Queen’s Speech

Lord Tope Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, as I am primarily going to talk about local government I should begin by declaring an interest as a vice president of the Local Government Association, but for the first time in nearly 20 years in your Lordships’ House I do not have to declare an interest as a councillor in the London Borough of Sutton. I hasten to add that that was by my choice, not the people’s choice. I felt that 40 years was enough and I did not seek re-election.

However, I was invited to the first Liberal Democrat group meeting on the Saturday morning after the election. I like to think I was invited to give some fatherly advice to all the newly elected councillors; the truth is, I was invited because I was the only one they could find who knew how to conduct the group elections by the single transferable vote. I went into the too-small room and saw before me the 45 newly elected and re-elected Liberal Democrat councillors. The nine Conservatives remaining were in a cupboard down the corridor having their group meeting, which took about 10 minutes—they sacked their leader.

The thought that struck me forcibly for the first time as I looked at our new 45-strong Liberal Democrat group was just how much it looked like our local community. For years now, we have had a pretty good gender mix, which is still there and still strong. We have had, for borough population, a better than average visible ethnic mix. I could see from the family names of the newly elected councillors that they reflected a fair number of European countries. I saw a mobility scooter parked at the door, and I happen to know that at least two of our newly elected councillors have been assisted by a scheme to help people with disabilities to attain elected office.

However, what struck me most forcibly and what was new was the age range of our new councillors. At least five of them were under 30, which, I am sorry to say, these days is quite an achievement. Of particular pride to me was the fact that several of those new young councillors had been born in the borough when it was run by the Liberal Democrats. They had been at the schools in the borough when it was run by the Liberal Democrats and now they were there as part of a Liberal Democrat administration. I understand that my Conservative and Labour friends will think that there is nothing unusual about that, and indeed in many areas of the country that is not unusual for their parties. However, for my party it is not just unusual but unique, so I was very proud of that. The Liberal Democrats were expected to retain control of Sutton council, so when we did it really was not news. There was much more news in relation to places where we were not retaining control and to some places where, sadly, we were not retaining councillors at all.

However, I wondered why nobody asks why an outer London suburb of 200,000 residents and no particularly distinguishing characteristics has elected a Liberal Democrat council eight times over for 32 consecutive years. I wondered even more why for half of that time—for 16 years—it has elected Liberal Democrats to more than 80% of the council seats. We still support proportional representation; we would just like one or two other councils to join in the experiment.

I say all that not just to boast—although I feel that I have something to boast about—but because I think that having the answers to those questions would certainly be a service to my party and might offer some lessons for politics and politicians as a whole. It is a truly remarkable achievement. If any of my noble colleagues are also wondering about the answers to those questions and are perhaps thinking of commissioning a poll, I shall be only too happy to suggest the questions and to co-operate in finding some of the answers.

I now move on to the subject of local government more widely and more generally. Local government represents roughly 25% of public expenditure and therefore it is inevitable and fair that it should have had to bear its share of reducing the deficit. Indeed, as my noble friend Lord Wrigglesworth said earlier, with the ring-fencing of education and health, it is even more inevitable that much of the brunt of deficit reduction will fall on local government, and that has happened. I cannot honestly say that local government makes no complaint about that. For as long as I can remember, it has always complained about the financial settlement, regardless of who are in government and regardless of the financial situation. However, I believe that all parties in local government generally have done remarkably well in coping with their share, or perhaps more than their share, of the deficit reduction. I recognise and accept that, and I always have done. My main regret looking back—and I said it at the time —was that it was so front-loaded and that so many of the deficit reduction measures for local government happened in the first two years. I say that particularly because truly transforming services and local government cannot be done in a hurry under the pressure of having to find immediate and substantial budget cuts. It takes time. With hindsight, and perhaps not just with hindsight, I would rather that we had been given the full four-year period to meet the same targets.

