Queen’s Speech

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle on her heart-warming and inspiring maiden speech.

The gracious Speech covers a number of areas which will have a direct impact on local government. The Local Government Association—I declare that I am not a vice-president of the LGA—has identified 19 separate pieces of legislation which will, if taken together, bring significant changes to local government. Of course, reform is needed from time to time and each Bill will be scrutinised and treated on its merits.

My contribution will be about standards, which should not be lowered, and accountability and transparency. There must be a connection between policies and practical outcomes. These points have already been raised by the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Shutt of Greetland. These are areas of great concern to me as the Government’s approach to local government is to focus on structures and responsibilities, without a whiff of where the money is coming from or how much, and without any real accountability.

The retention of business rates may well be the answer for some areas but will lead to further deprivation in others unless there is some system of moderation or virement, essential in any relationship between central and local government. We need a touch of humility when it comes to reorganisation of local government. What is announced as radical may be a recycled bureaucracy—remember the county of Avon?

The Government say they will not force elected mayors on to a reluctant community, but the whole thrust of their policies does exactly that, with central investment virtually conditional on agreeing to metro mayors. How will the Government tackle the democratic deficit, the duplication of functions and the enormous financial black hole they have created? We have police and crime commissioners, which were hugely controversial during debates in this House. I am aware that my own party has now accepted these roles as the reality of politics, but is anyone able to say what they will become in the future? We could add fire authorities, make them deputy mayors or, even better, swallow up other police and crime commissioners. Better still, they could be mayors as well. Maybe the next step will be regional prime ministers. You might as well add the regional schools commissioners in there as well and make one central apparatchik for the region.

I will use a couple of examples from trading standards, but the disconnect between policies and delivery applies across the board—in social work, environmental health and planning. The Government carried out a review of trading standards, which is a chronically underfunded service doing important work. Possibly because the review has revealed that chronic underfunding, the Government have announced a delay in its publication. In the meantime, a review of local authority regulation will now take place under the cutting red tape programme. At the same time the Business Minister, Anna Soubry, calls for urgent action on laser pens.

Take the Whirlpool scandal, where UK fire brigades received 926 reports of dryer fires between 2011 and 2013. The Government’s response has been dilatory in the extreme. The editor of the trading standards journal, Chris Fay, has said that he was baffled by the Government’s lacklustre response to the recommendations in the extremely timely product recall review. The director of policy at the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, Melissa Dring, summed up one of the roles of trading standards very well, saying that enforcement against rogue traders and fraudsters not only protects the public but creates,

“a level playing field for legitimate business”,

allowing businesses to compete fairly and promoting productivity and economic growth. We need a properly funded trading standards service to help the good, law-abiding businesses.

My final point on transparency and accountability is around the role of local government and maintained schools. Although the Government have backed down from the enforced academisation of maintained schools, all the ingredients are still in place to make schools an offer they cannot refuse. As the Local Government Association has pointed out, councils are among the country’s most effective education leaders, with 81% of council-maintained schools rated by Ofsted as good or outstanding, compared to 73% of academies and 79% of free schools. The education for all Bill will pass the statutory role in school improvement from local authorities to the Secretary of State—a giant centralising move. In debate on the Bill, I hope the Government will clarify the role of parents in school governing bodies, in what circumstances councils will be considered underperforming or unviable, and how the regional schools commissioners will carry out their work—or will this all come out in regulation? Secondary legislation is an extremely powerful weapon in the hands of an overweening Executive. It will be interesting to see how often in this Session of Parliament local government is the fall guy for this power.