Local Audit and Accountability Bill [Lords]

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

The Bill certainly has generated a great deal of debate—more, I suspect, than either the Minister or others who thought it was just about audit might have anticipated. That is in no small measure, as the Minister has just acknowledged, due to the skill and forensic arguments put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Andy Sawford), who did sterling work in Committee, as he has done today, ably assisted by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) and also my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson), from whom we heard today.

I join the Minister in expressing thanks to all Members who served on the Bill Committee, all those who gave evidence to the ad hoc Joint Committee, and my colleagues the noble Lords McKenzie and Beecham for the work they did in scrutinising the Bill in another place.

As we know, this is a Bill that arises from a very early decision that the Secretary of State took, which was to abolish the Audit Commission. When we heard from him on Second Reading, he was convinced that it was the right thing to do. We all recognise that the commission is going, but only time will tell whether it was right for the Secretary of State not to take the advice of the noble Lord Heseltine, who originally introduced the Audit Commission because he thought it was wrong for local government to appoint the people who audit it.

What is striking about the Bill, however, is that the quality of some of the content we have debated at length has not benefited from the length of time it has taken the Government to bring it forward, in part because of the complexity of what has been removed and therefore the need to construct arrangements to replace it. I acknowledge that the Government moved on the issue of joint procurement, and I am grateful to the Minister for listening to the arguments made by local government and by my hon. Friend the Member for Corby, but I am genuinely sorry that the Minister either has not wanted to get the arguments that we made or has not properly understood the consequences of the Bill failing to anticipate the new world in which local authorities have to work. That is particularly surprising, given that Ministers often lecture local government about the need to make changes.

On access to information, the amendments that we argued for were all about the public’s right to know. As we are aware, the Audit Commission is covered by the Freedom of Information Act; private auditors in general are not. As councils change the way in which they work, it is very important that the public have the right to understand what is happening and have access to information. Listening to the Minister this afternoon, the more he protested that our amendment was not necessary, the more puzzled I became. Then there was a moment of what I hope was conversion. I am delighted by what he had to say when pressed by my hon. Friends. We will hold him to what he said about ensuring that the public has exactly the same right as it currently has using the Freedom of Information Act to get access to information that auditors and private companies have about contracts that they are undertaking on behalf of local authorities.

I am very sorry that the Government have not made provision for auditing that will be fit for purpose for the years ahead. The Minister did not do justice to the argument that we advanced. We did not suggest that the Bill prevents local authorities from working together with each other or with central Government—for example, through the troubled families initiative. That is not our argument. Our argument is that when the Whitehall and the local pound are brought together to provide services at a local level, there will continue to be different audit arrangements.

I say to the Minister, and I hope he will reflect on it even when the Bill has become an Act, that that does not make sense. An audit, especially when the Bill gives us a chance to set it on a new footing, must take account of the changing way in which public money is spent, particularly as community budgets develop. It does not make sense if there is a community budget for different bodies, with the NAO trying to chase the Whitehall pound down the road and the local authority auditor looking at the local pound.

One clause that was dissected and then comprehensively savaged by my hon. Friend the Member for Corby, both in Committee and earlier today, is clause 39, which deals with the code of practice for local authority publicity. I was interested to hear that the Liberal Democrats apparently could not bring themselves to vote for it in Committee, because they were absent when it was discussed. I do not blame them, because they are right to be embarrassed by what is a most illiberal piece of legislation.

The hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) described that provision as a sledgehammer. If I may coin a new phrase, I think that it is a sledgehammer of a blunderbuss, and it has been constructed on the back of a lot of ministerial complaining about Pravda-like publications. I have not read quite so many local authority publications since Second Reading, but I have still found no figures on tractor production, which I continue to be disappointed about.

Basically, no evidence has been advanced on local authority publications. It is no good the Minister in the other place saying, “I could give you the names of 12 authorities, but I don’t think that would be helpful.” We have heard the Minister give one example, that of “East End Life”. The really damning revelation is that for all the complaints, concerns and denunciations of breaches of the code, he tries to suggest that what the Bill offers is true localism, and in three years the Government have not even contacted a single local authority, which is astounding. They could not be bothered to write a letter to a single authority, but they could be bothered to draft a shoddy clause that will give the Secretary of State the right to control every single local council publication, every website, leaflet and bit of content—the lot.

