Andy Sawford
Main Page: Andy Sawford (Labour (Co-op) - Corby)Local Audit and Accountability Bill [Lords]
Andy Sawford Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 2—Transparency of audit—
‘(1) A local auditor has a right of access at all reasonable times to audit documents from private companies to whom the local authority has contracted significant services during the last financial year.
(2) Local auditors only have a right of access to audit documents from private companies, under subsection (1), that relate to the service provided to the local authority by that company.
(3) A local auditor must make available on request any audit documents, obtained under subsection (1), subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
(4) In this section “private company” shall be interpreted to mean any legal entity, including joint ventures, not-for-profit organisations, mutually-held organisations and charities.
(5) Five years after the coming into force of this section, the Secretary of State must commission and publish a review of the effectiveness of subsections (1) to (3) and of the costs to local auditors, private companies and local authorities arising from it.
(6) The meaning of “significant” and “terms of qualification” shall be set out by regulations.’.
New clause 4—Scrutiny—
‘Before section 1 of this Act is brought into force, the Secretary of State shall prepare and lay before each House of Parliament a report on the effectiveness, efficiency and economy of the structures and procedures put in place by relevant local authorities, under section 21 of the Local Government Act 2000 (Overview and scrutiny committees), to review the decisions made, or other action taken, by the executives of such local authorities.’.
New clause 5—Fraud investigation—
‘Before section 1 of this Act is brought into force, the Secretary of State shall prepare and lay before each House of Parliament a report on the adequacy of the resources, staffing, structures and procedures put in place by authorities to detect and investigate fraud within the authority effectively.’.
New clause 6—Compromise agreements—
‘Before section 1 of this Act is brought into force, the Secretary of State shall prepare and lay before each House of Parliament a report into the extent and appropriateness of the use of compromise agreements, incorporating confidentiality clauses, as provided for by section 203 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, to effect the exit of members of staff from employment by local authorities.’.
Government amendment 1.
Amendment 13, in clause 20, page 15, line 24, at end insert—
‘(7) A person providing commercial or consultancy services to an authority may not audit those services.
(8) The audit of any commercial or consultancy services provided by a person appointed as a local auditor must be subcontracted to a different local auditor.’.
Government amendments 2 and 3.
Amendment 12, in schedule 2, page 43, line 8, at end insert—
30 A Local Enterprise Partnership.’.
Government amendments 4 and 5.
Andy Sawford
I shall speak to new clauses 1 and 2.
This is a better Bill for the scrutiny that it has received as a result of the work of the draft Bill Committee, the Communities and Local Government Committee and the House of Lords, and in Committee in this House, where I was pleased to receive substantial reassurances from the Minister, clarifications and explanations on many points. Some welcome concessions have been made, both during the Committee stage and in some of the amendments before us today.
Three years ago in a press release the Government announced the abolition of the Audit Commission, without thinking it through. There has been considerable criticism of the fact that there was no real consultation with local government, and when the announcement was made prematurely, the audit world was not consulted on how the new arrangements might evolve. That has led to a range of problems in the Bill. It is very much a backward-looking piece of legislation that seeks to post-rationalise a premature announcement that took most people by surprise.
The Audit Commission was abolished without proper consideration of how to maintain some of its more valuable functions, such as enabling local authorities to make comparisons and to use benchmarking tools to see whether they are spending the public pound as well as possible, and acting as an independent auditor, to bring transparency and public confidence to public audit. The Government had not thought through crucial issues such as how to maintain independence of audit, which we will come to later, without amendments to increase transparency, particularly new clause 2.
The Government had overestimated and double-counted the savings that may accrue. They had failed properly to address concerns that the audit market for local government is too limited. However, there is a bright spot. The Government’s reluctant U-turn on joint procurement is very much to be welcomed. It follows submissions from my noble Friends in the House of Lords and from the Local Government Association, the National Association of Local Councils and many other bodies. We tabled amendments in Committee to allow local authorities to form a joint procurement body, and we were pleased when, towards the end of the Committee stage, the Government introduced, albeit through gritted teeth, a new clause to do just that. The Government have not been clear about who will lead the development of that joint procurement body, but I urge them to work closely with the Local Government Association, the principal representative body for local government.
New clause 1 seeks to enable auditors to follow the public pound through the system. It would require the Secretary of State to make arrangements for integrated audit so that auditors can work across local authorities, and other relevant authorities at a local level, and with the National Audit Office where national and local funding is being used jointly. The problem that the new clause aims to solve is that the audit arrangements set out in the Bill are too narrowly focused on the relevant authority as a self-contained unit.
The Government have therefore failed to provide for the changing world of public services. Shared services, community budgets, which both they and the Opposition strongly support and which local authorities across the country—notably, many Labour councils—are taking forward, and combined authorities are all part of a shift towards much stronger partnership working by local authorities. There is also a specific point about local enterprise partnerships that I will come to later.
The previous Labour Government introduced the Total Place initiative in their last years in office. By enabling authorities to join together for some parts of their audit, we hope that we can see the value for money of the Total Place approach and that that will be a spur to further joining up. By bringing the National Audit Office into that approach to integrated joint audit, we can follow the public pound up and down the system for local and national spend.
The new clause is about future-proofing the Bill. In Committee the Government resisted all attempts to reference integrated audit or community budgeting approaches. In that sense, I think that the Bill will lead to an atomised approach to auditing, rather than a connected view. It has completely failed to make provision for the new world of public service delivery being built before our eyes, and not just the changes in local authorities that I have identified, but wider changes such as the troubled families programme and welfare changes, particularly the introduction of universal credit. They are all looking at connecting spending across the country. It is astonishing that the world of audit envisaged by the Bill takes no account of that at all.
We now have city deals, which should be properly audited. Indeed, we explored in Committee how they and other bodies, particularly those focused on enterprise partnerships and working with business, might be audited when it is not possible to bring together different auditors. As community budgets develop, different auditors will examine the use of the local government pound while the National Audit Office examines the use of the Whitehall pound, although they are actually being spent together. If a service is shared and common, surely it makes sense that the audit should be, too.
Another example is health and social care—the subject of the legislation we debated only yesterday. We need to see the future of the health service as one in which we meet the challenges of a rising elderly population, with people living longer and more independently. Local authorities, through their social care role, and health bodies will work jointly. Indeed, there are significant moves in that direction through local health and wellbeing boards. It would make sense for audit to be able to follow that pattern of more joint services.
Parliament has a strong interest in seeing that public money is spent well, whether nationally or locally. That was the drive behind Lord Heseltine’s introduction of the Audit Commission all those years ago. Parliament previously drew some assurance from the Audit Commission’s national work on value for money, but that work is winding down and the value for money assurances offered in the Bill are very limited. Indeed, we sought clarification on those points in Committee, and we had some reassurances from the Minister, but they were not sufficient for us to believe that that work will be carried out in the way it ought to be.
