Draft East Suffolk (Local GOvernment Changes) Order 2018 Draft East Suffolk (Modification of Boundary Change ENactments) Regulations 2018

Debate between Christopher Chope and Andrew Percy

Wednesday 9th May 2018 General Committees

[Andrew Percy]

Indeed. My question to the Minister is this: what exactly are the principles on which consent is determined? If it is simply on the basis of people who happen to be in leadership positions on local councils at the time, that may not be sufficient in other parts of the country when looking at devolution deals and other changes to local government.

Will the Minister assure us that the Department will at all times ensure the maximum and broadest support for changes to local government structures or devolution, not only for the councils we are discussing, but for the future of where the Department is going on local government? Will he give us that assurance without referencing Yorkshire—I am sure he will want to assure me that nothing will be forced on my area against the consent of the people of the East Riding of Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire—because the debate is in the context of East Suffolk?

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

rose—

Local Audit (Public Access to Documents) Bill

Debate between Christopher Chope and Andrew Percy

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 24th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

I do not agree. Given its reference to the internet and websites, my hon. Friend’s amendment could unintentionally and unhelpfully narrow the interpretation.

Hon. Members may be interested to know that the concepts of journalistic material and publication already appear in legislation many times—although to my mind, “publication” in particular is a simple, plain English definition needing no further clarification. For example, “journalistic material” appears in section 264(2) of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, as well as section 13 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, and “publication” has similar antecedents.

It is fair to say, however, that not everybody who will seek to use the Bill will necessarily be familiar with the concepts and interpretation of those terms as they are used in it. I have heard what my hon. Friends have said and will therefore commit to ensuring that any accompanying explanatory notes are amended, if the Bill passes to the other place, to clarify those points. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North referred to journalists as opposed to citizen journalists. The definition of a journalist includes citizen journalists, which is why a separate definition has not been required.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills is keen to get to her feet and respond in detail to the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, so in the interests of brevity, I want to concentrate on two issues he raised—or, on reflection, maybe three. Amendment 2 would be likely to impose a new burden on local authorities, because we would be asking them to make their records available to everyone, which is something that they have not previously been required to do under the 2014 Act. That would therefore need to be funded by the Government, whereas we are seeking to extend the existing right to a defined group of people, and that would not be considered in the same light.

I heard what my hon. Friend said about amendment 10 regarding health bodies. I cannot speak on behalf of other Departments, but as Members of Parliament we are all concerned about transparency in the health system. The stated intention of the 2014 Act and the response to the consultation on it did not include health bodies. It would therefore be wrong to include those in the scope of the Bill.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend was pretty succinct in rejecting amendment 2. Does he have any evidence of how much it would cost local authorities if it became part of the law, and will he seek to make a comparison between that cost and the pay-off for the chief executive of Bournemouth Borough Council?

[Andrew Percy]

I have listened with interest to my hon. Friend’s comments about the chief executive of Bournemouth, but—perhaps to the delight of my officials—I will not say anything about that decision, especially in the light of the other issues affecting the potential reorganisation in Dorset at this time. Needless to say, extending such a right more generally to any elector across the United Kingdom might have a substantial impact, and it is likely that local authorities and public bodies would ask the Government for additional resources. I cannot give my hon. Friend a figure—I want to be honest with him at the Dispatch Box—but there is no doubt that extending the right in such a way would come with additional burdens.

Further to my hon. Friend’s comments on amendments 12 to 14, paragraphs 31 and 32 of the local authority transparency code already require councils to publish quarterly spending and procurement information. He referred to tender documents, and the code requires the details of every invitation to tender for contracts to provide goods or services with a value that exceeds £5,000 to be published, as well as the details of any contract, commissioned activity, purchase order, framework agreement and other legally enforceable agreement with a value that exceeds £5,000. Such documents are of course available to anybody.

Last May, the Government consulted on updating the code to provide an opportunity for greater town hall transparency—Members on both sides of the House, but certainly Conservative Members, want that—and for enhanced scrutiny of the use of public assets and resources, including through the better comparison of data. In respect of contractual information, the consultation proposed to standardise the data and, importantly, to make comparisons easier through their publication in a central source. We hope to publish our response to the consultation shortly, and I hope that it will abate some of my hon. Friend’s concerns about local transparency.

