Economic Growth: South-west

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered economic growth in the South West.

It is a great pleasure, Mr Owen, to serve under your distinguished and experienced chairmanship.

It is a delight to see the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) in his place. Today it is my intention, and I think that of my colleagues, to build on the debate we had about two and a half years ago regarding the successes and challenges of our great region—the south-west—and to reiterate the requests that we make of the Government to make our area even better than it is at the moment.

I am a great believer in summaries, partly because I only ever read the executive summary of any report. At any event, a summary of my speech would be: our region is doing well, many businesses and sectors are flourishing, and we are grateful for the commitments that the Government have made to us, especially regarding infrastructure, but we want 2019 to be the year of delivery.

I have been in the House for 26 years.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

Not very long.

[Sir Gary Streeter]

Not long enough, I know. Thirteen of those years have been under a Conservative Government and 13 under a Labour Government, and the reality is that there has been under-investment in our region’s vital infrastructure for the entirety of those 26 years. At last we have a Government who are listening, and now we need to see delivery to our ambitious region.

First of all, I will just say a few words about what our region actually is. I suppose that the best way of describing it is variable geometry. For some purposes, it is the seven counties that are in the European region—dare I use that expression in the company of some of my hon. Friends? For some of us, it is the two counties of Devon and Cornwall. Increasingly, however, we can talk about the four counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset working together. There are four counties and three local enterprise partnerships working together to make the peninsula—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Gary Streeter]

My hon. Friend says the cream is put on first; I will go with him.

As I was saying, our universities are doing well. Exeter, of course, is a world-renowned university and part of the Russell Group. Plymouth University is also making great strides as a university and it is really transforming the city of Plymouth, so I pay tribute to the work that it has done, particularly in the marine engineering and science departments. However, let us not forget Plymouth Marjon University—the colleges of St Mark and St John. It has experienced significant growth over the last two years, bucking the current trend and producing ever-greater results for its students. Intellectual capital in our region is powerfully underpinned by excellent places of learning.

The south-west is also home to one of the largest engineering projects in Europe, at Hinkley C, which represents a massive investment in our region and is producing many skilled jobs.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

Notwithstanding the fact that the Chair has Wylfa Newydd in his constituency, with which we have had problems, may I just put some figures on this? We will create 25,000 jobs and more than 1,000 apprenticeships; we have just finished the National College for Nuclear, which is fantastic; our Inspire programme has now reached 15,000 schoolchildren; and 64% of the total build at Hinkley is going to UK companies. My hon. Friend has made such powerful comments on that. If it helps Devon, it helps Cornwall, it helps Dorset and it helps Somerset. I know he is celebrating that, and I thank him for his thoughts.

[Sir Gary Streeter]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I do celebrate that tremendous project and success story. He is right that it is something for the entire region, not just for the county of Somerset, and we are pleased to be supporting it.

All of what I have said so far is about the things that are going well in our region. What we have welcomed from the Government in the past 12 months or so includes some of the things that were mentioned in the Budget. The transforming cities fund is hopefully of great benefit to Plymouth, and perhaps the Minister will say something about the timescales for decisions on that. The freezing of cider duty was well received by the apple producers of Somerset and, indeed, throughout the region. We have seen the improvements to the Dawlish seawall get under way in the past few months, and I will come on to talk about the major announcement that we anticipate. We welcome the new Great Western Railway trains, which are having a gradual impact on our crucial Penzance to Paddington link—a very pleasant travel experience. We welcome the £10 million for fisheries innovation, to help local fishers.

In January 2019, planning permission for the north Devon link road was given, and I pay tribute to the persistence of my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones). When he started talking about the link road, we all thought, “That can never happen. There is no money in the jam jar for that. He is just off on ‘a frolic of his own’, as Lord Denning once said”. Well, his frolic is bearing fruit, and well done to him for being such an incredible campaigner for his constituents.

We welcome and celebrate the major work to tackle flooding at Cowley, east of Exeter. We all remember the red sausage, or the balloon, that was in evidence some two or three years ago. That should now be a thing of the past, thanks to Network Rail’s investment.

We welcome the Government’s industrial strategy and the fact that our local enterprise partnerships are working hard with officials from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to develop a local industrial strategy, looking especially at productivity, which I know will be music to the Minister’s ears.

Finally, we must not forget our farmers. We have excellent farmers throughout the region and they welcome the fact that the Government are listening to them and helping to shape our UK-wide agriculture policy post Brexit. I have said two words that I know some of my friends will be very, very pleased to hear.

What do we now need from the Government? I will focus on that for a few minutes, and I will then conclude and let others have a say. We await, of course, the major Dawlish announcement. Today is the fifth anniversary of those extraordinary images of the railway line waving in mid-air and everything beneath being washed away by the winds and waves of that winter’s storms. I will never forget the journey we have been on since then, via Downing Street, the Peninsula Rail Task Force, the 20-year plan and the negotiating with Government. Of course such things take time but, even though the announcement will, I hope, come next week, and even though I think it will be a good and fully funded one that we will all welcome, for me, it has taken at least 12 months too long. The region has become impatient. It will be fine, provided we get what we are looking for, and perhaps the Minister can say something about that.

Planning: South Somerset

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Wednesday 28th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Fysh]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention; it would not be an Adjournment debate without a strong contribution from Northern Ireland. I agree that focusing on and intensifying development in town centres is one of the answers both to finding more housing and to getting more people living in town centres, which means they will be there for the businesses in those locations. Having more eyes on the street makes town centres safer and more people will want to visit them. He is absolutely right. I would love Yeovil to be that kind of town, and part of that virtuous circle.