That point becomes increasingly relevant as Government policy cuts across departmental silos as fresh patterns of local delivery develop and local authorities commission services from, and develop partnerships with, an ever wider range of providers. The ad hoc Bill Committee that scrutinised the draft Local Audit Bill was absolutely right to state that the Bill should provide an unambiguous basis for insight into spend across central and local government, but as it stands it does not. Would it not be sensible—I ask this again in the hope that the Minister will change his mind at the eleventh hour—in the management of audit contracts if two authorities working together substantially and significantly could appoint a lead audit for a particular set of services, rather than having two separate auditors crawling over the same books and duplicating how they look at the same services, perhaps even reaching different conclusions?
We would rather have auditors work together to reach a shared view on whether services represent value for money and whether public money is being spent effectively, so an audit presented to a relevant authority might contain sections that had been prepared jointly and appropriately with other auditors of local spend, perhaps those from other relevant authorities or the National Audit Office. That audit would then be much more valuable, and not only to the council, but to the public and Parliament, in showing whether money was being spent well. For example, in my area there is an arrangement for shared services between Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire county councils. There are questions about whether that genuinely delivers value for money. I am concerned that an audit in which they are each treated entirely separately and reported on separately will not give us a real sense of whether the partnership is delivering the value for money that I and my constituents want to see.
I therefore appeal to the Minister to have a change of heart. He is a former council leader. He might well return to local government after the next election or at some future time, when I am sure he would be very grateful that the Government had created audit arrangements fit for the new world of local government, not the old one.
This might be the most appropriate time to refer to amendment 12, which seeks to add local enterprise partnerships to the list of relevant authorities set out in schedule 2. LEPs have a growing role in the local public sector and partnership landscape. They are charged with driving local economic growth. From next year their role will increase, as they will be tasked with developing investment strategies for European structural funds; looking after skills for employment; leading on community-led local development; taking on board economic and social inclusion; looking at environment and climate change issues in local communities; taking forward social innovation, ICT and digital inclusion; and tackling youth unemployment. Indeed, the Government seem to view LEPs as a panacea for how many areas of local public service reform, enterprise and regeneration will be taken forward.
However, since the establishment of LEPs three years ago, and particularly following the publication of Lord Heseltine’s report “No Stone Unturned”, while their remit has expanded dramatically and the roles and responsibilities of their boards have changed, there has not been a commensurate consideration by the Government of how to address the governance, capacity, audit and probity of LEPs.
From next year, LEPs will receive central Government money, including a share of the £6 billion from the European regional development fund, a share of the £24 million growth money from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, a share of the £2 billion from the 2015 Treasury allocation for which LEPs can bid, and a share of the £400 million top-slicing of the new homes bonus, which is very controversial with local authorities, which are concerned about the implications of that top-slicing. As LEPs take responsibility for funding streams from several Departments and agencies, it is clear that there will be no effective audit trail to account for how the money will be spent. The truth is that LEPs are not really accountable to anyone.
In Committee my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) asked the Minister to set out how he envisages LEPs being audited in future. Given that they are responsible for such significant amounts of public money, and given the pace of change in LEPs across the country, the Minister’s response was simply inadequate. He could make a simple amendment to schedule 2 that would allow us to treat LEPs as a relevant local authority so that not only can we look at the local spend, but we can consider how the national spend will be accounted for as it goes into those LEPs in a way that does not mean having to look at the separate audits of a whole range of different Departments and agencies. If the Minister is not minded to accept our amendment to schedule 2, that could be addressed by simply accepting new clause 1, which would allow integrated audit, because LEPs are precisely the kind of area where integrated audit is much needed. Whether he chooses to accept new clause 1 or the amendment to allow a change to schedule 2—we hope he will accept one of them—we hope that we see a significant change in the confidence that we and the public have in how LEPs work.
LEPs are a mixture of the public and private sectors, so they are a different kind of organisation. Many public sector bodies are involved in them. For example, there are two LEPs operating across the area I represent, with different types of authorities in a two-tier area, so they are quite complex. Just saying, as the Minister did in Committee, that auditing the money for which LEPs are responsible will be done by that disparate set of audits by component bodies is just not good enough. I strongly urge him to rethink that.
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I appreciate the general points that the hon. Gentleman is making, but does he agree that the democratic accountability of LEPs needs to be considered at some stage, because in many cases we have one-party representation on the political side?
Andy Sawford
The hon. Lady makes an interesting and important point. I should perhaps declare an interest as an officer of the all-party group on local growth, local enterprise partnerships and enterprise zones. I think the Minister can also claim to have held that auspicious role in the past. The group has been concerned about how we can make sure that LEPs are as effective as possible, principally in regenerating areas and communities and ensuring local growth, but also as regards democracy. LEPs must be accountable to communities, particularly given that they have mixed boards taken from the public and private sectors. In my area—I am not sure about the hon. Lady’s—there are two different types of authorities, and district councils around the country, in particular, have been very concerned about whether they have a powerful enough voice in the governance of LEPs.
The hon. Lady mentioned political representation on LEPs and their political leanings. A modest change to this Bill would address some of the issues about how LEPs are growing and developing to suggest that they should be audited in an integrated and proper way. That could enable elected local councillors to ask questions of and examine the performance of their LEP so as to enhance the local accountability and democracy that she and I want to see around the country in relation to the growing role of LEPs.
New clause 2 is about transparency. The independence and transparency of audit is not sufficiently safeguarded by the Bill. We recognise that the Bill has been improved during its passage through Parliament, and that the Government have sought to put in place ways to ensure an element of independence—for example, of local auditors. We had substantial discussion about how we would ensure the independence of members of the audit panels that recommend the appointment of auditors. However, there are significant issues in relation to how local authorities are finding new ways of working, particularly with private sector companies and other suppliers. We want to bring greater transparency to the relationship between local authorities and the private contractors to whom, increasingly, large amounts of public services are being contracted out.
The new clause is partly inspired by the strong points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) on Second Reading, when he encouraged us to look at the work of Transparency International. I assure him that I read its report on corruption, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson), and used it to raise some important questions in Committee. Indeed, the Minister met representatives of Transparency International, so interested had he become in the strength of its recommendations and the issues that it was throwing up. Transparency International says:
“Private companies, when operating services in the public interest, should be required to comply with the Freedom of Information Act with regard to those services. Specifically, audit reports from local authorities should be covered under the Freedom of Information Act or published directly as public documents.”
I agree.
