Local Authorities (Conduct of Referendums) (England) Regulations 2012

Baroness Hanham Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Grand Committee

Moved By

[Baroness Hanham]

That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Local Authorities (Conduct of Referendums) (England) Regulations 2012.

Relevant document: 36th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)]

My Lords, the Local Authorities (Conduct of Referendums) (England) Regulations 2012 provide for the conduct of referendums in relation to whether a county council, district council or London borough council should change its existing governance arrangements to different—executive or non-executive— governance arrangements. These regulations replace the 2007 Conduct of Referendum Regulations. In large measure, they replicate the 2007 provisions with which councils and their returning officers are familiar. These are the basic rules for the conduct of any governance referendum.

In addition, as necessary these regulations update the 2007 provisions. They do this particularly to reflect the changes that the Localism Act is making to local governance. In essence, the Localism Act 2011 implements the Government’s policy of extending the governance options available to local authorities by adding the committee system to the existing executive models set out in the Local Government Act 2000. It will therefore now be open to local authorities to operate one of the following governance models: the mayor and cabinet executive; the leader and cabinet executive (England); the committee system; or prescribed arrangements—that is, prescribed in regulations by the Secretary of State.

Part 1A of the 2000 Act as inserted by Schedule 2 to the Localism Act, provides for local people to have a say on the governance model adopted by their local authority via a referendum in certain circumstances. The result of such a referendum is binding on the local authority concerned. There are four circumstances under which a local authority would hold a referendum on its governance arrangements. They are where one is triggered by a petition signed by local people; where the authority itself chooses to hold a referendum; where an authority wishes to move away from a governance model that was approved by way of a referendum; or where an authority is required by order to do so. It is this final situation that we will come on to debate later, when an authority is required by law to hold a referendum on whether it should adopt the mayor and cabinet executive. If Parliament approves these regulations and the orders, the mayoral referendums will be held under the rules set out in the regulations.

Noble Lords will see that these regulations reflect the changes provided for in the Localism Act. That is, they provide for the inclusion of questions about whether a local authority should adopt the committee system and whether a local authority, specified in an order made under Section 9N of the 2000 Act, should adopt the mayor and cabinet executive, the orders made under Section 9N of the 2000 Act being those orders that we are debating today.

In addition, these regulations update the 2007 provisions in four further ways. First, they remove references to the now abolished mayor and council manager model. Secondly, on the basis of advice and expertise of the Electoral Commission, they update and improve the questions to be asked in a governance referendum, set out in Schedule 1, and the ballot papers in Schedules 3 and 5. In consulting on the questions set out in Schedule 1 to be asked at governance referendums, the questions were sent to the Electoral Commission, which undertook public consultation on the questions and ballot papers. As a result of the consultation, the Government have adopted the referendum questions and the form of ballot papers as recommended by the commission; these are the questions that are included in Schedule 1 of the regulations. A report setting out the views expressed by the commission on the questions has been placed in the Library of each House of Parliament.

Thirdly, these regulations remove the unnecessary prescription in relation to how local authorities publicise information about referendums; for instance, the date of the referendum and the question to be asked. For example, under the 2007 regulations, local authorities are currently required to publish such information in one or more local newspapers. However, under these regulations, it will be for each local authority to decide the best method for ensuring that this information is brought to the attention of people living in its area—a change which, I am sure noble Lords will agree, brings these regulations further into line with the Government’s localism agenda.

Finally, provision has been made at Regulation 10 to add the election of a police and crime commissioner, under Sections 50 or 51 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act to the list of elections with which a poll at a governance referendum may be required to be combined.

In short, these new regulations will put in place the rules needed for ensuring effective administration of referendums in which the electorate can have confidence. They follow a well tried practice, simply updated for today’s circumstances. The referendum questions are as recommended by the Electoral Commission. I am confident that these regulations will ensure efficient and effective administration of any referendum. I commend the regulations to the House.

[Lord Rooker]

My Lords, this is the first time that I have attended the Moses Room to speak about the idea of an elected mayor in Birmingham, which has been around for a long time. I have come to support the order. I have always taken the view that the opportunity to have an elected mayor should have been taken at least a decade ago. Therefore, I hope that the referendum is successful. To that extent, I hope that there is a large majority for an elected mayor and a very high turnout among the citizens of Birmingham. I do not think that we want to get into the argument of having a small majority on a low turnout, which would be a disaster, simply because the result is binding—a one-vote majority and that is it. That is the same as we had with the AV referendum earlier this year. I can recite all that.

