Draft Buckinghamshire (Structural Changes) (modification of the local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007) Regulations 2019

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 General Committees

[Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Austin. As you know, I am not a member of this Committee. I am allowed to speak, but unfortunately I cannot vote. I was very surprised to hear the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton declare that he would not force this particular SI to a vote. Obviously, he has made that decision. I encourage colleagues and Opposition Members to vote against this particular piece of subsidiary legislation.

It falls to me to be the only voice for Buckinghamshire in the room.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I assure the right hon. Lady that I will say a few words after her in support of the points that I suspect she will make.

[Dame Cheryl Gillan]

I will take support from any part of the House. Perhaps I should have said that I would be the only elected Member for a Buckinghamshire constituency to speak. The hon. Lady and I have been in this House for exactly the same length of time, so she will forgive me for my inadvertent error. I look forward to some support from her.

When the local government reorganisation propositions were put forward from certain quarters in Buckinghamshire, I was one of the few voices at the time to ask myriad questions of both Secretaries of State who have been involved in these plans. Although I am not intrinsically against local government reorganisation—indeed, it can be very beneficial—I questioned what problems in Buckinghamshire they were trying to solve with this particular set of proposals.

As has been said, the reorganisation was driven by one quarter from the county council and by the local enterprise partnership—one of the LEPs, because unfortunately we have two LEPs in Buckinghamshire. I remain to be convinced that the path the Government have chosen is the best for Buckinghamshire. I am standing up today to represent partly my views, but mostly those of Chiltern District Council, because the constituency of Chesham and Amersham has contiguous boundaries with Chiltern District Council, and if someone is a Chiltern District Council council tax payer they are a constituent of mine.

Chiltern District Council has asked me to speak on its behalf today, because the combined single authority was certainly not its choice. It has said all along that if there was going to be reorganisation, it should be by evolution, not revolution, and I particularly evidence the fact that Chiltern District Council and South Bucks District Council have been working together for years, putting their back rooms together, if people will forgive that expression. They have both put their administration together to save money for council tax payers and to deliver better and more efficient local services.

I would have thought that that very progress that was being made by those district councils coming together would be the way forward and the way to encourage local government reorganisation. There is also the fact that Buckinghamshire is an exceedingly large area, with great differences between the north and the south of the county, and there is much more synergy between the three southern district council areas than there is between all the four district council areas that make up Buckinghamshire County Council. I am afraid, however, that such a way forward was not to be. Nevertheless, my district authority said on the record that if this reorganisation is going to happen, it wanted to work together with the other councils. Until it saw the detail, that was indeed its plan.

I will just mention a few points that Chiltern District Council has raised with me, because I think that they are important for members of this Committee. When the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016 was passed in this House, the Minister said that it was to overcome obstacles to combined arrangements and devolution. However, the Minister—James Wharton MP, as he was at the time, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State—actually said that

“it is indeed the Government’s intention to build that consensus…We are not going to impose change on areas that do not want it.”—[Official Report, 7 December 2015; Vol. 603, c. 723.]

While considering an amendment during the passage of that Bill, he said it was important that these matters were delivered in a “straightforward” way as part of a deal, “where there is consensus”.

I think that it is quite obvious that there is not consensus, because sadly four out of the five authorities—the four district councils—did not consent to a single authority. The Minister in the Lords, Baroness Williams of Trafford, who was then the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, said, when looking at this area particularly, in a Government response concerning whether a single authority vetoed the change:

“During the passage of the Bill, it became very clear that in certain circumstances, and in particular in relation to structural or boundary change, the consent provisions as initially drafted gave to any single council in an area an effective power of veto over any such change, even if as might be the case in two tier local government, another council in that same area was in favour. The potential for the exercise of such veto may close down consideration and discussion of any such proposals regardless of the wider benefits they could bring to an area or the degree to which they had local support.

Amendment 36 removes that barrier to discussion and consideration of proposals, and, as has been made clear in debate in the Commons, is designed to facilitate the continuation of such wider conversations which it would be hoped would lead to a consensus across the area. We have made very clear that whenever the Secretary of State exercises these powers, he will maintain the preference for consensus, but with this Amendment there is greater flexibility to deliver devolution deals and the underpinning governance which areas want and need.”

I am afraid that there is no consensus.

