did not exist then, and they are much more successful because of the autonomy that they have gained.
I make that point because an argument running through this debate is that quango expenditure is by nature illegitimate, funds nothing of any great value and should simply be included in local public spending reports. [Interruption.] That was the gist of what the hon. Member for Meriden had to say. I do not accept that. When people outside hear the Conservative party attacking quangos in this way- [Interruption.] One of the reasons why the amount of money spent has gone up is because the Government have invested a lot extra in areas such as higher education. Of course the expenditure has gone up, but it is not a bad thing; this is what enables our constituents' children to go to university and benefit from it. I raise this as a serious issue for discussion: why should Winchester prison, or Southampton and Southampton Solent universities, for example, feature in a local spending report? I shall come on to some other examples in a few moments.
Mr. Denham: I shall give way to the right hon. Gentleman so that he can answer my question.
Mr. Letwin: I will, indeed. Let me give the Secretary of State a very comforting answer, which he could take back to the officials who, to our certain knowledge, have resisted this idea for three years. If he makes a judgment and states the assumption, we are happy. We are happy to have a public debate about whether the assumptions on which allocations are made are reasonable. It does not matter what they are to begin with, as long as they are open and public. Will the Secretary of State please just tell all the officials that what the House of Commons, across the parties, would like is the real McCoy on the basis of simplified assumptions, which are stated? The Secretary of State will then not have to worry about any of these questions, as they will be debated in public.
Mr. Denham: That would be one way of approaching it, although I fear that it might be misleading. The question of Cumbria has come up; indeed, the right hon. Gentleman himself may have raised it. There are two points to be made here-I shall come back to the second-and the one for this afternoon's debate, in which I have some interest, is that Cumbria's public spending includes expenditure at Sellafield. Everybody says that Cumbria has £7 billion of public expenditure-a figure that I have used myself in articles and debates. That appears to suggest, at face value, that public expenditure on public services in Cumbria is the same as in the city of Birmingham. I have to say that we must be careful in this process not to produce misleading results.
Mr. Denham: I think that the right hon. Gentleman accepts the point of principle that I am making, even if he disagrees with the conclusion I have reached.
Mr. Letwin: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way, as this is now beginning to be a productive debate about the actual subject for discussion. If he looks at the Cumbria publication, he will discover that the population of Cumbria has been treated intelligently. The figures are presented first on the basis that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is included and, secondly, on the basis of excluding it. I recommend this further idea to the Secretary of State: where he has doubt, he should publish on two bases. We would be happy with that, too.
Mr. Denham: That is a possibility that we will certainly continue to explore. When I produce my report in December, I may well form a view on this. The idea, however, that expenditure on Southampton and Southampton Solent universities is a secret that our constituents would find enormously difficult to discover if they wanted to know how much money was involved, is also ridiculous. What I am most interested in doing here-I say this in all honesty-is producing data that meet the public need. An illusion is being pushed that vast areas of expenditure are somehow kept secret by the state, and that it is enormously difficult to find out about them-yet through a couple of clicks on the internet, it is actually not hard to find the published information available. My predecessors and I have taken this exercise as one of great importance for trying to produce genuinely relevant local spending information. That is what I would like to continue to do. Everything could be put in, but that would not necessarily advance the quality of information.
Julia Goldsworthy: The line of argument that the Secretary of State is following assumes that local communities want this information to compare their spending with that of other local areas. Actually, this is all about feeding into a process of how to reprioritise funding within their own areas. For example, the right hon. Gentleman talks about university funding, but the local community may be saying, "We think that investing more in very young children might impact better on higher education participation than simply providing money for the universities. Can we have a discussion about a process for focusing our priorities in that way?" It is not just about comparing spending in one area with that of another area.
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