Local Audit (Public Access to Documents) Bill (First sitting)

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st Sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th February 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries, and to have the benefit of your expertise and good guidance. I thank hon. Friends and hon. Members for attending this sitting, and hope that they can continue to support this Bill on its passage through this House. I especially thank the Minister, for representing the Government today in lieu of his colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), who I believe is in another Committee. I believe that a number of years ago, before entering this place, my hon. Friend the Minister served as a councillor on Hull City Council, and I am sure that his experience will be of great use today and will serve us well.

We had a very good debate on the Bill on Second Reading, so I do not intend to take up too much of your time today, Ms Dorries. The Bill is short and sweet, with only two clauses in total. It seeks to give journalists and citizen journalists—that is, bloggers and others who scrutinise local authorities, but who may not be accredited members of the press—the same rights of inspection as interested persons under section 26(1) of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014. It will require relevant authorities—other than health service bodies—as defined in that Act to make available for inspection the accounting records and supporting documents for such an authority for the audit year.

The Bill’s purpose is simple: it seeks to enable such persons to access a wider range of accounting material, so that they can report and publish their findings, making them available to local electors, thus providing them with information enabling them better to hold their local council to account for their spending decisions, by either questioning the auditor or objecting to those accounts. Let me make it clear that the Bill will not enable journalists to question the auditor or object to those accounts, unless of course they are also a local government elector for the area.

I do not want to repeat all the points made on Second Reading, as the responses received then were comprehensive and covered all the issues raised. However, if anybody wishes to ask a question, I will be more than happy to answer it this morning. Besides, the Minister who has responsibility for local growth and the northern powerhouse, wishes to say a little about the Bill, and perhaps to touch on the consultation that has taken place since Second Reading.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Percy)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries, on my first—and possibly last, depending on how well this all works out—Bill Committee as a Minister. I apologise for the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton, who is on a Bill Committee just a couple of Committee Rooms away. It is a pleasure to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills this morning. She has already done far more than I managed to do in my six and a half years as a Back Bencher in successfully—hopefully—getting a Bill though this House, and I congratulate her on that. She is right to say that I served as a local councillor; I was also a parish councillor for the village of Airmyn, so this is a matter in which I have some interest from my previous role.

I am delighted to support the Bill on behalf of the Government and congratulate my hon. Friend on steering the Bill successfully thus far. I am reminded of Margaret Thatcher, who in her maiden speech introduced the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960, which was in a similar vein; it was about opening up local government to journalists and other interested parties. In that respect, my hon. Friend is very much channelling Margaret Thatcher with the Bill. Conservatives will be happy with that, but I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd is quite so pleased.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills said, this small amendment could increase town hall accountability and ensure that councillors are responsible for their spending decisions. As she also said, we held a consultation with a range of interested parties, including the Information Commissioner, the National Association of Local Councils, the Society of Local Council Clerks, the National Union of Journalists, the News Media Association, local authority treasurers’ societies, Public Sector Audit Appointments, and Smaller Authorities Audit Appointments. The majority of respondents were able to support the Bill’s intentions, but two key issues—whether the Bill’s provisions excluded the very smallest parish councils, and more generally whether the potential cost on local government was onerous—arose during the process that we have considered further, and I should like to put them on record.

As I have said, I served on a very small parish council with a very small budget. During the consultation, we engaged with stakeholders on whether the Bill would grant journalists inspection rights in respect of the very smallest parish councils, by which I mean those with annual turnover of £25,000 or less. Our conclusion is that journalists will have those rights through the Bill. The smallest parish councils are therefore included in the legislation rather than excluded, as we originally thought. That raises the question of whether that is onerous or burdensome for those small parish councils. We have concluded that amending the Bill to exclude those smaller authorities would likely have a limited impact, and is therefore unnecessary. In response to the consultation, the Society of Local Council Clerks stated that

“having a different range of people having inspection rights at bodies under £25,000 compared to those over £25,000 might create confusion, particularly for clerks who serve several councils of differing sizes”.

It is not unusual for a parish council clerk to be clerk to a number of different local parish councils of various sizes. Consequently, we are content that smaller parish councils will be within the scope of the Bill.

With regard to the potential cost of extending inspection rights to a large group of people with no local connection to the area, I can assure the Committee that we have investigated the extent to which current rights are exercised. In 2015-16, it would seem that local electors exercised their rights over a total of 11,000 bodies only around 65 times. Although those rights are to question and make objections to the auditor, rather than broader inspection rights offered to interested parties, it is clear that this set of public rights is not used to any great extent, so it is not particularly burdensome on authorities.

