Lord Howarth of Newport
Main Page: Lord Howarth of Newport (Labour - Life peer)Local Government Bill [HL]
Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 2. These two amendments provide that a relevant order may be made after the commencement of the Act and that the Secretary of State must, within three years, publish criteria that will apply for a replacement order to be made. Noble Lords will recognise that this is a narrowly drawn amendment in that a relevant order is one in respect of which proposals have been received by the Secretary of State before the commencement of the Act.
It might be helpful if I explain that our intent to have a broader requirement imposed on the Secretary of State to report within a period of time on whether any further proposals for unitary status will be considered, and on what basis, is sadly outside the scope of the Bill. However, we consider that the Secretary of State should have a positive duty to report, after a period, on whether he will entertain any further unitary proposals and on what basis. This is not about going over old ground and seeking to reopen the quashing of the Exeter and Norwich orders, and it is not about challenging the constitutional propriety of what has ensued. We accept that we are where we are on these matters. However, it is about keeping alive the prospect of revisiting opportunities for a single tier of government generally and specifically for Norwich, Exeter and Suffolk. It is also not about requiring the Secretary of State to invite any proposals, but about causing him at some point in the future to publish the basis on which, if at all, he might invite proposals.
As we have discussed at earlier stages of our deliberations on this Bill, the 2007 Act continues to give the Secretary of State the power to invite proposals for a single tier of government. This amendment neither seeks to expand nor curtail that power. We have heard from the Minister before that it is unlikely that the Secretary of State will wish to invite further proposals during the course of this Parliament. It is that absolute, dogmatic position which this amendment seeks to qualify. It would require him to justify continuing with that stance throughout the Parliament.
We know that these are going to be exceptionally tough times for local authorities, made worse by the macroeconomic policy of the Government, who are intent on cutting public expenditure deeper and faster than is necessary to address the challenges of the public finances. Some principal authorities will face those challenges as unitary authorities, and some under a two-tier system. The need to find new ways of working, embracing area-based budgeting—Total Place, if you will—and developing broader partnerships, will be essential. The Government’s position seems to accept that the current configuration of local authorities is the best way to move forward on these issues. In the case of Exeter and Norwich, the Minister asserts in her letter of 22 July that savings that could be achieved under unitary status can be achieved, and indeed exceeded, by collaborative working between the two tiers of local government, although no detailed analysis or independent review underpins that assertion. Even if it is right—we do not necessarily accept that it is—what work has been undertaken to say that the same runs true for what we might describe as the extra challenges engendered by the cuts coming down the track from the public expenditure review? If there is a requirement for new thinking, new ways of working and different models of commissioning, is it not reasonable that along the way there is the opportunity for an update on the current divide between unitary and two-tier status?
In essence, that is what this amendment seeks, specifically in the cases of Norwich, Exeter and Suffolk because those are the constraints of the Bill, but the same runs generally. At a point in the future not more than three years away, the Secretary of State should report on whether he plans to consider further proposals for single-tier local government. He will be able to do that with the knowledge of what has happened in the interim, how local authorities are coping with the new environment, and whether the structure of local government—unitary or two-tier—is a significant factor in driving better outcomes. He should hear the voice of local authorities and communities in undertaking that analysis.
The amendment should not be difficult for the Government to accept. It is about looking to the future, and about a medium-term opportunity for local councils to get an update on whether structural change—if it is in the interests of their communities—is available or off the agenda for the remainder of the Parliament. Given the huge uncertainties of the economic landscape, made much worse by this coalition Government, that is not an unreasonable proposition.
If the Minister cannot support the amendment, what alternative arrangements does her department have or will it put in place to keep under review the availability and potential use of the powers in Chapter 1 of the 2007 Act? What plans are there for reporting to Parliament on these matters? If we may not have provisions in the Bill, I hope that she can at least give us some assurance on the subject.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, I wish to speak in support of Amendments 1 and 2. These amendments invite the Government to reintroduce principle into their consideration of local government restructuring. The Secretary of State would be obliged by 2013 to consider whether further unitary reorganisations might in principle be permitted, and to state his criteria for deciding for or against such reorganisations. I will, if I may, explain some of the principles to which I believe the Government at that time should have regard. I will illustrate them by reference to Norwich and Exeter, as it is those cities with which the Bill is concerned. The principles illustrated in relation to Norwich and Exeter should be taken, however, as models for general application as and when the Government abandon their present unreasoning hostility towards creating new unitary local authorities.
There is, of course, a very strong case in principle for unitary local authorities. Unitary local government can be expected to lead to better provision of services in terms of quality, efficiency and economy, arising from closer local knowledge and responsiveness and better adapted service models. In the case of Norwich, a local authority dedicated to serving Norwich, its members all local people, would have intimate knowledge of the issues and needs in Norwich which, in a complex and sizeable urban community, are very different from those of rural Norfolk. Cities such as Norwich and Exeter need their own distinct policies and distinct administration if their distinctive problems and opportunities are to be addressed to best effect, and to enable such cities to realise their full potential, economically, culturally and socially. Unitary local government that enabled Norwich and Exeter to maximise their economic and cultural success would of course be to the great benefit of Norfolk and Devon.
It is plain common sense that unitary government will be more economical, having no duplication of staff, no fragmentation of functions, no complex procedures for co-ordination and no opacity in accountability. Unitary local government is also good for democratic culture. It provides for clear and accountable local political leadership. Norwich councillors and Exeter councillors would be straightforwardly answerable to Norwich people and Exeter people.