Our new clause draws on amendments that have been tabled at every stage in the Lords and in Committee. I pay tribute to the work of Lord Wills in this regard. At each stage, the Government have warmed a little more to the arguments that have been made. The Liberal Democrats have been encouraging, too. Lord Tope and Lord Wallace of Saltaire spoke in the Lords in favour of greater transparency. Lord Tope said:
“My Lords, Liberal Democrats campaigned hard for freedom of information long before the Act was passed and have since been consistent and enthusiastic supporters of its provisions. It follows therefore that we start with considerable sympathy for the issue that the noble Lord, Lord Wills, is pursuing…I am grateful to him for pursuing the issue at all stages of the Bill.”
I hope that he noticed that we took these matters forward in Committee. Lord Wallace of Saltaire said:
“I encourage the noble Lord to pursue this issue further. I will repeat what I said on Report: both Parliament and the Government need to look at this issue in general.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 July 2013; Vol. 747, c. 1319-24.]
They are both right.
The Government’s main counter is that transparency increases costs and is not necessary because councils can already be subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. However, that is not sufficient given the travel towards ever greater outsourcing of services. Local government controls about a quarter of all public spending and contracts out an increasing amount of services to private providers. It is responsible for making decisions about a number of matters where the interests of private companies are often in tension with the wishes of the electorate. For all those reasons, local government is inherently exposed to corruption risks. On the whole, it navigates and mitigates those risks admirably, and we should recognise that and keep in proportion the level of concern. However, the public will want to know that we in this place have done our very best to ensure that there is transparency in how local authorities mitigate the risks and manage contracts.
Andy Sawford
My hon. Friend is right in his interpretation of the new clause. Clause 26 on the inspection of documents sets out the documents that would reasonably be made available for inspection in public bodies. We would extend that to private sector contractors.
Chris Williamson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that clarification. I hope that provides the reassurance Government Members were seeking.
In conclusion, we are moving to a new era in which the Audit Commission will be abolished and more private sector auditors will get involved in the market. It is important that those are subject to appropriate scrutiny, and we must therefore ensure that instruments are available to enable such scrutiny to take place. According to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, up to £20 billion will be spent by local enterprise partnerships, and proper scrutiny and auditing arrangements must be in place to ensure that that money is expended properly. The public demand nothing less, and if the Government do not support this measure, it is incumbent on them to explain how that scrutiny will take place. If scandals are uncovered in the future because of a lackadaisical approach adopted by the Government, they will not be able to say they were not warned. I hope the Minister will sleep easy in his bed if he rejects these reasonable measures, because I believe that would put taxpayers’ money at risk of being misused. He needs to reassure the House and—more importantly—the wider public.
Brandon Lewis
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, and he will appreciate that it is now noted and on record. I hope that I have been able to provide sufficient assurances to persuade him not to press his new clauses and amendments to a vote.
I shall not detain the House for long on Government amendments 1 to 5. Amendment 1 would require an authority to include the period of the auditor’s appointment in the public notice confirming the appointment of the auditor. Clause 8 requires authorities to publish such a notice within 28 days of making the appointment. The hon. Member for Corby will recall that he tabled a similar amendment in Committee and suggested that it would be helpful for the public to know the term of the auditor’s appointment. It was also suggested that knowing when the existing contract would end would be useful to potential bidders for any new appointment.
There was a similar discussion in the other place, where Lord McKenzie tabled an amendment to require that information on the term of appointment should be included in the published notice. At the time, the Government expressed sympathy with the intentions of the amendment, but questioned whether such a requirement needed to be set out in legislation, because it could simply be a matter of good practice and guidance. However, having considered the case further, and in the light of the points made by the hon. Member for Corby in Committee, the Government accept that it might be useful to put the matter beyond doubt through this amendment.
Amendment 2 is a minor and technical amendment to ensure that references throughout the Bill cover subordinate legislation made under part 42 of the Companies Act 2006, as applied by schedule 5 to the Bill. It will make it clear that provisions on eligibility and regulation apply to the whole local audit regime.
Amendment 3 removes from schedule 2 internal drainage boards that are partly in England and partly in Wales. There are two such boards: Powysland and Lower Wye. Both are mainly in Wales but currently fall under the Audit Commission regime. The local audit provisions in the Bill will therefore not apply to those cross-border internal drainage boards after the Audit Commission is abolished. The Welsh Government intend to transfer the functions of the two cross-border IDBs, along with the functions of one IDB that is wholly in Wales, to a single body, Natural Resources Wales, and to bring them under the Welsh audit system. They intend to do this by the time the Audit Commission is abolished—by April 2015. Both bodies will continue to fall under the Audit Commission regime until then.
The Welsh Government supported a legislative consent motion to make audit arrangements for the two bodies under the Bill as a stopgap measure until the new governance arrangements are in place. However, the legislative consent motion was not passed by the National Assembly for Wales. As a result, in line with the devolution settlement, the amendment removes these two bodies from schedule 2. Welsh Ministers have agreed that we should retain the power in clause 2 as a backstop power to add cross-border bodies back into schedule 2 by regulations at a later date, should the transfer of functions take longer than expected. Regulations made under this power will be subject to consultation and the affirmative procedure, and would require consent from the National Assembly for Wales.
Amendment 4 is a minor amendment to clarify that paragraph 6(1) of schedule 4 does not apply in the case of health bodies. The paragraph currently provides that, when an authority uses an existing committee as its auditor panel, wider enactments that usually apply to committees of a local authority do not apply. A corresponding power in paragraph 5 then allows such enactments to be positively applied to the panel, to ensure that arrangements remain proportionate, given the panel’s limited role.
In the case of health bodies, however, their audit committees are covered by a specific existing framework, which is different from that applied to local authority committees. That framework reflects the different governance framework for health bodies such as clinical commissioning groups, and will need to continue to apply in full, even when the committee is acting as the panel. As drafted, paragraph 6 of schedule 4 could have the unintended consequence of disapplying that existing framework for audit committees within health bodies when they are acting as the auditor panel. The amendment therefore excludes health bodies from this provision.
Amendment 5 further modifies schedule 10 to the Companies Act 2006, as applied by schedule 5, in respect of auditors qualified in other European economic area countries. It has two main effects in respect of those individuals. First, it will enable the recognised supervisory bodies for local audit to recognise the qualifications of those auditors who hold the equivalent of a UK local audit qualification obtained elsewhere in the EEA. This is necessary to comply with the requirements of the recognition of professional qualifications directive, 2005/36/EC.
