Draft Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers' Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2022
Draft Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2022
(2 years, 2 months ago)
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The Chair
Before we begin, I remind hon. Members to observe social distancing and to wear masks—apart from me, as I may have to speak at any moment. On Thursday, that guidance might change again, but that is what it says now.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chloe Smith)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2022.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider the draft Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2022.
Chloe Smith
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Huq. Congratulations on joining the Panel of Chairs.
Important improvements in health and safety have restricted the use of asbestos and provided a much safer environment for those handling it. However, the legacy of its widespread use is of course still with us, with people starting to suffer many years—normally, decades—after exposure, when they can develop serious and often fatal diseases, such as diffuse mesothelioma. That long latency period can make it difficult for those affected, or their families, to bring a successful claim for civil damages—for example, because their former employer may simply no longer exist. They can, however, still claim compensation, through two schemes that aim, where possible, to ensure that people with diseases prescribed in regulations receive compensation in their lifetime, without having to wait for the outcome of civil litigation, which can take a long time.
There is the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979 scheme, which provides a lump sum to people who have one of five dust-related respiratory diseases, including diffuse mesothelioma, and who cannot claim damages from an employer because they have gone out of business. Rates are based on the level of the disablement assessment and the age of the person at diagnosis. There is also the 2008 mesothelioma lump sum payments scheme, established by the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008. That scheme was introduced to provide compensation to people with diffuse mesothelioma who could not claim compensation under the 1979 Act—for example, because they were self-employed or their asbestos exposure was not due to their work. Again, payments for mesothelioma are made at the 100% disablement rate and based on age, with the highest payments going to the youngest people with the disease. Under each scheme, a claim can be made by a dependant if the person with the disease has passed away. Overall, 2,670 awards were made across both schemes in 2020-21, with the awards totalling £42.4 million.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
The Minister mentioned dependants. Consistently, both Opposition parties have raised the issue of the big disparities in compensation payments between sufferers and dependants, and we got a commitment from the Minister’s predecessor last year that the Government would look at that issue and look at providing an equality impact assessment on these benefits. Can this Minister please update us on that and what progress has been made to address the disparities between sufferers and dependants?
Chloe Smith
I can provide a very brief update. In the context of these regulations, that matter is not included, so it is not directly a matter for the Committee, but I am very much aware of the argument about equalisation. I am equally aware of the commitments that my predecessor gave, so with the Committee’s leave I will write to the hon. Gentleman to give him a little more detail, which goes beyond the scope of the regulations that we have here today.
The regulations increase the value of the lump sum awards payable under both schemes, which stand apart from the main social security benefits uprating procedure. Although there is no statutory requirement to increase the rates of these compensation schemes, I am maintaining the approach taken by my predecessors and increasing lump sum awards by the consumer prices index— 3.1%, as of September 2021. That is in line with the rate increase to the industrial injuries disablement benefit and the other disability benefits made as part of the main benefit operating provisions. The new levels will be paid to those who meet all the conditions for entitlement for the first time on or after 1 April this year.
I want to briefly mention further rule changes that we will make to support the end of life—sometimes known as the special rules for terminal illness. The Department certainly recognises the challenges that an individual, their friends and family face when they receive a terminal diagnosis. Supporting people in that difficult situation is, of course, crucial: that is why we have special rules for the end of life—to ensure that financial support can be provided as quickly as possible. These rules provide simple and fast access to benefits.
In July last year, we announced the intention to replace the current six-month rule for determining who could claim under those special rules with a 12-month end of life approach. That eligibility would then be consistent with current NHS end of life practice. Shortly, the Department plans to amend legislation to implement that change across five benefits, beginning with universal credit, alongside employment and support allowance. That will be followed, as soon as parliamentary time allows, by changes to the attendance allowance, the disability living allowance and the personal independence payment.
I will now touch on other support provided by the NHS for people with respiratory disease. As well as ensuring that financial compensation for the schemes is available, the Government are also focusing on and investing in support, protection, diagnosis, treatment and research. We also entirely acknowledge that the last two years have been a particularly challenging and worrying time for people with chronic respiratory conditions, which is why we prioritised people with such conditions and other vulnerable groups for the initial covid vaccination and booster programmes. We will offer a further fourth jab in the spring. It is also why the Department for Work and Pensions put in place temporary measures to protect the most vulnerable, including the suspension of face-to-face assessments at the start of the pandemic.
To qualify for an award under the 1979 scheme, people must have an entitlement to industrial injuries disablement benefit. We have continued these claims for people with diffuse mesothelioma and other illnesses as they can be assessed by paper. Other respiratory disease claims that could not be assessed by paper—those requiring lung function tests, for example—have now resumed, with extra safety measures in place.
We have introduced one-off special payments so that nobody loses out financially if their age goes up while waiting for an assessment, which would otherwise prevent them from getting the correct rate. It is important to be clear that all eligible awards for IIDB will be backdated to the date of claim. Of course, those awaiting IIDB assessment are still able to apply for other benefits if they find themselves in financial hardship or have care or mobility needs.
Looking to wider lung health, the NHS is also doing much to support the clinical priority of respiratory disease—within the cancer service recovery plan, for example. We expect the number of people diagnosed with mesothelioma to begin to fall in the coming years, but sadly many people will still develop it or other debilitating respiratory diseases. That is why we are working with the NHS to improve those people’s lives and why we recognise the continued importance of the financial compensation offered by the two schemes that we are discussing today. I commend the increase in the payment schemes to the Committee.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I believe that this is the first time I have appeared before you in the Chair, Dr Huq, so I will do my best to make sure that it is a memorable occasion for us both.
I thank the Minister for introducing the regulations. As she set out, the mesothelioma regulations amend the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 and the pneumoconiosis regulations amend the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979. As we heard, both Acts make provision for lump compensation payments to be made to people suffering from specific dust-related diseases or their dependants, provided that they meet the conditions of entitlement. I note that as of 1.30 pm today both statutory instruments had still not been assigned numbers and the explanatory memorandums appeared in draft form on the Government website. I hope that that can be addressed.