Furthermore, upon consultation I think that people will find that, as was said by the Opposition spokesperson, there was only one survey that was robust in terms of its statistical analysis, and that survey of residents supported two unitary authorities.

Polls of the parishes also showed over 70% support for two unitaries, and there was greater support for two unitaries from business and stakeholders.

The Secretary of State admitted in his written ministerial statement that there was broad local support for two unitaries, so there is no consensus. I therefore ask the Minister to justify the use of section 15(5) of the 2016 Act, with which he will be familiar. It was intended to be used as a last resort. At the time, the Local Government Association worked with parliamentarians

“to secure assurances from the Secretary of State that the powers to determine the composition of local governance arrangements and remove functions from local authorities without local consent will be used sparingly and only as a last resort.”

In fact, the Minister, James Wharton, said:

“The Government’s intention is to work with local areas to deliver economically sensible areas of devolution, with structures that sit beneath them that allow those things to be delivered and that potential to be realised.”—[Official Report, 7 December 2015; Vol. 603, c. 773.]

There is no devolution deal or combined authority proposal in Buckinghamshire; this is a straightforward local government reorganisation, which, as that junior Minister was at pains to point out, the Secretary of State already has powers to carry out, just as he is doing right now in Northamptonshire by means of an invitation that requires him to carry out local public consultation, so that he properly understands the views of the local area before reaching his decision.

The proposals are not part of a pilot; they are being rushed through. Under section 15(8) of the 2016 Act, the regulation-making power expires—guess when?—on 31 March 2019. The end of March will be such an exciting time. The regulations are being pushed through Parliament before that power expires to circumvent the time limits in the parent Act.

These regulations are being laid before Parliament before the associated order—I have a copy of the draft order here—is laid before Parliament. I think the regulations have been separated from that order to get the regulations through Parliament on time. I understand that officials would advise Parliament to consider the two together; I do not understand why the Minister is not doing that, though if we did, we would not be able to meet the ambitious timetable of the end of March. We know what happens when one is up against timetables: one starts to rush things. I feel strongly that the Committee is being asked to put the cart before the horse, and to judge before we have seen the whole picture.

The Minister mentioned the requirement in the Act for the consent of at least one authority to the regulations being laid before Parliament. Four out of five authorities did not consent. The only authority that consented did so conditionally. The resolution of Buckinghamshire County Council’s cabinet made it clear that it was a subjective consent, based on certain terms in the order that were set out in a letter from the Secretary of State. The order giving effect to the decision set out in the letter is yet to be laid before Parliament.

The county council has said:

“In line with the main report Unitary Transition Arrangements Cabinet is recommended to confirm that the County Council gives consent to the making of the Regulations.”

So far, so good; the council is giving consent. Then comes the rub:

“This consent is on the basis of the Secretary of State’s decision on the draft Structural Changes Order as set out in the letter at Appendix 2 and detailed in the table at paragraph 1 below.”

That order has not yet appeared. The result is that three of our district councils are subjecting the Department to judicial review: Wycombe District Council, South Bucks District Council and my council, Chiltern District Council. They argue that the regulations are ultra vires. I want to hear what the Minister has to say about all of those points. I could probably write his speech for him—they are all going to be brushed aside—but it is important to Chiltern District Council that they are put on the record, so that they are all out in the open.

Dislocating the regulations from the order means asking Members of Parliament to blindly open the door to an order that would impose undemocratic arrangements on Buckinghamshire. As the gentleman who speaks for the Opposition, the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton said, the imposition of a leader and the usurping of the powers of the shadow executive is likely to result in a new council being created in the image of one of the old ones, Buckinghamshire County Council. That is not a bad council, but the principle is to create a new council that takes the best from all the local councils involved. Effectively giving Buckinghamshire County Council a majority on the executive and potentially imposing that council’s chief executive as implementation leader is not what that process should be about. In addition, without the order, how can Parliament properly scrutinise the modification regulations that are before the Committee?

Creating an irrational executive dominance of the shadow authority—which, as currently drafted, the order that is not before the House does—is going to be a major problem. The functions of the shadow authority will be provided for throughout the order, and will theoretically be extensive: it will have powers to formulate the executive arrangements, the code of conduct and members’ allowances, and must prepare, review and revise an implementation plan. However, in practice, those functions are all but extinguished by article 16, which effectively usurps the shadow authority’s functions. They are to be exercised by the shadow executive itself.