Secondly, the amendment specifies that recognised supervisory bodies can require an EEA statutory auditor to pass an aptitude test only if the auditor is seeking to become established as a local auditor in the UK on a permanent basis. The audit directive, which makes provision for an aptitude test, applies only to statutory audit. Unlike the audit directive, however, the recognition of professional qualifications directive does not permit the imposition of an aptitude test if an individual is seeking to provide services on a temporary and occasional basis. The amendment therefore seeks to align the regulatory frameworks for statutory and local auditors, as far as is permitted.
The amendment will also ensure that any indirect discrimination against EEA auditors is avoided and that the requirements for EEA local auditors and EEA statutory auditors are as consistent as possible. It will also ensure that a firm is qualified if it is eligible for appointment as a local or statutory auditor or is eligible for a corresponding appointment. I urge the House to support the Government’s amendments.
Andy Sawford
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me a moment to reply.
The amendments, particularly new clause 2, have had strong support from my hon. Friends and I am grateful to them for putting their views on record. I welcome the Minister’s statement that the Government will publish guidance to private sector contractors. He went further, saying that if that is not effective, the Government will consider extending freedom of information contracts to private suppliers. I consider that to be a significant move forward, certainly from where we were in Committee. It is a win for my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) and others who have championed this. We very much look forward to seeing that guidance, but we also commit to taking the issue forward ourselves.
Andy Sawford
I beg to move amendment 14, page 26, line 11, leave out
‘one or more specified local authorities’
and insert ‘a local authority’.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 15, page 26, line 25, leave out subsection (4) and insert—
‘(4) A direction can only be made by the Secretary of State if—
(a) evidence of a breach of a code has been published by the Secretary of State to the local authority;
(b) a local authority, on receipt of a letter from the Secretary of State notifying them of evidence which purports to demonstrate a breach of the code has made a response to the Secretary of State within 28 days; and
(c) upon receiving any response the Secretary of State has published a report detailing his conclusions.’.
Amendment 16, page 27, leave out lines 1 to 29.
Andy Sawford
Clause 39, to which the three amendments relate, includes provisions on local authority publicity that the Opposition strongly believe, and have consistently argued, are unnecessary, undemocratic and wholly disproportionate. The amendment, and the clause itself, covers all council publicity from newspapers to posters and even social media. We are gravely concerned that the Secretary of State is, in effect, through clause 39 making himself the censor-in-chief of local government communications.
Much attention has been paid to the Government’s gagging law, which attempts to silence civil society. It is less widely known that, through clause 39, the Government are trying to silence elected local councils. These new powers make the Secretary of State censor-in-chief of local government at the same time as evidence is emerging that his Department is encouraging councils to print pro-Government propaganda through the circulation of the very loaded pro-Government suggestive press releases that we have seen appear around the country.
Clause 39 will give the Secretary of State the power to dictate when and how councils can publish communications to local citizens. Of even more concern to us is the fact that the Secretary of State is taking a power of censorship to direct what issues and information councils can talk about and even what language and phraseology they can use. Ministers have made it clear that their intention is to prevent councils from sharing information or commenting on the impact of Government policy if they disapprove of the message.
In Committee, the examples given by the Minister and his Back Benchers included not allowing elected leaders of a local authority to publish a comment on the effect of central Government funding changes—so furious are the Government that councils are letting their residents know the scale of the cuts they are facing. Under these new powers, the Secretary of State could force councils to use pro-government terminology such as the benign-sounding “spare room subsidy” rather than the “bedroom tax”, which betrays how unpopular and unfair the policy is to many of the poorest and most vulnerable people—including many disabled people—in our communities. Legal advice to the Local Government Association says that these censorship laws would prevent councils from publishing information on issues such as HS2 or health service reconfigurations.
The Government argue that the power is needed because local authorities are breaching the current voluntary code on local authority publicity. Yet they have managed to find only one example of a breach; Tower Hamlets’ publication “East End Life”, which seems to the Opposition clearly to flout the code. It is absolutely shocking that the Government have failed to take any action, using the powers they already have, in more than three years since they became aware of the level of concern, including that reported by Labour councillors in Tower Hamlets. We agree with the Secretary of State that that publication is a problem, but we ask again why the Government have taken no action—no action at all. In fact, the Minister attempted to explain to me in an answer to a parliamentary question that it is because the Secretary of State has not done anything that he now believes that he needs to give himself these dictatorial powers. It is so extraordinary that one might assume that if councils knew the full extent of these plans, they would resist them.
Through several freedom of information requests, I discovered that the Department has not communicated with local authorities about the plans since May 2010. No councils have answered letters or e-mails in respect of their local publications on this subject. This is all being done behind local authorities’ backs.
At the same time as the Secretary of State is censoring councils and preventing them from saying things he does not like, he is seeking to use them as a propaganda arm of the central state. I have discovered that, through these press releases, the Government are seeking to trumpet their policies when it suits them to use councils in that way at the same time as they seek to silence them when council communications are inconvenient. The Secretary of State preaches localism rhetoric, but the truth is—we know this, and local government knows it, too—that he does not really like local democracy. Starved of funds and subject to diktats even on issues like when to collect the bins, local authorities are now subject to censorship. It is clear that the Secretary of State’s warnings of cigar-chomping commies looking to take over government were remarkably prescient.
The hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), who I see in her place, described these censorship laws as
“a sledgehammer to crack a nut”.—[Official Report, 28 October 2013; Vol. 569, c. 704.]
Liberal Democrat-run Cambridge city council says that the clause is “disproportionate and unnecessary”. It says it is
“quite at odds with the principles of localism”.
I asked the Secretary of State in a parliamentary question of 16 December to publish or place in the Library all the responses his Department received to the consultation it ran on local media. The Minister replied:
“I have placed in the Library of the House, a copy of the Government’s response to the consultation on ‘Protecting the Independent Press…’ which outlines the divergent views of councils and representatives of independent newspapers.”—[Official Report, 16 December 2013; Vol. 572, c. 444W.]
Because the Minister would not provide the information, I took the trouble of making a freedom of information request to local authorities themselves about their responses to the consultation on the publicity code. I then discovered that it was not only Cambridge city council that said it disagreed with the clause. Watford borough council, led by the widely respected elected local mayor, Dorothy Thornhill—she is not of my party, but she is someone I have worked with who has a good reputation around local government—says:
“These changes are a threat to local democracy. They could inhibit local elected members from representing their residents. Placing the ultimate decision-making powers in the hands of a Secretary of State is contrary to the localist agenda of the Government, and it is heavy-handed.”
It is not just Liberal Democrat councils either, because Conservative councils, too, are opposed. North Yorkshire county council says in its response:
“The proposed legislation is disproportionate”.
Tory-run North Somerset says:
“With regard to the proposed restrictions on the publication of council newspapers, we object strongly.”
