Bournemouth, Dorset and Poole (Structural Changes) Order 2018

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Baroness Maddock

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, these instruments will, if approved by Parliament and made, provide for the abolition of the nine existing local government areas in Dorset and their councils—the existing boroughs of Bournemouth and Poole, the county of Dorset and the boroughs and districts in the county of Dorset—and the establishment of two new local government areas with two new single-tier unitary councils for the area on 1 April 2019.

These instruments provide for elections to these new councils. Elections to the proposed Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council will take place in May 2019 and then every fourth year thereafter. Elections to the proposed Dorset council will take place in May 2019, 2024, 2029 and every fourth year thereafter, as requested by the local area. The instruments also make transitional provisions, including for shadow authorities and shadow executives to prepare for the new councils during the period from when the order is in force until April 2019.

We have had discussions with the Local Government Boundary Commission for England and understand that, should Parliament approve and we make these instruments, the commission will carry out a full electoral review of the areas of the two new councils to ensure that all people are equally represented within the area for each council. As provided for in legislation for previous local government reorganisations, provisions are made for the warding arrangements that would be used for the first elections should the commission be unable to conclude the electoral review in time.

The Government, as made clear in our manifesto, are committed to supporting those local authorities that wish to combine to serve their communities better. We have also announced to the House that we will consider any locally led proposals for local government restructuring which are put forward by one or more of the councils concerned and which improve local government and service delivery, create structures with a credible geography and command a good deal of local support.

We have brought forward these measures in response to a locally led proposal from the area concerned. Eight of the nine councils in the area support the proposals, and eight of the nine councils in Dorset have given formal consent to the instruments being made. Statute requires the consent of at least one relevant authority—in this case, Bournemouth, Poole and, for the two-tier structure of Dorset, the county of Dorset or one of the six districts and boroughs within Dorset—for the instruments to be made.

We told Parliament in February 2017 what criteria the Government would use for assessing locally led proposals for local government restructuring—namely, that, first, the proposal is likely to improve local government in the area concerned; secondly, the proposal has a credible geography; and, thirdly, the proposal commands a good deal of local support. We also told Parliament that our intention is for these criteria to be assessed in the round across the whole area subject to reorganisation and not considered individually for each existing council area. The Government are satisfied that this proposal fully meets those criteria.

The Dorset councils proposal which we are now considering would establish two unitary councils across the whole of Dorset, replacing the nine existing local government areas and their councils in the area with two new local government areas and councils, one covering the areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, and a second covering the rest of Dorset.

Dorset estimates that this has the potential to generate savings over the first six years of at least £108 million and, if the full transformation programme, which unitarisation makes possible, takes place, there is the potential to save over £170 million over that period. Such savings and the larger size of the councils will increase financial resilience, help sustain good-quality local services and cement partnership working in the area. The new structures will also facilitate stronger strategic and local leadership across the area and enable a more strategic and holistic approach to planning and housing challenges.

Having regard to the representations received, we are also confident that there is a general consensus that the two unitary councils are structured around the natural and established sense of identity across the geography of the county. There is clear evidence that this geography aligns well with other public service provision, including health, police, and the fire and rescue service. In short, the area of each new unitary council is a credible geography.

In bringing forward their proposal, the nine Dorset councils undertook extensive engagement and open consultation, including a formal consultation from August to October 2016. The consultation programme, which included an open consultation, a representative household survey, workshops and the opportunity to submit written submissions, achieved well over 17,000 responses. There was clear support for moving to two unitary councils. Seventy-three per cent of residents were supportive in the representative household survey and, in general across all the areas of Dorset, there was an emphatic preference for the proposed option, with 65% of residents in the representative household survey supporting it. Only 15% of residents in the representative household survey opposed this option; 12% neither supported nor opposed it; and 7% did not answer or did not know.