As we have heard, today’s regulations uprate the amount of compensation paid to disease sufferers or their dependants by 3.1%. I note that the Government have reviewed the rates to maintain their value in line with inflation, as measured by the September 2021 consumer prices index, and in line with disability benefits. Although we recognise that the Government are under no obligation to do any uprating under either Act, we believe that it is vital to continue to support people affected by these awful diseases and their families and that annual uprating is necessary. Having said that, it is worth noting that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) has already stated, uprating in line with inflation last September does not really reflect the true position that we are now in, given that inflation is likely to be around 6% for much of the course of the year according to the Bank of England. The uprating therefore reflects a real-terms cut.
The cost of living crisis has been debated in this place many times already this year and will no doubt be discussed again. As the regulations are not amendable, we cannot substitute the figure of 3.1% for something more akin to reality, but I believe it shows how once again the Government have struggled to recognise the very real financial pressures people face.
As we have heard this afternoon, mesothelioma is an invasive type of cancer caused by prior exposure to asbestos and for which there is currently no cure. It grows in the pleural membrane that lines the outside of the lung and the inside of the chest. Less commonly, it can also affect a similar lining around the abdomen or heart. It can take a long time to develop, as we have heard, with the first symptoms sometimes appearing 30 to 40 years after exposure. Patients experience complex debilitating symptoms and often have a short life expectancy. Of course, that presents real difficulties for those who develop the disease in being able to pursue a legal remedy.
The Health and Safety Executive reports that the UK has the highest rate of mesothelioma in the world and mortality rates have more than quadrupled in the past 30 years, with the disease being more common in certain parts of the country, reflecting the location of industries such as shipbuilding where asbestos was frequently used. Sadly, it is estimated that about 2,500 people die of the disease every year. Over the next 30 years, some 60,000 people will die of mesothelioma in the UK unless new treatments are found.
Pneumoconiosis refers to a group of lung diseases caused by inhaling dust. Common types include asbestosis; coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, caused by breathing in coal mine dust; and silicosis, caused by breathing in respirable silica and typically affecting industries such as quarrying, foundries and potteries. As with mesothelioma, there is a long delay between exposure and the onset of the disease. The Health and Safety Executive estimates that overall 12,000 deaths each year are linked to occupational lung disease.
I pay tribute to organisations such as Mesothelioma UK, the British Lung Foundation and Macmillan Cancer Support, which raise awareness and provide ongoing support for individuals and their families who are affected by these terrible diseases.
We know that before the dangers of asbestos were known it was frequently used for insulation, roofing and flooring in commercial buildings and homes. Indeed, it has been used in this very building and I recall my grandfather telling me how they used to use it as a snowball when he was at work. It was clearly very commonly used and we are still reaping the consequences today, but it was not banned until the Asbestos (Prohibitions) (Amendment) Regulations 1999. That means that buildings constructed up until the turn of the century might still have asbestos in them. Many colleagues will be aware that unfortunately those who worked in industries such as building and construction from the 1970s to the 1990s may still experience the consequences of exposure to asbestos, but those consequences are not limited to people who worked in those industries. For example, the National Education Union found that at least 319 teachers have died from mesothelioma since 1980, 205 of whom died after 2001. That is a staggering statistic and highlights the pervasiveness of asbestos in many of our buildings.
As we have noted, the Government are not under any obligation to uprate the payments, but it is clear that Members have asked on many occasions whether future increases could be made automatically rather than at the discretion of Parliament. One of the Minister’s predecessors agreed to consider that proposal, and I wonder the Minister can update us on that point. We have been told previously that automatic uprating would not be sensible because it would prevent debate, but when the yearly debate consists of very much the same issues being raised again and again, that argument appears a little artificial. Members are more than capable of raising issues in several ways through debates and in other forums. I hope that the Government will address the issue of automatic uprating, because it would not reduce Members’ ability to raise specific issues. It would also send a powerful message that, while no amount of money will compensate for the suffering and loss caused by the diseases, the Government are committed as a matter of course to ensuring that support is provided to those entitled to it.
It would also provide security to those affected if they knew that the uprating would apply each year without fail. That is especially important when those in receipt of payments may already have experienced a long and stressful wait for their assessment and gone through what can sometimes be a challenging and distressing assessment process. Members will be aware from experiences with their constituents that the process is not necessarily adapted to individuals’ needs, and the one size fits all approach can sometimes ignore irrefutable medical evidence. The Minister has set out some of the changes that have been made, but security for individuals from having their payments automatically uprated would be an important step forward, and the least that they deserve.
The hon. Member for Glasgow South West raised the issue of equalisation of lump sum payments to victims’ dependants. According to the Asbestos Victims Support Group Forum, figures from 2019-20 showed that a 77-year-old with mesothelioma would receive £14,334 if they claimed themselves, but if they died before claiming —as we know can happen with such aggressive and difficult to diagnose cancers—their surviving partner or dependant would receive just £7,949, which is just over half. That issue has been raised by Members year after year in these debates.
Chris Stephens
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is my good friend, for raising this important issue. I remind the Committee that the Government committed in 2010 to look at the disparity and to equalise the situation. Twelve years is too long and we need action now.
Justin Madders
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which highlights the point that we have these debates every year and the same issues continue to be raised. The Government are sympathetic, as indicated by previous commitments, but action is missing. The Minister has said that she will write to the hon. Gentleman after the debate, and I hope that she will share that correspondence with the rest of the Committee, because this is an important issue that needs addressing. It will not go away; we will continue to raise it on an annual basis.
When the Minister responds to this debate, will she comment on a response given to a written question tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) on this matter? He was told:
“It is right that available funding is prioritised where it is needed most, that is to people living with these diseases.”
Will the Minister explain whether she agrees with that assessment; when she will be able to give us a timetable for when any change in the Government’s position on the matter can be expected; and what recent estimates have been made of the cost of providing equal payments to sufferers and their dependants? I feel that that may well be what is behind the inertia on the Government Benches. Furthermore, given that the difference in payments often affects women whose husbands were directly exposed to asbestos, will the Minister tell us whether there has been any equality impact assessments in respect of the lack of parity in payments?
I conclude by urging the Minister to reflect on the issues that hon. Members have raised and to address them, so that we do not have to come back next year and debate them all over again.
Chris Stephens
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dr Huq—it is good to see a good friend of the worker chairing the Committee on these particular regulations.
