Local Government Bill [HL]

Lord Tope Excerpts

Wednesday 28th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, again I have the pleasure of following the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, as I seem to be doing permanently on this Bill, and again, as previously, we are in full agreement. I could not have put any better what she has just said. In moving the amendment, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, said he accepts that we are where we are and that the amendment is about the future and not the past. But he was followed immediately by his noble friend Lord Howarth, who spent a considerable time telling us that it is all about the past and that he far from accepts that we are where we are. I think that the noble Lord on the Front Bench must be wishing that he could hide from his noble friend sitting two Benches behind him.

I understand very well why noble Lords on the Benches opposite, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and others, believe that the previous proposals were right. I understand therefore why they believe that the Government are wrong to carry out the manifesto commitments of both parties in the coalition to get rid of them as soon as possible, but what I do not understand is why he cannot accept that we are where we are. That is simply not going to happen.

I listened with great interest and some sympathy to all that the noble Lord said about the benefits of unitary government. As I declare almost every time I speak on this issue, I have been a member of a unitary council—as I still am—for many years, and there are benefits to it. But, as I also seem to have to keep saying, the future that lies before all local government and before the country over the next few years means that this really is not the time for us to be distracted into what is almost always, and certainly has been in the case of Norfolk and Devon, enormously time-consuming, expensive and perhaps above all emotionally draining exercises in this sort of boundary restructuring. What we need to concentrate on now is how councils, whether in two-tier or unitary areas, can work together by sharing services and, in some cases where appropriate, by sharing offices. They should not be arguing about expensive boundary changes and unitary restructuring. That is simply off the agenda.

Should there ever be a time when this comes back on to the agenda, whether that is in the lifetime of this coalition Government, which I must say seems unlikely, or—

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords—

[Lord Tope]

Perhaps I may finish the sentence and then I will give way to the noble Lord. I have nearly forgotten the sentence. If this comes back on to the agenda in the lifetime of this coalition Government or in the lifetime of any future Government, it does not need an amendment to this Bill to enable it to do so.

[Lord Grocott]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. In view of his opposition to what he has described as expensive boundary changes, I wonder whether he will join us on this side of the House in opposing the expensive parliamentary boundary changes that have been proposed in the Government’s most recent legislation.

[Lord Tope]

Unless something much more revolutionary than I expect is taking place, a change of parliamentary boundaries, which happens fairly regularly, does not entail the wholesale restructuring of the local authorities in an area, and that is where the expense arises. So the answer is no.

I have said it before and I want to say it again because we keep going over the same ground. If there is any message coming from this House—personally, I believe strongly that local government actually knows best and should be left to get on without messages from this House or anywhere else—it should be this. If noble Lords opposite have any influence, particularly with the city councils concerned, they should use that influence to urge these councils and councillors to try to put the difficult and emotional past few years behind them and to build new and constructive relationships so that they can work together co-operatively in the way we have talked about.

There is already evidence that that is happening in both Exeter and Norwich and Devon and Norfolk. We should encourage that; noble Lords opposite should spend their time and energy encouraging that to happen. We on this side of the House should do the same, particularly in relation to the counties. Where we have friends and influence, we too should recognise that the cities believe that they have grievances. Whether or not we accept that they are justified, let us accept that they are truly felt and work together to try to overcome that and to build a positive and constructive relationship between authorities of whatever nature, better to serve their people in what will be an extremely difficult, three, four or five years to come.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, I will be brief. Fairly obviously, I support these amendments. Does anyone in this Chamber doubt that unitary government, especially for cities, is the most effective form of local government and offers the best value for money? I was a Norwich city councillor when we were unitary before 1974 and know what it has meant for the city of Norwich.

Basically, unitary structures offer at least four gains for the people who local councillors seek to represent. First, they offer better integrated services. This is because services are all on one tier and you can make decisions out of the box, so to speak, and across the lines—particularly, for example, in housing and social services. When I was a very young councillor and chair of Norwich’s housing committee, my vice-chair was the chair of what was then called, in those pre-Seebohm days—the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, will recall this—the welfare committee. The result was that we could produce halfway houses for battered wives and supported accommodation for those with severe learning difficulties because we ran housing and social services as one semi-common service. That is no longer possible. Now services are fractured and, frankly, it is a full-time job being poor and vulnerable.

The second gain from unitary structures for cities is better value for money—I shall in a moment engage with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Tope—because it avoids duplication, for example, on economic development, and the toing and froing on planning applications between two tiers. As I have told the House on previous occasions, when I was leader of Norwich City Council, development opportunities that would have brought 600 to 800 jobs to the city of Norwich were lost when the developers walked away after they learnt that they would have to work with two tiers. I do not doubt that the county would have been supportive—I have no reason to think it would have blocked it—but the point is that for those seeking to come to the city the structure of local government was seen as an impediment to what they wanted—which was quick, easy, simple, transparent and responsive comments to their proposals.

Not only is unitary better for value for money in terms of avoiding duplication, it is also cheaper—and here I shall tackle the points made by both the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Lord, Lord Tope. For I think the third time, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has quoted the Permanent Secretary as the auditing officer saying that this did not represent best value for the money; and for the third time I shall attempt to appropriately correct her understanding of what the Permanent Secretary was saying. He was indeed saying that unitary Norwich and unitary Exeter were not best value for money—but compared with what? It was compared with a unitary county of Norfolk and a unitary county of Devon which wiped out the rest of local government—an outcome that no one except the Permanent Secretary and the Boundary Committee supported. Indeed, the county of Norfolk, I understand, would have taken out a JR against the recommendation of the Permanent Secretary. It is simply misleading and fallacious to quote the Permanent Secretary, as the noble and learned Baroness has done on several occasions—