Local Audit and Accountability Bill [Lords]

Clive Betts Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

What is important—I think this is what the hon. Gentleman was trying to say in a roundabout way—is to do the right thing, not what might look like the right thing but may not be. Local authorities are subject to the Freedom of Information Act, but I will continue my remarks so that he fully understands the point about how people can get to information.

It is absolutely right that the Government are driving forward the transparency agenda so that auditors have access to the information they want. That is why it is important that if people ask questions, the auditor may gather even more documentation to investigate the issues. That goes further than the Freedom of Information Act, which would require the auditor to provide information it holds but not lead it to seek additional material.

Last week, the Government published their response to the consultation on the transparency code. It set out their intention to make regulations requiring local authorities to publish specified pieces of information, including contract details exceeding £5,000. Local authorities also monitor the delivery of their contracts and are subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The Government consider that a better approach would be for contracts to include provisions that require contractors to assist local authorities in meeting their Freedom of Information Act obligations—thereby satisfying the point raised by the hon. Gentleman. That decision was taken following the Justice Committee’s post-legislative scrutiny of the Freedom of Information Act, which recommended that greater transparency through contracts would provide a more practical approach than extending that Act to companies directly.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I have heard what the Minister has said about transparency of contracts, but is he saying that if a local authority goes about formulating a contract in the right way, the public—it is they who are important—could be entitled to as much information about the spending of their money through a contracting process as they would be if the service was delivered by a local authority directly?

[Brandon Lewis]

It is not for me to prejudge a contract that a local authority might agree to, but it is true that people can access the Freedom of Information Act through the local authority, and the auditor can go further in its inquiries to ensure it has all the documents it needs.

[Mr Betts]

That has not answered my question—I was not asking what local authorities should do. If a local authority went about this correctly and formulated a contract correctly, could the public have as much information on the spending of their money through a contracting process as they could if the service were delivered directly by the local authority?

[Brandon Lewis]

In principle, yes, but it is not for me to prejudge how a local authority would contract. If it chose to contract in that way, of course that would be a matter for it. It would be entirely possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brandon Lewis]

As I said, the Freedom of Information Act applies to local authorities, but we are not extending it to cover private companies. I am happy categorically to make the point, as I did in Committee, as the hon. Gentleman will see if he looks in Hansard, that we are not going to extend the provision to private companies; it is the local authority that will be accountable. He will have to take that as outlined.

We will issue a revised code of practice encouraging public authorities to include and enforce provisions in contracts to ensure that openness and accountability are maintained by encouraging the release of a wider range of information about contract delivery. This approach will be monitored by the Government and the Information Commissioner. If contractors or public authorities do not comply with this guidance, the Government will consider what other mechanisms might be necessary, including the possible extension of the Freedom of Information Act to service providers.

[Mr Betts]

On a point of clarification, will the guidance apply to subcontractors as well as contractors? In practice, many contracts are effectively delivered by the subcontractors as well as the main contractors.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Sawford]

Clause 39, to which the three amendments relate, includes provisions on local authority publicity that the Opposition strongly believe, and have consistently argued, are unnecessary, undemocratic and wholly disproportionate. The amendment, and the clause itself, covers all council publicity from newspapers to posters and even social media. We are gravely concerned that the Secretary of State is, in effect, through clause 39 making himself the censor-in-chief of local government communications.

Much attention has been paid to the Government’s gagging law, which attempts to silence civil society. It is less widely known that, through clause 39, the Government are trying to silence elected local councils. These new powers make the Secretary of State censor-in-chief of local government at the same time as evidence is emerging that his Department is encouraging councils to print pro-Government propaganda through the circulation of the very loaded pro-Government suggestive press releases that we have seen appear around the country.

Clause 39 will give the Secretary of State the power to dictate when and how councils can publish communications to local citizens. Of even more concern to us is the fact that the Secretary of State is taking a power of censorship to direct what issues and information councils can talk about and even what language and phraseology they can use. Ministers have made it clear that their intention is to prevent councils from sharing information or commenting on the impact of Government policy if they disapprove of the message.

In Committee, the examples given by the Minister and his Back Benchers included not allowing elected leaders of a local authority to publish a comment on the effect of central Government funding changes—so furious are the Government that councils are letting their residents know the scale of the cuts they are facing. Under these new powers, the Secretary of State could force councils to use pro-government terminology such as the benign-sounding “spare room subsidy” rather than the “bedroom tax”, which betrays how unpopular and unfair the policy is to many of the poorest and most vulnerable people—including many disabled people—in our communities. Legal advice to the Local Government Association says that these censorship laws would prevent councils from publishing information on issues such as HS2 or health service reconfigurations.

