Localism Bill

Debate between Mark Reckless and Lord Stunell

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stunell]

We have had an interesting and wide-ranging debate, with plenty of interest added by Members’ personal experiences.

I appreciate the decision of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) not to press amendment (a) to a Division. He will have seen in the course of the debate that the force is not with him, although he has raised a number of interesting aspects, which I am sure he will ensure are kept in front of the House in the years to come.

Other hon. Members have raised a wide range of issues, and perhaps the most persistent raiser of issues was the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones), who is not in the Chamber. This part of the Bill applies to local authorities; it does not attempt, and it never did attempt, to regulate community groups, neighbourhood forums or other non-governmental organisations. However, I remind the House that there is still a requirement on anybody spending public money to give a proper account of that spending and to be held accountable, if necessary in the courts, should they fail to do so. On the wider duty on anybody spending public money, the introduction of the equalities duty provides a substantial safeguard and remedy for those who feel hard done by as a consequence. I hope that the House will accept that as the right basis on which to proceed.

My hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) told us a shaggy bear story, but hidden behind it were some important observations, one of which was about the present system’s extensive capacity for creating trouble for council members going about their lawful business and trying to serve their community. He referred to a case in which essentially he was being bullied by a developer because of views he had expressed on a planning application. I am happy to tell him that, quite apart from our abolition of the Standards Board, our abolition of the pre-determination legislation, which is also right at the front of the Bill, will put in place a safeguard in such situations.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) drew attention to the hard work done in the House of Lords, not least by our Liberal Democrat colleagues. Government Members acknowledge the fruitful dialogue in the Lords, which I believe has produced a much-improved Bill. She suggested that it might be appropriate for us to return to the standards regime and monitor its performance after a couple of years. More broadly, the Government have said that they want to monitor the impact of legislation as time goes by, and I hope that she will understand that the House always has the capacity to return to matters. No doubt the Select Committee and others will keep an eye not only on that provision in the Bill, but on all the others.

I heard the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), particularly on police and police commissioners. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, who has responsibility for decentralisation, has recently written to my hon. Friend about that matter, and I know that the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice has also offered to liaise with him. I assume that he will want to take up that offer. He made several observations about what would happen in the United States, but I have reason to suspect that he is not in favour of introducing a federal system in the United Kingdom. In default of a federal system, we have to manage our own resources of governance.

On council tax referendums, I made the point in my introductory remarks that we are replacing a top-down limitation on what councils can spend and raise from the council tax with a process controlled by the electorate—the ones who pay for it—which is how local accountability is supposed to work in our democratic system. As those who did an A-level in this area will know, that is what we are all taught happens, but what has not happened for many years. We are changing a top-down financial control system to a bottom-up control system. In the eyes of my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood, that might not be perfect, but I hope that he would accept that it is more than just a small notional improvement.

[Mark Reckless]

It might be that for local authorities we are just about doing as the Minister states, but it is not the case for the area of policing that I raised. The letter that I received from my right hon. Friend the Minister of State was entirely unsatisfactory, and the meeting with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice has not happened. Importing the Localism Bill into the police framework makes a complete dog’s breakfast of the precept setting and contradicts the coalition agreement and last year’s “Policing in the 21st Century” White Paper.

[Andrew Stunell]

I am disappointed to hear my hon. Friend say that. Local people have as much right to take a view on excessive police precept increases as they do on increases in any other sector of local government. I believe that the provisions we have are right. I hope that he is not spurning the offer of a meeting my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, because he might find it more productive than he evidently fears it would be.