Not so very long ago, the Conservative party manifesto included the idea of a community right of appeal. There is an understandable impetus not to make things too onerous for developers and to ensure that decisions can be made in a timely fashion. I support that, but it is also key that proper evidence is used to make these decisions in the right way. It is my opinion that, unfortunately, evidence in South Somerset has been cooked up for various outcomes—pre-cooked over decades to make certain things happen that, frankly, the Liberal Democrats have wanted to happen for one reason or another. The community has completely lost confidence in the Liberal Democrats’ ability to make the right decisions on its behalf.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

It is so nice to see you in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker.

My hon. Friend is making some very good points. I have been the MP for Bridgwater and West Somerset for 17 years, and I have never seen South Somerset in the mess that it is now in. The Liberals left us a terrible legacy that started with the noble Lord Ashdown and continued up until David Laws, who has now left the House. Does my hon. Friend agree that it has been a catalogue of disaster over that terrible period for south Somerset? Yeovil is a town that should be thriving—doing really well—but I am embarrassed to say, as a great supporter of my hon. Friend, who is doing a fantastic job, that it does not seem to be.

[Mr Fysh]

I thank my hon. Friend. He is certainly right that Yeovil has its challenges. Part of the problem has been sprawling development, and not particularly good development, that has been approved over the decades that I am talking about. We need to get a virtuous circle working in the other direction. The town has enormous potential and it has great industries in it. It needs a Conservative leadership in the district council next year to be able to achieve its potential and really contribute to the south-west’s growth.

I want to spend a little time going through some of the big saga that happened to the south of Yeovil. Essentially, at the back end of the ’80s, or very early in the ’90s, there was a graded asset near a farmhouse that was falling down. The district council, being responsible for such things, did not want to spend the money on it and got its friend who was a developer to buy it, in an area that was not scheduled to have development around it. Who knows what really happened, but I suspect very strongly that the council made commitments to him that they would get him planning permission and on that basis he would do the renovations to keep the building standing. That, I think, is the origin of the problem that is down there.

This area is a really, truly special part of the country with international and international heritage value. It has the village of East Coker, where T.S. Eliot is buried in the church. He wrote one of his most famous poems about the village and the landscape. There are ancient Roman ruins throughout. There are two of the closest together Roman villas, which is a very unusual archaeological configuration, apparently. Those two villas became the manors of East Coker and West Coker in later times. They have a tremendously rich and fertile soil and history.

William Dampier was born in the village. He was an extremely important person in botany, science and literature. He cut his teeth investigating why different plants grew in different parts of the Vale of Coker, which he was farm managing for various of his boss’s tenants. That is what got him thinking about why certain things grow differently in certain places. Then, when he did his second navigation of the world later in his life, he made all his drawings in his botanical notebooks and wrote about them. That was the inspiration that Charles Darwin took with him when he went around the world in the Beagle doing exactly the same thing, so there really is a very strong heritage in evidence there.

Yet the district council has never, ever ascribed any value to that whatsoever. When it did its landscape and heritage assessments of this area for development, it gave absolutely no value to the farm that was next to the graded asset or to the whole setting, including those Roman villas. There was no drawing together of the threads and the context. Frankly, that is a disgrace, because we are talking about proper national heritage. T.S. Eliot was the most famous poet of the 20th century. His words in that poem will live for as long as the English language lives. People absolutely should go and visit the church in East Coker to see where his memorial is, and to see the memorial to William Dampier. It is an extraordinary place.

The council got the developer to buy that land and said that it would give him planning permission. When the A37 was being expanded to the south of Yeovil, it then gave him a roundabout that was contiguous with the land he had bought, in order to get access to the putative development that it had in mind. That was done entirely at the behest of the county councillor for the area at the time, who is now in the House of Lords—Baroness Bakewell. She suggested that roundabout, which was going to benefit the developer to a huge financial degree, and she made it happen through her friends in the county council. The leader of the district council at the time was having an affair with the chair of the environment committee in the county council.

There are wheels within wheels in South Somerset, and this has been going on for an awfully long time. There is the evidence of the roundabout. The developer made a contribution of £100,000 to the county council to get it done under a section 278 agreement—that is in black and white. Unsurprisingly, the community was more than upset and confused at how unusual that was when it found out.

The council has continued to give favours to this developer over time. It tried initially to promote a big logistics park on the site. That did not go forward because the community opposed it, but the council then came up with the idea of developing the site for housing. When it was assessing the site in the process leading up to the more recent local plan, it decided to give a zero rating on the community infrastructure levy, so that it would not have to pay anything to the community. The whole point of the Localism Act 2011 was that development in the community would give some benefit to the community, to spend in ways that it wanted. None of that will happen if this site gets developed, because of that CIL derogation, which benefits this developer substantially.

In the planning process, the council gamed the highways evidence. It gamed the housing demand evidence, to ensure that this site would be one of those that it had to consider. It gamed the landscape evidence, and then it gamed the historic environment assessment evidence by not taking account of the settings of all the graded assets. There is a higher concentration of graded assets in that valley than almost anywhere else in the country. It is so rich and has such a history; it is quite an extraordinary place.

The district council made a statement of common ground with the developer, and it was only on that basis that English Heritage allowed it to remove its objection from the local plan process for the whole site, and that was on the basis that it was going to be a reduced size and only up in the corner. The council said that it would not develop on a field that is adjacent to one of the scheduled ancient monuments—the Roman villa, which was on the at-risk register at the time because of development potential. On the basis of that statement of common ground, the council got English Heritage to remove it from the at-risk register.

Then the council got the planning inspector to change his final report on the local plan. I have copies of the documents. His original report was basically going to say that he was approving the local plan allocation for the whole site because it was not in proximity to the scheduled monument. However, I have in writing, too, the council saying to him that the field is in fact adjacent to the monument. That was taken out, which materially changes the meaning of the report.

