Oral Answers to Questions

John Stevenson Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I have never made a secret of that being my first preference and neither has the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. However, others took the contrary view that there should be no decarbonisation target whatever. Very openly, we have compromised such that we will set the decarbonisation target in 2016—the first year of the fifth carbon budget. In the meantime, we will take powers in legislation to set that decarbonisation target. That is the agreement that we have reached in government, we have been open about how we arrived at that position, and that is the position that we will stick to.

[John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)]

T14. If we are to see real decentralisation and power transferred to local government, does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that structures need to change, and that part of the structural change should be fewer councillors and fewer councils?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The key thing is that councillors and all elected representatives should at all times seek to work hard for their constituents. I am not entirely persuaded that there is a magic number of councillors; it is essential that we provide more local accountability for more powers flowing down from Whitehall to our local authorities and communities.