I have become an annual attender of the proceedings on the regulations, and I will start today, as I always do, by remembering my good Unison comrade and friend Tom Begley, who died as a result of asbestos-related cancer. This is an opportunity to remember him and others who have succumbed to these pernicious industrial diseases. I also pay tribute to the campaigners, trade unions and charities, such as Clydeside Action on Asbestos, that continue to highlight the devastating impact that these industrial diseases have on victims and on families. This is not just about workers who have worked in factories and buildings; it is also about individuals who have contracted these diseases as a result of washing clothes with asbestos on them. We have to remember that as well.
I want to take this opportunity to remind the Committee that it was SNP and Plaid Cymru MPs in the 1970s who were the first Members of Parliament to highlight the dangers of asbestos and industrial diseases. Those Members were dismissed at the time and accused of scaremongering, but thankfully we have come a long way in recognising the dangers of asbestos and the impact that it has on people’s health.
I want to make three main points, but I first want to stress the issue of the disparity. The Government made a commitment in 2010 that they would look at the disparity between payments for dependants and sufferers. That was 12 years ago. I think we have waited far too long for that disparity to be addressed. There really should be an equality impact assessment along with these regulations, so that we can have a look at that.
Some of the figures for the differences in payments were given by my colleague on the Labour Front Bench, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston. The one that I have been given is that someone who was a qualifying individual and aged 60 at the time of diagnosis would receive in the region of £44,000, whereas the dependant would receive £19,000. That is quite a big gap, I would argue, between the amounts of compensation for those individuals. I hope that the Government really do look at the issue very seriously. They are on borrowed time now; 12 years is far too long to wait. The Government gave us a commitment that they would look at the disparity.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
Just to emphasise that point, the sum of the compensation declines as the claimant gets older. That is because it is based on potential earnings should the person not have acquired the industrial disease. There is a fundamental injustice here. Someone who is 61 gets less than someone who is 60, when the condition is entirely the same and probably as dangerous.
Chris Stephens
I agree with my hon. Friend. He makes a valid point, and I hope that it has registered with the Government. It is important. I do not want to oppose the regulations today, but I hope the Minister has listened very carefully to the points that have been made about the disparity.
The Minister appeared before us at the Work and Pensions Committee to talk about the work of the Health and Safety Executive. Perhaps the Minister could provide an update on what work the Government are doing with HSE to make sure that all workplaces in the UK are asbestos-free. She knows that we have heard from campaigners and international experts.
I praise hon. Members across the House who have raised the issues of industrial diseases. I thank the Minister. Tonight I have to go and visit the Boundary Commission because of legislation that she put forward, I think last year. In all seriousness, we do not want to oppose these measures, but there is still a lot that the Government have to get right here and there are still injustices to be tackled.
Hywel Williams
It is a pleasure to appear before you for the first time, Dr Huq. The history of this matter as outlined by colleagues is largely correct as far as it goes, although I should say that there was a very long campaign in Wales, lasting many decades, around the slate industry to have what was then called silicosis recognised as an industrial disease. That was hampered by the fact that doctors, in certifying death, would often certify heart disease or some other cause other than silicosis, and subject the family and the widow to having her husband subject to a post-mortem. Right at the start of my career, many years ago, I had the very gruesome experience of attending a coroner’s court on another case. The previous case was a death caused by silicosis. I saw the widow there, in tears, listening to the detail of her husband’s PM.
Fortunately, we have the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979, which brought in the compensation scheme—too late for some people, of course. Within the slate industry in Wales it was well known that dust was a killer, and very little was done about it. I am glad to say that now the slate industry in Wales is very much safer.
On the 1979 Act, I pay tribute to my predecessor as the Member for Caernarfon, now Lord Wigley. Dafydd was the MP up until 2001. As a new MP in 1974-79, he pushed very hard to get the 1979 Act in, working alongside trade union colleagues, including the much missed Tom Jones of the Transport and General Workers Union. Together, they worked very hard to get that Act through. We had had warm words for many years from successive Governments that there would be a compensation scheme, but it was work by people in my party, the T and G and colleagues from the Labour party that got us over the line in the end. Dafydd saw the devastating impact that slate dust was having on workers and their families. He played a leading part, and it is partly due to him that we are sitting here this afternoon.
I fully support the statutory instrument, but I should be grateful if the Minister would answer a couple of questions. Does she have any information about the geographical distribution of payments? People from the slate industry who are suffering from pneumoconiosis are getting older—they are fewer and fewer every year. I would like to know the distribution and the value of payments, particularly in respect of north Wales. Perhaps the Minister could write to me if she does not have that information.
Secondly, in the context of the rising cost of living—this point has already been made—if we are to have annual debates, we should be looking at the rate of inflation closer to the date of uprating, so that payments match the costs that people are facing.
Lastly, I would also emphasise the point about payments to dependants being increased in order to match those paid to sufferers. It is an injustice.
In bringing my remarks to a close, I note that Wales has a long and inglorious legacy of industrial disease and other industrial ills, not least the coal tips that disfigure our landscape and remain a risk to people. There are over 600 tips, and over 300 of them are classified as being a high risk. At some point, I would be very glad to see the UK Government funding the removal of those tips completely, as part-payment for the suffering that people in the coal industry have endured over the years.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I will say just a few brief words in relation to my local mesothelioma group in Berkshire, and I know that the hon. Member for Windsor would share some of my sentiments about our local community in the county. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston, and I echo his support for a wider look at the scale of the payments. I ask the Minister again to consider that. I also pay tribute to the hon. Members for Glasgow South West and for Arfon for their very thoughtful and powerful accounts.
I pay tribute to the members of the Berkshire mesothelioma group, because until I met them, I had not fully understood the scale of the problem. Although colleagues have rightly addressed the issues with very specific industries, the problem of asbestos is everywhere. It is in this building and in houses, schools and small businesses across the country, and it was quite shocking to come across families who had lost a loved one to these dreadful illnesses. Some of the accounts that I heard from the local group were very moving and troubling, and it is perhaps worth briefly reflecting on the way in which some of these illnesses can occur. It is also worth remembering that the number of people suffering from these appalling illnesses may well increase in the years to come because of the very long incubation period, which is part of the problem with some of these industrial illnesses.
Hywel Williams
Equally shocking is the fact that the dangers of asbestos have been known within the industry since the 1920s. In my constituency, however, a factory was built in the early ’60s to make brick linings. I remember one of the workers suffering from mesothelioma telling me that they would make snowballs out of loose asbestos during lunch breaks, so the dangers were known but not acted on for many years.