The Secretary of State, if he takes offence, will be able to tell councils, “You’re not allowed to refer to the bedroom tax as the bedroom tax. You have to call it something else.” If he feels like it, he will be able to stop councils commenting on spending cuts and the way they affect the local authority area. He could stop them commenting on airports, HS2 or NHS changes. He can even tell local parish councils that they cannot produce 12 double-sided A4 sheets a year. He will be able to do anything he wants. Censors the world over might think that is a jolly good clause, but the House was unconvinced.

[Brandon Lewis]

I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman giving way at this stage, when I would not normally seek to intervene, but I just want to point out gently that parish councils can still produce 12 such publications a year—one a month.

[Hilary Benn]

Absolutely, but the problem with the clause is that they cannot publish any more than that. If they want to bring out a special edition on their Christmas celebrations, for example, having had their 12, that would not be allowed, because the Secretary of State is taking the power to prevent that.

The clause states that the Secretary of State can exercise all those powers regardless of whether he thinks that the local authority is complying with the code of conduct, which is extraordinary. I read with great care the arguments that the Minister tried to advance in Committee, but I am afraid that I found none that justified that. The truth is that Ministers ought to be really careful with the great big blue pencil they are about to get hold of.

On referendums and levying bodies, I must say that I was unconvinced by the Minister’s arguments in relation to the Leeds city region deal, described by his ministerial colleagues as a watershed moment, which was signed before the new policy was announced. The Minister has still not answered the question I asked the Secretary of State on Second Reading, and which was asked again today by my hon. Friend the Member for Corby, so I will put it slightly differently.

The city deal was signed towards the end of the year and the announcement of the new policy on referendums and levying bodies was announced at the beginning of the new year. Knowing how long it takes to decide on these things in government, I think that it is inconceivable that Ministers were not privately discussing changing the rules at the very moment when they were discussing the Leeds city region deal. If that is the case—I will give way to the Minister on this point—why did he not tell the people they were negotiating with? He does not want to intervene, so for the third time we have had no answer to the question, and some people will draw the conclusion that they do not want to answer it.

The Minister will have seen the letter mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Corby that the Leeds city region sent to the Deputy Prime Minister on 6 December asking the Government to solve the problem they created by changing the rules after the agreement was signed. The Minister knows very well how important the transport infrastructure fund is to the Leeds city region deal; indeed, it is the main thing that the city region got out of city deals, which, as he knows, I support. The letter is signed not only by the chair of the combined city region which is to become an authority—the leader of Leeds city council—but by the chair of the local LEP. They are not persuaded by the Minister’s arguments, because they say:

“As it stands, the Local Audit and Accountability Bill makes the Fund impossible to deliver.”

I listened carefully to what the Minister said, and I do not know whether there is a chink of light there, but he has a responsibility to sort this out.

Apart from doing justice to the Leeds city region, there is another argument for why the Minister has a responsibility to deal with this. If the Government go back on a done deal, which is what has happened in this case, they undermine confidence in the city deal process, undermine the certainty on which financial planning has to be based, and undermine the confidence of those who will negotiate with them in future, who will ask themselves, “Hey, look what happened to the Leeds city region—how do we know they aren’t going to change the rules for us after we’ve signed our names in ink on a piece of paper?” It needs to be sorted out.

As the Minister knows, we support the other changes that were made in this House on parish polls and councils allowing recording and videoing of council and committee meetings. In this day and age, with the very big changes in technology that enable every citizen to become a reporter, all of us in this House, whichever side we sit on, want more people to take an interest in what our local authorities are doing, by going to meetings and reporting them to spread the news and make sure that more people can see what is going on.

We will not oppose the Bill given that provision has to be made for a replacement for the Audit Commission, which is on its way out, but in some respects it is a lost opportunity. For all the words that the Secretary of State, in particular, is fond of saying about localism, once again this Bill proves that the longer he is in office the more he cannot resist using legislation to tell local councils what to do.