Local Authority Boundaries (Referendums) Bill

Philip Davies Excerpts

Friday 25th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore]

Of course, Darlington is now one of the thriving towns of the north. Keighley absolutely wants to be one, too, but we are stifled by the system we have locally, under which we are completely forgotten about. In my view, Bradford Council disregards the voice of Keighley and Ilkley and we must be heard.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

As my hon. Friend knows, I fully support him in this and I want my constituency to join his in this new local authority. Does he agree that there is nothing in the Bill that anybody should disagree with, because if Bradford Council is doing such a wonderful job representing his constituents and mine, presumably they will vote against setting up a new local authority when the referendum takes place? It is presumably because Bradford Council knows how badly it is representing our constituents that it is so frightened of this legislation.

[Robbie Moore]

My hon. Friend and neighbour makes a very important point. No one should live in fear of the Bill because it triggers better democracy. Local voices will be heard, so we can ensure that services are delivered better at a local level. I will come on to why this issue is so passionately considered by many of my constituents due to the ongoing failings of Bradford Council.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore). As he knows, I fully support him on this Bill, and I thought he set out the case fantastically well. I should say that the people of Keighley and Ilkley are very lucky to have him representing them. He is a fantastic Member of Parliament both in this place and locally, and I very much trust he will be for many years to come.

Both my hon. Friend and I stood at the last election on a promise that we would endeavour to break our constituencies away from Bradford Council. He set out many of the reasons why Bradford Council is failing. Actually, it is failing not just our constituents, but the people of Bradford. However, they have their own Members of Parliament to represent them, and it is our duty to represent our constituents. It is not just that Bradford Council is failing and incompetent, although it is. It is worse than that, as far as I am concerned: it is actually that it does not care about our constituents; it just cares about its Bradford heartlands. If you do not mind, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will give a couple of examples to illustrate why that is the case, should anybody deny it. There are many examples I could give, but I am going to give two that I think set out the case quite clearly.

Bradford Council is of course always strapped for cash, if we listen to it, and my hon. Friend made a very good point about council tax income, which I will come on to a bit later. It announced a few years ago that it was going to close the swimming pool in Bingley in my constituency, which was a very popular and well-used facility that was used by lots of the schoolchildren we are trying to encourage to do more sport. Of course, Bradford Council’s reason is always that it has not got enough money, and some people may have some sympathy with that. Unfortunately, at the same time as it made the announcement about closing Bingley swimming pool, it announced that it was going to build five brand-new swimming pools in other parts of the Bradford district—so much for lack of resources being the issue. It was quite blatantly because it wanted to put them in its Labour heartlands, and it did not really care about people in Bingley.

However, I have a better, ongoing example. One thing in Bradford Council’s Airedale masterplan from years ago—from about the time I became the local MP, if not before—was to introduce a Shipley eastern bypass. It was recommended by the consultants Arup, who were paid by Bradford Council to come up with this masterplan. It recommended a Shipley eastern bypass, which I wholly agree with and have been campaigning for ever since. After the then Secretary of State for Transport came to see with his own eyes the issues that would be resolved by a Shipley eastern bypass, in early 2019 the Government gave Bradford Council hundreds of thousands of pounds to conduct a feasibility study of this proposal—to see how much it would cost, where it would go and all the rest of it.

Bradford Council was given this money, and it agreed that it would produce the feasibility study by the autumn of 2019. The autumn of 2019 came and went, and no feasibility study was produced by Bradford Council. Then it was going to be the spring of 2020, but that came and went, and there was no feasibility study. We are now almost in March 2022, and Bradford Council still has not completed the feasibility study into the Shipley eastern bypass, and then it has the brass neck to complain that it does not get infrastructure investment into the Bradford district. The Government are trying to facilitate this, and it cannot even do the small bit of the jigsaw that it has to put in place. If that does not demonstrate beyond any doubt that Bradford Council does not care about infrastructure in my constituency, I do not know what would. It would not surprise me if it had barely started it. It clearly does not want to do the project because it would largely benefit the people of my constituency, so it is of zero interest. I think that is pretty shocking, to be perfectly honest.

