Local Government Bill [Lords]

Debate between Gordon Birtwistle and Ben Bradshaw

Thursday 21st October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bradshaw]

That might well be the case, but my point is that it would have been perfectly open to either Norfolk or Devon to make counter-unitary bids, but there was no support. I accept that there was no support in Devon or Norfolk for those initiatives and I shall come on to explain why. That is exactly why the Labour Secretary of State came to the conclusions he did.

Exeter’s bid was considered one of the strongest, but it narrowly failed on one of the criteria because there were no corresponding unitary bids from the rest of Devon. There were weaker bids at that time: there was a bid from Bedford and a bid from Chester that went through because there were corresponding unitary solutions covering the rest of those counties. That being the case, I think the Government were absolutely right to ask the boundary committee to look at possible unitary solutions covering the whole of Devon—and the same for Norfolk and Suffolk.

I have to say that describing the boundary committee process as unsatisfactory would be the understatement of the century. It took two years and it had a flawed consultation, which had to be started again. It was plagued by a series of self-serving judicial reviews from some of the district authorities that were worried about being abolished. There was a strong—and, I believe, justified—suspicion in both Exeter and Norwich that the boundary committee and Department for Communities and Local Government officials were not balanced in their approach, favouring the more powerful counties against the cities.

[Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)]

I should like to refer the right hon. Gentleman to the bids in 2006, when Burnley and Pendle put in a bid for a unitary authority following a visit by the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband), to Lancashire county council, who declared it a basket case under the rule of the Labour party. Burnley and Pendle put in that bid, and it was declared to be excellent, yet the then Minister, the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Mr Woolas), turned it down. Can the right hon. Gentleman explain the reasons for that, in the light of what he is now saying about Norwich and Exeter?

[Mr Bradshaw]

You will have to forgive me, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I am not an expert on the local situation in Burnley and Pendle. Perhaps one of my Front-Bench colleagues will be able to address that point when they respond to the debate later.

I was talking about the concerns that Exeter and Norwich expressed about the fairness and balance of the process. Professor Ron Johnston, the local government expert on the boundary committee and one of its more experienced members, resigned from the committee in July 2009 because he felt that its approach had been unfair to Exeter and Norwich. He wrote to the then Secretary of State in January this year, saying that

“the position of Exeter concerned me greatly throughout the 15 months of discussions...Exeter is a major economic growth point, and in my view, such an important urban area should have its own separate local government (democratically accountable to its residents) with control over economic and spatial planning”.

Following the illustration of the flawed nature of the boundary committee’s work, it ended up recommending a unitary single Devon and a unitary single Norfolk, which has already been criticised by Conservative Members. Neither solution was supported by anyone. Devon county council did not want a unitary Devon, and it was that suggestion that provoked the most opposition during the consultation process. It was certainly totally unacceptable to Exeter, just as it would have been for Norwich. There was no precedent for a city of that size or significance being subsumed into a unitary county in modern times, and it would have been totally unacceptable.

The Secretary of State therefore had a problem. It was open to him or her to accept, reject or vary the boundary committee’s recommendation. Given the strong opposition to a unitary county, the strong support in Exeter for a unitary Exeter, and the opposition around Exeter to a unitary greater Exeter—which had been one of the options early in the process—my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) reverted to Exeter’s original bid, and he was absolutely right to do so. Given the length of time and the uncertainty involved, he was absolutely right to recognise Exeter’s right to self-determination.

Much has been made today of the affordability criterion. Indeed, that was the main plank of the Secretary of State’s reasoning. However, Professor Ron Johnston wrote in his resignation letter that

“this criterion made the creation of a viable urban authority based on Exeter and its immediate surrounding area extremely difficult, if not impossible.”

In other words, the criterion was flawed. Even if it had not been, the increased importance of Exeter as a driver for growth—it had the third highest level of growth anywhere in England between 1998 and 2006—had rendered the criterion redundant. Indeed, that was recognised by the then Secretary of State when he said that he was justified in departing from the presumption that unitary proposals that do not meet all five criteria were not to be implemented.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley has reminded the House that in the long run, far from costing money, the unitary solutions for Exeter and Norwich would have saved money. I have here a letter from Baroness Hanham, dated 22 July 2010, which states that the

“net costs of creating a unitary Exeter during the transition period to 2014-15”

would be £2.5 million. The annual savings after that would be £2.6 million a year. In the case of Norwich, the projected savings are even greater. The net cost of creating a unitary Norwich up to 2014-15 would be £1.9 million, with annual savings thereafter of £3.9 million. It is simply wrong for the Secretary of State to say that this process would have cost money in the long run. It is also wrong of him not to recognise that the most expensive option is the status quo.

In the Bill, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government are treating the people of Exeter and Norwich, two of our great historic English cities, with complete contempt. The Government claim to support local democracy and the devolution of power down to local communities, but in their first local government Bill since the election they are doing exactly the opposite. In an act of pure political vindictiveness, they are taking away the local autonomy that Exeter and Norwich had at last regained, after nearly 40 years of waiting.

The people of Exeter and Norwich will not forget this shabby treatment by the coalition. Indeed, they have already had the opportunity to make their views plain. Thanks to the outrageous and dictatorial way in which this Government have handled the whole process, Exeter and Norwich were forced to hold unwanted local elections last month. In Exeter, the Conservatives lost three seats to Labour, and the Liberal Democrat vote did not just go down, it collapsed. The immediate result of this Government’s shabby treatment of my city is that Labour has regained control of the council, because of the anger felt by Exeter people towards the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. We are unlikely to persuade this Government of the justice of Exeter and Norwich’s claim for self rule, but those two great cities will not give up. They were proud, self-governing cities for hundreds of years before county councils were even thought of, and I am confident that, when we again have a Labour Government who are committed to localism in deeds and not just in words, their long march to recover their lost freedom will be won.