The idea of an elected mayor is a good one, and I hope that the citizens of Birmingham, of which I am no longer one, embrace it. My home in the West Midlands is in Shropshire, not Birmingham. The idea of bringing about a different form of leadership and partnership in local government is long overdue, particularly in the West Midlands and the West Midlands conurbation. I have travelled around the country as a Member of the other place and a Minister for 12 years, and one notices the difference in attitude in co-operation. I cite in particular the difference between the Greater Manchester group of authorities and the West Midlands group of authorities. There is much more partnership and effective leadership in the Greater Manchester set of authorities than there is in the West Midlands. I think that they work together in a much more collegiate way, to the benefit of their citizens. The trigger for change in some attitudes would be the mayoral referendum for Birmingham. I accept that Coventry is also on the list, so I am not arguing one way or the other, but I think it will create a new style of leadership for the citizens of Birmingham and that that will spill over into the West Midlands.

Depending on the referendum—I hope it will be successful—there will be a contest. I shall certainly not go into personalities here, but I know that the issue has always been who can be the mayor. Being mayor of a big city is a 24/7 job. I think the Mayor of London will testify to that, although I have not discussed it with him. It is clearly a 24/7 job. It is not a job for celebs who are not used to public service. I realise that there are some great American examples of successful celebs, such as Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Clint Eastwood, but we do not have those people in Birmingham. I want to make it absolutely clear that neither do I think it is a job for has-been politicians. There has to be a way for people from outside the normal mainstream to do public service, but not celebs.

People have to be very wary about what is being offered. It is a mayor for the city; it is not a mayor for the council and it is not a mayor for council workers; it is a mayor for the citizens of Birmingham. That is a big distinction and I think it is a great opportunity. I have never spoken on this issue, which has been mooted for many years, but I regret that when the Labour Party was the majority party in Birmingham it did not grab the idea with both hands when the opportunity came along. Councillors did not want to do it. In fact, I regret the Liberal Democrat-Tory coalition that has ruled Birmingham for eight or nine years now. It did not take the opportunity and it could have done this.

I am very pleased by the views of the Secretary of State in taking this action. I am also pleased about the way in which it has been done in the large cities. This is not picking on people. Take the 12 largest cities. I fully accept the issue relating to Sunderland. Of course, Leicester gave a lead on the matter by deciding it earlier. I think Birmingham, as the largest city in England, should have given a lead on this. It has some unique features which I think will be enhanced with the different form of local government that will come out of this. I give my support to the referendum and I hope it is a big success. I emphasise that I hope there is a large majority. I know that some people will want to oppose it, but the citizens of Birmingham need to know that if they want a new future and a new way of running the city, they have to come out and vote in support of it on 3 May. I give the order my support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I resist the temptation to reply to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, with whose views on the principle of elected mayors I could hardly disagree more strongly. I shall reserve comment on that issue until we reach the next group of orders. However, I strongly agree with the two noble Baronesses—that sounds like the name of a rather superior public house. The two noble Baronesses and I welcome the regulations which facilitate a choice being made. We will come on to how that choice arises in the next round, as it were. However, I am particularly glad that there is an opportunity for councils which wish to do so to revert to the committee system—not that I am personally in favour of that system as opposed to the leader and cabinet model. My own experience consists of having served for 17 years as leader of my authority and five years either side of that as a committee chair. When I went voluntarily to my Siberian power station in 1997, leaving the front bench of my council and going to the back benches, I chose the arts and recreation committee as a place of sojourn. The reality of life as a back-bench member of a committee became apparent when, having missed a meeting, I came to the next meeting and noticed that the minutes solemnly noted that a member had raised a question about birds eating grass seed at the Leazes Park allotments—this in a council with goodness knows how many problems and a budget of £800 million. It did not seem to me that the committee system was necessarily designed, or was working, in a way that addressed significant issues and facilitated members making a significant contribution. However, if members choose that system, it is a matter for them and we now have a scrutiny system which, if properly resourced, can make the system much more effective.