I personally think that this closeness between councils and the Planning Inspectorate is a structural problem that the Ministry should look into. It is not appropriate for these sorts of things to go on behind closed doors. No information was released, even under the Freedom of Information Act, until after it was judicially reviewable, which is a disgrace. It is understandable that, in this context, the process does not smell right at all and I would support the community in saying that.

The council is now trying to get its friends on the county council—because it is all about politics from way back when—to shift the school site to the very field adjacent to the scheduled ancient monument. I am very pleased to say that Historic England has just submitted an objection to the planning application, on the basis that that is absolutely not what it agreed when it released all these things, given all the reliance placed on the statement of common ground that allowed the site to come forward in the first place.

Essentially, on a policy basis, we need to look at how communities can challenge the substance of some of this stuff, other than with the normal route of politics. Everyone says, “Well, just vote people out”, but that is not realistic in a place where there is a safe seat or a safe council. In these sort of incidents, it is only on a procedural basis—if there is something wrong with the actual process—that individuals can bring a judicial review. If the council has not divulged the information about the material way in which decisions were made by the decision maker, which it did not do, and we are out of time, what do we do?

Both because it is a nationally important heritage asset and because there are public policy grounds, including the very welcome new powers to protect heritage in the national planning policy framework––we should try to elucidate and clarify some of these things––this planning application is a very good candidate for calling in. I would like it to be called in and, to put my hon. Friend the Minister in the picture, I will be making an application to do so in the coming days. I have taken more time than I promised I would, but I thank hon. Members for listening.

Somerset County Council: Unitary Status

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Somerset County Council’s plans for unitary status.

Thank you for calling me, Mr Hollobone. I am delighted to see my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) in his place, joining me today. This is an important subject to us, because it concerns the county of Somerset. A fortnight ago, the leader of the county council came to Westminster and threw an unexpected spanner in the works for all Somerset Members, who got no advance warning of the desperate plans to turn the whole county into a unitary. One by one, he spelled out his vision to us, and we were collectively gobsmacked—we had had no warning.

We knew that the county council was squeezed, and we understood the pressures of providing the most expensive public service with a small grant from Government. We also recognised that the writing had been on the same wall in Taunton for years. Funnily enough, it was back in 2006 that the idea of a Somerset unitary was originally conceived. I was there at that time; unfortunately my hon. Friend was not, but I believe that he was a county councillor.

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

No.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

He says from a sedentary position that he was not, so that is me in the doghouse already.

The idea came from the dangerous mind of the chief executive, a tiny little man called Alan Jones—no surprises there. He was ruthless and he wanted a “lean, mean council”—his words. He went for the quick fix of getting rid of the district councils, and said the county could pocket—guess what?—£28 million. I will come back to that in a minute. Nobody ever knew quite how Jonesy arrived at £28 million, including me.

The present leader of the county council is still running with the idea 12 years later, and I am afraid that it is as wrong now as it was then. This is what rings alarm bells in my mind: Somerset County Council has never been good with money. I have looked at its books just to prove how bad it is. In 2007, it had only £11 million in the general reserve fund. Here we are, 11 years later, and it still has about £11 million—it is difficult to get a handle on it, but it is between £11 million and £18 million. That may sound like a lot in certain quarters, but it is chickenfeed when the overall budget runs into hundreds of millions. If an unexpected crisis happens—normally it does—there is nothing to fall back on, and unfortunately we have had that in Somerset. Occasionally, the place floods.

Alan Jones liked to pretend that everything was going well, but it was not then and it is not now. The county needed to borrow £376 million in 2007, so Napoleon Jones did a dodgy deal and signed his life away to IBM. He even persuaded his mates in Taunton Deane Borough Council to follow suit. Only two councils did so; the only other organisation to do so was the Avon and Somerset police force, known as the police farce. Together they created a thing called Southwest One, an overblown IT monster that it was boasted would save money faster than anyone could print it. The two councils apparently stood to gain £200 million in savings if everything went according to plan, but it never does—not in Taunton, anyway. Welcome to the south-west bubble: our proud county town—that is what it is—where backhanders are normal and nobody trusts the leaders. The two councils handed over a mass of public money to a multinational, and they wondered why it went belly-up.

If only little Jonesy had got away with creating a unitary, there would have been even more money for—guess who?—IBM. Many of us know of it. The plan was taken over by the districts, but it was doomed because the public did not buy it. When the county council refused to hold a referendum, we—me and the MPs at the time—organised it ourselves, along with the district councils who, regardless of political colour, all subscribed to it. Two hundred thousand people voted, and 84% of them said no.

By July 2007, the people had spoken and unitary Somerset was dead in the water. My hon. Friend the Minister might like to know this. He is the Member for Richmond—I helped on the by-election for his predecessor, Mr William Hague, only because I was in the Army and had a car—and North Yorkshire had also planned to become a unitary, but that plan was rejected by the Government at exactly the same time. There is historical precedent.

As for the Somerset IT monster, Southwest One had only two councils on its books, which made its own death inevitable. Then along came the international financial crisis, the credit crunch and the grim dawn of austerity, which we all remember with no great fondness. Austerity for everybody? Not in Taunton. Jones was sacked by the county in 2009, but it cost £300,000 to get rid of him. Down the road at Taunton Deane, the other IBM champion, Penny James and Shirlene Adam are still in the top jobs and, I am afraid, heading for another IT disaster. They say that donkey dung floats—we have incontinent donkeys galore in Taunton.

By 2012, Somerset Council’s borrowing was on course to hit £410 million, which means shelling out £100,000 every single day just to keep the loans going. All the while, the price of providing vital children’s services and social care was going up, and I say gently to my hon. Friend the Minister that Government grants were coming down.

There is plenty of evidence that the council cannot control what it spends and tackles big problems by taking even more ridiculous risks. The learning and disability service was outsourced, for example, which made financial sense only if the savings added up, but, just like with Southwest One, the real cost outweighed the benefit. Learning and disability burst its budget and then faced extra cuts.