Bradford Council has not completed a feasibility study, which is either because it is wholly incompetent or because it does not care about my constituents. Those are the only two explanations that anyone can offer. I am happy for it to explain which one it is—it can choose. It can make a public statement about that. I do not care which one it is, but it is clearly one or the other. That proves beyond any doubt in my mind that it really does not care about my constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley rightly feels the same about his constituency.

The Bradford area is not suited to being so big—it is too big. I will give a simple explanation of why it does not work. People and the local media often ask me what I am doing for Bradford. As it happens, I do quite a lot, including helping to secure millions of pounds to help the old Odeon in Bradford become a live music venue—without that Government support, that project would not have been viable—and, along with colleagues in Bradford, helping to save the National Media Museum, which was threatened with closure. But, the thing is, no one ever asks Bradford MPs what they are doing for Shipley or Keighley—it is always a one-way street. That goes to show how this area does not work for anybody. We are thrown in as if we are part of Bradford when we have our own needs—and frankly, for my constituents, decision making in Bradford is just as remote as decision making in Whitehall.

My hon. Friend gave some good examples of Bradford Council’s failures. He mentioned child sexual exploitation and how we need a Rotherham-style inquiry to get to the bottom of that, but it continually refuses to agree to that because it is more concerned with trying to protect its reputation than with those children who have been put in a terrible situation. He also mentioned how the Government took children’s services away from the council because it had been failing so badly. We have had some terrible cases. The awful murder of Star Hobson, which happened in my hon. Friend’s constituency, uncovered huge failings by Bradford Council, which had been made well aware of the case.

I agree with my hon. Friend that one of the worst aspects of Bradford Council for my constituents relates to building on the green belt, which affects his constituents just as it does mine. That also goes to show how useless the council is. It is always banging on about regenerating Bradford and how important that is for the district—it does not talk much about regenerating Keighley or Shipley—and then it builds hundreds of houses on the green belt in Wharfedale in my constituency. Of course, people in Wharfedale do not shop in Bradford because it is not easy for them to get to Bradford; they get on the train and go to Leeds. Bradford Council’s housing policy is actually regenerating Leeds rather than Bradford.

Bradford Council does not build houses in places where people would want to work and shop in Bradford. It does not have a joined-up policy to help itself; it is just a numbers exercise for the council, with it wanting to build as many houses as it can in desirable areas of our constituencies to tick a box without any thought about our constituents or even how Bradford might be helped. I am almost certain that a local authority made up only of our two constituencies would not have agreed to some of the housing developments that Bradford Council has imposed on my constituents against their wishes. It will not rest until it has concreted over every last bit of green-belt land in my constituency, which is something that I try to stop.

My hon. Friend mentioned how his constituency has been excluded from the levelling-up fund. I have the same story to tell. We might think that a council that has been griping for years that it has not had enough money to do anything would have had lots of projects ready to go—those that it had wanted to do for years and years. Bingley is the second largest place in my constituency. I have asked Bradford Council to develop a levelling-up fund bid for Bingley. Given how many years Bingley has been under the control of Bradford Council, one would have thought it would have something on the shelf—“If we got £20 million for Bingley, this is what we’d do.” The Government announced a levelling-up fund—“Put your bids in.” Bradford Council said, “Can we have one for Bingley?” and it was “Oh no. We haven’t got anything ready for that. We can’t. We’ll have to start working on it.” Start working on it! They had not even thought about how they might regenerate Bingley.

Indeed, they had thought about it so little that they were not even in a position to put in a bid when the Government are handing out money. They are having to start working out what they might do to regenerate Bingley. We missed the first round of bidding, putting at risk whether we may or may not get anything from a future bid. But do not worry, Madam Deputy Speaker, a bid for Bradford West was ready to go in the first round, and I am sure my constituents were hugely reassured by that.