Furthermore, in its response to our informal exercise, the Society of Local Council Clerks, which represents around 5,000 parish clerks, reported that its members had not experienced a high level of interest in their accounting records. I can attest to that, because journalists from around the country did not swoop down on the accounting records of Airmyn parish council, important though it is to have the power to do so. Only around 5% of the 562 attendees at 10 SLCC regional events last year had ever had someone exercise their inspection rights. A significant proportion of those inspections—perhaps a third—were by former councillors. That would seem to bear out our view that the number of requests to inspect is relatively low.

The changes are therefore not burdensome. They are important, in terms of making good on the Government’s intention of increasing local transparency and accountability. This is an excellent Bill. I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing such support so far, and on her handling of the Bill at its various stages. I commend the Bill to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill to be reported, without amendment.

Local Audit (Public Access to Documents) Bill

Andrew Percy Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 24th March 2017 Commons Chamber

Amendment 12 would remove the restriction on inspecting parts of the accounts on the grounds of commercial confidentiality, but it would maintain the restriction on copying. Amendment 14 would remove the definition in the 2014 Act of when information is protected on the grounds of commercial confidentiality. I am hesitant to remove those protections without further detail and consultation with local authorities. I look forward to hearing the responses from the Minister and other hon. Members to the amendments.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Percy)]

I welcome the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Government, in place, I am sad to say, of the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), who has responsibility for local government. I know that he would be delighted to be here, were he not otherwise engaged. I, too, would be delighted if he were here, knowing as I do of his passion for the Bill.

[Sir Greg Knight]

rose—

[Andrew Percy]

I will, of course, give way to my fellow east Yorkshire colleague.

[Sir Greg Knight]

Has my hon. Friend any information to relate to the House about why not a single Liberal Democrat is here?

[Andrew Percy]

Sadly not, other than that the public seemed to diminish Liberal Democrat numbers somewhat at the last general election, proving once again that members of the public are very sensible individuals, on the whole.

I welcome the opportunity to comment briefly on the amendments tabled by my hon. Friends the Members for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) and for Christchurch (Mr Chope), and on the important points made thus far. I had the privilege of stepping in for the Local Government Minister in Committee, when I offered the Government’s support for the important principles behind the Bill.

The amendments have been tabled with the best of intentions—the Bill’s promoter, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), will deal with them in more detail—but I want to set out the Government’s view on why we do not think agreeing to them would be a good idea. The Bill’s virtue is its simplicity. By seeking to clarify what is meant in the legislation by where material may be published, amendment 1 may unintentionally—we know that it is unintentional from the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North—narrow the places where such articles may be published. Sometimes, a less precise phrase in law permits a helpfully wider interpretation, and I believe that is the case here.

[Mr Nuttall]

I have no doubt that a similar argument would have been advanced when the original Audit Commission Act 1998—the legislation that led to the court case from which this Bill arises—was going through this House, so there is actually a strong argument for trying to be as clear as possible in the Bill about what is intended.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Percy]

I do not agree. Given its reference to the internet and websites, my hon. Friend’s amendment could unintentionally and unhelpfully narrow the interpretation.

Hon. Members may be interested to know that the concepts of journalistic material and publication already appear in legislation many times—although to my mind, “publication” in particular is a simple, plain English definition needing no further clarification. For example, “journalistic material” appears in section 264(2) of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, as well as section 13 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, and “publication” has similar antecedents.

It is fair to say, however, that not everybody who will seek to use the Bill will necessarily be familiar with the concepts and interpretation of those terms as they are used in it. I have heard what my hon. Friends have said and will therefore commit to ensuring that any accompanying explanatory notes are amended, if the Bill passes to the other place, to clarify those points. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North referred to journalists as opposed to citizen journalists. The definition of a journalist includes citizen journalists, which is why a separate definition has not been required.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills is keen to get to her feet and respond in detail to the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, so in the interests of brevity, I want to concentrate on two issues he raised—or, on reflection, maybe three. Amendment 2 would be likely to impose a new burden on local authorities, because we would be asking them to make their records available to everyone, which is something that they have not previously been required to do under the 2014 Act. That would therefore need to be funded by the Government, whereas we are seeking to extend the existing right to a defined group of people, and that would not be considered in the same light.

I heard what my hon. Friend said about amendment 10 regarding health bodies. I cannot speak on behalf of other Departments, but as Members of Parliament we are all concerned about transparency in the health system. The stated intention of the 2014 Act and the response to the consultation on it did not include health bodies. It would therefore be wrong to include those in the scope of the Bill.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend was pretty succinct in rejecting amendment 2. Does he have any evidence of how much it would cost local authorities if it became part of the law, and will he seek to make a comparison between that cost and the pay-off for the chief executive of Bournemouth Borough Council?