I want to deal quickly with an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who is not now in his place because he is on his way back to his constituency. He mentioned local government reorganisation in Lincolnshire and stated that one council is trying to take over another. I want to make it clear for the record that North Lincolnshire Council has not proposed to take over any other neighbouring authority. The Government have received no proposals of such a nature. All that is happening is that across Lincolnshire in the broadest sense—the county and the two unitary areas—a conversation is going on between council leaders about how the future of local government will look. It is important to provide that clarification as the matter was raised during this debate.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills will address some of the amendments in a moment, but I am confident that my hon. Friends the Members for Bury North and for Christchurch will respond, in their usual way, with reasonableness and, as I think that I got from their speeches, with an understanding that what lies behind the Bill is a good thing—it will extend a right to increase transparency—so I urge them not to press their amendments but to enable the Bill to pass to the other place. I look forward to the further progress of the Bill this afternoon.

Humber Bridge Bill

Debate between Christopher Chope and Andrew Percy

Tuesday 26th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

It is because of me that this debate is taking place at all. I was much criticised by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) for saying that we should have a debate. I said to him privately, and repeat publicly, that I thought that such a debate would redound to his benefit, because he would be able to explain the good work that he had put into trying to achieve the objectives of the Bill. I said to him that if the Bill were not debated on Second Reading, it would—because it is an unopposed Bill and there is no petition against it—go to an Unopposed Bill Committee, and then come back to the House for Third Reading, without a Report stage, so there would be no opportunity for people to move any amendments or make any points about it, whether good or bad. I hope that my hon. Friend now understands the virtues of a debate. The fact that other Members are in their places shows that they, too, understand the importance of being able to articulate concerns about, or the good points of, a piece of legislation.

It is great to hear support from those on the Opposition Front Bench for the principle of the Laffer curve—reductions in price can increase the volume of activity. We have heard that, in relation to the top rate of tax, they do not believe that the volume of activity would increase. I suggest that they are now speaking with forked tongue, because on this Bill they have conceded the point that reducing the costs increases the activity and thus the yield. I have at home on the back of a napkin the Laffer curve drawn by Dr Laffer himself, and I will revisit that as a result of this debate.

On a serious point, I hear what my hon. Friends say about local control, but the Bill would give up any direct control over the level of tolls in the future—that is the impact of clause 11. As my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) implied in his intervention, there is something to be said for having on the face of the Bill some safeguards for local people against possible future increases in the level of tolls beyond the rate of inflation. At the moment, they have been halved, but nothing in the Bill would safeguard against the introduction of differential tolls, for example.

[Andrew Percy]

I take my hon. Friend’s point, but the primary responsibility of the bridge body is to service the debt, so either way local taxpayers pay. Either the road user pays through the tolls or responsibility reverts to the local authorities. So there is no safeguard because the safeguard of not having a toll rise is that it would then revert to the local taxpayers to pay for anyway.

[Mr Chope]

I take my hon. Friend’s point, and the arrangements are now for a much more equitable relationship. Certainly when I was a Transport Minister it was an impossible subject to deal with, because there was no incentive for the other local authorities involved to be reasonable on these issues. However, that would not stop something being written on the face of Bill. Even if there is no demand locally for it and there are no petitions against the Bill at this stage, it would still be possible for people to petition against the Bill when it gets to the other place if they are concerned about the lack of any assurances in relation to tolls.

I raised with my hon. Friend the issue of the maintenance fund. Clause 9 says that the maintenance fund can be reduced. Money can be taken from the maintenance fund and spent on other things. I believe that we have too much crumbling infrastructure in this country, much of it owned and managed by local authorities that have refused to use the money that has been given to them, often by central Government, for the purposes of the proper maintenance of that infrastructure. In my constituency, the A338 Bournemouth spur road comes to mind as an example. I am concerned that we give power in the Bill for money that has specifically been put aside for the maintenance of an important structure to be spent on something else.

We know that bridges decay, and what is happening with the new Forth bridge is an example. I hope that when he responds to the debate, my hon. Friend will explain why the promoters of the Bill feel that the existing maintenance fund is topped up too high. If it is topped up too high and they want the power to reduce it, why was that not taken into account in the negotiations over the reduction in the debt and the taxpayers’ money that went into it?

Those are reasonable questions to ask in the context of a debate such as this. I was chided for asking what this had to do with my constituents. My constituents are national taxpayers and they do not want to be told that the Humber bridge needs to be rebuilt and the only way it can be rebuilt is with national taxpayers’ money because the maintenance fund was not used for the purposes for which it was set up. That is my concern and that is why I ask these questions in relation to clause 9.

I do not and never did wish to prevent the Bill from making progress, but it is important that we establish a principle that such legislation does not go through on the nod, so that we all know what we are talking about and we give it our express consent, rather than letting it go through by default.