[Robbie Moore]

Does my hon. Friend agree it is shocking that when this Conservative Government come along and say, “You can apply for up to £20 million for the Shipley constituency and £20 million for the Keighley constituency”, there was not even an application for up to £40 million that could have come in to revitalise the Aire valley corridor? It was not even applied for.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it is frustrating for those of us who are trying to do the best for our local area to have a local authority that has all the power in the area but does not do its bit. It is telling that the biggest investments we have had recently in the towns fund for Shipley and Keighley have both come from the Government, and not from the Labour council that has had years to try to regenerate the town centres but has not done anything about it. That is why the Bill is so important to me and my constituents, and they will welcome it.

Time is against us, and I accept that the Minister may not be able to accept the Bill today. I hope, however, that she will commit to holding further discussions with me and my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley to see how we can progress the grave injustice that our constituents are facing, and see what can be done to ensure they are properly represented at local level. Surely local government should be all about being local—indeed, as local as possible. What on earth is the point of it if it is so big in area that people feel no affinity to the local government area that is governing them? It is completely pointless. We must make local government much more local again.

The Bill is a perfect way of going about that. It would mean that our two constituencies would be able to petition to set up a new local authority. If the majority of my constituents, and those of my hon. Friend, wanted that to happen, it would happen. Who can be against that form of local democracy and ensuring that we have a local authority that our constituents want? Does any political party want to oppose that principle? I cannot think they would want to face their electorate by saying that they are opposed to that principle, but we will be delighted to hear what the Labour party says about whether it favours that kind of local democracy. My constituents do not want to be part of Bradford Council, and neither do those of my hon. Friend.

I am prepared to be more generous than my hon. Friend, and I hope the Minister will also take this into consideration. Under the Bill—I think my hon. Friend is right to do this in principle—if a majority of voters in those two constituencies wanted to break away and set up their own local authority, the Government would implement that. I am prepared to make a generous offer to go further. I am happy to have a referendum in the whole Bradford district about whether we should break away from Bradford Council. It would mean that the Bradford part of that district would have the majority of people in it, but I am happy to take my chances on that. People might say, “Well of course if you break away that will affect Bradford”, but I am happy for everyone to have a vote in that referendum. Let’s go for it. I will make that generous offer. Who could possibly disagree with that? I hope that the Government will look at what can be done to ensure that local government is genuinely local, so that my constituents are no longer short-changed by the appalling Bradford Council, which is not only incompetent but does not really care about my constituents or those of my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley.



I commend my hon. Friend for keeping to his promise at the last election to do whatever he could to ensure that our constituencies break away from the horror of Bradford Council and set up our own local authority. This would be a viable local authority—it would be exactly the same size as neighbouring Calderdale Council, so nobody could say that it was not viable. I therefore hope the Government will take steps to ensure that my constituents and his can be properly looked after and feel represented at a local democracy level, because they are certainly not at the moment. It is an absolute pleasure to be the parliamentary neighbour of my hon. Friend, who is a superb representative of his constituents. I stand shoulder to shoulder with him on this Bill, and we will not give in. We will keep up this fight until we get justice for our constituents.

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak for the third time. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) on bringing this Bill forward for its Second Reading today. He has been a passionate campaigner on this issue since his election in 2019 and has found common cause with my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who has long called for the separation of the Shipley constituency from Bradford Metropolitan District Council. Both constituencies continue to suffer from the misery of the 1970s local government reorganisation.

I was delighted to learn that my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley did not secure his place for a private Member’s Bill in the usual way through the ballot; nor indeed did he present a ten-minute rule Bill. Rather, he used the very rare method of camping out on a certain date outside the Table Office—a lesson to us all in commitment to the cause. He is a true champion for Keighley and Ilkley, fighting hard to improve the lives of his constituents. I could draw the House’s attention to his many local campaigns and successes, such as the rebuilding of Airedale Hospital, protecting green space on North Street in Keighley or the town deal that he helped to secure for Keighley. However, I think that his campaign to keep Haworth post office open has been particularly moving, to the extent that I felt compelled to sign up myself.

