Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Simon)]

We come to Amendment 28. I call the noble Lord, Lord Greaves.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I expected that we were breaking for dinner. Do we not break for dinner in Committee?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

No.

[Lord Greaves]

No? I thought that we were. All right. It is a good job I did not go and have my dinner, isn’t it?

Amendment 28

Moved by

[Lord Greaves]

28: Schedule 1, page 16, line 20, leave out “Commission for Rural Communities.”

[Lord Greaves]

This amendment would leave out the Commission for Rural Communities from the list of organisations in Schedule 1. This amendment, like the previous one, is a probing amendment to ask questions of the Government and, one hopes, to get the Government to set out clearly on the record how they see the CRC’s functions being carried out in future, which of those functions will be carried out in future, and which are to be abandoned.

The Commission for Rural Communities was created by Section 17 of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006—which many noble Lords, and perhaps refugees from the House of Commons as well, will remember took up a considerable amount of discussion at the time. The Commission for Rural Communities, which was created by primary legislation, was therefore thoroughly discussed and thrashed out in your Lordships' House.

The Commission for Rural Communities sets out its purpose and functions as follows. It is a statutory body,

“funded by government to help ensure that policies, programmes and decisions take proper account of the circumstances of rural communities. We have a particular focus on disadvantaged people and areas suffering from economic under-performance”.

In essence, it has,

“three key functions: Advocate: acting as a voice for rural people, businesses and communities; Expert adviser: giving evidence-based, objective advice to government and others; and Independent watchdog: monitoring and reporting on the delivery of policies nationally, regionally and locally”.

That is a summary of what it does.

The commission's work since it was set up has been widely praised. Much of it consists of research, and the work of the chairman, Dr Stuart Burgess, as advocate for rural areas—particularly disadvantaged rural areas—has been notable. On 29 June 2010, Caroline Spelman, the Secretary of State, announced that the CRC will be abolished and partly replaced with a strengthened rural communities policy unit within Defra.

This amendment, like the previous one, goes to the heart of the way in which the new Government intend to carry out many of the functions that are currently carried out by autonomous bodies. In her statement on 29 June, Caroline Spelman said:

“With an urgent need to drive down debt and reduce Government spending we will have to make some tough decisions”.

Secondly, she said:

“We are committed to improving the quality of life for those living in rural areas and we will put the fair treatment of rural communities at the centre of Government”.

Thirdly, she said:

“Focusing rural policy making within the department will give rural communities and interest groups a direct link to central policymakers and a stronger champion for rural issues at the heart of Government”.

I think that that is what, a few years ago, used to be called rural proofing—the attempt to make sure that government policies across the patch were all checked for their effect in rural areas.

So there are really two main reasons for this policy, and they are both clearly set out in the statement—the first is to save money, and the other is to have a more effective service. The underlying promise is that it will not prejudice government actions for rural areas. Those are the issues that we need to probe, and the first is cost.

There are some questions that I should like to ask the Minister. What is the transitional cost? The Government briefing suggests that it is £2.5 million. Can he tell us what makes up that figure? What is the extra cost of taking on this work within Defra, and therefore what is the net saving? The suggestion, again from the government briefing, is that the existing cost of the CRC is £5.8 million;, that there will be a saving of £4.5 million once the transitional costs have been paid; and that the spend within Defra will therefore be only £1.3 million compared with £5.8 million at the moment. I can believe that efficiencies might be gained by doing this within Defra, and that it might be possible to do it more cheaply; but, nevertheless, that difference is so great—£5.8 million to £1.3 million—that one has to ask what things are being done at the moment that will not be done in the future.

Can the Minister tell us something about the transitional period? My understanding is that the intention is that the CRC should cease on 31 March 2011, but there may be transitional things to be done after that. How will that be managed?

How many staff does the CRC have at the moment? How many have transferred into Defra, and are any more expected to do so? What will be the size of the new unit within Defra which will carry out the work that the CRC has been carrying out?

The second broad area of questions has to be about the effectiveness of the new system. The proposal is to strengthen the rural team in Defra, to improve existing policy work, and to carry out the following functions. The first is to support Ministers, who will have much more direct accountability in future for the rural work. The second is to act as a centre of rural expertise. The third is to champion,

“rural needs and issues across government departments and other bodies”;

and the fourth is to work,

“with the civic sector to promote rural solutions at the local level”.

The last one is a quote and I do not understand what it means. Perhaps the Minister can tell me.

The Secretary of State also said:

“Ministers will lead rural policy from within my Department … The Government believe policy advice should be carried out by Departments, not arm's-length bodies”.—[Official Report, Commons, 29/6/10; col. 36WS.]

That is okay as far as it goes, but there are questions to be asked. The Campaign to Protect Rural England suggests that the advice to Ministers should be,

“robust, independent and evidence-based policy advocacy”.