The Government argue that the power is needed because local authorities are breaching the current voluntary code on local authority publicity. Yet they have managed to find only one example of a breach; Tower Hamlets’ publication “East End Life”, which seems to the Opposition clearly to flout the code. It is absolutely shocking that the Government have failed to take any action, using the powers they already have, in more than three years since they became aware of the level of concern, including that reported by Labour councillors in Tower Hamlets. We agree with the Secretary of State that that publication is a problem, but we ask again why the Government have taken no action—no action at all. In fact, the Minister attempted to explain to me in an answer to a parliamentary question that it is because the Secretary of State has not done anything that he now believes that he needs to give himself these dictatorial powers. It is so extraordinary that one might assume that if councils knew the full extent of these plans, they would resist them.

Through several freedom of information requests, I discovered that the Department has not communicated with local authorities about the plans since May 2010. No councils have answered letters or e-mails in respect of their local publications on this subject. This is all being done behind local authorities’ backs.

At the same time as the Secretary of State is censoring councils and preventing them from saying things he does not like, he is seeking to use them as a propaganda arm of the central state. I have discovered that, through these press releases, the Government are seeking to trumpet their policies when it suits them to use councils in that way at the same time as they seek to silence them when council communications are inconvenient. The Secretary of State preaches localism rhetoric, but the truth is—we know this, and local government knows it, too—that he does not really like local democracy. Starved of funds and subject to diktats even on issues like when to collect the bins, local authorities are now subject to censorship. It is clear that the Secretary of State’s warnings of cigar-chomping commies looking to take over government were remarkably prescient.

The hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), who I see in her place, described these censorship laws as

“a sledgehammer to crack a nut”.—[Official Report, 28 October 2013; Vol. 569, c. 704.]

Liberal Democrat-run Cambridge city council says that the clause is “disproportionate and unnecessary”. It says it is

“quite at odds with the principles of localism”.

I asked the Secretary of State in a parliamentary question of 16 December to publish or place in the Library all the responses his Department received to the consultation it ran on local media. The Minister replied:

“I have placed in the Library of the House, a copy of the Government’s response to the consultation on ‘Protecting the Independent Press…’ which outlines the divergent views of councils and representatives of independent newspapers.”—[Official Report, 16 December 2013; Vol. 572, c. 444W.]

Because the Minister would not provide the information, I took the trouble of making a freedom of information request to local authorities themselves about their responses to the consultation on the publicity code. I then discovered that it was not only Cambridge city council that said it disagreed with the clause. Watford borough council, led by the widely respected elected local mayor, Dorothy Thornhill—she is not of my party, but she is someone I have worked with who has a good reputation around local government—says:

“These changes are a threat to local democracy. They could inhibit local elected members from representing their residents. Placing the ultimate decision-making powers in the hands of a Secretary of State is contrary to the localist agenda of the Government, and it is heavy-handed.”

It is not just Liberal Democrat councils either, because Conservative councils, too, are opposed. North Yorkshire county council says in its response:

“The proposed legislation is disproportionate”.

Tory-run North Somerset says:

“With regard to the proposed restrictions on the publication of council newspapers, we object strongly.”

Baroness Eaton said in the other place:

“This clause is unnecessary as there is no evidence that council publications are competing unfairly with local newspapers…the proposed measures in the Bill centralise powers to the Secretary of State and allow central government to interfere with matters that should rightly be decided at local level”.

Lord Tope, commenting on the lack of evidence to support the proposals on local authority publicity, said:

“All we have had from the Government is rather silly and misleading statements from the Secretary of State about ‘town hall Pravdas’”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 22 May 2013; Vol. 745, c. 898-902.]

The Local Government Association, a cross-party but Conservative-led body, says:

“The powers are too wide ranging and do not allow councils any local discretion about how to engage with their residents. This is unnecessary and could allow the Secretary of State to interfere with the work of an elected council.”

The National Association of Local Councils, which has no political axe to grind, says these powers are “anti-localist”, fly in the face of localism and are

“a threat to local democratic accountability”.

Finally, let me cite the very considered words of the right hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Sir Andrew Stunell), the former Local Government Minister in the coalition Government. In Committee he said:

“Every Bill has high spots and not-so-high spots, and Clause 39 is one of those not-so-high spots.”––[Official Report, Local Audit and Accountability Public Bill Committee, 19 November 2013; c. 301.]

