Earl Cathcart
Main Page: Earl Cathcart (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)Local Government Bill [HL]
Earl Cathcart Excerpts
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I will be brief. Fairly obviously, I support these amendments. Does anyone in this Chamber doubt that unitary government, especially for cities, is the most effective form of local government and offers the best value for money? I was a Norwich city councillor when we were unitary before 1974 and know what it has meant for the city of Norwich.
Basically, unitary structures offer at least four gains for the people who local councillors seek to represent. First, they offer better integrated services. This is because services are all on one tier and you can make decisions out of the box, so to speak, and across the lines—particularly, for example, in housing and social services. When I was a very young councillor and chair of Norwich’s housing committee, my vice-chair was the chair of what was then called, in those pre-Seebohm days—the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, will recall this—the welfare committee. The result was that we could produce halfway houses for battered wives and supported accommodation for those with severe learning difficulties because we ran housing and social services as one semi-common service. That is no longer possible. Now services are fractured and, frankly, it is a full-time job being poor and vulnerable.
The second gain from unitary structures for cities is better value for money—I shall in a moment engage with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Tope—because it avoids duplication, for example, on economic development, and the toing and froing on planning applications between two tiers. As I have told the House on previous occasions, when I was leader of Norwich City Council, development opportunities that would have brought 600 to 800 jobs to the city of Norwich were lost when the developers walked away after they learnt that they would have to work with two tiers. I do not doubt that the county would have been supportive—I have no reason to think it would have blocked it—but the point is that for those seeking to come to the city the structure of local government was seen as an impediment to what they wanted—which was quick, easy, simple, transparent and responsive comments to their proposals.
Not only is unitary better for value for money in terms of avoiding duplication, it is also cheaper—and here I shall tackle the points made by both the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Lord, Lord Tope. For I think the third time, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has quoted the Permanent Secretary as the auditing officer saying that this did not represent best value for the money; and for the third time I shall attempt to appropriately correct her understanding of what the Permanent Secretary was saying. He was indeed saying that unitary Norwich and unitary Exeter were not best value for money—but compared with what? It was compared with a unitary county of Norfolk and a unitary county of Devon which wiped out the rest of local government—an outcome that no one except the Permanent Secretary and the Boundary Committee supported. Indeed, the county of Norfolk, I understand, would have taken out a JR against the recommendation of the Permanent Secretary. It is simply misleading and fallacious to quote the Permanent Secretary, as the noble and learned Baroness has done on several occasions—
Earl Cathcart
My Lords, two separate Labour Secretaries of State said on three separate occasions that a unitary Norwich would not give value for money. Is the noble Baroness saying that they were wrong?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
No, my Lords. We were then in a very different economic situation. What is more, when this process was started, with a Liberal Democrat minority administration running the city of Norwich, the financial figures were incomplete. The revised financial figures, which have been accepted by the department and embedded in its impact analysis—it is available to the noble Earl and I am sure that he has studied it—show that the original figures have been overtaken by events. I shall proceed to give the revised figures in a moment.
Perhaps I may continue my response to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. In the hierarchy of value, the cheapest option is a unitary county of Devon and a unitary county of Norfolk, which nobody wants. The second-cheapest option is unitary Norwich and unitary Exeter. The most expensive option, which neither the Permanent Secretary nor the noble and learned Baroness mentioned, is the status quo, which is exactly what the Minister is proposing in the Bill. Therefore, I hope that if we revert again, for the fourth time perhaps at Third Reading, to the Permanent Secretary as the chief auditing officer, it will be with all three options in mind and not just the two.