Matt Rodda
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. These are dangers that were known but which, sadly, were not acted on. The stories about workers and others playing with asbestos mistakenly, without having full knowledge of this material, are widespread. I have been told similar stories about workers in a power station in London where they had snowball fights with this material, and it is absolutely awful to hear such accounts.
I will mention a couple of examples of the sorts of tragedies that have occurred in our community in Berkshire, involving residents from both Reading and nearby areas. Workers worked on the railway and in other transport roles where, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston rightly said, asbestos was used to insulate materials in ships and trains, and for brakes in cars. I have heard stories of mechanics in small garages blowing the brake dust from disintegrating brake pads, without realising the horror of what was near to them. One tragic case is of a gentleman who sadly did not live to be one of my constituents, but who was a resident in the Reading East constituency and a young apprentice in the 1980s. He was apparently told by somebody at work, “Go away and saw up these pieces of cladding.” He sawed up the asbestos and had no indication of the scale of risk that he faced. When we hear such accounts, it is deeply moving and harrowing. It tells a very powerful story and urges action from all of us in a position of responsibility.
I will not take too much of the Committee’s time. Although I welcome the increasing payments, I urge the Minister and her colleagues across Government to look at what can be done to improve the health and safety regime in the UK so that we have better prevention and better understanding of emerging risks from new technologies, as well as from existing technologies which are perhaps better understood now, so that we never, ever go through this nightmare again. As we have heard, it has wrecked so many lives, and it has also imposed huge costs on businesses and the public sector. I am very aware, given my previous life as a civil servant in the Department for Education, of the cost to local authorities and central Government of retrofitting schools and taking asbestos out of schools. There could be huge costs in removing it from this building. Unfortunately, many employers and other organisations now face huge costs in making buildings safe after mistakes made decades ago.
I hope that, as a society, we can understand dangerous materials better in future, avoid unnecessary mistakes and the misery they cause, and move on, learn and be much better at managing those sorts of risks.
Chloe Smith
May I first apologise to you, Dr Huq, for omitting your doctorate earlier? That was an unintentional mistake.
Chloe Smith
Haven’t we all, Dr Huq? I thank you for chairing the debate, and I thank hon. Members for all their contributions, which I think have been in keeping with the seriousness of the work we are here to do on the regulations. I will endeavour to work through a number of the points that have been raised.
I reiterate my offer to write to the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston on equalisation and the other issues that he raised, and to copy in the entire Committee. I can of course confirm that the Government’s position is, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, what was expressed in response to the parliamentary question: we think that the funds available ought to be prioritised for those who are suffering most with the diseases—the person with the disease. As I said, I will come back to the Committee to answer a few of the other points that have been made.
I also acknowledge the request made by the hon. Member for Glasgow South West about requiring an update on the Government’s wider work to support the safe management and removal of asbestos. I say again what I said to him two weeks ago in the Work and Pensions Committee: the Health and Safety Executive takes that extremely seriously and is, in my view, taking the right steps. I also reiterate my condolences to the hon. Gentleman for the loss of his friend.
The hon. Member for Arfon raised the geographical distribution of payments. I have some basic data that I can let him have right now, which is that Wales comprises 4% of scheme payments made by region in both 1979 and 2008. If we have it, I endeavour to come back to him with more granular data of interest to him.
I will cover a couple of the more legislative or philosophical points that were made. The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston asked why the uprating ought not to be automatic. I am conscious that, as has been said, that is an argument in its own right and it is made every year in these debates. The hon. Gentleman queried whether our having this debate every year is only a vehicle for those arguments or whether it serves any greater purpose. I take the view that this annual debate is valuable and gives us an opportunity to remember the gravity of the situation and to think about the human cost, as laid out well by the hon. Member for Reading East. However, turning from a consistent promise made across Governments of different persuasions to an automatic scheme would not necessarily make a difference to those who receive compensation. The money would rightly still come, and I do not take the argument that we need to make it automatic for that to be the case, because that commitment is there and has been there since 2004.
Moving on, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston also questioned whether using CPI at 3.1% is enough. Since 2004, Ministers have uprated these schemes in line with inflation, so we have the argument of consistency and predictability, which is important in the sense that everybody knows that the CPI of September the prior year is what will be used.
Members may be aware from other aspects of inflation-uprating debates that my Department has some internal technical reasons that make it necessary to use the September rate. Those are important arguments, but the broader argument here is that to increase payments by inflation provides consistency and predictability and aligns the scheme with the way that other benefits are uprated.
I acknowledge that the hon. Member for Arfon also argued that the uprating date could be moved closer to that of the regulations, saying that that would give many of the same benefits. I will take that point away, because it could happen for all uprating across Government, which may be worth consideration.
The Government acknowledge that people are facing extra costs as a result of recent global price shocks. We already put in place extra support this winter in anticipation of higher costs, and we immediately responded to Ofgem’s announcement of the energy price cap increase. All that builds on extensive existing cost of living support that, crucially, is targeted at the most vulnerable, which is right. That reminds us of the context in which we are working—the hon. Member for Reading East rightly paid tribute to the organisations that assist in the understanding and promulgation of these important issues—and that we are doing this to support people who are very much in their hour of need. That is why we are all in agreement here today that uprating is the correct thing to do, and I again commend the regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Pneumoconiosis Etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2022.
Draft Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2022
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2022.—(Chloe Smith.)
Draft Somerset (Structural Changes) Order 2022
(2 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister for Levelling Up Communities (Kemi Badenoch)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Somerset (Structural Changes) Order 2022.
The draft order was laid before the House on 24 January 2022. If approved and made, it will implement the proposals submitted by Somerset County Council for a single unitary for the whole of the Somerset County Council area. The order will establish for the people of Somerset a new single unitary council. Implementing that proposal and establishing the unitary authority will enable stronger leadership and engagement at the strategic level and with communities at the most local level.
Somerset is not among the areas for an early county deal, but we will continue discussions with it about a future devolution deal. The reform for which the draft order provides will help pave the way for such a future deal.
Hon. Members may remember that this is locally led process of reform began formally on 9 October 2020. On that date, the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), invited all the principal councils in Somerset and the neighbouring unitary councils of Bath and North East Somerset and of North Somerset to put forward, if they wished, proposals to replace the current two-tier system of local government with single-tier local government.