There are ongoing problems in several parts of the council. A recent peer review found that only 65% of promised savings actually took place, so I am afraid the reserves are running out. They were dwindling three years ago when a budget freeze was imposed, but things have got worse. By September 2016, the cabinet talked about declaring the authority bankrupt. It did not happen then, but it is dangerously close to happening now.

I am indebted to the work of Kevin Nacey, whom my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil knows well. He has been the head of finance at Somerset County Council for donkey’s years. He has done the accounts since 2006, but he has had enough: as the latest county calamity began, he announced an early exit. Mr Nacey is off to pastures new, and—dare I say it?—a big juicy carrot: he will soon be in charge of the books of the donkey sanctuary. Eeyore would say of all this, “How very appropriate.”

I have several direct questions for the Minister. We have to work through this; we cannot go on like this in local government. Last week, he and I had another debate on the future of Taunton and West Somerset, which—dare I say?—the Government managed to get through. I feel I was unfair in what I said at the time, but I gently say that I strongly believe that the Government are not playing fair with local government. Last week I was a little more profound, but I was more cross; this week I am more measured.

Local government does matter. The Minister’s constituency covers a vast geographical area—he has a seat bigger than mine, and I always think that Bridgwater and West Somerset is pretty large—and the problem for all of us is that the democratic deficit cannot be taken away without leaving a problem. Where unitary status has happened in very big counties, it has created enormous stresses, not least on the MPs in those areas. When councillors have to look after more and more, and deal with more and more, that deficit gets big. I ask him to pass this point on to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State: please think about the future of local government. I do not wish to spend whatever time I have in this place getting up every time I can to say to Ministers, “Could you please defend local government?”

Reorganisations are never good. In 1974 the Government of the day created Avon, which my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil is aware of. They created North Somerset and Bath and North East Somerset, which is now a unitary and is struggling because it is too small for a unitary. Maybe we as a county need to talk to Devon and to North Somerset.

[Mr Fysh]

My hon. Friend is making an interesting speech about the history of local government in Somerset. Does he not think, though, that to deal with the overhang of debt that the Liberal Democrats left the county with in 2009, it has been necessary to take a raft of difficult decisions? Is it not worth at least exploring ways of saving the taxpayers money? This proposal might be a solution, but like him, I would say it is imperative that we ensure no democratic deficit is created through the process.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He was a county councillor, and so was fully aware of the situation—more so than any of us. I am delighted to see that my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey), who I know had a pressing engagement, has made it here. He will recognise this point, because he wrote a devastatingly good article that follows on from what my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil has said. My hon. Friend puts forward a good case that we must look at the debt, look at our options and look at our future. I will take that first point first, if I may.

My hon. Friend is right that it was the Liberals who created the debt—not the Conservatives, but the Liberals. We are now living with that legacy, but it has to be faced. I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that it is our social services that are pulling us down. The problem we face is that we do not have enough money to take care of the neediest in our community.

The second point my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil makes, which I have made before and which I know my hon. Friend the Member for Wells agrees with, is that we should also look to our neighbours. My hon. Friend the Member for Wells wrote a good piece about looking toward BANES, and I mentioned looking toward Devon. We have no parameters—we could look at either of them—but we need democratic accountability. I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that if we are going to go through with any form of unitary, we need to have a referendum. If we need to look to the people of BANES to split up the ghastly edifice that is Avon and get our old county back, we will do that.

When Councillor Fothergill came to the House—he was very courteous; it was a very courteous meeting—I asked him directly about a referendum. He said, “I will hold negotiations or conversations with our stakeholders.” To me and to my hon. Friends the Members for Yeovil and for Wells, the stakeholders are our constituents. They are our stakeholders, not the Avon and Somerset police farce, based in Bristol, or the ambulance service, now based in Exeter, I believe, or the fire service, based wherever the heck it has got to now. We, the people of Somerset, are the stakeholders. That is who we represent.

I would like the Minister, if possible, to say a referendum should be held. We did not hold one in West Somerset. When I had to put my views gently to the Minister last week, I said that the majority of people who took part in what can only be described as a pretty desultory consultation were against that proposal, but they were ignored. I hope that will not be the format for the future.

I say to the Minister, please do not underestimate the ability of Somerset to fight back. We have done it once, and we will do it again. The last time was the battle of Sedgemoor in 1685, which happened in my constituency, very close to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Wells. We marched on London. This time we are coming by train, so we will not get it wrong, and I assure the Minister that we will do what we have to in order to overturn this decision. I therefore urge him to think constructively about a great county such as Somerset. We have had our traumas, but we have a team that is blue throughout, and we want to keep that.

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he agree that, while a referendum is certainly the way to finish this process with full public support, the problem with referendums in recent years is that people have sometimes gone into them with incomplete information at their disposal? We must insist that the county council and the districts fully resource the analysis of all possible courses of action, so that a decision can be made on our future as a county based on all facts, rather than those selectively presented to engineer the outcome the county council desires?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I could not have put it better myself. My hon. Friend does a phenomenal job up on the north flank of Somerset. He is absolutely correct in what he says. We must take local opinion into account—not by saying in some waffly way, “Well, it’s quite a good idea,” but by saying, “A referendum must be held.” As I think my hon. Friend alluded to, his preference would be to go north and look toward BANES, if possible. We need to talk about that. It is no good the county council leader’s turning up in the House of Commons to try to persuade MPs of a course of action.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I am not from Somerset; I am an MP for Oxfordshire, which of course is thinking of going through a unitary process as well. Does my hon. Friend think it is wise for councils that are thinking about that to share common experience and the enthusiasm that he has for a referendum on these issues?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

My hon. Friend and I have worked together for many years, and I totally respect his guidance and thoughts on this. That is a wake-up call to the Minister. We need to have referendums, because this process is not working the way it should. We need to take public opinion into account, and a referendum is the way to do that. The Government need to make sure that they insist on referendums and therefore that we have democratic control, as opposed to a democratic deficit, which is where I started in the first place.

