Local Government Bill [HL]

Baroness Shephard of Northwold Excerpts

Wednesday 28th July 2010 Lords Chamber

I hope that the Minister will accept the amendment. If she means what she says, and I have no doubt about her integrity on this point, and the savings of £40 million and more—£4 million a year—can be achieved by voluntary partnership rather than reorganisation, which was the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, she must ensure that both authorities have the relevant financial information on which to construct those partnerships. If that information is withheld, all that we have heard today from the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Tope, will be pious platitudes. If they mean what they say, and the citizens of Norwich and Exeter can be spared an extra £100 or so a year in council tax, they will support the amendment. I beg to move.

[Baroness Shephard of Northwold]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a lifelong citizen of the county of Norfolk, as a former Norfolk county councillor who on one occasion represented a city division, and as a former Norfolk Member of Parliament. I shall be very brief.

The thrust of the amendment was extensively debated in Committee. On that occasion, we were given by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, a very bleak picture of the lack of co-operation between Norfolk and Norwich. I recognise her passion for an independent Norwich. It is not new, and it has been sincerely held for a very long time. I believe that co-operation between the city and the county has been difficult, not least because of the four-and-a-half years of protracted administrative chaos and uncertainty that have arisen from this whole unitary business introduced by the previous Government.

There have been profound disagreements on each side of the city ring-road, also affecting other districts in the county. However, there are 13 city councillors and 13 county councillors who represent divisions in Norwich, as I once did. There are nine, 10 or possibly more committees and bodies which require co-operation between city and county. Indeed, the work of the Greater Norwich Development Partnership, where the city and the county work together with two other district councils, has been commended by the Audit Commission as providing an extremely good example of joint working.

It is a mistake to ask government to legislate for people to get on with one another. It should surely be in the interests of those who elect councils that those councils are accountable to their voters and not to other councils. I accept the responsibility that perhaps I have within the county of Norfolk to persuade this co-operation to continue in the interests of everyone in Norfolk and Norwich. I hope very much that the noble Baroness and the noble Lord will accept the same responsibility and not try to shift it on to the Government.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, for her contribution, because she has summed up very clearly what the attitude ought to be about this. It is not government business to try to ensure that counties and districts get on together; nor is it government business to ensure that just one or two authorities are required to provide financial information. Public information is public information; if it cannot be obtained under normal freedom of information rules, there are ways of making sure that you get it. What worries me about how the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, has put this forward is that she seems to be suggesting that there are such desperate animosities between the city and the county that it is absolutely impossible for this to work. I do not believe that in democratic government it is impossible for authorities to work together in a common cause.

The noble Baroness also said that I have said that savings must come now rather than through a reorganisation. Indeed I have, and that is not confined to Norfolk and Norwich. It is going to be a general view and a general situation across the country that serious savings will have to come. If we are talking about £6 million a year—I think those are the savings that it was suggested would be made—within that confine, the amount that has to be provided may be within those regions and it may not. Yet savings will surely have to be made in co-operation with Norfolk to ensure the preservation of services and the local community.

I am not going to accept the amendment. As I said on another amendment, the Government do not have any role in this. I hope only that people will hear what we say: that there will be have to be good co-operation at all levels of government over the coming months and years to ensure that, one way or another, we scramble out of this terrible financial situation in which the previous Government left us.