I now want to look to the future. For most major local authorities, the worst is yet to come. We know now that for most authorities the financial year 2015-16 will be the worst so far. The relatively easy budget cuts have been made. I say “relatively easy” because many of them have not been easy at all, but relatively they have been. What are left now are the severe cuts to public services, and all authorities, of whatever political persuasion, will this year—not next year—struggle with having to make difficult, controversial and inevitably unpopular budget cuts.

I understand and wholly accept that there have been significant and disproportionate effects on some sections of the community, but I do not think that the greater majority of residents all over the country—north and south—have been personally greatly affected by budget cuts. That is going to change over the next 12 months and it will happen during a period in which the coalition parties, certainly, will be trying to convince the public that the recovery is on the way. They will be trying to convince them that the past four years of hardship were worth it because the recovery is starting, but that is not likely to be the local experience.

That is clearly an issue for my party and our coalition partners but I do not think that I will see any wise Labour Party people rejoicing either. They will know that those budget cuts are being made in the town halls, and it is at the town halls that people will be protesting to those making the unpopular decisions. In most cases now—sadly, from my point of view—it is Labour councillors who, first and foremost, will get the blame. There is nothing in that for any of us. The outcome will inevitably be even more public disillusionment and disengagement and all the effects that we know only too well will come from that. I feel very sad to give a gloomy but inevitable prognosis for the period up to the general election.

There is one particular issue on which I want to comment. For a local authority, being able to raise income is often a better choice than cutting a budget. It needs to be done proportionately and fairly but, if it is done to raise greater income and thus avoid greater cuts, that surely is usually a better option. Yet, so often when a local authority embarks on that course, Ministers complain about it. I shall take one recent example, although there are many. Charging for the collection of green garden waste in a local authority—I think that it was probably in Birmingham—was recently criticised by CLG Ministers and by one in particular, and it is an issue that many of us are going to have to look at. However, it is a discretionary service; there is no requirement on local authorities to collect green garden waste. To paraphrase the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, it is, if you like, a service paid for by the poor to provide to the rich. I use both those terms relatively, but all those who live in flats or small houses with small or no gardens are paying through their council tax for a so-called free service to those of us who are fortunate enough to have large gardens and silly enough not to do sufficient composting. At any time but particularly under the current financial constraints, what on earth is wrong with charging for that service? Why does the Secretary of State suggest that there is something wrong with it and why—I can probably guess—does a local Conservative MP choose to describe it as a stealth tax? I would have thought that it was anything but stealthy. I think that Ministers need to think about their attitude towards this.

One particular area of charging which is, and always will be, controversial is parking. Earlier this year, the Department for Transport carried out a public consultation on local authority parking strategies. I think that if there is one subject that should be left to local authorities, it is parking; nevertheless, the Government, and the Department for Transport in particular, have carried out that consultation. At this stage, I am not going to start a debate on parking but the end of the consultation document states:

“A summary of responses, including the next steps, will be published within three months of the consultation closing”.

The consultation closed on 14 February. The analysis of the results and the next steps should have been with us before 14 May. I looked on the website last night to see that the results are still being analysed. I have seen quite a lot of the results. I suspect that the analysis is not taking very long. Probably what is taking a little more time is what the next steps will be. I do not suppose the Minister is likely to tell us those next steps this afternoon or will drop just a few hints, particularly about the use of CCTV cameras, which is causing much concern. If nothing else, perhaps she will tell us when we will have the analysis of the results and, even better, when the Government will decide on the next steps. Best of all, will they decide that it is best left to local authorities to decide for themselves?

The greatest welcome from local government for this Queen’s Speech is that there is no significant local government legislation in it, although a number of Bills, such as the Deregulation Bill and the Infrastructure Bill, are of particular interest. As has been said several times already today and no doubt will be said many times more, our real interest is in the Queen’s Speech after the next Government have been elected. We will see from whoever is in government whether they have a commitment to the devolution of power, which must mean a devolution of revenue raising and spending, and whether that really will be in the next Queen’s Speech.

I conclude with the comment that, based on the election results two weeks ago and most opinion polls for a long time now, the party most likely to be in government in a year’s time is the Liberal Democrats.