Baroness Eaton said in the other place:
“This clause is unnecessary as there is no evidence that council publications are competing unfairly with local newspapers…the proposed measures in the Bill centralise powers to the Secretary of State and allow central government to interfere with matters that should rightly be decided at local level”.
Lord Tope, commenting on the lack of evidence to support the proposals on local authority publicity, said:
“All we have had from the Government is rather silly and misleading statements from the Secretary of State about ‘town hall Pravdas’”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 22 May 2013; Vol. 745, c. 898-902.]
The Local Government Association, a cross-party but Conservative-led body, says:
“The powers are too wide ranging and do not allow councils any local discretion about how to engage with their residents. This is unnecessary and could allow the Secretary of State to interfere with the work of an elected council.”
The National Association of Local Councils, which has no political axe to grind, says these powers are “anti-localist”, fly in the face of localism and are
“a threat to local democratic accountability”.
Finally, let me cite the very considered words of the right hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Sir Andrew Stunell), the former Local Government Minister in the coalition Government. In Committee he said:
“Every Bill has high spots and not-so-high spots, and Clause 39 is one of those not-so-high spots.”––[Official Report, Local Audit and Accountability Public Bill Committee, 19 November 2013; c. 301.]
I have had the pleasure of working with the right hon. Gentleman in a previous role so I know that that is a typically understated remark from him. He then went on to challenge the Minister for assurances about the proportionality of any intervention, and the ability of councils to make representations with regard to how they are exercising discretion. However, far from giving reassurances, the Minister—and many of his hon. Friends, some of whom I see in the Chamber today—made us more rather than less concerned. Their political motivation was absolutely clear: they were frankly shameless about revealing that clause 39 was about silencing councils if they communicated with citizens about anything that the Government did not like.
The Secretary of State claims that the clause is needed to protect the press from unfair competition from advertising, but the recommended code of practice for local authority publicity contains no provisions relating to advertising. It is clear that the Secretary of State’s argument is a diversion from the real aim of censoring councils and their locally elected councillors. The National Union of Journalists disagrees with the Government’s contention that local authority publications are damaging to the press. Its general secretary has said that there is “no case at all” for the current Secretary of State
“and future Secretaries of State to be given extra statutory powers to decide when”
and how local authorities can communicate, adding:
“We do not believe that this element of guidance reflects the needs of many communities”.
The Minister will no doubt tell us that the Government ran a consultation in April 2013. That consultation was a classic example of things that cause the public at times to be very sceptical abut public sector consultations. It was, in fact, very much a “nonsultation”. Its outcome was so evidently predetermined, even by the loaded title “Protecting the independent press from unfair competition” and by the way in which it was launched. The Government, as if to confirm that impression—as if they had no regard to whether the public, or indeed local authorities, would consider that they had given any proper thought to the consultation—published their response within two days of the end of the consultation.
We have challenged the Government to give practical examples. As I have said, we acknowledged the issue about Tower Hamlets, on which they should have acted. Baroness Hannam said in the House of Lords that she had evidence involving other local authorities, yet she said—extraordinarily—that it would not be “helpful” to identity them. Asked to give examples, she said:
“I shall not say which local authorities…are breaching the code. I have them. I could do it, but I think it is…not helpful.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 July 2013; Vol. 747, c. 604.]
In Committee, the Minister said:
“the fact is that there are examples out there.”––[Official Report, Local Audit and Accountability Public Bill Committee, 19 November 2013; c. 304.]
He then vaguely referred to four councils—Plymouth, Lambeth, High Peak and Nottingham, all of them Labour-run—which had had the temerity to inform the public of the unfair scale of the cuts imposed on them by central Government. Can Ministers not see that the kind of censorship that they are seeking to impose through clause 39 is not democratic, not British, and not worthy of the values that our Parliament should uphold? The motivation is petty, but the consequences will be very serious indeed.
Let me tell the House about the effect in my area. The Minister has suggested that a council publication in my constituency, the Nene Valley News, is competing unfairly with local papers. His ill-informed statements show why we should not trust the Government with these powers. The truth is that there is no newspaper for the Nene Valley News to compete with across much of east Northamptonshire—and now the only communications lifeline on which many people in the small towns and villages of my constituency can rely is being cut off. Those are people in areas with poor broadband access, and the demographic is such that, proportionally, there are fewer people in those areas than in some of the larger towns in the county who use social media widely, or even have access to the internet.
Mr Betts
Three years ago, the Select Committee conducted an inquiry into the whole issue of local authority publications, and found absolutely no evidence of any impact on commercial newspapers. Indeed, one of our findings was that many local authority publications were published on the presses of commercial papers, thus providing them with important additional income.
Andy Sawford
My hon. Friend, who chairs the Select Committee, is right. I think that there is often a complementarity between the newspapers, news sheets and magazines published by councils and other local papers. There is often a considerable spin-off in the form of the relationship between the communications that councils promote through their papers about local events and community organisations, and how vibrant local newspapers are able to become in terms of, for example, the advertising revenue that they can create in relation to such community events and activities.
The Minister has claimed that the advertising in the Nene Valley News is the problem. First, it is not included in the code; secondly, I would gladly facilitate a meeting between the Minister and the local small businesses and traders who use the low-cost space in the Nene Valley News, and who are now extremely worried about how they will get business. I quoted one individual at length in Committee, but for brevity I shall merely say now that he concluded his remarks to me on this matter by saying, “Aren’t the Tories supposed to be a party that likes business?” He is very sceptical about the motivation for, and is concerned about the effect of, this crass, uninformed and undemocratic clause.
Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)
I listened to much of what the hon. Gentleman said in Committee and followed his train of argument. Will he clarify whether he opposes the code itself or just its enforcement?
Andy Sawford
I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman did not pick this up during our three Committee sittings on this clause, as we made it clear that we support the voluntary code. We have been able to agree on one example where there is clearly a question as to whether the code is being flouted, and it is a great shame that the Government have not seen fit to take any action in three years to enforce the code.
Andy Sawford
I am going to make some progress, because the hon. Gentleman spoke extensively on these provisions in Committee and made us more, not less, concerned.
Amendment 15 seeks to delete the astonishing new subsection I mentioned, to extend the time that the authority has to respond to evidence of a breach of the code to 28 days from 14, and, crucially, to require the Secretary of State to publish a report detailing his conclusions, having considered the response from the authority. That seems to us to be a very reasonable amendment that enshrines an evidential basis for taking any action in relation to the code. Amendment 16 seeks to delete the whole of proposed new section 4B, as we feel it is overly proactive meddling from the Secretary of State. We will seek to press amendment 15 to a vote. I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will consider it reasonable that if the Government must press ahead with these powers, there is at least a requirement for the process to be evidence-led, for councils to have the right to make representations and for the Secretary of State to publish his findings before any action is taken.
