Dan
Rogerson: The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. I
bumped into the chief executive of our strategic health authority on
the way up to Westminster this week, but most of our constituents would
not have the opportunity for that sort of chance meeting. They would
not recognise him if they saw him, and would have no idea what
influence he has over future health
spending. The Appointments Commission is advertising for a new chair for
that authority, and I wonder how many of my constituents know what role
that important position will have in their
lives.
Mr.
Goodman: I agree. There is a certain amount of muttering
on the Labour Benches. If one went right through those Benches, I
wonder how many Labour Members one would find who have had a meeting in
the past six months with their strategic health authority. I wonder how
many of them, if one stopped them in the corridor for a vox
pop—assuming they did not think that it was about other topical
themes of the moment—would be able to name the people who lead
it.
That is just
one example of the bodies listed in the clause, and there are some
curious omissions. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and
Ripon said, why not the Learning and Skills Council? Again, one could
argue that it operates somewhere in the world between bureaucratic
appointment and democratic action. Why is it not on the list? It is
significant that although local authorities will have a duty under the
clause to promote the understanding of an authority that includes the
Secretary of State, they will not have a duty to promote understanding
of national Government. Again, one might ask why not. There are serious
questions to be asked about why these authorities exist, what the
rationale is for them, and what the rationale is for the possible
exclusion of other bodies on the basis of their inclusion.
Towards the
end of the clause, subsection (6)
states: “The
appropriate national authority may by order amend this section so as
to—
add any person who has
functions of a public nature to the authorities”.
In other words, if
anyone in Government has forgotten to put something in his clauses and
has forgotten to add any amendment—in addition to the 170
amendments already tabled—he can come along by order and bung
them in under the clause, correcting his own mistakes without any
democratic consideration in a Committee like
this.
Mr.
Jackson: My hon. Friend refers to the bizarre omissions
from the clause. He should also, perhaps, consider the bizarre
inclusions. The nemesis of the nanny state is that this primary
legislation seeks to tell us about the democratic arrangements of a
parish meeting—that seems to be reaching into the nooks and
crannies of life—and also the democratic arrangements of a chief
police officer. That is bizarre in the extreme given that it has been a
convention not to interfere in the operational matters of the police.
Finally, does my hon. Friend agree that it is also bizarre that, as we
include a national park authority, we do not include an area of
outstanding national beauty in the Bill?
Mr.
Goodman: It will be interesting to hear the
Minister’s justification for the omissions and inclusions. I
must confess that on the Conservative side of the Committee—and
probably on the Labour side, although they are too tactful and loyal to
say so—there will be complete confusion about the basis for
including such things. It is
hard to see how a chief officer of police can have the democratic label
attached to him in the same way as a police authority can.
Of course it
is a good thing for local authorities to promote understanding in that
way, but to put it in statute with a performance indicator attached,
which local authorities will not have to sign up to in any case, can
only mean that Downing street has gone around the Departments and said,
“You must put up your quota of Bills for this year.” The
Government could not, then, think of anything better than this Bill and
this wretched
clause.
Julia
Goldsworthy: The name of the hon. Member for Thurrock
(Andrew Mackinlay) is being invoked fairly frequently and we are only
debating clause 2. Although some of the language he used on Second
Reading was unparliamentary, perhaps it is best described as “a
load of Thurrocks.”
The
clause is bizarre because the basic assumption behind it is that there
is no problem with the structures that are in place for all the quangos
and democratically accountable bodies listed in the subsections. It
presumes that all those structures are fine, and that the problem is
that people do not understand how they work. That is the fundamental
point that the Government have got wrong. Do people not understand what
the Homes and Communities Agency does because the local council has not
been telling them, or is it because it is opaque and difficult to
define? I sat at a meeting where the Homes and Communities Agency and
the regional development agency had a debate about who was responsible
for place shaping in the south-west. It is likely that their roles and
accountability structures are not clearly defined—not that
people are so stupid that they cannot understand
them.
Mr.
Curry: If the hon. Lady thinks that is difficult, wait
until we get the new super planning quango in operation and see how
that is going to relate to local
people.
Julia
Goldsworthy: The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right.
If we want a genuine debate about engaging people, I do not see how
that can be done purely by saying that the problem is a lack of
information and the way it has been spread around. Surely there must be
a much more fundamental look at how the information is provided and the
underlying structures. That is the fundamental problem that the Bill,
particularly this clause, fails to
address. 12.15
pm
Mr.