The invitation set out the criteria for unitarisation. Unitary authorities would be established that are likely to improve local government and service delivery across the area of the proposal, giving greater value for money, generating savings, and providing stronger strategic and local leadership, with more sustainable structures; to command a good deal of local support, as assessed in the round, across the whole area of the proposal; and to have an area with a credible geography, consisting of one or more existing local government areas with an aggregate population that is either within the range 300,000 to 600,000, or such other figure that, having regard to the circumstances of the authority, including local identity and geography, could be considered substantial.
Two locally led proposals for local government reorganisation in Somerset were received in December 2020, one for a single unitary council and one for two unitary councils. Before we made any decisions on how to move forward, the Government consulted widely. The statutory consultation, which ran from 22 February to 19 April, prompted almost 5,500 responses. Of those responses, 5,167, or 94% of the total responses, were from residents living in the area affected. Both proposals received a good deal of support: some 3,000 residents, or 57% of those who responded, supported a two-unitary option; some 2,000 residents, or 35% of those who responded, supported a single-unitary option; 72% of respondents from the business sector supported a single-unitary option; and 88% of respondents from other public service providers also supported the single-unitary option.
My right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State announced his decision on the proposals on 21 July 2021. He made a balanced judgment, assessing both proposals against the three criteria to which I referred, which were set out in the invitation of 9 October. He also had regard to all representations received, including responses to the consultation, and to all other relevant information available to him. He concluded that the two-unitary proposal did not meet the criterion of improving local government and service delivery across the area. He also concluded that it did not meet the credible geography criterion. He concluded that the single-unitary proposal met all three criteria set out in the invitation of 9 October.
The Government believe that there is a powerful case for implementing this locally led proposal for change. It will improve local government by enhancing social care and safeguarding services through closer connection with related services, such as housing, leisure and benefits. It will also improve local government by offering opportunities for improved strategic decision making in areas such as housing, planning and transport. It will provide improvements to local partnership working with other public sector bodies by aligning with arrangements in existing partnerships and allowing existing relationships and partnership working to be maintained without disruption. It will generate savings estimated by the county council to be £52.6 million over five years.
The unitary decision will preserve service delivery over a county-wide area that has an established local identity that is easily understood by residents. It will provide a single point of contact, so that residents, businesses and local communities will be able to access all council services from one place. If Parliament approves the draft order, from 1 April 2023, there will be a single unitary council for Somerset, delivering the improvements that I have just outlined.
We have prepared the draft order in discussion with all the councils concerned. I take this opportunity to thank everyone involved in the process for their work, which they undertook together constructively and collaboratively—not least local MPs. Our discussions with the councils included discussing the transitional and electoral arrangements. Those are key in how the councils will drive forward implementation. Where there has been unanimous agreement between all the councils, we have adopted their preferred approach. Where there were different views of the detailed provisions, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State considered all the differing views and reached a decision accordingly.
Turning to the detail of the draft order, I will highlight its key provisions. The order provides that, on 1 April 2023, the districts of Mendip, Sedgemoor, Somerset West and Taunton, and South Somerset will be abolished. The councils of those districts will be wound up and dissolved. Their functions will transfer to the new unitary Somerset Council.
The draft order also provides for appropriate transitional arrangements. Those include, in May 2022, elections for the new unitary council, which will assume its full powers on 1 April 2023. The elections will be on the basis of a 110-member authority, with 55 two-member electoral divisions. Subsequent elections to the unitary council will be in May 2027 and every four years thereafter. We expect that the Local Government Boundary Commission for England will undertake a full electoral review before the May 2027 election. Parish council elections due in May 2023 will be brought forward to 2022 to align with the unitary council election cycle. A duty to co-operate during the transitional period to 1 April 2023 will be placed on existing councils.
To support councils in the transitional period to 1 April next year, if the draft order is approved and made, I intend to use my powers under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 to issue a direction. The direction will provide statutory support to the voluntary protocol that the Somerset councils have already adopted on entering into contracts and the disposal of land during the transitional period. As one might expect, that is in line with the approach adopted in most previous unitarisations. It will ensure that the new unitary council has appropriate oversight of the commitments that predecessor councils may enter into during the transitional period and that the new unitary council will take on from 1 April 2023. Before issuing any such direction, I will invite council views on a draft.
In conclusion, through the draft order we seek to replace the existing local government structures in Somerset that were set up in 1974 with a new council that will be able to deliver high-quality, sustainable and local services to the people of Somerset. The council will be able to provide effective leadership at the strategic and the most local levels. All the existing councils have made it clear that they share those aims and are committed to the very best services for Somerset communities. The draft order will deliver that and, on that basis, I commend it to the Committee.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your stewardship, Mr Efford.
It is worth giving a little context to this draft structural change order, because there is always a context to such changes. We should at least explore, if only a little, that context and perhaps tease out the narrative. The process cannot simply be transactional; I thought the Minister sounded very transactional, so this Committee provides the opportunity to tease out some of the issues and to make these things less transactional. We are dealing with the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
The financial context was set out in the Weston Mercury online in October 2013, in relation to the finances of Somerset County Council, which happens to be Tory controlled:
“A statement released by the authority said: ‘With a drastic reduction in funding from Government, coupled with increased costs and rising demand to look after elderly and disabled people, the council faces a £106 million black hole in its finances over the next four years—with cuts of £30 million required for next year alone.’”
That gives the context of the proposals. The article continued:
“The first phase of savings will be worth £7 million and include changing to low-energy streetlights and selling buildings, as well as moving services such as museums into non-profit trust ownership.”
Events, however, took a turn for the worse, if that were possible. In 2018, a report in Somerset Live stated that Somerset County Council could
“run out of money in the next two to three years”
unless urgent action was taken to curb spending. That, too, is the context for the draft order.
An official audit of the council by Grant Thornton LLP criticised its “pervasive” overspending and its failure to deliver sufficient savings over the past 12 months. That report came as the chairman and vice-chairman of the audit committee resigned from their posts and, as it happens, from the council’s ruling Conservative group. The council has said that action is being taken to ensure that services are protected and that the overspending does not continue. That is also part of the context of the draft order.
Meanwhile, the council maintained a council tax freeze—if my memory serves me right, but I could be wrong—for about six years. Mr Ruddle, one of those who resigned, told the BBC that he could
“no longer support the party’s direction of travel on local government finance.”