In a two-tier system, there are two councils, two sets of councillors, two sets of policies and two sets of service delivery arrangements. County and district are conflicted and confused between the competing demands of rural and urban needs. Some responsibilities are split; for example, housing and social services. Some overlap; for example, planning, with businesses having to negotiate two overlapping bureaucracies. In a two-tier structure, there can be no clear focus in policy-making, no clear strategic direction, no clear political leadership and no clear political responsibility.
The Conservative Party used to understand that local government was the seedbed of our democratic culture—a culture that has become all too withered. One cannot overstate the importance of reviving our democracy from its local base. It is a consideration of principle that should recommend itself to the Conservative Party, if it still has a sense of history, that the structure of local government should enable communities to be proud communities. Many of the cities that have become unitary authorities within the past 20 years were historically proudly self-governing county boroughs independent of their surrounding counties—some of them, like Norwich and Exeter, with charters going back many hundreds of years. For them, the 1974 reorganisation was an historical aberration.
No one recently has better described the importance of place than the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, whom I am very pleased to see in her place. She comes from Bradford, like Mr Pickles. She has been chair of the Local Government Association. In a SOLACE Foundation pamphlet in January 2009, she wrote about,
“the more difficult agenda—the holistic agenda of growing a place’s unique character. This is where the true genius of local government really lies. Not just being the deliverer of a Whitehall agenda but by being the champion of a locality … Pride in place is not just about good services and sound finances, critical thought these are, but it is also about being the guardian of an area’s character, knowing and reflecting its personality and preserving its identity. It is to protect and enhance its story and this is best achieved by those who, day by day, walk local streets, suffering with the electorate their traumas and sharing in their achievements”.
The noble Baroness expressed it extremely well.
I ask noble Lords on the Benches opposite to understand just how demeaning it is when, without any consultation whatever, the county, none of whose cabinet members represent Norwich wards, decrees that the street lights in Norwich should be switched off at night, when it seeks to impose closure of cherished daycare centres, when it imposes a restructuring of children's services, or when it refuses to permit the locally desired pedestrianisation of an historic street. A two-tier structure invites that kind of arrogant and improper behaviour by the county.
The Conservative Party in truth has no objection in principle to unitary local government. Indeed, the previous Conservative Government created unitary local authorities wholesale. That Government were in deep difficulty, as was the whole of local government, as a result of the crass misjudgments of the 1974 reorganisation, the anomalies left by the abolition in 1986 of the metropolitan counties, the chaos created by the poll tax and the progressive erosion in the 1980s of local government powers. The noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, as Secretary of State for the Environment, trying to recoup something from this crisis of local government, decided to review not just the financing of local government, but its structure and management. A consultation paper in 1991 proposed,
“a move towards unitary authorities where these do not already exist”.
The Conservative Government set up a new quango—the Local Government Commission for England—to undertake a review and make recommendations. The criteria given to it for evaluation were not just those of financial costs and benefits, but to strengthen identity, accessibility, responsiveness and democracy.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
I scarcely know where to begin. I listened with absolute fascination to the delightfully inaccurate, inappropriate and, in places, offensive comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport. I am not a politician. I am a pleb of Devon. I am proud to be so and I am proud not to be a politician. But, on 22 March this year, I moved a regret Motion in which I set out in some detail a large number of reasons why Exeter should not be a unitary authority. Equally, the points were made why Norwich should not be a unitary authority. That regret Motion, asking the Government to look again, was overwhelmingly supported by this House. One of the reasons was that the Permanent Secretary to the then Secretary of State in the previous Government advised against the two orders as the accounting officer as well as his concerns.
Lord Howarth of Newport
May I ask the noble and learned Baroness what what she is saying has to do with the amendments we are debating?
Lord Burnett
My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend Lord Tyler, who was a very distinguished Member of Parliament for North Cornwall. It was a state secret, which I can now reveal, that in fact he was born in Devon, albeit very close to the River Tamar. I declare that I live in Devon and own residential and agricultural property in Devon and residential property in Exeter, where my law firm has an office. Most of us agree with the principle of unitary councils, but we do not agree with the proposals that are now being debated. We do not agree with a unitary Exeter. It is not only people from this side that are saying that; every independent outfit that has looked at the matter has said the same. The Boundary Committee, some years ago, during the tenure of office of the previous Government, made it quite clear that a unitary Exeter was unaffordable and did not meet the Government’s criteria. The courts have thrown out the previous Government’s proposals. This is a huge distraction and it is time to let matters proceed and let this Bill through as fast as reasonably possible.
Lord Howarth of Newport
Does the noble Lord regard it as significant that in no fewer than four opinion polls held in Exeter, by majorities of two to one the people of Exeter said that they wanted a unitary Exeter. Is that of no account to him?
Lord Burnett
What is most of account to me is the result of the last general election, in which the majority of the Member of Parliament for Exeter, having had the benefit of a Boundary Commission change and a far more favourable electorate, went down very considerably indeed. If my memory serves me right, the people of Norwich actually threw out their two Labour Members of Parliament. That is—
Lord Burnett
No, I am not giving way any more—the noble Lord has had his say. This is a distraction and a huge waste of money. We know the duplication that will occur and we know that economies of scale will be lost. Let us proceed with the Bill.