Jackson: Is the hon. Lady as puzzled as I am that the
Government seem to use turnout as a measurement of disengagement from
local government, yet in our modern age we are deluged with
information, particularly from Government Departments and
organisations, on websites, in the local library and so on? In fact,
the turnout is no worse now than it was in the early 1970s, when much
of that information was distributed to local
people.
Julia
Goldsworthy: Turnout should not be the only measurement we
use to decide whether information is effectively available or whether
people are engaged, not
least because so many of the organisations have no direct democratic
mandate. An issue that my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall
raised in oral questions earlier was the fact that there is not direct
democratic accountability for a national park, for
example. The
Government have not gone back to the first-level question: do people
not want to participate? If that is the case, is it because they do not
understand, which is what the assumption seems to be, or is it because
they feel that their participation will make no impact on the outcome?
No amount of information will persuade people to take part if they can
say, “I have found lots of ways to make my complaint to the
strategic health authority, but it still told me to get lost and that
it was going to give out resources in the way in which it had already
said. What is the point?” It is that whole issue that the
Government seem not to get. It is the elephant in the room, and it is
not addressed in any part of the
Bill. Like
the hon. Member for Wycombe, I am puzzled as to why only the local
authority has responsibility for promoting understanding of the
functions and democratic arrangements of authorities, and how members
of the public can take part. Actually, I would like the Homes and
Communities Agency to stand up and explain how it is accountable. I
would like the strategic health authority to make itself more publicly
visible and accountable, and to explain how its complaints process and
decision-making structure work. Are local authorities to produce
written information even on that? They will have to produce hefty tomes
to explain exactly how all the different authorities work and what the
accountability structure
is. An
organisation that is not on the list of authorities but absolutely
should be is the regional development agency. Why are RDAs not included
on the list? The explanatory notes state that connected authorities
are “public
bodies or persons that have a strong local presence, making decisions
that are directly relevant to local people in the principal local
authority’s
area”. I
cannot think of any organisation that has as great a role. In the
south-west, in Cornwall in particular, the RDA has a massive influence
at local level. Not only does it control economic regeneration budgets;
it also runs the convergence programme, which involves European funding
and has the potential to have a massive impact on Cornwall’s
economy. Just
yesterday, the RDA announced that it would withdraw funding for a key
project that would deliver huge amounts of employment in a part of my
constituency. It made that announcement without consulting any elected
representative, as far as I am aware. Cornwall MPs have been seeking a
meeting with the RDA for more than a month to raise concerns about
pressures on budgets, but it refused to meet us. It said that it was in
purdah, but the day after it came out of purdah, it announced that it
was making massive
cuts. I,
for one, would be keen to have the RDA stand up and explain to local
people how its accountability process works, because it is not clear to
me. I cannot see why RDAs are not included on the
list.
Mr.
Jackson: The hon. Lady touches on an important point about
RDAs. She might also wish to consider Government offices for the
regions, and in particular their giving a green light or otherwise to
residential
developments. They usually give a green light to large-scale residential
developments on, for instance, allotment land. Such permission given by
a Government office completely undermines and circumscribes the
planning decisions taken by the local authority. Does she think that
needs an element of local input in a
democracy?
Julia
Goldsworthy: Absolutely, and that leads me to a further
question. The Minister may be aware that when I was first elected, I
invested a huge amount of time in promoting the Sustainable Communities
Bill, which was a private Member’s Bill and was enacted a year
or two ago. A key proviso of that Act was a requirement for local
spending reports to be produced detailing the extent of all public
spending on a principal authority basis. If the Government believe that
the functions of authorities connected to the principal local
authority, the democratic arrangements and how members of the public
may take part in those democratic arrangements are important for local
people and will encourage engagement, surely local spending reports are
also important. People will then understand not only what decisions are
made, but their impact on resources. I am disappointed that the
Government are trying to kick the matter into the long grass, and are
providing only limited information, which is already in the public
domain, when lower spending by, for example, RDAs will not be provided.