He went on to say:
“Somerset, in particular, finds itself in very poor financial shape after almost a decade of cuts in funding from central government, while demand for key services such as adult social care”—
to which the Minister referred—
“and children’s services is at record levels.”
He also said:
“I can no longer reconcile the basic contradiction…sitting as a local Conservative councillor under a Conservative government which is compounding this problem.”
That, too, is the context of the draft order.
That context goes to the heart of the proposals we are dealing with: a Tory council, bereft of financial stability under a Tory Government, with a Damascene conversion on the part of those two members, which took some years to ferment until reaching full maturity and ABV level. Meanwhile, the district councils in the county—Mendip, Sedgemoor, Somerset West and Taunton, and South Somerset, with three under Liberal Democrat control and one under Tory control—recognised the need for change. They all bit the bullet.
In such strained circumstances, it was therefore right to consult the people of Somerset on the new local structural arrangements. The substantive reason, as far as I can tell, however, is a decade of underfunding, which in effect made those councils unsustainable in how they operated. It was not just an organisational issue, but substantially more than that. Yet nowhere in the announcement by the then Secretary of State on 21 July last year is there any mention of the financial causes of the reorganisation, and nor was there any in the Minister’s speech today. There should have been. It is as though the upheaval caused for the councils—and more importantly for the people of Somerset—by the years of cuts that have made this decision necessary has nothing to do with the actions of the Secretary of State or previous Secretaries of State in terms of the massive cuts to local government budgets generally.
From what I can tell, in the consultation the people of Somerset supported a proposal for two councils. In a poll run by the four district councils at a cost of £300,000, with about 110,000 people taking part, 65.3% voted for the district councils’ “Stronger Somerset” proposal, which would have created two councils, Western Somerset and Eastern Somerset. However, the Tory-led Somerset County Council—which, remember, is a financial basket case, incapable of organising a tasting session in one of Somerset’s fantastic beer or cider breweries, and on the brink of a potential section 114 notice for its incompetent handling of the county finances—described the poll as “ deeply flawed” and “biased”. It got to the stage where the leader of Somerset County Council had to deny that section 114 was in the offing.
For those members who do not know what a section 114 is, I will explain, as it is directly relevant. The then Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee’s “Local authority financial sustainability and the section 114 regime” report—its second report of the 2021-22 Session—set out the definition well:
“under section 114 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, a Chief Finance Officer is required to make a report, known as a section 114 notice, if it appears to them that the expenditure of the authority in a financial year is ‘likely to exceed the resources (including sums borrowed) available to it to meet that expenditure.’…Once a council has issued a notice, spending on all but essential services must immediately cease. It is a statement that a council is in deep financial distress and requires assistance from central government.”
That goes to the heart of the proposals. Hon. Members might want to read that report, because it helps to contextualise further the problems faced by local government in Somerset and more broadly. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw and my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham were members of that Select Committee. I am sure we can consult them on their views, if necessary.
I was the leader of a council for many years, and I have known a fair number of council leaders in my time, but I have known none who had to deny that a section 114 was in the offing, let alone anyone who had a section 114 —I think there have been four in the past few years. So the leader of Somerset County Council was the pot calling the kettle black. As it happens, the hon. Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger), said that the Secretary of State “cannot afford” to ignore the vote in the poll to which I referred. However, the former Secretary of State did ignore that poll.
Reorganisations of local government, such as the one proposed by the Minister today, really only paper over the cracks. That is the fact of the matter. Eventually, the Government will have to address the sustainability of local government finances, as per the report to which I referred. In that regard, the question for the Committee is whether we think that the draft order is a long-term solution for the problems facing Somerset local government, when those responsible for the problem in the first place, namely the Government, with their underfunding of local government, and the Tory-controlled county council, with its—let us be honest—incompetence, have not resolved it. The proposals, I hope, will help to resolve the problem, but they will not necessarily do so.
When the elections of 1 April 2022 come about in Somerset, as a result of the provisions under article 4, the people of Somerset will, I hope, send a message to the leader of the existing county council that, in the newly renamed Somerset Council, they do not want more of the financial and organisational incompetence that they have had in the old Somerset County Council. In the meantime, the statement by the former Secretary of State that he would not impose “top-down government solutions” has as much substance as a balloon.
The people of Somerset face major reorganisation of a council that has the responsibility to provide the services on which they rely every single day. From the moment a person wakes up, they will hear or see services provided by the local council. They might hear their bins being collected, before they see them. They will notice the lights on their street coming on or going off. Walking out of their house, they will step on a pavement, cross a road or walk through a park maintained by the council as they make their way to a library maintained by their council. There will be many services provided by the council that they did not even know the council had to provide. Local councils have as many as 3,000 statutory responsibilities.
Given that, given the major changes occurring and given the context in which these things are happening in Somerset, what assurances can the Minister give us in Committee that her Department will closely monitor the community engagement process undertaken by the new council? We should remember that people in Somerset have been used to a council that has provided services much more locally and much closer to them. So when it comes to this new county-wide council, to be authorised under the draft order by us in this Committee today, people need assurances that everything has been done to ensure that they are heard not just at election time, but throughout the years, by way of robust local community networks and engagement infrastructure.
How will the new council engage with its partners in the business, voluntary, community, faith and health—the Minister referred to that—sectors? What are the appropriate arrangements for the transition more broadly to the new council referred to in paragraph 2 of the explanatory notes? When will the Minister decide what incidental, consequential, transitional and supplementary provisions may be necessary in relation to section 14 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007?
Paragraph 7.4 of the explanatory notes refers to the Secretary of State not being convinced that the two-council proposal would improve local government or be “a credible geography”. Why is that, when the 110,000 people in the poll, and even the official consultation, showed that that was not the view of local people? So much for listening to local people.
Is the Minister prepared to write to members of the Committee about paragraph 7.7 of the explanatory notes on the progress that the Implementation Executive is making? Paragraph 10.10 of the explanatory notes refers to those who did not support the unitary model—the majority of people—on the grounds that it would be
“too remote and local democracy would be diminished.”
Will the Minister ensure that those concerns are given full vent in any community network arrangements? It would be helpful to know what those are. The topography, the demography and the social and economic landscape is so varied in Somerset that careful consideration of community structures is required.