I therefore say to the Minister that this plan is a dangerous, unwarranted and unnecessary intrusion into government in Somerset. We will talk about it and look at it, but at the moment there is no merit in doing it. In fact, it would be more sensible for the districts to take over the county’s functions than for the county to take over the districts’ functions, because the difference is that the districts will not go bust.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak]

My predecessors, the Secretary of State and myself have previously laid out that a unitary authority should contain at least 300,000 people or more. That figure comes from research conducted by the Department in the past. However, each proposal will be considered on its merits.

The third and final criterion is that the proposal commands local support. In particular, the structure must be proposed by one or more existing councils in the area, and there must be evidence of a good deal of local support for it.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

Will the Minister say these wonderful words: there should be a referendum?

[Rishi Sunak]

I am afraid that I cannot say those specific words; indeed, that is not the Government’s previous guidance. The criterion is that there should be evidence of a good deal of local support for the proposal, including from business, the voluntary sector, public bodies and local communities.

My hon. Friend will know from the various proposals that the Government have already considered that there have been a range of ways to demonstrate that good deal of local support. Other areas have engaged electoral and polling agencies to conduct representative polling, county and district council members—who represent people in different areas—have voted and extensive engagement exercises and consultation processes have happened. There are various mechanisms, but the key is that, at the end of the day, there must be evidence of a good deal of local support.

I will elaborate a little further on what a good deal of local support means, as opposed to the mechanism for establishing that it is there. We would like to see a good deal of local support, which we assess in the round across the whole area—from business, the voluntary sector, public bodies and local communities. We do not mean unanimous agreement from all councillors, stakeholders, councils and residents. However, we expect as much consensus from councils as possible.

My hon. Friend talked about democratic deficits, and he is right to highlight the importance of local democracy. From parish councils and all the way up, strong local democracy serves communities well and can make a difference to how people live their lives and to the area that they call home. We have seen in previous reorganisations and restructuring an increase in the incidence of parishing, revitalising that most local form of democracy. For example, in Wiltshire, Salisbury became a town council as part of that process. We are seeing similar moves towards parishing in other areas, such as Suffolk, which is currently in the process of a district merger. The Government also have powers to confer charter trustees as part of any reorganisation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak]

Thank you, Mr Hollobone. I was not aware of that; I appreciate the extra time.

It is important that the councils of Somerset think long and hard about how best to serve their communities and about how to deliver the public services that people rely on, whether adult social care, children’s services, strategic planning or transport. It may well be that innovation and re-organisation will help to deliver for the people of Somerset, but it is crucial to note that that decision should be taken by the people of Somerset themselves. It will not be for the Government to impose a top-down solution.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I will be very brief; I promise I will not wind up the debate, Mr Hollobone. I am confused, because the Minister says that there must be local involvement, but also that local stakeholders must support the proposals. Most of West Somerset’s local stakeholders are not based in the county, funnily enough. Ambulance services are based in Devon, the fire brigade is based in, I think, North Somerset and the police are up in Avon. I would love to know how that will work. I ask the Minister to think this through. The most important people are the 500,000 based in the county of Somerset.

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and he is absolutely right to demonstrate that local people should have their say and that their voice should be heard. However, it is also important, when these deliberations are made, that we consider effective local government as one of the criteria. In any local area, there will be institutions and stakeholders, who may or may not be based in that area, who will make a difference to the delivery of local services, and their views will form part of those deliberations.

My hon. Friend started the debate by saying something that I wholeheartedly agree with: local government matters. I take that very seriously, as I know does the Secretary of State. That is why the Government will remain committed to responding and listening to proposals that come forward from local government. We will not seek to impose our view, but where there is a desire and a thrust for more change and innovation—whether in Somerset or elsewhere—we will look to support those involved, according to the criteria I have laid out. In conclusion, I commend my hon. Friend for the continued passion he has shown in ensuring that local democracy in Somerset remains vibrant and strong.

Question put and agreed to.

Draft Somerset West and Taunton (Modification of Boundary Change Enactments) Regulations 2018 Draft Somerset West and Taunton (Local Government Changes) Order 2018

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 General Committees

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

It does not give me great pleasure to stand before my colleagues to say what I have to say, but I am grateful to the hon. Member for Makerfield, who spoke for Labour, because she hit a lot of nails on the head.

I found the Minister’s opening statement to be almost Cinderella-like, as so much of it is not correct, and unfortunately this Committee is dealing with two statutory instruments that could affect my constituency—indeed, they will affect my constituency—very badly indeed.

The amalgamation of West Somerset Council with Taunton Deane Borough Council, its urban neighbour, will mean the loss of more than half our councillors; we will go from having 28 councillors to probably 12, and the same is true of Taunton Deane. There is a massive deficit. This is an area that Greater London could easily be fitted into that has 35,000 people. It is a huge geographical area. We do not think the price will be worth paying in respect of democracy. We will literally have people covering areas the size of half of Greater London.

West Somerset is sparsely populated and contains more than its fair share of retired folk. I believe that we have the second highest number of retired folk in Britain; my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch probably has slightly more than I do, but not by many. West Somerset is a very old area. We do not have very good phone signals; we do not even really have very good internet. We are an area that is still catching up and we have a long way to go.

To merge our area with Taunton—the county town, which has roughly 120,000 people, when we have only 35,000 people—does not make any sense whatsoever. This is a shotgun marriage that will lock us into a future of playing second fiddle to Taunton’s tune. We just would not have enough councillors to change anything. It does not matter what colour or persuasion those councillors will be; that will be irrelevant. They will never be able to stop Taunton from doing anything it wants.