I end by asking the Minister, one more time, to try to persuade us that this approach is necessary by saying how he thinks that the Opposition, the cross-party, Conservative-led Local Government Association, Liberal Democrat-run and Tory-run councils all around the country, the National Association of Local Councils, the National Union of Journalists and my constituents in east Northamptonshire, who are so upset about the end of the Nene Valley News, are all wrong and he is right. Even if he still thinks he is right, can he explain, as someone who purports to be a localist, why it is right to impose central Government’s will? This clause is worthy of a crackpot dictatorship.
John McDonnell
This is barmy. It is absolutely crackers that we are spending parliamentary time on this matter. I receive Hillingdon People from my Conservative-controlled local authority. On virtually every page, there is a picture of a smiling Conservative councillor pointing at something, standing on something or expressing some view. Interspersed with the smiling photographs is genuine information about what is happening in the local community. People tell me that the newspaper is an ideal size for lining a hamster cage, so it serves some useful purpose in the local area.
Today, the Government have announced the commission report on the expansion of aviation, which includes the threat to my constituency from the third runway. I have been assured that there will be cross-party opposition on my council to the Government’s proposals. We will use Hillingdon People to explain the proposals that have been introduced. We have used it in the past to explain the proposals of all political parties. Undoubtedly, views will be expressed by councillors on a cross-party basis condemning the commission’s proposals and, almost certainly, the Government’s approach. Does that mean that we will then be hauled before the Secretary of State to be advised on the words that we can use about this matter and on the way in which Hillingdon People will be used?
The one good thing about local newspapers is that they reflect local opinion. There might be an overbalance of photographs of a certain party, but for all that they are a useful tool in mobilising local opinion around a local issue, and they are campaigning tools for a local authority in genuinely reflecting the views of the local populace who elected them.
My local council has certainly consulted local people and supported local meetings to ensure that people can express their views on the extension of Heathrow. It has then reflected those views in Hillingdon People, and launched campaigns on the basis of what local people have said. At my last public meeting on this matter, a campaign called “Back Heathrow” was spuriously launched by the aviation industry to support Heathrow airport expansion. It was completely funded by Heathrow airport and run by its public relations agency. People then said to me that Hillingdon People should be used to put out accurate information, rather than the spurious propaganda that the airport was putting out. I am anxious that my local authority, which will go on the stump on this issue, may be debarred from using Hillingdon People to explain what its views are and to campaign against the expansion of Heathrow airport.
I would be grateful to the Minister if we heard his views. By the looks of it, he will now be the editor-in-chief of Hillingdon People, so I would welcome his views now before we put a foot wrong. Is it in order, under this Bill, for Hillingdon council to use Hillingdon People to campaign against Heathrow expansion and to disseminate information that will be opposed to the commission’s views and what seems to be the emerging view about a third runway at Heathrow?
Brandon Lewis
First, let me be clear that good communication between a local authority and the public is important. Let me also be clear that what clause 39 delivers is a manifesto pledge by both coalition parties. Local authority publicity can be expensive and it can be controversial, so it is important that local authorities get it right.
In Committee I outlined our intentions and explained exactly what the clause seeks to achieve. We should be conscious of the fact that localism is about empowering local people to be able to challenge and see, transparently, what their local authority is doing. This is about true localism and making sure that we are also able to do our bit to defend the independent local press.
The code of recommended practice on local authority publicity ensures that publicity is, among other things, cost-effective, objective, even-handed and appropriate, and Labour Members have agreed in principle with the voluntary code. It ensures that taxpayers’ money is not wasted on issuing inappropriate publicity or publicity that political parties themselves should be issuing, rather than a local council using taxpayers’ money to do it. The code has been in place since 2011. It was debated and approved by both Houses of Parliament.
Andy Sawford
The Minister is right to say that the code seeks to prevent money being used on things that are politicised, but does he not see that his argument is not consistent with a Department that is sending out puff pieces about its Secretary of State for local authorities to issue?
Brandon Lewis
I suspect that deep down inside, the hon. Gentleman—we almost became hon. Friends in Committee—probably realises that there is a world of difference between a template press release sent to independent local journalists and a municipal taxpayer-funded newspaper that takes away the competition of a local independent press. None of the provisions in the Bill makes any changes to the publicity code.
Let me give a very clear example of how the process might work for a local authority publishing a weekly newspaper—such as Nene Valley News, which was mentioned by the hon. Gentleman—in direct competition to the local independent press that is so important in holding councils to account. Under the provisions, the Secretary of State, after advising the local authority that he intends to do so and giving it time to make any representations it wishes—such as that there is no other local paper—may, if he thinks fit, issue a direction requiring that the local authority comply with some or all of the code, but particularly, let us say, the part advising local authorities that council newsletters should be issued no more than quarterly. If the Secretary of State considers that a group of local authorities, or even all local authorities in England, should be required to follow the guidance in the code, he must of course make an order, which would need to be debated and agreed by both Houses of Parliament.
Brandon Lewis
I suggest that the hon. Gentleman looks at Hansard for the reports of our proceedings in Committee, where we outlined the evidence—including from the Newspaper Society, which complained about exactly that issue—particularly, as was noted, in relation to Tower Hamlets.
Amendment 14 confuses the very clear and necessary provision that the Secretary of State may direct a local authority to comply with some or all of the publicity code. The amendment would achieve little in practice, as the Secretary of State may of course issue more than one individual direction. Amendment 15 would also be far from beneficial. It would add layers of complexity and bureaucracy to what should be a straightforward procedure to allow the Secretary of State rapidly to address incidences of the guidance in the code not being observed.
Brandon Lewis
No, I shall make a little progress. The hon. Gentleman was keen to make progress during his speech.
Any local authority that already—rightly—complies with the guidance in the code would be wholly unaffected by a direction. Amendment 15 would remove sensible, proportionate measures and put in place a gold-plated bureaucratic process that requires the publication of not one, but two reports by the Secretary of State, all while taxpayers’ money might continue to be wasted.
Amendment 16 seeks to remove the provisions to ensure that a group of local authorities, or all local authorities in England, comply with the guidance in the code. We have sensibly decided to make provision for the Secretary of State to require compliance with the code not only by an individual local authority, but by a number of them or even, if necessary, by all local authorities in England.
