Local Democracy in the United Kingdom

Lord True Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, it is with the greatest possible pleasure that I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, on his maiden speech, and I also look forward to the maiden speech from the noble Baroness to follow, but I particularly congratulate my noble friend Lord Porter of Spalding. Those of us in local government know how difficult it is for—I do not mean this in a disparaging way—a district councillor to rise to become the national spokesman of local government. He has an outstanding record as a practical leader of local government in his area. He is even an enthusiast for weekly bin collections, which would have pleased our former selector and which actually pleases me. He has been crowned, as he said, by election as chairman of the LGA. Those of us in local government are quite a hard-bitten lot, so getting to the top of the LGA—I see the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, nodding—inspires some respect across local government. Having heard my noble friend speak today, I know that he will win the respect of this House, and it certainly helps that our Chief Whip is the king of the bulb fields. We so enjoyed hearing from my noble friend today and we look forward to hearing from him much more in the future.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for introducing this debate. I am sorry that the time is so brief. I enjoyed being number three to him and the noble Lord, Lord Tope, so often when we were in coalition. I thought that they were the Hutton and Washbrook of local government debates. I rather agreed with a great deal of his analysis today, though I stopped short when he got on to PR, which—he will forgive me for saying—I will listen to with a straight face when that principle actually applies to the numbers in this House from those Benches. However, it was a very interesting analysis. What the noble Lord says is challenging about centralisation and what I call the trend potentially for the prefecturisation of Britain.

The theme on which I wish to concentrate is simply the word “trust”. We all know that there is a problem of trust in politics. Communication by tweet, spin, email and so on has replaced the good old-fashioned face-to-face contact. Trust in politicians and the centre has declined, and we need to rebuild it. It is extremely difficult for central government to do that, but good local government, in my submission, is uniquely qualified to do so with its intimacy, its flexibility, its street presence and—to pick up on what my noble friend said—its ability to get things done. We can do things in local councils that Whitehall would churn over for years. Central government, for all its merits, can offer only one national answer to a problem; councils can offer infinite variety and responses not only across council areas but within them. I believe that councillors and councils deserve to be trusted but too often, for all the good things that my noble friend has mentioned, we are not heard. Functions are taken away and councillors’ voices are dismissed. Trust must come from central government as well as from the people.

Every day, when I and the dedicated people who work in my council go in to work, we go in to serve, to create and, yes, to do things—to be good public servants at the most active interface that there is between public and government. That deserves trust and respect. If I would ask one thing of every Government I have ever known, sadly, whether they be Labour, coalition or Conservative, it would be: please just trust local democracy a lot more. Maybe they could even listen to us a little more and regulate us a little less. That way, we might find that local government could help to bridge the gulf of trust that now exists between the public and those who govern.