The Minister’s own figures in her recent letter of 22 July, which have already been quoted by my noble friend Lord McKenzie, show just how substantial would be the cost savings and value for money resulting from unitary structures. This is where, I suggest, the noble Lord, Lord Tope, is wrong. The Minister’s letter—I am sure that he has it to hand, so that he can confirm the statistics that I am about to quote—shows that, from year 2, the savings will exceed costs. To deny local authorities the opportunity to achieve those savings is to add to the costs and council tax of local citizens at just the same time as the Government are requiring cuts of 25 per cent or more. The Minister’s letter shows that, by year 2 of the transition period, savings will exceed the cost of transition and that, by year 4 and thereon, the savings will be nearly £4 million a year for the city of Norwich. Norwich has around 40,000 properties and the savings from unitary structure will be £4 million. In other words, there would be savings to every household in Norwich of £100 a year on the Minister’s own figures if Norwich were to be unitary. That £100 a year has been denied the people of Norwich and similarly, I presume, the people of Exeter, either through their being better off or the authority being better able to provide appropriate services. I therefore hope that when the noble Lord, Lord Tope, says that we cannot afford the cost of reorganisation, he is respectful of the Minister’s own figures, from her own letter of 22 July, which show exactly the opposite.
The third argument for unitary status, over and beyond better services for our citizens and better value for money, is greater citizenship, accountability and transparency. City hall becomes a one-stop shop. I always knew when someone was about to complain, because they stopped talking about the “city council” of Norwich and started talking about the “city corporation” before letting fly. People in the Norwich area have something like four local authorities providing their services. Of course, they do not know who does what, to what standard, at what value for money or with what outcome. We are then surprised by low voter turnouts for elections to authorities whose very structures and very responsibilities baffle most citizens. After all, under some of our existing two-tier structures, local authorities are increasingly run by the few people who can be bothered to stand, elected by the few people who can be bothered to vote. Voting turnout is, usually, significantly higher in unitary authorities and significantly lower in two-tier structures precisely because there is not the democratic deficit in unitary government that there inevitably is in two-tier structures.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
Perhaps I may assist the House. This is Report. If the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, wishes to keep to the rules of Report laid down in the Companion, I suggest that she ask the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss—before the noble and learned Baroness sits down—to make a clarification, but that the noble Baroness does not ask further questions or make any further statement on her own behalf or on behalf of others.
Earl Cathcart
My Lords, I remind the House that I still live in Norfolk, have been a district councillor for more than 10 years and am chairman of my parish.
The audacity of this amendment is breathtaking. It requires this Government to pay 100 per cent of the costs of the impending by-elections arising from the judge declaring that the orders forced through by the previous, Labour Government were illegal. Why should this Government pay 100 per cent of the costs? Indeed, why should they pay anything at all? If the amendment were accepted, Exeter and Norwich would be making a profit as, within the grant that local authorities receive, an amount is already paid to them to defray the costs of their local elections. Had the elections taken place when they should have on 5 May, Exeter and Norwich could have piggybacked on to the general election, and would have been charged only their fair share of the total cost—about half. In any event, the city councils should have built the costs into their budget and set aside the money, as they could not possibly have known when the general election was to be held.
Why should this Government be responsible for the illegality of the previous, Labour Government? It is not as though the election costs come out of the blue. There was plenty of warning, and both city councils were fully aware for months of the risks if the orders were quashed and that by-elections would be needed. In forcing the orders through, a calculated gamble has been taken, even though the clearest of warnings had been given that the odds were stacked against them. First, as was said by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, both Norfolk and Devon county councils asked for an expedited hearing in the High Court, so that a judgment could be made one way or another before the planned elections were cancelled. However, Norwich, Exeter and the Treasury Solicitor argued against that on the basis that they would have insufficient time to prepare their case, and that it would not be problematical to have by-elections anyway.
Secondly, several Members of this House raised this problem repeatedly, urging the Labour Government to delay the orders until after the judicial review, to avoid depriving the electorate of their vote and avoid any unnecessary additional costs. Thirdly, the Permanent Secretary, in uniquely seeking a ministerial direction, warned that the judicial review against the orders had a high likelihood of success.
Fourthly, even the Merits Committee, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, warned of the problems. The summary of the committee's report stated:
“We also draw the House's attention to the intention to cancel forthcoming council elections in each area”.
The report continues:
“The House may also wish to give serious consideration to a number of questions about the decision-making process … The Orders have been laid very close to the date of the council elections: will the timing affect local democracy in those areas?”.
That was the Merits Committee report.