The Secretary of State can issue an individual direction to an authority, but to require a group of local authorities or even all local authorities in England to comply with the code, the Secretary of State must make an order subject to the agreement of both Houses of Parliament. That was a recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, and we were happy to amend the Bill to give effect to it. Amendment 16 would quite wrongly undo the power and the recommendation, leaving a ridiculous situation in which if the Secretary of State wanted to act to address widespread non-compliance by a group of councils, he might have to issue hundreds of individual directions. The amendment would also remove parliamentary scrutiny of the process.
We are obliged to make the provisions because although the vast majority of local authorities comply with the code, a very few do not; we accept that there are very few. It is to address that abuse of council resource and waste of taxpayers’ money that we have rightly decided to act. The provisions are important, proportionate and necessary.
Brandon Lewis
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have done his homework and will realise that for the Government to take action under the voluntary code, there would have to be a long and expensive judicial review.
The provisions are the right way in which to move forward so that we can enforce the code effectively, efficiently and swiftly. It is slightly baffling that the Opposition claim that they have no problem with the voluntary code agreed by Parliament and support it, but do not want it to be enforced. That just does not make sense, has no credibility and does not add up. The provisions ensure that we can protect the good, local independent press, and that taxpayers’ money is used efficiently and effectively, and not wasted on town hall Pravdas. I encourage hon. Members to resist the amendments.
Andy Sawford
What a shocking response. We will not press amendments 14 and 16, but we will press amendment 15 to the vote.
Amendment 15 would place a very simple expectation on the Secretary of State: that he would act on the receipt of evidence, that he would share that evidence with the local authority and that he would ask it to comment. As the Minister says, these matters should be subject to local discretion as well as to national direction. The Secretary of State would simply have to say, in taking enforcement action against a local authority, that he had found a breach of the code. It would be incredibly simple, straightforward and right to make that amendment if the Secretary of State feels that it is necessary to take these extraordinary powers, even though we do not.
The Minister’s response, as at each stage of the passage of the Bill, has made us far more concerned, not less, about the intention behind this very worrying and deeply anti-democratic clause.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment proposed: 15, page 26, line 25, leave out subsection (4) and insert—
‘(4) A direction can only be made by the Secretary of State if—
(a) evidence of a breach of a code has been published by the Secretary of State to the local authority;
(b) a local authority, on receipt of a letter from the Secretary of State notifying them of evidence which purports to demonstrate a breach of the code has made a response to the Secretary of State within 28 days; and
(c) upon receiving any response the Secretary of State has published a report detailing his conclusions.’.—(Andy Sawford.)
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Brandon Lewis
Our amendments are precautionary measures to remove the risk of local authority budgeting being adversely impacted in the event of a delay to the Bill taking effect. Clause 41 currently provides that the council tax referendum calculations will take account of levies from 1 April 2014. The referendum principles, which we intend to publish in draft very shortly, will be put to this House for approval in February as normal. Those principles will take account of levies, but will be subject to the will of Parliament and the Bill, which will have come into force by then.
The amendments have a relatively simple effect. Together, amendments 6, 9, 10 and 11 provide that if the Bill is passed by 5 February—the likely date by which the referendum principles must be laid before Parliament—the provisions in clause 41 will take effect immediately and the changes to the referendum provisions will take effect for the 2014-15 financial year. Otherwise, the changes will take effect by order from 2015-16. There is no reason to believe that the provisions will not be in force before the referendum principles are approved, but we are tabling this group of amendments to give local authorities advance certainty over timings so that they can be confident that any delay in Parliament would not impact on their budget-setting timetable.
Amendment 7 is a minor amendment clarifying that the clause does not alter the existing discretion of the Secretary of State when determining categories of authority for 2014-15. Amendment 8 addresses the ability of the Secretary of State to determine categories of local authorities on the basis of whether their 2013-14 council tax increase would have been excessive had levies been taken into account. The clause puts this existing ability beyond question and does not extend it further. Similarly, the amendment does not extend that existing ability, but updates the references to increases in 2013-14 to include references to increases in 2014-15, should the provisions take effect from 2015-16. The current transitional provisions in subsections (14) to (16) ensure that council tax comparisons between 2013-14 and 2014-15 are made on a like-for-like basis. An amendment must be made to ensure that this protection for authorities still exists if levies are to be included from 2015-16. Subsections (18) to (20) in amendment 8 provide that protection.
In summary, these amendments are precautionary measures only and, apart from clarifications and restatements of existing legislation, have one purpose: to ensure that in the event of any unpredicted delay, local authorities will continue to be treated consistently and to benefit from the transitional protections already in the clause.
Andy Sawford
Our amendment 18 would give the Secretary of State some discretion to prevent any unintended consequences arising out of the levy changes from affecting city deals. The amendment states:
“The Secretary of State may, by Order, exempt from the calculation of an authority’s basic amount of council tax any levies agreed as part of a City Deal signed prior to this Act receiving Royal Assent.”
We are concerned that the provisions to include levying bodies could affect those city deals that have been agreed around the country.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
It strikes me that the same argument could apply, in principle and in practice, to the internal drainage boards, which work in partnership with the Environment Agency. They are worried that being included in the referendum provision could lead to their being unable to do the essential drain clearing that helps with flood alleviation. My hon. Friend is making his point well. Does he agree that this could also apply to the internal drainage boards?
Andy Sawford
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This group of amendments on levies would have significant implications for internal drainage boards. There was a specific amendment on them, but it has now been withdrawn. However, the other amendments will affect the boards just as they will affect other bodies that apply levies. I know that my hon. Friend considers this to be an important matter; he is an expert on matters affecting our rural communities and, in particular, on flooding. If a local authority felt the need to take urgent action—or, indeed, long-term action—on flood defences, I think we would all be concerned if that ability were to be undermined by the provisions in the Bill. I will return to that issue in more detail later.
Leeds city region has written a letter to the Deputy Prime Minister to raise concerns about the clause, and it gives us a new insight that we did not have in Committee. The city region is concerned that including levies within the ambit of a calculation to hold a referendum on annual increases in council tax could result in it having to hold
“up to 60 referendums, with the Combined Authority not being in a position to know whether its investment programme was affordable until all referendums had been passed.”
Is the Minister aware of that concern, and does he recognise those possible implications? A critical element of the Leeds city deal is the local contribution fund. The Leeds city region believes that the Bill, as it stands, will make the fund “impossible to deliver”, because it could trigger up to 60 referendums a year and the authority might have to conduct such referendums over a period of five years.
In Committee, the Minister said that the figures provided thus far did not make a compelling argument for treating city deals differently. Does he agree, however, that these new figures from Leeds city region should make us think again and support a clause that does not require the Secretary of State to make exemptions but, rather, merely permits him to do so?