Will the Minister and the Department assure the people of Somerset that, despite the transactional approach we heard today, their views have not been discarded in the consultation and will be heard loud and clear during the transition phase? The people of Somerset deserve to be fully involved in the process at all stages. I hope that the Minister can give general and specific assurances on the impact of the proposals on the people of Somerset.
Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)
It is a pleasure and an honour to serve under your chairmanship. Mr Efford. I would like to ask the Minister a couple questions, but first, I welcome the order.
In my view, moving to a unitary authority is absolutely the right thing for the people of Somerset. It will allow a more integrated approach to health and social care, security, the way our police interact with district councils, and to powers that have not been implemented in a joined-up way before. Overall, that joined-up approach gives us the opportunity to transform services and improve them at the same time as providing better value for money for our residents in Somerset. Even more importantly, it means that we can speak with one voice in Somerset and work, as MPs who support the Government, with local people to achieve things for our area. It is a massive, once-in-a-generation opportunity that we must not pass up.
We heard some points about supposed context. They represented cloud cuckoo land when compared with my experience and knowledge of what has been going on Somerset for many years. The opposite is the case. Our county council, of which I used to be a member, was saddled with a huge debt of £350 million by the previous Lib Dem administration. That costs residents of Somerset £40,000 a day to this day. It is outrageous.
Mr Fysh
I will not. The hon. Gentleman said many things that were patently not the case.
There is another point that people might not understand, and I would like the Minister’s feedback on it. She talked about the transition arrangements and the commitments that the various councils would make not to enter into contracts and so on. South Somerset District Council, which is Lib Dem-run at the moment, has just run up another £120 million of debt against its assets. That is an outrageous layer of extra debt, which will fall to the unitary authority and the residents of Somerset to pay off. The council sold the council housing in Somerset some years ago and got £40 million. It was therefore in net cash but is now in massive debt. What can the Minister do to try to stop the Lib Dems implementing such a scorched earth policy in the coming months? They are undoubtedly engaged in that at the moment.
Somerset County Council plans to spend 13% more on adult social care and children’s services in this year’s budget, but it is raising council tax by only 2% on the main precept. That is a very strong performance, so it is wrong to say that the scheme is being planned on the basis of trying to solve an issue that we, on this side of the House, have created.
I will just end by saying that we heard lots of aspersions cast against Somerset’s Tory leader. Without wanting to saying anything untoward here, I think that the residents of Somerset have a right to understand that the previous Lib Dem council leader of South Somerset is currently in jail for 11 years for pretty heinous crimes—well, very heinous crimes—and the main character witness at his trial was none other than the previous Lib Dem leader of the county council, who sits now in the other place, outrageously. My point is that these are not fit and proper people. The Lib Dems are not a fit and proper party to be involved in local government in Somerset ever again.
It is also worth the people of Somerset understanding that that district council—that Lib Dem-led district council—is currently also under investigation for endemic and widespread corruption. I wonder what the Minister can say about whether she will, for this period, which is so important in making the transition to a proper integrated unitary council, put the Lib Dem South Somerset administration—today—into special measures.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Mr Efford, once again, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I think we may be marching towards local elections in some patches. I thank the Minister for an informative introduction to the draft statutory instrument. It obviously follows the one that we did last week, and I think we have another next week, too. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle for his eloquent and powerful speech, and also, of course, the hon. Member for Yeovil for trying to add some local context.
I will use the National Audit Office figures for local government cuts. It is coming up to 12 years of cuts, which are now at 50%. When 50% is taken away, councils struggle, including Somerset County Council—indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle explained the seriousness of the matter, with the section 114 notice; in plain English, it was on the verge of bankruptcy.
Getting back to the statutory instrument, the Government consulted on two proposals, which the Minister outlined, for a move towards a unitary authority system for Somerset: Stronger Somerset, which proposed an east-and-west split with two unitary authorities, and One Somerset, which proposed a single unitary authority. The answer from the public was clear, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle mentioned, with well over 100,000 responses—I think there were 110,000 responses—to a public poll. That is quite substantial, and, as politicians, we have an eye on polls.
Peter Dowd
The point that my hon. Friend has raised is pertinent. As it happens, the hon. Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) said, in relation to that poll, that the Secretary of State “cannot afford” to ignore the vote but, of course, he did, didn’t he?
Mike Amesbury
That certainly seems to be the case; it is evidently clear. In that poll of more than 110,000 people, 65% supported the two-unitary proposal, and only 35% the single-unitary proposal, yet the Secretary of State and the Minister march on with this devolution proposal that seems to have been rejected by a public poll.
It was not just the public who did not support the single-unitary proposal. In response to the consultation, a statement by the four district councils disputed the idea that the proposal had local support, describing the Government as
“foisting a manifestly unpopular new local government on our residents”—
not my words, but those of the district councils.
The Government criteria for unitary authority proposals, to which the Minister rightly referred, include the need for plans to be locally approved. As I stated earlier this week, on a previous statutory instrument similar to the draft order, the explanatory notes for such restructuring instruments state that plans should be “locally led”, as any devolution proposal should be, and should
“command a good deal of local support”.
Will the Minster therefore explain whether 35% is now considered “a good deal” of support?
Peter Dowd
The hon. Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset said—my hon. Friend is probably aware of this, but perhaps he will clarify—not only that the Secretary of State “could not afford” to ignore that vote, but:
“The Secretary of State might have preferred us all to go away and forget this referendum, but we didn’t”.
Is that an important comment by a Member of Parliament who represents the area?
Mike Amesbury
It is very important. I concur with that good and important intervention by my hon. Friend.
The Secondary Legislation Committee marked the draft order, as well as those for North Yorkshire—which we have already discussed in Committee—and Cumbria as instruments of interest, because of that question of local say in and ownership of devolution. Does the Minister consider the local support aspect of the criteria to be less important than the others in this and other similar proposals that we will discuss in the not-too-distant future? Is that why, when the Stronger Somerset proposal was apparently rejected on other grounds, the One Somerset proposal was taken forward despite clearly not fulfilling the criteria that the Government had set out?
The hon. Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger)—whom the hon. Member for Yeovil knows well—repeatedly and loudly expressed his concerns in the House of Commons Chamber about the plan, stating that the logic of the decision to approve the plan is bizarre. He is not a shadow Minister, but a local Conservative Member of Parliament. His concerns and those of the local people who supported the plan for two unitary councils appear to centre on the fear of a loss of local connection and of democracy under one authority—one authority that is currently struggling and financially on its knees.
