Communities and Local Government (CSR)

Debate between Andrew Percy and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Thursday 13th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. Today, we have the opportunity to pay tribute to the Government, as you would expect me to, Mr Robertson, for being imaginative and innovative within the confines of the comprehensive spending review and for seeking to engineer a paradigm shift based on a philosophical underpinning of decentralisation, localism and the devolution of power. The Localism Bill, which will have its Second Reading next week, does not take a slash-and-burn approach to local government. Nor, incidentally, is it a refutation of everything that the former Labour Government did before 6 May last year. There is a general consensus that the current Government are in favour of what the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) called a drive for transformational local services.

I am a glass-half-full kind of chap, so I see the Government’s measures as an opportunity to drive forward localism in the context of the big society. That concept is, I admit, misunderstood, not least by some in my own party, but it chimes with some of the issues that the former Government were talking about before they lost power. In the previous Parliament, I sat through the Committee stage of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill, which had come from the House of Lords. As hon. Members will know, my colleagues and I did not oppose every aspect of that important Bill; it was a bit of a spatchcock Bill, but we supported certain measures because we thought that they were going in the right direction by devolving power and responsibility to individual councillors and officers. One such measure was multi-area agreements and another was leaders boards, which could be seen as fledgling local enterprise partnerships.

I have always been a bit unfashionable among members of my party in that I have—[Interruption.] I am getting sedentary interventions from my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy). I have always been quite in favour of at least looking at city regions as super local enterprise partnerships and as a vehicle for driving regeneration, and it is important that we continue to debate that. I am talking not about reconstituting metropolitan or non-metropolitan county councils, but about having bodies with real resonance. Local enterprise partnerships go some way in that direction on key issues such as post-16 education, public health and strategic transport.

[Andrew Percy]

I thank my hon. Friend for allowing me to mention the local economic partnership for the Humber region in the Minister’s presence. A huge argument is going on between our four local unitary authorities—the estuarial authorities—which seem unable to agree with businesses about the need for a Humber-wide economic partnership. We need such a body for the simple reason that it would, just as my hon. Friend says, represent the sub-regional unit, as opposed to the area defined by the more historic boundaries. I thank my hon. Friend for allowing me to make that point once again to the Minister.

[Mr Jackson]

I am always happy to facilitate an advertising break for Yorkshire and the Humber, as I am sure the Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East, would be. In the previous Parliament, a report published by the Local Government Association found that the specific argument against regional development agencies was that they had not overcome the differences in economic growth within or between their areas, and work by management consultants Ernst and Young also found that.

The philosophical underpinning for local enterprise partnerships is that we recognise that there are very local economies. Even in an area such as the north-east of England—I am mindful of the need not to go off the point too much, Mr Robertson—there is a quantum difference between the economic issues that inform decisions taken on Teesside and those that inform decisions taken in Tynemouth, north of Newcastle or in Stockton-on-Tees. Even within that area, there are sub-regional economies, so I think we have made the right decision on local enterprise partnerships.

I want to talk now about the less than benign fiscal climate that we face. I think we will have a mature and grown-up debate today, but it is worth saying that Her Majesty’s Opposition committed themselves to a 20% reduction in local government funding. If members of the Labour party in Parliament and beyond are not going to make that reduction now, and given the Minister’s very good point about the Office for Budget Responsibility having looked at the net reduction as a function of local authorities being able to recoup funding in a way that the Ministry of Justice, for instance, cannot necessarily do, the question is what core services Labour party members will cut.

We have had a lot of lectures from the Labour party recently about local government cuts, so let us look at one example: Durham county council. The unitary authority there will see its formula grant reduced from £263 million to £235 million. We should bear it in mind that Surrey county council, for instance, will see its grant reduced from £178 million to £152 million. Durham seems to find enough funds to spend £3.73 million on communication. It has five diversity officers, four European officers, two climate change officers and an undisclosed number of staff working full time for trade unions. It has also refused to say how much its chief executive is paid. Funnily enough, it is sitting on £93 million of reserves. If I can be slightly partisan, my colleagues and I will accept lectures about the impact of cuts only if all the alternatives to cuts are being pursued.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Andrew Percy and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

I hope that politicians on all sides take notice of their electorate at all times. The problem with going to a three-year term is that they may take less notice of their constituents and a great deal more notice of the newspapers. Given that Governments tend to be most responsive to newspapers in the last year or six months before an election, the risk with a three-year term is that the Government would be beholden to the newspapers and chasing headlines for the entire term of office.

On the clash of elections, I have sympathy with those representing countries with devolved Assemblies. I would not want a Welsh Assembly election or a Scottish Parliament election on the same day as a general election, but it is a bit inconsistent for some on the Opposition Benches to suggest that a clash of elections is always bad news, because they deliberately arranged for that by holding European and local government elections on the same day, using two different voting systems. However, that is best avoided. I accept that the case for a general election is a little different and that a general election should be held separately from the elections in the devolved regions.

I have no academic or study to quote on the four-year term; I just feel in my gut that it is the right length of time for a Government. A four-year term is better because it would fit with local government elections and devolved assemblies. The Canadian Government changed from five to four years a couple of years ago, and we have heard about the three-year terms that exist in Australia and New Zealand. For me, four years would be a more appropriate term for us to be in office. There is an acceptance that after being in power for five years, we tend to be a little too detached from the electorate, and consequently end up making bad decisions. However, I cannot support the three-year term proposed by my near neighbour, next door but one, in Great Grimsby. That would throw us into a perpetual state of elections. It is often said about US congressional elections that American Congressmen are in a perpetual state of election, which is why they have so many earmarks and pork barrelling; they have no sooner got themselves to Washington DC than they have to run back to their electorates to try to gain election.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

My hon. Friend refers to the American political system and reiterates my earlier point, but is it not true that at the other end of the scale US Senators, who have a six-year term, can take a broader view of both national and international issues? Very few people say to an experienced American Senator that they are past it or clapped out, or not thinking of the good of the country because they are in their fifth or sixth year.

[Andrew Percy]

The problem with the American Senator term is that a third of the Senate is elected every two years, which means that they, too, are in a perpetual state of elections, so that idea does not carry over completely.

The other experience of more regular elections is that there tends to be a greater propensity on the part of the electorate to re-elect their incumbents. As I am now an incumbent, that is not necessarily something that I would take issue with. I suspect that all hon. Members would be happy to see incumbents re-elected—[Interruption.] Well, yes, perhaps their own incumbency re-elected. I was particularly intrigued by the comments of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby that elections offer the opportunity for politicians to recharge their batteries. That is certainly not an experience I have ever had in an election campaign.