That is what the CRC has been doing. For example, its report on uplands, published in June, called High Ground, High Potential—A Future for England’s Upland Communities, was a model of its kind. It was well researched, evidence-based and put forward a series of proposals on behalf of the rural areas of England that are most disadvantaged. It is difficult to see how a unit within Defra could do that with the style and commitment that was evident in that report.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I appreciate that some departments are more equal than others. One of the first things that I learnt sitting at the feet of my noble friend Lord Newton was that the Treasury had a slightly greater say on these matters than other departments. Nevertheless, Defra will play its role in arguing these views in government. I do not think that the CRC would be able to stand up to the Treasury with any greater authority than, for example, my own department, but, as I said in response to earlier remarks, there are a great many other bodies outside that will also make the case for rural communities very strongly. I do not think that spending £4.5 million per year on the CRC is certain to give more prominence to the arguments of rural communities. We will do that, and do it far more cheaply than the CRC.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, before I respond to what the Minister said, I would like to thank everybody who has taken part in the debate. I was delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, was representing the Labour Front Bench because at least somebody apart from me was not a past or present Minister. At one stage, the debate was developing into a past and present Ministers’ club, with lots of gossip that the rest of us did not quite understand. However, I am grateful to everybody and particularly the former Ministers—midwives and everybody else—who have taken part.

I am not one of those who think that Ministers, even at a junior level, do not have any influence and cannot, with enough energy and commitment, achieve things within their departments and perhaps outside. I spent last Christmas reading Chris Mullin's diaries about his time as various kinds of junior Minister, which give a very cynical view of the person with a minor position and no power whatever. I suspect that he laid it on a little. The diaries are extremely amusing, but I think that he probably overstresses his lack of power and influence.

Having looked at it all from the outside over many years, I have seen that Ministers with energy can achieve things, but one problem that faces all Governments and all ministerial teams is that at some stage they run out of energy and new inspiration. I would not accuse the present Government of having a lack of energy or a lack of determination to do things. In fact, I think that they sometimes rush into things far too quickly, when a little more thought and careful consideration might be helpful, although I understand why they do so. However, such energy does not last. The idea that a Minister at a middle or junior level within Defra will have the presence and ability to promote causes on behalf of rural areas, particularly disadvantaged rural areas, that the CRC and its chairman have at the moment is arguable at the very least and possibly wishful thinking.

I understand that the Government have an agenda, which I share to quite a considerable degree, of looking hard at quangos, reducing their costs and doing away with them when they are not doing a useful job or where what they do can be done more efficiently or democratically. I do not disagree with that fundamental wish in any way whatever, but the quangos have to be looked at one by one.

One specific question that I asked, to which I did not get an answer, was whether the State of the countryside report, as a basic piece of essential impartial, independent research, will continue in future even if within Defra. I hope that the Minister might write to us with an answer to that.

I would also like much more information on exactly how the rural champion across government will work. One of the things that a lot of us on the Liberal Democrat Benches have learnt in the past few months is how busy Ministers are and how much of their time is taken up with activities, some of which are clearly extremely vital and some of which I wonder why they are bothering with. I wonder why they do not just say no and get on with doing something useful. It is absolutely clear that competent, keen Ministers have their time and energies fully occupied by the job that they do. Some will cynically say that such Ministers are just being run by civil servants, but I do not think that that is true of good Ministers. Nevertheless, Ministers are very busy people. To have the job of co-ordinating rural policies across government is a pretty big job. The noble Lord, Lord Knight, can tell us how he got on trying to do that kind of thing when he was recently a rural Minister.

The other fundamental question to which I do not think that I have an answer is this: what does the CRC do at present that will not be done in future? The noble Lord, Lord Knight, set out clearly what the CRC does now. What we would like to know is which of those tasks will not be done in future, by Defra or by anybody else. If £4.5 million is to be saved—as the Minister quite rightly said, that is not a small sum, even in these days—what jobs are not going to be done because that money is not being spent? The noble Lord, Lord Henley, said, “I think that its time has come”. It is probably inevitable that its time has come, no matter how much we debate it in Committee and at later stages, but it is important that we understand who is going to do what in future. I do not think that we understand that yet.

Some of the quangos—the arm’s-length bodies, or whatever they are called—that are being done away with in the long lists in this Bill will not be missed in future. In five or 10 years’ time, we will look back at the list and ask ourselves, “What an earth were they? What did they do?”. Such quangos will not be missed and we will wonder why we argued about them, but some of the quangos will be missed, including, I suspect, the CRC. Life goes round in circles, as we know, and some of those quangos will have to be reinvented in future. It is far better either that we get it right now and do not drive the bulldozer through those that are necessary or, if the organisational arrangements are to change, that we understand at least that robust structures will be set up that will deliver the same kind of thing.

Finally, the Minister said that he did not believe that the CRC could stand up to the Treasury better than a rural advocate within Defra. That may be true in some respects, but the real difference is that the rural advocate within Defra will operate within government and behind the closed doors of government. Some of what he is doing will come out, because we will have debates in Parliament, reports will be produced and leaks will appear in newspapers. By and large, however, that process will take place within government, whereas what the CRC and other similar bodies can do is to take it all out into the public domain so that the research is published. The proposals are public proposals and, as Members of Parliament and your Lordships' House, we can use that information to call Ministers to account, to take part in debates and to take part in legislation. It is much more difficult to prise information from within the department. That is a fundamental difference, which the Government have not got quite right in a number of these issues.

It is customary on these occasions to ask the Minister to write to us and to give us answers to the questions that have been asked that have not been answered. I hope that he will do that after this debate. I will certainly collate the questions that have been asked from all parts of the House, write them down and hope to get more thorough answers from the Government and from the civil servants in Defra and everybody else involved before we come back to Report. We may have to come back to this issue on Report, but in the mean time I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 28 withdrawn.