I revert to the Motion moved by the Minister, which will be approved. However, I have a reservation about the regulations in relation to the questions to be asked in the referendum. It is perfectly true that this is not something which has been dictated by the Government. The Electoral Commission has drafted it and has consulted on it although I do not know how many responses it received to the consultation. I doubt whether it was deluged with responses from the public but that is a matter for the commission. The question to be asked is in my view rather curiously and, arguably, tendentiously worded. It is: how would you like your authority to be run, by a leader who is an elected councillor chosen by a vote of the other elected councillors—this is how the council is run now—or by a mayor who is elected by voters—this would be a change from how the council is run now? It seems to me that “run” is a fairly loaded word. It does not really describe how I felt I was running the council when I was the leader of a council. The council is run by a leader and councillors, not by the leader elected by councillors. I think that rather colours the view that people might well take. They might think that if an individual is running the city, he or she might as well be accountable—if accountability is what they are interested in and if it is realisable—to all of us. In fact, a leader and cabinet model means a leader working with councillors to lead and run a council, not doing it personally. Although there is nothing we can do about it, I rather regret therefore that the question is posed in that way. However, we are where we are and doubtless if there are to be referendums in future, that is the question which will be put. It will be for those of us who take a different view of these matters to explain that it perhaps gives a somewhat misleading impression.

Either at this stage or a little later, perhaps the Minister could respond to the implicit question which I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, raised about when a mayoral election would take place, pursuant to the orders which we are to debate later, if they are approved. It is suggested that it is intended that these elections will take place in November of this year, on the same day as the police commissioner elections. I do not know whether that is right and I would have some views about it, but the Minister may be able to enlighten us with a little of that information before we debate those orders.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I thank those who have taken part in this quite short debate. I was not sure whether this one would be long. I recall that when we were debating the Bill, this aspect had not aroused a huge amount of controversy. I am very grateful to have such sterling support from the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and I agree very much with what he says. If the referendum is agreed, one hopes very much that the turnout for the subsequent election will be sufficient to cement that decision, and to make people feel that the result is wholeheartedly what they want.

On the candidates for election, somebody will presumably put their names forward and they will have to be nominated. I am not sure whether celebs will come running along to spend at least four years managing a city. We have had some strange candidates in one or two of the elections but, on the whole, those who have been good have survived and those who have not have found their way elsewhere. I am grateful, too, for the fact that there is support for the models of governance. I always felt that the committee system's abandonment was a great shame and I am delighted that there is now a way of getting it back in. Although councils have moved on in many respects in governance, there is always room for a system where councillors have a real opportunity to debate what is going on and the policies that are coming.

The noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, asked about the money being spent on the referendum. This will be not local money but general taxation money, and there will be a grant from my department to the referendum authorities so that they have the money to spend on this. I know that that money comes from the people, but it is not quite as direct as being from the local people.

The noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, asked about having the elections at the same time as those for the police commissioners. There is no definite date for the referendums yet, but it would be fair to say that we would hope that the elections would take place in a reasonable time following a referendum because otherwise there will be a hiatus of governance. They could potentially be held near the date when those for the police commissioners are held but there is no question of that having been decided yet.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, asked about the turnouts. Apparently, they have been pretty near turnouts at local government elections. He will know, as I do, that those can vary between about 20 per cent and 40 per cent. There has not been an overwhelming general election-type turnout, but they have been within that sort of ballpark figure. There was another question about police commissioners and how often they are going to be elected. The answer is every four years. The mayors will be elected on four-year terms as well. They will be elected on the normal council election day.

There is an agreement, perhaps not unanimous, that local people have a right to decide whether they want this issue to go ahead—that is what the referendums are about. It is not about saying that you must do this or you must do that. There is nothing dictatorial about this. The question to local people in cities is whether mayors provide a good form of governance. Do you ask the local people whether they want to consider that? It is up to them. Like the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, I hope that in the referendums there will be a good turnout. In both areas—the referendums and, if one follows, an election—we would want to see a good, settled result, because that would stop any disagreements afterwards.

The noble Lord, Lord Smith, was talking about the fact that there would not be any decent powers. Part of this process is that mayors would have negotiations as to what official powers they thought that they needed. That would be individual and powers would be devolved appropriately to what they wish to have. There is a devolutionary aspect here too of the bigger policy areas.

The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, objected to the word “run”; I do not know what I did with the council. Perhaps I had better not think about it. “Run” is the word that the Electoral Commission seems to think that people recognise as the way that a council is managed. That is what it has decided. We have got to leave that; we have taken its independent view. If what is said is a political decision, somebody will say that we are trying to tip the question over. So I think that “run” it will have to be.

I hope that I have answered the points that everybody has raised. If I have and everybody is satisfied about that, I commend the regulations to the House.

Motion agreed.