[Andrew Percy]

I have listened with interest to my hon. Friend’s comments about the chief executive of Bournemouth, but—perhaps to the delight of my officials—I will not say anything about that decision, especially in the light of the other issues affecting the potential reorganisation in Dorset at this time. Needless to say, extending such a right more generally to any elector across the United Kingdom might have a substantial impact, and it is likely that local authorities and public bodies would ask the Government for additional resources. I cannot give my hon. Friend a figure—I want to be honest with him at the Dispatch Box—but there is no doubt that extending the right in such a way would come with additional burdens.

Further to my hon. Friend’s comments on amendments 12 to 14, paragraphs 31 and 32 of the local authority transparency code already require councils to publish quarterly spending and procurement information. He referred to tender documents, and the code requires the details of every invitation to tender for contracts to provide goods or services with a value that exceeds £5,000 to be published, as well as the details of any contract, commissioned activity, purchase order, framework agreement and other legally enforceable agreement with a value that exceeds £5,000. Such documents are of course available to anybody.

Last May, the Government consulted on updating the code to provide an opportunity for greater town hall transparency—Members on both sides of the House, but certainly Conservative Members, want that—and for enhanced scrutiny of the use of public assets and resources, including through the better comparison of data. In respect of contractual information, the consultation proposed to standardise the data and, importantly, to make comparisons easier through their publication in a central source. We hope to publish our response to the consultation shortly, and I hope that it will abate some of my hon. Friend’s concerns about local transparency.

I want to deal quickly with an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who is not now in his place because he is on his way back to his constituency. He mentioned local government reorganisation in Lincolnshire and stated that one council is trying to take over another. I want to make it clear for the record that North Lincolnshire Council has not proposed to take over any other neighbouring authority. The Government have received no proposals of such a nature. All that is happening is that across Lincolnshire in the broadest sense—the county and the two unitary areas—a conversation is going on between council leaders about how the future of local government will look. It is important to provide that clarification as the matter was raised during this debate.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills will address some of the amendments in a moment, but I am confident that my hon. Friends the Members for Bury North and for Christchurch will respond, in their usual way, with reasonableness and, as I think that I got from their speeches, with an understanding that what lies behind the Bill is a good thing—it will extend a right to increase transparency—so I urge them not to press their amendments but to enable the Bill to pass to the other place. I look forward to the further progress of the Bill this afternoon.

[Wendy Morton]

I am very pleased to be able to speak again on my private Member’s Bill. As my hon. Friends have explained, no amendments were moved in Committee on 7 February—the passage of the Bill through Committee was quite swift—so the Bill has been reported to the House unamended.

The amendments tabled by my hon. Friends the Members for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) and for Christchurch (Mr Chope) are therefore late entries to the debate, but I was very keen to listen to their arguments. They have provided some additional scrutiny and additional debate in the Chamber.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Percy]

It is a pleasure, Madam Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] Mr Deputy Speaker, you have changed.

I am still recovering from the exciting debate on Report. I was delighted to be able to contribute to it, as I was to be able to contribute to the debate in Committee. It is also a pleasure to speak on Third Reading on behalf of the Government and once again to offer our support for the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton). I pay tribute to her for getting it this far, and I pay tribute to the other hon. Members who have sponsored and supported it. I associate myself entirely with her comments about how nice it is, after a week that has been difficult for Parliament, to be here looking at the detail of the legislation—doing the job that we are elected to do, and that others tried to prevent us from doing this week.

The Government have supported this Bill from the beginning, and I note the Opposition’s support as well. We have done so because it furthers our ambitions of improving local transparency and accountability by extending this important right to journalists. I pay tribute to the other hon. Members who spoke today, and I associate myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) about the importance of local newspapers to local transparency and accountability. It would be wrong of me not to mention the excellent work of one of my local papers, the Goole Times, thereby securing my place in it next week. Local newspapers are very important to local democracy and accountability, and I associate myself with everything he said about that.

I will say little more than that, because there is other business to be conducted. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills for bringing forward the Bill, and I congratulate her on its passage unamended through this House. We wish the Bill well in the other place. I understand that she has already secured the support of the noble Baroness Eaton of Cottingley. Without wanting to jinx the Bill, I hope that it will pass into law before the end of the Session. In response to the direct question from my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, I am not in a position at this time to make any guarantees about future time, should this Bill be amended in the other place, although the Government’s hope and wish is that it will pass through the other place unamended.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.