David Ward
Main Page: David Ward (Liberal Democrat - Bradford East)
Kelvin Hopkins
I entirely endorse what the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) said about first past the post. I am not a supporter of elected mayors but, if we have to have them, they should be elected by the first-past-the-post system. He is absolutely right.
I rise briefly to speak to my amendments 353 to 357, which would delete clauses 30 to 34. The clauses relate to fines to be imposed by the European Union. I find the whole idea of such fines complete anathema—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] I thought that I might get some support in the Chamber on that point. We could quite easily leave out all reference to the EU, and I would like to see that happen.
I note that the Minister, in introducing the new clause, said that he had already had discussions with the Local Government Association. The LGA is very concerned about this issue, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) rightly said. I hope that the Government will think again and simply delete any reference to the EU. Rather than giving freedoms to local authorities, their proposals will put an imposition on them. They would place more central control on them, rather than leaving them to their own devices and giving them more freedoms.
I hope the Minister will think about this and that the Government see fit, during the later stages of the Bill, to delete any reference to the EU. I strongly support the LGA’s view, which was ably set out by my hon. Friend, and I hope that the Minister will give this matter some thought. I shall not press my amendments to a Division, but I hope that he will bear in mind my feelings and those of many other Members.
Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)
I am grateful for this opportunity to place my views, with which those hon. Members who served on the Public Bill Committee will already be familiar, on the record, and I apologise for any repetition. I fully support amendment 41; indeed, there are many amendments that I could support, and many more that I would like to have seen that no one else would have supported. I feel strongly about this one, however. It relates to elected mayors and shadow mayors, and to the executive powers of the mayors. Amendment 41 deals with something that symbolises everything that is wrong with the Bill.
There is nothing worse than waste, and there is nothing worse than a wasted opportunity. The Bill is a colossal wasted opportunity for the House to consider the relationship between central and local government. We have profoundly let down the democratic system by not reviewing that relationship. We could have looked at what other countries do, and agreed some basic principles against which any measures relating to local authorities could have been evaluated. I agree with Professor Stewart and Professor Jones, who gave evidence to the Bill Committee, that this is a centralism Bill, rather than a localism Bill. How different it could have been if the will had been there to make it so.
Opposition Members will no doubt be delighted to learn that, in my local authority, the Lib Dems lost a seat to Labour. We lost it in an election in which nearly seven out of 10 electors did not turn out to vote. At a time when politics is divided, and when big issues are dividing the nation, we again need to ask profound questions about why people are so reluctant to turn out and vote. We need to ask questions about the quality of the candidates, as well as about the turnout. We also need to ask what the measures in the Bill will do to address the serious democratic deficit in this country. We know the reasons behind the problem. We know that, when we knock on the doors, people say that we are all the same. The reality is that that is largely true. It is hard to be different in local government. The discretion and freedom to be different have disappeared, year by year, Government by Government.
In Committee, I mentioned local authority budgets. Bradford has a budget of more than £1 billion, yet we end up discussing only £1 million or £2 million. Local politicians expend a lot of hot air disputing those amounts, while the vast majority of the budget is beyond their control. Yes, we are largely all the same. The Bill could have removed barriers and restrictions. I do not understand why, when we are desperate to remove barriers to the private sector to encourage initiative, entrepreneurship, enterprise and freedoms, we do not do the same thing at local government level. Those barriers will remain after the Bill has been passed.
The Government are still overbearing, arrogant and interfering. They are still ruling by stipulation, by compulsion and by bribery. They provide handouts that local government can spend, but on one thing only. How many times have Members who were formerly councillors known that the only show in town involved doing whatever the Government were funding? They were not given the discretion to spend that money as they wished. The funding would go only to the private finance initiatives or to academies, for example. We, as locally elected councillors, were not given the money and asked how we would like to spend it. Remember the bribery involved in the swimming campaign and the free school meals? The initiatives lasted for one year only, and we had to pick up the tab the year after. They were introduced simply to facilitate ministerial press releases.
None of this will be changed by the Bill. Councillors are used and abused. The Treasury insists on controlling the finance, and without financial freedom, there is no democratic freedom. The low opinion of local government held by people in this place staggers me; I am appalled by it. An example is the outrageous front-loading of the cuts. Instead of local government being seen as a partner to help us through the financial crisis by contributing to the deficit reduction over a period of time and being asked for help to deal with it, the cuts have been imposed on it from above by a Government who claim to support localism.
I support amendment 41. My views on elected mayors are, quite frankly, my business and they should be expressed in a ballot if my council decides that that is what it wants to do. I will participate in that debate—not in this place, but where it should take place: in council chambers up and down the country. Yes, we should set parameters and controls; yes, we should demand disclosure, which was mentioned earlier; but for goodness’ sake, let us breathe life back into a vital part of our democratic system.
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
My hon. Friend makes a powerful case for the next localism Bill. Does he agree that it is important, even for those who might not support the amendments on the shadow mayors and related issues, to ask Ministers to look at these proposals again?
Heidi Alexander
I am conscious that many hon. Members wish to speak, so I shall limit my comments to a few. I applaud the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) for his speech. I did not anticipate hearing comments like that from the Government side of the Chamber, but he is a man who says it as it is, and I respect his views and the way he put them.
I shall focus on two aspects of this group of new clauses and amendments: senior pay policy, dealt with in new clauses 27 and 28, and powers to make supplemental provision, as set out in amendment 37 to clause 5. Bringing transparency to senior council pay is entirely right. I accept that some people might have been paid excessively in some circumstances, but this constant bashing of chief executives and senior council officers by Ministers does a complete disservice to people who do an incredibly difficult job in councils up and down the country. Some of these people will have worked their whole lives in local authorities; others might have left good private sector jobs to work there.