Mike Amesbury
It is a fact. The facts are there to see. The Minister referred to cost savings of £52 million—correct me if I am wrong—under this proposal. What does that £52 million equate to? How many libraries will disappear? How many youth centres will close? How many grass verges will not be cut as often? How will waste and refuse services be affected? We do not know. Those are all unanswered questions, and for people in Somerset, the answers are vital.
There is a reference to local networks. I do not know how many of them there will be. They are there so that we can try to ensure a connection with the localities that are losing representation. I think the estimate was 15 to 20. I ask the Minister: how many is it—15 or 20? Will they have real delegated powers over transport, planning and housing—the bread-and-butter issues that people associate with their councils?
As Members from across the House should agree, devolution has to be shaped by local residents, and key stakeholders such as MPs, councils, and certainly the business community. I look forward to the Minister’s answers to my questions, and to the justification for what some will see as a diktat from the Secretary of State—from Westminster. The Minister said that there was no county devo deal; money would come with that. We are talking about a county council on the brink of bankruptcy. I look forward to her response to a number of questions that have been asked today.
The Chair
Mr Fysh, I have consulted the video assistant referee regarding your reference to somebody in the other House not being a fit and proper person, and I am told that that was not in order. May I respectfully ask you to withdraw that comment?
The Chair
Order. Please take your seat. All I needed from you was a withdrawal of your statement. You have clarified that you withdraw it; that is fine. I call the Minister.
Kemi Badenoch
I have been very encouraged by our spirited debate on this statutory instrument. Yesterday we managed to complete our discussion in 15 minutes; this has been a genuine debate. I thank all members of the Committee for their contribution, but I will say that I disagree with the entire premise of the arguments made by the hon. Member for Bootle. He seems to believe that this is an issue of local government finance. It is not; it is about devolution and levelling up. Unitarisation is not a solution to deep-seated—
Kemi Badenoch
No, because I can tell that the hon. Gentleman wants to have a debate about local government finance. This is a structural change order. He did not speak in the local government finance settlement debate a couple of weeks ago, in which he could have raised many of these issues. In fact, a lot of the points that he made would be more suitable for a debate in the Somerset County Council chamber, and were not really relevant to the structural change order that we are considering.
I must stress to all Members—I have made this point previously—that unitarisation is not a one-size-fits-all solution to multiple problems. If what the hon. Gentleman said is true—from what I heard from Members representing Somerset, it is not true that there are deep-seated financial issues—unitarisation would not fix the problems, so it does not make sense for him to argue that those problems are why we are making these changes. Considering what we have had to do in Liverpool—I will not go into the details—it is extraordinary that he, a Merseyside MP, is talking about what is happening in Somerset.
Peter Dowd
On a point of order, Mr Efford. The Minister really needs to get her facts right. I am the Member of Parliament responsible for Sefton Council, which is a different borough. Why on earth she is referring to Liverpool, when I do not represent Liverpool, is beyond me.
The Chair
Thank you for your intervention. We do not need to get sidetracked into the finances of local authorities. We are dealing with Somerset, and if we could stick with what we are here to debate, I would be grateful.
Kemi Badenoch
Thank you, Mr Efford; I think that is right. However, the hon. Member for Bootle made a point about Tory-controlled councils, so I think I can make a point about Labour-controlled councils in response. He is a Merseyside MP—I did not say he was a Liverpool MP—and the fact is that the four commissioners that we sent from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities were appointed after an emergency inspection found a serious breakdown of governance and multiple failures. The inspection was triggered by the arrest of ex-Mayor Joe Anderson.
The Chair
Order. We are not going any further down that road. We are going to debate Somerset.
Mike Amesbury
On a point of order, Mr Efford. Reference was made to Liverpool and Merseyside, because you have just increased the fees for the commissioners by 50%—
The Chair
No, no, no. That is not a point of order; it is a point of debate, and it is not for this debate. Good try, but it is not for this debate. Minister, stick with Somerset.
Kemi Badenoch
Thank you, Mr Efford. I shall now stick with Somerset. Opposition Members have raised multiple questions, but first I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil for adding quite a lot of local context to what has been going on and reminding me that we have had considerable engagement not just with Members of Parliament—we know that they were not unanimous, but the vast majority of Somerset MPs agree with what is happening today—but with district councils. I wrote to them asking for further views about things that we wanted to do around election dates and so on. They were largely Liberal Democrat-controlled councils, and the decision that was being made was not a partisan political one. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising some of those points and allowing me to draw out the context.
I will now move on to some of the questions that were asked. My hon. Friend specifically asked about putting Lib Dem South Somerset into special measures. I cannot do that in the SI debate, but I will update him about some of the issues that he has referred to. I am sure I can get officials to write to him to provide additional information.
The shadow Minister asked a question about engagement and the local community networks, and whether it was 15 or 20. It is 15 to 20; that is something that they can decide themselves. Those local community networks will cover every part of Somerset. They will be, effectively, cabinet committees of the new council and supported by a senior community development officer. I think that is the right way to go, and it shows that these are locally led proposals.
I ask forgiveness from the hon. Member for Bootle, who asked some further questions specifically about the text of the SI. I will write to him on some of those points; I have missed the notes that I made. There was a substantive discussion around the consultation, and he raised very good points. I do not think it is odd for him to raise them. We look at all the decisions that we make in the round, and the referendum principle does not apply here. Those consultations are not referendums; they are advisory. In some cases, they can show that there is a distinct lack of interest in a particular proposal. The way we phrased it in the consultation was not as an either/or, but as a preference. The fact that people might have preferred one to the other did not mean that they did not like the other. That is why the Secretary of State took all those decisions in the round. The basis for the proposal is not just that one criterion, but all the others. I mentioned in my speech that it was about the geographical context as well as the ability to provide for local service delivery, and I am happy to repeat that.
The hon. Gentleman said that the savings were just £52 million, but I should emphasise that there is a huge opportunity here to enhance social care and safeguarding services. I do not think anyone in this room would disagree with that outcome. There are better opportunities for improved strategic decision making and improved service delivery. We will be getting quite a lot from this unitarisation, and I really hope that Members from all parties in Somerset and beyond—all the way to Merseyside—will be able to support us as we continue with these proposals.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Somerset (Structural Changes) Order 2022.