I have good reasons to oppose both the draft instruments. First, they contain significant errors. The local government changes order refers to Taunton Deane as a district council. In fact, Taunton Deane is a borough council; it was granted borough status 43 years ago. The order also reproduces a schedule of wards and the number of new councillors to be elected in the future. Some of the names of these wards are displayed incorrectly and the number of new councillors is out of line with what we have been led to believe will be the case.

I understand that these things may seem trivial to some people, but I suggest to the Committee that we have a solemn duty in this House to pass legislation that is accurate in all its details. If this was a classroom and you, Ms Buck, were the teacher, I think that we would hear the words from you, “Not good enough. Take it away and do it again.

The Somerset West and Taunton (Modification of Boundary Change Enactments) Regulations 2018 are accompanied by a written report that the Secretary of State was legally obliged to supply. Without that report, the draft statutory instrument would be unlawful. However, the report itself contains material inaccuracies and deliberate omissions, which I feel obliged to point out this morning.

I hope that all the members of the Committee have that document. It runs to six pages. I will begin on page 4, section 4, in which the Secretary of State describes the process of consultation; quite rightly, the Minister referred to consultation as well. There is no dispute that the two councils conducted a consultation exercise of sorts. It was done very late in the day, several months after both councils had voted on the proposals and it was not—I repeat, not—a referendum. My argument is that the consultation has been deliberately misrepresented by the authors of the report that is before the Committee.

We are dealing with some other dismal mistakes. Paragraph 4.5 is about responses to an online survey organised by the two councils, and says there were

“76 written and 528 questionnaire responses that displayed a good level of support”.

The numbers may be spot on, but I am sorry to say that the Government’s explanation is completely false. The large majority of the 528 people who filled in the questionnaire clearly said that they did not like the plans. That happens to be a matter of fact.

The next paragraph, paragraph 4.6, states that

“some town and parish councils…expressed support for the proposal.”

Is that true? No. That is another deliberate effort to spin a yarn. I have revisited all the documentation—it has been going on so long. In direct response to the consultation, 25 towns and parishes submitted written opinions. Of those, 17—well over half—were dead against or expressed serious reservations. I am therefore curious to learn how the consultation demonstrated a “good level of support”. That assertion is nonsense.

Last November, when the Secretary of State announced that he was minded to approve the proposals, which the Minister was again quite right in putting forward, there was another chance to lobby him. The report catalogues 114 representations in favour and mentions, almost as an afterthought, that there were 123 against, including those of 15 councillors. Once again, that does not represent a “good level of support”.

The thrust of the Government’s argument seems to be that those who opposed the plans were ill-informed and did not fully understand what they were talking about—it almost sounds like the Brexit debate. Paragraph 4.7 states that

“it was made clear in the joint business case submitted to the Secretary of State that both councils stand to make savings and improve their financial sustainability through the merger.”

Of course, that would be the very detailed business case prepared by Taunton Deane and West Somerset and published in July 2016. It set out, without any proof, the kind of savings that might be achieved if they invested almost £7 million in a new IT system, cut staff by 30% and then amalgamated. It was the stuff of dreams—fairy gold at the end of the rainbow.

In September 2016, the two councils trooped to London to see the Minister’s predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones). I got an invitation at the last moment, which was somewhat galling to say the least. They outlined their ideas and had the cheek to ask for money in the meeting. I assure hon. Members that the then Minister sent them away empty-handed and said, “No. You’ve got to be joking. You have come up here to say this is a good idea and you want money. Something doesn’t smell right.”

The councils outlined their ideas, but by the time they got round to submitting formal merger plans last year, their business case was 12 months old and woefully out of date. The price of transformation, as it is called, had shot up. The promised savings had tumbled. The whole scheme was running way behind schedule, and it still is. However, like a lot of people, the Government did not read the small print.

The House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee came to precisely that conclusion when it examined the two draft statutory instruments. Its report said:

“Projections of the financial benefits…of the proposed merger are ‘jam tomorrow’”.

I could not have put it better myself, and I do not think anybody else could. That report from the other place also had a big dose of criticism for the public consultation, stating:

“If a consultation exercise is to carry credibility, those who organise it must be open-minded about its results.”

We are dealing with the fag end of a deeply flawed legal process. Frankly, we should not be here at all. This is not what this House, or this Delegated Legislation Committee, should be about.

The Department deliberately encouraged Taunton Deane and West Somerset councils to submit plans under the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016, which was passed to create mayors, not to fast-track little local mergers. It bypasses the long-established scrutiny of the Local Government Boundary Commission and turns a blind eye to shoddy consultation. In short, the Act is being misused.

As the Minister will be acutely aware, the danger of all this is scrutiny. The final section of the report shows where the Government got their information from to judge the merger’s value. Most of it—guess what—came directly from the councils. If the Department did any analysis, it took it straight from Taunton at face value. It did not look carefully enough at the business case and ask the right questions, even when the councils updated their financial information. The Government assumed that all the projected savings would be unchanged. This is what a court would call negligence. By any token, it is an incredibly stupid way of dealing with things. I will lay down some proof of that before the Committee.

Last month, the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee asked for hard evidence of cost savings. The Government replied, as they always do:

“The business case, submitted jointly by both councils, details that becoming a single council will secure on-going savings of £3.1 million per annum”.

That is ridiculous. All the promised savings have already shrunk because of updated financial information supplied by the councils themselves. In any case, the savings of £3.1 million were never per annum. Perhaps officials failed—dare I say it—to read the documents properly. If I was paying for their advice, I would want my money back.

