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Session 2009 - 10
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Delegated Legislation Committee Debates



The Committee consisted of the following Members:

Chairman: Mrs. Janet Dean
Brown, Lyn (West Ham) (Lab)
Burden, Richard (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
Cruddas, Jon (Dagenham) (Lab)
Davies, David T. C. (Monmouth) (Con)
Flynn, Paul (Newport, West) (Lab)
Follett, Barbara (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government)
Goldsworthy, Julia (Falmouth and Camborne) (LD)
Greenway, Mr. John (Ryedale) (Con)
Harris, Mr. Tom (Glasgow, South) (Lab)
Mactaggart, Fiona (Slough) (Lab)
Neill, Robert (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
Rogerson, Dan (North Cornwall) (LD)
Smith, Chloe (Norwich, North) (Con)
Turner, Mr. Neil (Wigan) (Lab)
Watkinson, Angela (Upminster) (Con)
Wright, Mr. Anthony (Great Yarmouth) (Lab)
Mrs. S. Davies, Committee Clerk
† attended the Committee
The following also attended, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(2):
Bellingham, Mr. Henry (North-West Norfolk) (Con)
Simpson, Mr. Keith (Mid-Norfolk) (Con)

Seventh Delegated Legislation Committee

Monday 22 March 2010

[Mrs. Janet Dean in the Chair]

