SUMMARY

— The Councillors Commission's report, Representing the Future was published in December 2007 and it addressed very similar issues as those which the Speaker's Conference has been asked to consider but with regard to councillors, not MPs.

— Many, but not all, of the issues concerning local representation apply also to representation in the House of Commons and hence the Speaker's Conference may find the findings and recommendations of the Councillors Commission useful to consider.

— In addition, there are a number of MPs who make the journey to Westminster via election first as a councillor and hence understanding the factors that encourage of deter people, especially those from under-represented groups, from standing locally, is likely to be useful.

— A copy of "Representing the Future" is enclosed with the hard copy of this submission[11] and as this is "material that has already been published elsewhere", as in the guide for written statements to Select Committees, this submission will only briefly refer to our findings in response to the questions asked in the Speaker's Conference Announcement of Inquiry 15 December 2008. An electronic copy of "Representing the Future" can be accessed via the Communities and Local Government web-site.[12]

BACKGROUND TO THE COMMISSION

  1.  The Councillors Commission, that I chaired, was set up by Ruth Kelly, MP, then Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (CLG), in early 2007. It was asked to make recommendations regarding the incentives and barriers to: encouraging suitably able, qualified and representative people to serve as councillors; their retention and development once elected; and their being able to secure public interest and recognition for the work that they do. It was an independent and cross party review.

  2.  The review was prompted by concerns at CLG that councillors were very unrepresentative of the communities that they represented. At the time of our deliberations, only 4.1% of councillors were from ethnic minority backgrounds, only 29.3% were women, and only 13.5% were under 45. Younger councillors with a disability were few and far between. The latest survey of councillors from 2008 undertaken for the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) shows little change. Hence, other than with regard to age, there is a similar picture amongst locally elected members as with MPs.

  3.  The work of the Commission took us to many different parts of England and Wales, listening to hundreds of people. We received over 200 submissions; we both commissioned research and reviewed existing research including the evidence internationally. We reported to Hazel Blears, MP, by then Secretary of State at CLG, in December 2007 with our conclusions and 61 recommendations in Representing the Future.

  4.  The Chair of the Commission met with the Chairman of the Conservative Party, the President of the Liberal Democrats and with the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. The long standing concerns of Harriet Harman MP led to her initiating the Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Councillors Task Force, chaired by Baroness Uddin, towards the end of our deliberations.

  5.  The Government made its response to the Commission's report in July 2008, accepting most of our recommendations. Our first recommendation, that local authorities should be charged with a statutory duty to promote local democratic engagement, was central to the Communities in Control White Paper.

  6.  A number of "exemplar" local authorities are to take forward a package of recommendations from the Councillors Commission and their membership is to be tracked.

  7.  The considerations of the Councillors Commission took us wider than merely matters of, for example, support and remuneration to elected members. We felt that we could not useful recommendations without stepping back to consider wider changes that had taken place concerning local democracy and governance more generally in recent times. Many of the issues therefore that we considered have a relevance to national representation.

QUESTIONS POSED IN THE SPEAKER'S CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT OF INQUIRY

  8.  There are indeed problems caused by the unbalanced representation in the House of Commons. It compounds a sense that we are governed by a separate and remote political class who look and talk very differently from "ordinary people", that in turn distances people from an understanding of the political process and its essential place, and can feed a destructive cynicism in politics. Professor Stephen Coleman, whom we quote in the report, writes compellingly on this issue. The Commission's report argues on page 14 that descriptive representativeness is important both symbolically (and the election of President Barack Obama is the most resounding example of this) and substantively whereby different core interests can be fed directly into the democratic process.

  9.  The Commission's report goes into considerable detail about the reasons why more women, more people from a BME background, and more disabled people do not consider standing in local elections, are not selected and are not elected. In summary, there is no one reason but rather a combination of issues (notably a lack of awareness of the democratic process generally and more specifically how to get more involved, the culture of the political parties and local government, lack of confidence, time commitment and the anxieties about the possible impact on work and family life, attitude of employers, as well as the practicalities in terms of organisation, timing of meetings, lack of support). There was some evidence that it may well be more difficult to get selected than elected and this is obviously a crucial issue for the political parties to address. The Conference would do well also to consider the writings of Professor Gerry Stoker, in for example, Why Politics Matters. Making Democracy Work (2006 Palgrave MacMillan) whom I have quoted a great deal when speaking about the Councillors Commission. His CLEAR model is useful for considering the constraints and prospects for participation in the democratic process: our own findings very much echoed his academic work.

  10.  Given that there are a range of reasons why relatively few women, people from a BME background, younger people and those who have a disability become councillors, so in turn, there is no one magic bullet that remedies the problem. I did however come to the view that it was not quite as difficult to attract a wide range of candidates as is often made out. What was however extraordinarily difficult was for there to be a real determination and commitment, particularly on the part of those with influence, to bring about change. The focus and drive of local political leadership here is absolutely crucial.

  11.  The Commission lists 61 recommendations to address the disparities in representation. If a reasonable number of such recommendations were implemented, we felt that a significant difference could be made. But the tendency of those in power to remain in power—and only in the last resort to replace themselves, but then in their own likeness, should never be underestimated.

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