I have had the pleasure of working with the right hon. Gentleman in a previous role so I know that that is a typically understated remark from him. He then went on to challenge the Minister for assurances about the proportionality of any intervention, and the ability of councils to make representations with regard to how they are exercising discretion. However, far from giving reassurances, the Minister—and many of his hon. Friends, some of whom I see in the Chamber today—made us more rather than less concerned. Their political motivation was absolutely clear: they were frankly shameless about revealing that clause 39 was about silencing councils if they communicated with citizens about anything that the Government did not like.

The Secretary of State claims that the clause is needed to protect the press from unfair competition from advertising, but the recommended code of practice for local authority publicity contains no provisions relating to advertising. It is clear that the Secretary of State’s argument is a diversion from the real aim of censoring councils and their locally elected councillors. The National Union of Journalists disagrees with the Government’s contention that local authority publications are damaging to the press. Its general secretary has said that there is “no case at all” for the current Secretary of State

“and future Secretaries of State to be given extra statutory powers to decide when”

and how local authorities can communicate, adding:

“We do not believe that this element of guidance reflects the needs of many communities”.

The Minister will no doubt tell us that the Government ran a consultation in April 2013. That consultation was a classic example of things that cause the public at times to be very sceptical abut public sector consultations. It was, in fact, very much a “nonsultation”. Its outcome was so evidently predetermined, even by the loaded title “Protecting the independent press from unfair competition” and by the way in which it was launched. The Government, as if to confirm that impression—as if they had no regard to whether the public, or indeed local authorities, would consider that they had given any proper thought to the consultation—published their response within two days of the end of the consultation.

We have challenged the Government to give practical examples. As I have said, we acknowledged the issue about Tower Hamlets, on which they should have acted. Baroness Hannam said in the House of Lords that she had evidence involving other local authorities, yet she said—extraordinarily—that it would not be “helpful” to identity them. Asked to give examples, she said:

“I shall not say which local authorities…are breaching the code. I have them. I could do it, but I think it is…not helpful.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 July 2013; Vol. 747, c. 604.]

In Committee, the Minister said:

“the fact is that there are examples out there.”––[Official Report, Local Audit and Accountability Public Bill Committee, 19 November 2013; c. 304.]

He then vaguely referred to four councils—Plymouth, Lambeth, High Peak and Nottingham, all of them Labour-run—which had had the temerity to inform the public of the unfair scale of the cuts imposed on them by central Government. Can Ministers not see that the kind of censorship that they are seeking to impose through clause 39 is not democratic, not British, and not worthy of the values that our Parliament should uphold? The motivation is petty, but the consequences will be very serious indeed.

Let me tell the House about the effect in my area. The Minister has suggested that a council publication in my constituency, the Nene Valley News, is competing unfairly with local papers. His ill-informed statements show why we should not trust the Government with these powers. The truth is that there is no newspaper for the Nene Valley News to compete with across much of east Northamptonshire—and now the only communications lifeline on which many people in the small towns and villages of my constituency can rely is being cut off. Those are people in areas with poor broadband access, and the demographic is such that, proportionally, there are fewer people in those areas than in some of the larger towns in the county who use social media widely, or even have access to the internet.

[Mr Betts]

Three years ago, the Select Committee conducted an inquiry into the whole issue of local authority publications, and found absolutely no evidence of any impact on commercial newspapers. Indeed, one of our findings was that many local authority publications were published on the presses of commercial papers, thus providing them with important additional income.

[Andy Sawford]

My hon. Friend, who chairs the Select Committee, is right. I think that there is often a complementarity between the newspapers, news sheets and magazines published by councils and other local papers. There is often a considerable spin-off in the form of the relationship between the communications that councils promote through their papers about local events and community organisations, and how vibrant local newspapers are able to become in terms of, for example, the advertising revenue that they can create in relation to such community events and activities.

The Minister has claimed that the advertising in the Nene Valley News is the problem. First, it is not included in the code; secondly, I would gladly facilitate a meeting between the Minister and the local small businesses and traders who use the low-cost space in the Nene Valley News, and who are now extremely worried about how they will get business. I quoted one individual at length in Committee, but for brevity I shall merely say now that he concluded his remarks to me on this matter by saying, “Aren’t the Tories supposed to be a party that likes business?” He is very sceptical about the motivation for, and is concerned about the effect of, this crass, uninformed and undemocratic clause.