This Bill is further testament to my hon. Friend’s commitment to campaigning and his drive and energy to champion his constituency, stand up for the needs of his constituents and ensure that their concerns are heard here. I commend him for that. He has set out a positive and robust argument in favour of his Bill and his desire for the Keighley and Shipley constituencies to break away from the horrors of Bradford Metropolitan District Council. I understand that the Keighley and Shipley constituencies generate the highest revenues for Bradford Council through their council tax payments. However, from what we have heard today, it is clear that Bradford Council is not delivering for the people of these two constituencies. My hon. Friend has also made a strong and compelling case, setting out the failings of Bradford Council.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. My constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) provide by far the highest amount of council tax income for Bradford Council, but it is not just that; it is the fact that we actually pay our council tax in our areas. In Wharfedale, 99.2% of council tax income is collected, whereas the last year’s figures that I have available show that City ward collected only 79% of its council tax. Indeed, £12 million of council tax income goes uncollected each year by Bradford Council, despite its pleading poverty.

[Peter Gibson]

I am grateful for that intervention, which gives a shining example of the horrors of Bradford Council and many others across the country in failing to collect council tax, which is shameful behaviour.

We have all been horrified by the stories that my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley shared about children and young people’s services in Bradford Council. In my view, the Government were absolutely right to strip the council of control over its children’s services department this year. No vulnerable child or young adult should be failed by those whose role is to protect them, and I sincerely hope that childhood services in Bradford can turn a corner.

In my constituency, many residents will no doubt be sympathetic to my hon. Friends’ desire for Keighley and Shipley to break away from Bradford District Council. Darlington was a non-metropolitan district of Durham County Council until, on 1 April 1997, the borough of Darlington absorbed the powers of the county council to become a unitary authority, the third smallest in the country, and Darlington Borough Council was formed. Darlington residents felt forgotten and abandoned by Durham County Council, and, given what we have heard today, I have no doubt that that is exactly how the residents of Keighley and Shipley feel about Bradford Council. In Darlington, we also know a lot about how ineffective Labour-run administrations can be, especially when they rest on their laurels and take our communities for granted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Gibson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Be it the non-collection of council tax or the failure to listen to communities, we see the failings of Labour-led local authorities up and down the country. Darlington Borough Council now works hard to improve the lives of my constituents, and I want to take this opportunity to praise that Conservative-led council for the hard work it has done since we wrested power from the ineffective Labour administration in 2019. It is hugely important for people to feel that they are being properly represented by their local councils, and there is clearly a demand and need for that in Keighley and Shipley.

However, my hon. Friend’s Bill leaves a number of questions about how the process that it sets out would actually work. As I understand it, the Bill would allow two or more parliamentary constituencies to form a new authority following a referendum, but what would be the impact of the current parliamentary boundary changes if Keighley and Shipley were to do that? Those constituencies could potentially take in more of the other parts of Bradford than they are leaving behind, subject to a boundary commission. What would happen to the respective police and crime commissioner positions? What would happen to the respective police and ambulance services?

Let us take the example of Darlington. I do not represent all the borough council wards in Parliament; my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell) also represents a number of wards. Why should a new local authority form around two or more constituencies when we know that those constituency boundaries could potentially change following a boundary commission review?

My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley will no doubt have noted the recent changes to local government just to the north of my constituency in North Yorkshire, with the election of a new unitary council to replace the eight councils that were established there in the 1970s. There is also the prospect of a combined authority to cover York and North Yorkshire.

[Philip Davies]

I am sure my hon. Friend accepts that parliamentary boundaries change on a regular basis, and that that does not necessitate a change in local authority boundaries. In many cases, Members of Parliament have to represent constituencies that cover different local authorities. The fact that parliamentary boundaries may or may not change in the future will have absolutely no bearing on the authority once it has been established.