I would appreciate hearing the Minister’s response on why that
was not included, because if providing details of public spending at
principal authority level and understanding at local level are
important, surely information must also be provided about public
spending. The
Minister clearly wants people to understand how all the agencies
interrelate and what the accountability and democratic arrangements
are. Will she provide a brief, plain English summary of that in
relation to the authorities? It will create a massive amount of work
for councils to do that, and we will probably end up with a document
that is incomprehensible because there is no clarity or consistency in
the democratic structures. People will not understand because the
matter is so complicated and confusing, and that fundamental problem is
not being
addressed.
Mr.
Lilley: I am a simple-minded soul, and when I look at a
Bill, I try to see how it will affect my constituents. The problems
that they most frequently bring to me, when there is evidence of lack
of understanding of who is responsible for what and what democratic
accountability is, concern housing. I do not know about other Members,
but for me the biggest range of issues by far concerns housing, so I
looked to see whether there is any responsibility for promoting
understanding and where democratic responsibility lies for housing
providers. I cannot find
that. Will
North Hertfordshire district council have a duty to promote
understanding of democratic accountability and means of participating,
and influencing North Hertfordshire Homes, which is an independent
provider of what were formerly council homes? That is a relevant
matter, which the Minister has clearly not thought about. It shows how
little thought has gone into the Bill when the biggest single
issue—[Interruption.] Sorry; I do
not blame the Minister, who has had almost as little time to think
about the matter as I have. It was the first thing to occur to me, but
she cannot be blamed for the
Bill.
Mr.
Raynsford: The right hon. Gentleman has had rather more
time to understand the structures of local authorities and their
housing responsibilities. The day-to-day running of housing in his part
of Hertfordshire might have been passed to the arm’s length
management organisation or housing association to which he refers, but
the local authority remains a housing authority, so it is
democratically responsible. In the course of explaining the duties in
clause 1, which we have just approved, the authority will clearly
explain its role and the relationship to it of the various providers of
housing in the area. I hope that that answers the right hon.
Gentleman’s
question.
Mr.
Lilley: Earlier, the right hon. Gentleman accused the
Opposition of complacency. Now he is assuming that the electorate
understand the fine points of constitutional practice relating to
housing boards that he understands and believes that I understand, but
some of my constituents were not aware of the points that he made, and
might have thought that a duty would be placed on local authorities. If
they are to explain the workings of the Broads Authority, the primary
care trust or the strategic health authority, the issue that concerns
them most, which they most frequently bring to my surgeries, would be
featured in the Bill. I can neither see nor find it, and I require an
explanation as to why it is not there.
The second
most frequent issue that comes up in my surgery is planning matters.
There is concern among constituents about the democratic accountability
of planning inspectors. Again, I cannot find reference in the Bill to
that issue. We have the extraordinary situation whereby, although the
Bill intends to lay on local authorities a duty to promote
understanding and clarify misunderstandings, the two most important
issues—the two that arise most frequently in my constituency of
Hitchin and Harpenden—are not mentioned in the Bill. I suspect
that that is the case in most constituencies, unless mine is
extraordinarily different from the rest of the country. Will the
Minister explain why that is so? Is there some intricate clause that I
have not yet located and understood, which reveals the
answer?
Julia
Goldsworthy: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that it
is a lack of understanding of how the planning process works that
drives so many constituents to his surgery, or is it frustration at how
the current planning system works—for example, the fact that
there is no third-party right of appeal? Is the problem with the way
the decisions are made, rather than a lack of understanding of how they
are made?
Mr.
Lilley: The hon. Lady makes a good point. It is always
frustration that brings people to my surgery. They do not come for
abstract seminars on where power lies.
[Interruption.] Apparently, they do in the
constituency of one of my hon. Friends. When something has gone wrong,
when they have met a brick wall, or when they think that something is
unfair or does not seem right, they come to me. Sometimes, that reveals
that they do not understand where the responsibilities lie,
particularly in planning
matters. To
return to my constant theme, which will be repeated on a number of
occasions, my constituents come to me when they are told that Luton
council is planning to
build houses in north Hertfordshire. “How can that be
right?”, they say. “How can that be possible? We vote for
North Hertfordshire district council and for Hertfordshire county
council. We know that they have housing targets that they have to meet
in their areas, yet Luton seems to be able to meet its target by
building in our area.” Is there any duty on the local authority
to explain how that is so, how it can be possible and under what law it
arises? That is the biggest single issue in my constituency and it does
not seem to be covered by the Bill, yet it seems that it ought to cover
it. | 