It comes as little surprise to discover that the Government face the prospect of a judicial review by disgruntled local people. I warned the Minister and the former Secretary of State, before he shifted, that that might happen. I suggested that it would be sensible to postpone this sitting while we sort this out, but he said, “No, the juggernaut of badly drafted statutory instruments must roll on.” I hope the Committee is getting a flavour of my disgust at the position I find myself and my constituents in.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

If there is going to be a judicial review, and if its outcome is that the courts strike down these instruments, will that not create absolute chaos in the area? Is that not a good reason in itself for the merger to be postponed?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

My hon. Friend is going through exactly the same situation that I am, for exactly the same reasons: tin-pot people decided that they had a better idea of how to run things. I have absolutely no doubt, having looked at what we have submitted, that we have a very good chance of—dare I say it—undermining the Government, of which I am a member. However, that does not mean that we should not do it. My hon. Friend has quite rightly put in his own papers.

This proposal has to be reviewed. The Government cannot ride roughshod over local government all the time. We have only to look at what is happening around the country. I believe there have been challenges in Norfolk, Northampton and other areas. Either local government means something or it does not. If it does not, get rid of it. If it does, it is worth fighting to save it. I strongly believe that, unless people like myself, as a constituency MP, stand up and make these points, we will just not be listened to. The Government have to wake up.

Taunton Deane Borough Council—not a district council, remember; it is just a borough—is led by, I am sorry to say, an appalling bully with a very dodgy business background and a very nasty and cavalier attitude to planning, which is now becoming rather obvious. He promoted this merger at the expense of honesty and common sense, and I am afraid that the reputation of his regime as tin-pot is now beginning to stick. I will give a flavour of how my constituents will suffer. I hope the Minister is listening.

That council is going to borrow £11 million pounds to tart up its HQ in Taunton, which will be worth—based on figures from reputable local estate agents—less than half of that. My constituents will be paying for a tarted up HQ that is worth 50% of what was spent on it. The leader of the council also wants to borrow £16 million to build a hotel. A district council is borrowing £16 million to build a hotel in Taunton that has no end user and will take 16 years to pay back. Again, my constituents will lose out. I think that I would trust Basil Fawlty rather than these characters, I really do.

The leader of the council’s burning ambition is to concrete over everything in sight and allow developers to put up 17,000 new houses in Taunton Deane. I represent an area in west Somerset that includes the Quantocks, Exmoor, a stunningly beautiful coastline and—believe it or not, coming from Somerset—quite a lot floodplains. We therefore cannot afford, in an area like ours, with literally one road in and one road out, to have more housing. However, the council next door—I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) is not here—is building 17,000 new houses in a tiny area. The leader of the council makes his living as—guess what—a builder. He now fancies branching out into west Somerset. The draft instruments are allowing him to do that. I invite the Committee to reflect on that.

I would like to address a couple of other points mentioned by the hon. Member for Makerfield. One in three jobs will go. There will be massive redundancies between the two councils. We do not have a figure yet, because they have not done the work. The IT system alone will cost £7 million. The democratic deficit and the jobs deficit—in an area that has stubbornly high unemployment, unfortunately, because work is very seasonal—will continue. I find it even more difficult to understand why a Government that pride themselves on enterprise, championing small and medium-sized enterprises, and standing up for the little business are now saying that we should have not only a political deficit, but a jobs deficit in an area like ours. I just do not get it. I am sorry to say that I find their entire argument spurious.

Taunton is not precepted—it never has been. It has a mayor, but it is not precepted. The mayor has been Labour, Liberal and Conservative, therefore it does it properly, but it wants to be precepted. Why on earth should my constituents be paying for a mayor in Taunton? We are miles from Taunton. Taunton, even from where I live, is half an hour away. From Minehead it is an hour away. It is not next door. We will be paying to have a mayor that we do not have. This whole thing, therefore, shows a completely cavalier attitude from the Government.

I ask the Committee to be brave and to stand up for local government and the little person, because at the moment that is not happening.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak]

It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to respond to the comments made by the hon. Member for Makerfield, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings, and my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch. I hope that I can address all the points that they raised and, of course, those of my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset, whom I fully respect for representing his constituents in the way that he sees fit.

I shall start with the misconception, which ran through comments from hon. Members on both sides of the Committee, that in some way central Government are, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset said, riding roughshod over local government. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings referred to a delicate relationship between central and local government, and I agree with him. It is important that central Government do not ride roughshod over or dictate to local government, which is why the Government have been exceptionally clear that we want to see locally-driven proposals and will consider locally-driven, locally-originated proposals against a set of criteria, which the previous Secretary of State reiterated in the House. That speaks to the very nature of what we are talking about here. I want to remind hon. Members on both sides of the Committee that this was a locally-driven process. The Government received a proposal that had been generated, researched, engaged with and consulted on by the local councils in question, both of which have consented to the making of the statutory instruments.

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch talked about an invitation. There was no invitation from central Government to the councils to put the proposal forward. It was entirely a result of their own work.

The hon. Member for Makerfield talked about the narrow council majority. I think it would be helpful for hon. Members to know the results of the council votes that were held in both areas. When the proposal was considered in Taunton Deane, 32 councillors were in favour and 16 against, with two abstentions. That is a majority of more than 64%. When West Somerset Council voted on the matter in December, 20 councillors were in favour and just three against, with one abstention. That is an 83% vote in favour. In aggregate, that combines to 70%. I will leave hon. Members to make up their own minds as to whether that it is a significant or a narrow majority.

Not only are local councillors in support, but the local area is too, including the county council, all public bodies, businesses, the voluntary sector and a majority of the parishes.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I gently say to the Minister that that is not the case. I represent one of the areas, although I admit that I do not represent the other. When I talked to the local enterprise partnership, it had been asked whether it thought it was a good idea. Well, if people are asked whether they like blueberry pie, they tend to say yes. It was not given any facts; it was just asked whether it was a good idea. One of the reasons that it said so was that Hinkley Point C nuclear power station is in west Somerset. A lot of it has been predicated on that. I therefore say to the Minister that I am not sure that is correct.