It may assist noble Lords if I say something briefly about the processes which have been followed by government and which have led us to conclude that this proposal does indeed meet the criteria and is worthy of implementation. On 7 November 2017, the previous Secretary of State told Parliament that he was minded to implement the proposal made by the Dorset councils. There followed a period for representations until 8 January, during which we received 210 representations. On the basis of the proposal, the representations and all other relevant information available, the Secretary of State was satisfied that all of these criteria are met and that implementing this proposal would be likely to improve local government and service delivery across Dorset, represents a credible geography and commands a good deal of local support. His assessments of the Dorset proposal against these criteria were made in the round, across the whole area, subject to the proposed restructuring. On 26 February 2018, the previous Secretary of State announced his decision to implement the proposal, subject to parliamentary approval.

We believe that the proposed governance changes for which we are seeking parliamentary approval will benefit people across the whole of Dorset, in every district and borough. Our aim as a Government is to enable the people of Dorset to have as good a deal as possible on their local services. This is not just our view, but a view shared by 65% of residents across the whole of Dorset, 79% of all councillors across the whole of Dorset, and other public service providers and businesses, particularly those responsible for the provision of healthcare, police, fire and rescue, and rail services across the wider Dorset area. It is supported also by a number of my right honourable and honourable friends with constituencies in the area, who, on 29 November 2017, wrote to my right honourable friend the previous Secretary of State urging him to support the proposal. They state that,

“the further savings required to be made, if our councils are to continue delivering quality public services, can only be done through a reorganisation of their structures”.

Eight of the nine councils in Dorset support the proposed change and have formally consented to the necessary secondary legislation.

Regarding the one Dorset council that does not support the proposal—Christchurch Borough Council—a third of its elected councillors do support this proposal. These councillors wrote to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State stating:

“We are acutely aware of the constraints on local government funding and the financial pressure that upper tier services are facing. We therefore consider it our duty to respond to these challenges by supporting the restructuring of local government in Dorset”.


I believe we are delivering the commitment that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister made in December last year, when she told Parliament that we would seek,

“to ensure that the best result is achieved for the people of Dorset”.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/12/17; col. 1060.]

It may have come to the attention of noble Lords that Christchurch Borough Council has launched a judicial review challenging the Secretary of State’s decision to implement the proposal. However, we are instructing counsel to robustly resist this challenge and are clear that this has no impact on today’s debate.

I am sure noble Lords will be aware that the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has brought these instruments to the attention of the House for reasons of public policy, namely the level of support in Christchurch from both the residents and the council. In particular, the committee asked how the Secretary of State can deem that the proposal meets the criteria that there is a good deal of local support for the proposal, and the justification for proceeding with a proposal which is opposed by one of the councils affected. The committee also asked about the process taken and why an invitation was not issued to these councils.

Government policy is to,

“consider unitarisation and mergers between councils where requested”.

Accordingly, the Government’s approach to Dorset is that the proposals should be locally led at the initiative of councils in the area, rather than in response to a government invitation. The Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016 provides the statutory mechanism for taking forward such an approach. It is this mechanism we are using by bringing forward the regulations and the order we are considering today.

Turning to the consideration of local support, I have already outlined the level of support from residents, businesses, key public sector partners and elected representatives across Dorset. The Secretary of State has had careful regard to the results of the Christchurch local advisory poll, the representations received about the poll and all other information available to him when making his decision. However, as a poll of only 6% of the whole area’s population, we do not see it casting doubt on the evidence that, in the round, across the whole area of Dorset there is a good deal of local support.

During the passage of the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill through this House in 2016, my noble friend Lady Williams of Trafford explained that it was not the intention of the legislation that one council could block a reorganisation proposal that the rest of the councils in an area had proposed. We have also been clear that our intention is for the proposal to be assessed against the criteria in the round, across the whole area subject to reorganisation, and not to be considered individually for each existing council area.