The default position in the order that should come before the House is that the shadow authority is disempowered at the hands and whims of a shadow executive, in a context in which that shadow executive is heavily dominated by the county council and can take any decision by steamrolling over legitimately critical opposition within it. That appears to grant the shadow executive a line of patronage to key offices in the shadow authority, including the appointment of the substantive chief executive of the new council. It reduces those offices’ independence and creates the perception that their scrutiny of the executive is weakened.

I appeal to the Minister to think again. If we are to have local government reorganisation in Buckinghamshire, it will be a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve local government. Irrespective of any political differences, all of us in this House strive to provide services to our constituents, and to ensure that local government and services are provided at reasonable cost and with reasonable efficiency. The non-consensual approach that is being adopted by the Government carries with it a high risk of creating a new, but unhappy, council that is not on the road to success and could be on the road to failure. I urge the Minister to try to secure local consent for a model that will genuinely be based on excellence, rather than on short-term expediency and the rapid timetable that he is working to, so that we can be seen to be working in the best interests of our residents. I think that is a goal that we all share, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Ms Eagle]

It is a pleasure to serve on this Committee under your chairmanship, Mr Austin. I am glad that I am able to follow the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham, who has filled in a bit of the local colour that I assumed might exist when I read the documents that the Committee has been provided with. She has raised some extremely important questions, which I hope the Minister has extremely good answers to.

While looking at the documents, I noticed that, funnily enough, effectively all of the smaller local authorities in the Buckinghamshire area that are going to be swallowed up are against what the Minister is suggesting. Four local authorities—South Bucks District Council, Wycombe District Council, Aylesbury Vale District Council and Chiltern District Council, which covers the right hon. Lady’s constituency—have rejected the final plans for a unitary authority. It sounds to me, listening to the right hon. Lady’s comments a moment ago, that they have reasonable worries, which ought to be properly answered. However, given that the Minister’s powers will expire at the end of March, what we have here appears to be a bureaucratically driven exercise, which is trying to force a change through, despite there being plenty of evidence of local worries and a complete lack of local consent to some of these changes.

Does it matter that the people who object happen to come from the smaller district councils, rather than the leviathan county council, which will be empowered, it seems to me, by these plans? It ought to matter to those of us who are interested in local democracy being meaningful. If these kinds of things are to be done appropriately and in a successful way, it is not appropriate for the Minister to do it in a top-down, fast way, empowering the largest and most powerful local authority in the area, so that it can dominate the rest of the authorities that have been swallowed up by it. That will lead to getting off on the wrong foot, resentments, which will not disappear quickly, and the alienation of local people, who believe that their district council is being swallowed up in a way that leaves them with little chance to influence the new unitary authority that is being created.

In my area, we have experience of being forced to become unitary: our metropolitan council—the Merseyside one—was simply abolished, with no consent either, it must be said. That leads to a struggle. Despite the fact that we may in principle want authorities to be unitary, surely, if there is local democracy, there must be a local, democratic way of bringing that about, which does not just mean that the largest fish swallows all the smaller fish, whether they want to be swallowed or not.

It seems to me that in their bureaucratic efforts to get this done and dusted in time, the Government are riding roughshod over perfectly reasonable local interests. The fact that the Government have not seen it fit to lay before Parliament the appropriate documentation, so that we can check the assurances that they say they will give us, is a disgrace. This Committee should not be meeting without the appropriate documentation in front of it.

I hope the Minister will consider withdrawing these regulations, until he can sort himself out and bring to the Committee the appropriate documentation, so that everyone in Parliament can have a proper look at what we are meant to be approving. I certainly hope that if the Minister does not do that, the Opposition Front Bench will consider voting against this proposal.

The proposal is half-baked, it does not have the consent that it claims to have and the Minister has not even bothered to provide the appropriate documentation for us to consider. He ought to go back to the drawing board and come back with all the appropriate documentation. I look forward to him explaining that consent does not mean the consent of four of the five local authorities. It looks to me that there is a reasonable case for judicial review, because of the Government’s lack of ability to put before Parliament and the people in Buckinghamshire the appropriate documentation in an appropriate and timely fashion. I look forward to the Minister’s response, but I would like him to say that he will withdraw this SI temporarily, and bring it back when he has all his ducks in order and has done the appropriate amount of work.