[Rishi Sunak]

It is not just the local enterprise partnership. On my understanding, all businesses, voluntary organisations and public bodies that submitted formal representations were in support or not against the proposals, so I do not think what my hon. Friend says is accurate in that sense. Obviously, he is against the proposals, but my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), who represents the other area, is firmly in favour of them.

The key point is about respecting the views of local government and the local area. As I hope I have adequately demonstrated, not only did central Government not impose anything; we did not initiate anything. We responded to a proposal that was put forward and strongly supported by the local councillors and local councils involved.

We have also heard about the so-called democratic deficit and whether people of both districts would have an adequate voice in the new electoral arrangements. As hon. Members have said, that is a misperception in the minds of the constituents who wrote in about that. Again, I will give hon. Members the facts and leave them to make up their own mind. There will be a reduction in the number of councillors across the entire area from 83 to 58, but the number of electors per councillor for the new council is 1,927. To put that in context, the average for the country for two-tier district areas is 1,925. I would argue that that lies squarely in the average for the rest of England in terms of democratic accountability and representation for ordinary people. People should be assured by that.

I was asked about service delivery, the reasons for the merger and the financial savings. In the first instance, it is important to note that the merger will safeguard the existing savings that are in place between the two councils, which are in excess of £2 million. Financially, West Somerset Council is not in the best of shape. That is not my view, but the view of the council’s leadership, the statutory section 151 officer, the independent auditor and the county council. They all make the point that if West Somerset Council finds itself in further financial straits, that would jeopardise the entire shared partnership structure in place between the two councils, which generates savings and saves people money on their council tax bill. Therefore, in the first instance, the merger safeguards an existing way of working and an existing amount of savings.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I am sorry to be so boring about this. The Minister covers a very rural area as well. He just said, “If West Somerset has a problem,” but it does not. It has balanced its books for this year, next year and the year after. It is doing well, but yet again we are being told that that is not the case.

[Rishi Sunak]

I tell my hon. Friend that that is not just my view, but the view of his own council and the statutory section 151 officer, who believes that without this merger, the future of West Somerset Council is “not viable”. It is also the view of the independent auditor in the comments they have made and of the county council. I know that my hon. Friend has corresponded with the Department over several months. We remain of the view that the opinion of all the people locally involved with the council believe that this merger will safeguard the savings and that without the merger the financial situation will be extremely difficult.

On the future relationship and service transformation, I was asked about employees. That will obviously be a matter for the new council but it is worth pointing out that the two councils already operate a relatively deep shared partnership structure and use common employees in a single area. It is unlikely that there would be significant changes but that will be a matter for them.

[Rishi Sunak]

I have not seen that number; I am not sure where that has come from.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

That has come from the councils themselves. The unions have done a lot of work on this. It is one in three jobs; that is where the savings are coming from—by getting rid of people. It is not a real saving; it is imaginary because it is necessary to get rid of people to make the saving.

[Rishi Sunak]

It is important to note that when we talk about savings of £3.1 million, only £0.5 million comes from the merger we are considering today. The remainder is already in place through the joint working and will be safeguarded by the merger. In terms of the incremental change, £0.5 million as a percentage of £3.1 million is relatively small. We are talking about safeguarding the existing joint working between these two councils, where there is not enormous duplication of staff, because in most instances there is already one set of staff delivering for both councils.

More broadly, the larger district council will be better at joined-up proposals for growth, whether it is Hinkley or developing a new university. It feels it will better execute its function as a strategic housing authority and dealing with stakeholders, all of whom prefer the efficiency and productivity of dealing with one entity. It also believes it will strengthen its hand when applying for various types of funding.

Turning to a couple of specific points raised about a unitary proposal, the Department has not received any formal unitary proposal for Somerset. Of course, should one emerge—

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

Could I help the Minister again? I feel I am being too helpful. On the reason the county wants a unitary body, the leader of the county council came to see me and I will quote him next week in Westminster Hall. He said, “I’m going bust and want to take over the districts to balance my books.” Minister, we have a problem; let us not be cavalier.

[Rishi Sunak]

Far from being cavalier, the Government believe in doing things properly by due process. Should a proposal emerge from the county, of course we will consider it alongside the criteria that the previous Secretary of State laid out in Parliament. As I reiterated at the beginning, central Government will, as committed to do in our manifesto, support local areas that bring forward locally-driven proposals and consider them fairly and appropriately.

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank my right hon. Friend on one of the rare occasions that someone has changed their mind during a debate. I agree with him that not only have proposals been driven by the local area but they have been formally consented to by the two councils involved.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset made a detailed point about the definitions in the regulations and order we are considering. Of course, Taunton Deane is a district with borough status. That is very clear in the interpretation section of the order, which defines district councils for the purposes of the order. The definition is:

“‘the District Councils’ means West Somerset District Council and Taunton Deane Borough Council”.

I hope I have assured him that that was not missed.

Lastly, unfortunately my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset has raised some very personal allegations against the leader of another council, as he has in the past.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

Many times.

[Rishi Sunak]

Indeed. It is fair to raise those things if that is what my hon. Friend wants to do, but he has been told multiple times by the former Secretary of State, the Minister responsible for local growth, my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), and the Prime Minister that if he has serious allegations of any criminal or fraudulent activity, he should bring those to the police. He was told that as early as November last year, and also before that. Six months later, no one has received anything. I again urge him that if he has evidence, the appropriate course is to take it to the police.

In conclusion, I thank all Members for their spirited contributions this morning. At this point, we should wish the councils in West Somerset and Taunton Deane all the best as they embark on a new, bright future together as a new entity—Godspeed.

Question put.