The Minister might well be proved right; this might not become an issue. Leeds city region clearly believes that it will, however. If that were to happen, would it not be in everyone’s interests if the Secretary of State could make a judgment to exempt the levies? It would be in the Government’s interest, in terms of their good faith in negotiating the city deal. It would also be in the interests of the city regions around the country, particularly Leeds city region, which has expressed so much concern.
If a council tax referendum were lost and the levying body refused to reduce its levy, what would the Minister expect a local authority to do? Under the Bill as it stands, a levying body would not have to abide by the result of a referendum, should one be triggered and subsequently lost. In effect, therefore, the financial risk would be on the local authority regardless of whether the increase in council tax was a direct result of its financial decisions. That cannot be fair.
The provisions are retrospective. The Minister told us on Second Reading and in Committee—his noble friend Baroness Hanham told their lordships—that the provisions are not retrospective. They clearly are. The Local Government Association is absolutely clear in its analysis of the effect, as are Labour Members. Clause 41(15) allows the Secretary of State to apply changes retrospectively. He will be able to impose a different referendum limit on authorities where their council tax increase for 2014-15 would have been excessive under the new definition, but not under the current definition. This is not fair on those authorities that have taken decisions in good faith based on the legislation in place at the time. There is no difference in principle between Labour Members and the Government on the intention to protect citizens and residents of our local councils from excessive council tax increases. Indeed, councils such as Hackney have been freezing their council tax for many years and setting an example, as other Labour councils have done, but we would not want to see an unfair retrospective provision that undermines the plans that local authorities have put in place.
There is clearly a risk of perverse outcomes that will put growth-generating investment at risk. Levying bodies are, by statute or local agreement, able to recover some or all of their costs by charging local authorities a fee for infrastructure or services. Local government in England is subject to a variety of different levying arrangements covering significant and regionally important issues such as transport, drainage—the point my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) made—and a wide range of other local issues. There is enormous scope for perverse outcomes in our communities from these provisions.
There are a number of examples where the extension of council tax referendums will cause instability and uncertainty—not just the Leeds example, but many other areas around the country where plans have been made on a different basis from the legislation that is now being proposed. On integrated transport, the implications in west Yorkshire, for example, are that if the referendums were lost, it would put at risk £750 million of investment and 20,000 new jobs; these are very significant consequences.
Under the Bill’s provisions, an internal drainage board that needed to take emergency action to manage flood risk may be denied the capacity to do so by the outcome of a referendum. These boards may also be unable to support wider central Government objectives because the changes might limit their ability to levy funding to invest in flood defences. Participants in the work that Sir Michael Pitt did a few years ago in response to some of the most severe flooding we have seen in this country were left scratching their heads as to how, at a time of public sector financial constraint, we would meet the challenge of ensuring that there are effective flood defences. We know that some of the poorest and most vulnerable people are the most exposed to flood risk around the country. There are issues with insurance, for example. One of the sensible ways in which we were able to take this forward was through the drainage boards and the work they were able to do. That could now be undermined.
Huw Irranca-Davies
My hon. Friend illustrates the point very well. It is only a couple of years ago that we had extensive flooding in the south-west of England. One of the consequences of that was the need to do emergency work very rapidly on the drainage channels there. The levies paid through IDBs are very well supported by those communities that need them for flood alleviation.
Andy Sawford
My hon. Friend has considerable expertise in this and he is right. If a drainage board needed to take emergency action, clearly it would not be in the interests of communities—the very people who, during a cost of living crisis caused by the Government, we agree we want to protect from excessive council taxes—to leave them exposed to flood risk if we know that we can take emergency action to address that.
There are issues with pension authorities, particularly in some metropolitan counties and in London, which operates the legacy pension schemes of the Greater London Council. As with the rest of the local government pension scheme, there is little control over the costs of these, which are increasing with each successive valuation. Indeed, more levying bodies may be created in the future as a consequence of the pension governance reforms that the Department is considering.
In short, these proposals have not been thought through. We do not disagree with the fundamental intention behind them—to keep council tax down—but we do disagree about how they are being introduced, without further thought or consultation, and particularly about some of the issues that arise from retrospection as it affects drainage boards and city deals. We would urge the Government to go back to the drawing board. With the leave of the House, we will seek to press amendment 18 to a vote.
Brandon Lewis
Before dealing with amendment 18, let me touch on the issue of internal drainage boards, which some hon. Members have raised. IDB levels are not being singled out. This Bill will ensure consistent and fair treatment between all local authorities.
I shall now turn directly to amendment 18, which relates to local authorities that have collectively entered into “city deals”—agreements with the Government on additional freedoms and financial certainties in order to promote local growth and skills—before the Bill’s commencement. This area was touched upon on Second Reading and debated in more depth in Committee, where the hon. Member for Corby (Andy Sawford)was content to take away and consider the clarifications and assurances I gave in response to a similar amendment.
Since this amendment has been tabled, I am happy to repeat some of the points discussed in Committee and to provide hon. Members more widely with any further expansion I can give. Although the amendment would have a wider effect, I understand that its intent is to address a single specific case—that of the Leeds city region deal— where there are plans to create a transport investment fund that would allow about £1 billion to be raised from grants, contributions from stakeholders and borrowing. Repayment of that borrowing will be met by the constituent authorities via modest increases in the transport levy over the next decade. This arrangement is novel. It will provide much-needed investment in the region and remains an arrangement that the Government are committed to and happy to support. However, the figures generated by Leeds and the other authorities taking part show that if those levy increases were passed straight on to local taxpayers in the form of higher bills, it would be affordable without the need for a referendum. It would amount to an increase of between 0.2% to 0.9% per year.
Andy Sawford
I understand the Minister’s point, which he made in Committee. It is a fair point, but does he accept that the consequence would be to restrict the ability of local authorities across that area, in a way that they never imagined, to raise council tax in a way that local authorities outside the city deal could? The amount that would trigger the referendum would mean that they were limited?
Brandon Lewis
I will come on to that very point in a few seconds.
I have to say that there is no basis for suggesting that these levies would result in authorities being forced to hold referendums. Given the relatively small increases involved, I would urge those authorities to freeze their council tax instead and take advantage of the grants we are making available to support them in doing so, thus holding down council tax for hard-working people.
Let me gently suggest to Labour Members that this is an area where the facts do not support the claims being made. It is right for the Opposition to test and challenge the statements of the Government of the day, but where there is shown to be no basis for criticism, we should move on and focus our attention elsewhere. In this case, we are proceeding over ground already debated several times here and in the other place, and the figures involved are not disputed by the Opposition or the authorities themselves. However, in the same manner as for any other authority, if Leeds, Bradford or any other council wishes to make representations about how the proposed referendum principles will apply to their particular circumstances, the Secretary of State would take them into account when asking the House to approve the final principles in 2014.