Draft Exeter and Devon (Structural Changes) Order 2010
4.30 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Barbara Follett): I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Exeter and Devon (Structural Changes) Order 2010.
The Chair: With this it will be convenient to discuss the draft Norwich and Norfolk (Structural Changes) Order 2010.
Barbara Follett: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs. Dean.
The orders were laid before the House on 10 February. They bring into effect proposals for unitary authorities for the cities of Exeter in Devon, and Norwich in Norfolk. I know that the proposals are, to say the least, controversial. I also know that the Government’s decision to implement them has aroused strong feelings inside and outside the House. That is why I want to assure hon. Members that the decisions were made because we sincerely believed them to be in the best interests of the people of Devon and Norfolk, and because there was a genuine local appetite for unitary authorities.
The rights and wrongs of the decisions have been the subject of two debates in the House over the past few weeks, so I do not intend to cover them in any great detail today. However, there are a few points, especially those raised in reports published by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and the House of Lords Merits Committee, that I would like to raise before briefly speaking about the orders themselves.
One thing on which we can all agree is that in Exeter and in Norwich the cases for and against unitary status have been and are being strongly contested—there are those who are for it and those who are against it. Among local people, whom, after all, will benefit the most if we get it right or suffer the most if we get it wrong, opinion does not—certainly in my experience—follow party political lines. Otherwise, why would a senior member of the Conservative group on Exeter city council have come to see the Minister with responsibility for local government to tell of his support for a unitary city council and, equally, why would the Labour leader of Devon county council be so opposed to unitary status for Exeter?
In Norwich, the unitary proposal is supported by a coalition of Liberal Democrats, the Green party and Labour. Just last month, we received representations from a Conservative group for a Norfolk-wide unitary. I hope that the politically diverse nature of the representations made on both sides of the argument shows that the decisions were most emphatically not taken on party lines or for party political reasons. Quite simply, they were taken because the majority of democratically elected members in Exeter and Norwich wanted unitary authorities.
In such situations, the Government have the difficult task of balancing competing arguments, assessing the evidence carefully and, finally, deciding the best way forward for the people involved. That is exactly what my colleagues have done, and they did it in the knowledge that, before either unitary structure could be established, the issues had to be fully considered, debated and decided on by Members of this House and another place. I am confident that the decisions are based on fair, sound and well-established principles that recognise that arguments must be weighed and issues must be judged on their merits, not just on the fulfilment of a set of mechanistic criteria.
Local government reorganisation is nothing new, particularly in Exeter and Norwich. Over the past 50 years, both cities have undergone big changes. Until the 1960s, they had for centuries been independent and largely self-governing. In 1974, a set of reforms created the two-tier local authority system, from which Exeter and Norwich city councils emerged, but the real money and real power that those cities had held for hundreds of years had been transferred to the largely rural county councils of Devon and Norfolk.
Unsurprisingly, it was not long before the two-tier system was being questioned, and the pros and cons of unitary structures were debated throughout much of the 1990s. Those were the days that saw the creation of a unitary Southampton in the county of Hampshire, and a unitary Nottingham in the county of Nottinghamshire, as agreed by the then Conservative Government. That Government’s policy was such that they directed the Local Government Commission for England—as the Electoral Commission was then known—on 21 separate occasions to revisit its conclusions that the two-tier status quo should prevail. Two of those 21 directions required the commission to look again at the possibility of a unitary Exeter and a unitary Norwich, although in the end both remained two-tier authorities.
In the 1990s, there was a difficult balance to strike between the benefits of focused and clear leadership for urban areas, and the greater economies of scale that could be delivered by councils that covered wider areas. That balance is still relevant today, although the Total Place approach, which is supported by both major parties, is transforming local public service delivery.
For Exeter and Norwich and their surrounding counties, that approach means that, with much good will and much hard work, they can have the best of both worlds. The cities can have one strong authority and the county councils can have a more focused approach to the rural areas. Together, in a partnership of equals, the two can work jointly with other service providers to deliver high-quality services that are tailored to their diverse communities.
Throughout history, cities have been engines of economic growth, and Exeter and Norwich have been just that in their sub-regions. I know that a great deal of such activity takes place outside the actual city boundaries but, nowadays, most businesses do not choose their location on the basis of a district council area but because they want to be in or near a particular urban conurbation—in this case Exeter or Norwich. The strategic leadership that unitary councils can provide will help such activity to grow. Exeter’s gain will be Devon’s gain, and Norwich’s will be Norfolk’s, because the benefits accrued do not recognise administrative boundaries.
Mr. Henry Bellingham (North-West Norfolk) (Con): What the Minister says about a city being able to pursue a course as an engine for growth is fine in theory, but does she agree that if one looks at Norwich city’s record on supporting enterprise, initiative and small businesses, one cannot be very confident that it can be an engine for any form of growth whatsoever?
Barbara Follett: I am afraid that, as the Minister for the East of England, I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman, although I might agree with him on other things.
I now turn briefly to the report on the orders published by the House of Lords Merits Committee. It discusses the extent to which interested parties should have been given a chance to comment on and evaluate the compelling reasons that informed our decisions to implement unitary councils for Exeter and Norwich. The representations that my ministerial colleagues and I received from affected councils and others, in writing and in person, covered a wide range of matters. Some representations argued that the proposals should not be implemented, not because they did or did not meet the criteria, but, for example, because the present form of governance was better than a unitary structure, because even if unitary structures had merit, the change was not worth the candle, or because the change to unitary was unnecessary because reforms to how existing two-tier structures worked were yielding similar benefits.
Mr. Keith Simpson (Mid-Norfolk) (Con): The Minister talks about responses during the consultation period. Will she confirm that of the 1,424 responses to her Department’s consultation on the boundary committee’s proposal for a Norfolk unitary, 10 per cent. were in favour of a Norfolk unitary, 85 per cent. were in favour of the status quo, and only 3 per cent. were in favour of a Norwich unitary. Where is the broad-based support for a Norwich unitary?
Barbara Follett: I cannot confirm those figures at the moment, but I will shortly. The broad base of support for the Norwich unitary comes from Norwich itself. That is important because we are talking about the people of Norwich.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con): For the sake of consistency, will the Minister explain why a broad base of support from people within the Norwich and Exeter unitaries is acceptable when, in the same round of local government reorganisation, the unitary bids from Oxford, Lancaster, Preston, and Burnley and Pendle were not acceptable, although those bids were supported by majorities in the local councils?
Barbara Follett: As the hon. Gentleman knows, and as I will go on to say, our decisions had to be taken in context. On the other representations that he cites, we decided that the wider context did not fit.
We received representations arguing that unitary proposals that did not meet the criteria should none the less be implemented because the benefits that they would bring outweighed the downside of not meeting the criteria. Those making such representations felt that there were compelling reasons, over and above the criteria, why a proposal should or should not be implemented.
The Merits Committee questioned the extent to which unitary proposals that relied on collaborative working were feasible. Unitary status for Exeter and Norwich will have benefits for the residents of those cities. There will also be advantages for all residents in Devon and Norfolk from their councils working with the new unitary councils—and also Torbay and Plymouth in Devon—to deliver improvements for all. The Government’s expectation is that elected representatives will recognise those opportunities, put aside their differences and work together in the best interests of their residents.
Robert Neill: Before the Minister leaves the report of the House of Lords Merits Committee, I will cite a quotation from it. It stated:
“it would be helpful to the House if DCLG would give a much more explicit analysis of how much economic growth each city, as distinct from each county, is expected to generate as a result of becoming a unitary authority.”
That goes to the heart of her point about the broader economic benefits. Can she point me towards any document that gives the additional analysis that was requested?
Barbara Follett: Once again, I cannot do that at the moment. However, I can confirm that the figures cited by the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk were correct.
Before I conclude, I want to respond to the points raised in the report by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments about the orders and to explain a little about how the orders work. The JCSI’s most serious concern was that
“there is a doubt as to whether the Orders, if approved and made, would be lawfully made”.
The JCSI’s reason for that doubt is that if the High Court finds for the claimants in the judicial review proceedings being brought by Devon and Norfolk county councils against the decisions, the orders might be rendered unlawful after they have been made. The implication seems to be that we should await the outcome of the court proceedings before completing parliamentary consideration of the orders.
We do not accept those concerns because they confuse parliamentary accountability with issues of legality. The suggestion is that Parliament cannot decide on an issue until any court proceedings have been resolved. We do not accept that the legislative process and the business of government should be halted because of judicial proceedings. If Committee members consider the full implications of the JCSI’s view, I am sure that they will also support that position.
The JCSI also draws attention to the orders on the grounds of unexpected use of powers, drafting that requires elucidation, and failure to accord with proper legislative practice. Officials in my Department are confident that they have followed the proper drafting practice and that the instruments achieve their objectives.
We have prepared the orders following consultation with the councils concerned so that the arrangements that we are setting up are those that local people believe are best for them. The orders provide that, from 1 April 2011, Exeter and Norwich will become the sole principal councils for those cities, having both district and county functions. This will be a wholly new start. There will be refreshed senior management teams and potentially, once elections are held in 2011, new members. Those points are important for those who would wish to draw attention to Norwich city council’s past performance.
The orders provide for the establishment of an implementation executive to lead preparations for both new councils, which will be led by the leaders of the current city councils with membership drawn from the city councils and also from county councillors who represent areas in those cities. To provide the necessary support for implementation, the orders also provide for the creation of a team of officers in each area, again drawn from the city and county councils. The orders place a duty on all councils to co-operate during the transition.
I should like to pick up on the JCSI’s concern that the provisions seeking to cancel the thirds elections due in both Norwich and Exeter in 2010 are an “unexpected use” of powers under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. We gave all the affected councils in Norfolk and Devon the opportunity to comment on the proposed transitional arrangements for creating new unitary councils, including the option of holding elections to any new unitary council in either 2010 or 2011. All the local authorities in Devon and Norfolk expressed the clear, reasoned view that any elections should take place in 2011, and the draft orders would achieve that. In our view, that is necessary to maintain the integrity of the local democratic process.
 
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Prepared 23 March 2010