As rightly noted by my right honourable friend the Member for West Dorset, Sir Oliver Letwin, during the committee debate in the other place to consider these SIs,

“it is the job of the Minister and Parliament to legislate in a way that provides for stable, viable and effective local government”.

He went on to say that this opposition from Christchurch should not,

“in any way justify overturning a set of proposals that have come from the people of Dorset and Dorset County Council. It is not a matter of the democratic tyranny of the majority. Rather, it is a matter of the viability of local government and local government services in our county”.—[Official Report, Commons, Third Delegated Legislation Committee, 16/5/18; col. 11.]

In conclusion, in considering the two draft instruments we are assessing the merits of the abolition on 1 April 2019 of the nine existing Dorset local government areas and councils and the establishment of two new local government areas and unitary councils for the area. The proposal is widely supported across Dorset by councils, councillors, MPs, local businesses, town and parish councils, voluntary organisations, public sector bodies and members of the public. The potential to generate savings are considerable—£108 million over the first six years and even more if Dorset councils implement the full transformation programme that unitarisation makes possible.

My honourable friend the Member for North Dorset rightly said in the other place last week:

“The direction of travel is clear. What we are trying to do in Dorset is not eccentric or perverse; it is not in any way weird. It is a democratic response, underpinned by intellectual and academic argument to deliver on that principal propulsion of public service”.—[Official Report, Commons, Third Delegated Legislation Committee, 16/5/18; col. 38.]


I have full confidence in the local area to implement the unitarisation by next April, enabling elections to the new councils in May next year. On that basis, I commend these regulations and the order to the House.

[Baroness Maddock (LD)]

In speaking to these instruments, I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. However, I have another interest in that, from 1993 to 1997, I was the Member of Parliament for Christchurch. I had lived in the area for a long time. I had been to school in Brockenhurst—indeed, that was when Christchurch was in Hampshire and I had friends who came to the school from there.

The present Member of Parliament for Christchurch, Sir Christopher Chope, was elected when I lost the seat in 1997. We have over the years been political foes, particularly since our time in Southampton, but life has a funny way of taking you by surprise. In trying to help his constituents, who do not want the borough of Christchurch to be abolished or to become part of a very big council area, he asked them to write to me in the House of Lords. As someone who has been there before, with the reorganisation of Northumberland, on which local views were completely ignored, and as a former member of the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee, I was happy to look into what had happened. It is rather a sorry tale, I fear.

Christchurch folk have never really identified with their much larger neighbours, Bournemouth and Poole. Road connection to the conurbation is always a bottleneck, particularly over Tuckton Bridge. There are no high-rise blocks in Christchurch, as there are all along the western side of Bournemouth bay. As was pointed out in debates in another place, Christchurch has been an independent borough since 1215 and, unlike its neighbouring councils, is debt free and financially strong.

Proceedings in the Commons show that the Government’s dealings with Christchurch and the consultation process have not been smooth or satisfactory. The noble Lord mentioned the 26th report of the Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, published on 26 April. The report drew the attention of Members to the lack of consent and to the Government’s decision to ignore the clear and democratically expressed wishes of the people of Christchurch, and to choose instead to judge opinion across the whole of Dorset in the round. The people of Christchurch and their MP are rightly devastated by the decision to proceed without local consent, particularly so because the Member for Christchurch had twice received in the other place undertakings by the Secretary of State during the passage of the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill 2015 that Clause 15 of the Bill would not be used to abolish any individual council without consent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Maddock]

Does the noble Lord have any comment on the idea that one way out of this would have been to allow Christchurch to look at going into Hampshire? The Government were less than helpful when Christchurch wanted to do that.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

That would have involved a much wider proposal. Basically, what we are interested in are locally led proposals. I am not aware that Hampshire or the other authorities were party to that proposition, whereas the proposition before the House this afternoon is supported by the area as a whole, with a notable exception. Had Hampshire and Christchurch come to us with a proposition which commanded general support, we would of course have looked at it. But they did not.