[Peter Gibson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I simply raised the point for consideration in the discussion of this Bill.

As I have already mentioned, the new unitary authority that is being established in North Yorkshire already contains many historic parts of the old west riding of Yorkshire, such as Skipton, Settle, Selby, Harrogate and Ripon, and I can see no reason why the great West Yorkshire towns of Ilkley, Shipley and Keighley could not explore a move into the new North Yorkshire council area, with which they could have much more affinity.

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley for the intentions of his Bill. He continues to stand up for the interests of his constituents, and that cannot be faulted. Unfortunately, though, I have concluded that I will not be supporting his Bill today. Bradford Metropolitan District Council clearly needs to listen more closely to the needs of residents of the Keighley and Shipley constituencies, and I hope that this debate today will make that clear to the council and it gets the message that it needs to represent fully all residents of the council area.

I cannot support this Bill today, but I wish my hon. Friends the Members for Keighley and for Shipley every success in holding Bradford Metropolitan District Council to account for the dreadful horrors and in ensuring that the concerns and needs of their constituents are properly heard, so that the council no longer ignores places such Shipley, Keighley and Ilkley.

[The Minister for Levelling Up Communities (Kemi Badenoch)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) on securing a place in the ballot for this private Member’s Bill on introducing referendums into the process of local government boundary reviews. He, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) have both raised, very passionately, a number of serious issues around the service that they are receiving from Bradford Council. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) for his contribution.

The Government remain committed to their policy that local government reorganisation, whether it involves boundary or unitary changes, should be locally led. I commit to working with my hon. Friends the Members for Shipley and for Keighley as requested on the various issues that they have raised.

The Bill makes provision for certain processes to be followed where boundary changes are being sought, particularly where the boundary change would result in an area being taken out of an existing local government area and the creation of a wholly new area with a wholly new council.

[Philip Davies]

I absolutely understand why the Government would not wish to interfere in bringing forward a top-down reorganisation of local authorities; that would be inappropriate, and I understand why they would be reluctant to do that. Does the Minister accept though that the beauty of my hon. Friend’s Bill is that, in the Government’s stated position of changes being locally led, nothing indicates something more locally led than a local referendum, where all the people have a chance to vote to say where they want to be represented? Does she agree that this Bill fulfils that Government policy of locally led changes?

[Kemi Badenoch]

Absolutely; it does meet that locally led test, but that is not the only test that we would be applying.

The processes that Parliament has established for changing a local government boundary are centred on the Local Government Boundary Commission for England, so that is another step that would be required. We all know that a boundary change can be effected only if it is recommended by that commission. The issue at the moment, which is why we cannot accept this Bill in the way that it has been drafted, is that it would cut across those processes.

The long title of the Bill is:

“A Bill to make provision to enable parliamentary constituency areas to form new unitary local authority areas if agreed by referendum; to make provision for such referendums; and for connected purposes.”

The Bill would be very sweeping indeed. We would be concerned about a number of aspects of this approach.

First, parliamentary constituencies may not be a sound basis for establishing the right level of service delivery—that must be a consideration. We also need to make sure that the boundaries can be established only where there is a safeguard against anything that might lose the confidence of the local democracy. That is definitely not the case here, but a referendum could be promoted by some politicians of a particular party and lead to the creation of councils primarily on a party political basis. As the Bill is drafted, there is no prevention mechanism to stop something like that from happening.

[Philip Davies]

I appreciate that time is running out, so may I take this opportunity to thank the Minister for agreeing to meet me and my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley to discuss how we might bring forward a Bill that satisfies our requirements and those of the Government? That will be very helpful and I am grateful to the Minister for indicating that she is prepared to do that.

[Kemi Badenoch]

I thank my hon. Friend. He and I will be able to work together on this issue with our hon. Friend the Member for Keighley—