Draft Buckinghamshire (Structural Changes) (modification of the local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007) Regulations 2019

Rishi Sunak Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rishi Sunak)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Buckinghamshire (Structural Changes) (Modification of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007) Regulations 2019.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Austin. These regulations were laid before the House on 14 January. If approved and made, they will pave the way for further statutory instruments to give full effect to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s decision to implement the locally led proposal to replace the five existing Buckinghamshire councils with a new single unitary council. The regulations are therefore an enabling element in the process of implementing that locally led proposal.

If approved by Parliament and made, the regulations will allow orders to be made under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 to implement the Buckinghamshire proposal. They provide for part 1 of the 2007 Act to be varied in relation to Buckinghamshire so that first, proposals may be made for the purposes of the 2007 Act by any principal authority in Buckinghamshire on its own initiative; secondly, any proposal received from Buckinghamshire councils by the Secretary of State —including proposals existing before the regulations are made—may be implemented by order, with or without modification; and thirdly, the requirement for the Secretary of State to consult the councils affected by the proposals and other persons will not apply, reflecting the extensive consultation undertaken by the county council and the subsequent period for representations.

The regulations would expire at the end of March 2021, to allow sufficient time for all necessary orders to be made under the 2007 Act to give full effect to the proposals. The Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016 requires that, for regulations made on or before 31 March 2019, at least one of the councils must give its consent for those regulations to be made. Buckinghamshire County Council has given its consent to the making of these regulations.

In conclusion, we are responding to a locally led proposal to replace the existing, unsustainable local government structures in Buckinghamshire with a new council that will be able to deliver high-quality, sustainable local services to the people of Buckinghamshire and provide effective leadership at both the strategic and most local levels. All the existing councils have made clear their commitment to delivering the best services for Buckinghamshire communities. These regulations open the door to delivering that commitment, and on that basis I commend them to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their helpful contributions. It is particularly helpful to have contributions from Members who have served in my Department. I pay particular tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham for the tenacity with which she has represented her district councils’ case, not just today but for many months preceding this debate.

I will take the various issues in turn and pick up on the questions that were posed. I will start by informing the Committee of the Government’s general approach to reorganisation, which my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole touched on. There is a formal set of criteria that my predecessor, the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), outlined when he had this job. The Government will consider locally led and locally developed proposals according to three criteria: that they would improve local government in the area; that they represent a credible geography; and that they command a good deal of local support.

I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham; the Government received two proposals, both locally developed and led. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset said, there is no top-down imposition here. One of the proposals was received at the end of 2016 and the other at the beginning of 2017. As we have heard, the process has been going on for some time, in order to get this right. When both the current Secretary of State and his predecessor evaluated the proposals according to the criteria, they concluded that both of them satisfied the criterion regarding demanding a good deal of local support.

We heard some statistics earlier, and it might be worth informing the Committee that there was widespread support from everyone for the principle of reorganisation in general, to simplify the local government structure. For example, 75% of survey respondents said that they believed in supporting reorganisation and 87% of the representations received by the Government also supported the principle. Similarly, all public sector bodies and business groups supported in general the principle of local government reorganisation in Buckinghamshire. There was, of course, disagreement about whether it should take the form of a single unitary or two unitaries, but it is worth the Committee knowing that all public sector providers were in favour of the single unitary proposal, as were the majority of respondents to the open questionnaire, which totalled just shy of 2,500, the majority of opinion in the focus groups, the Buckinghamshire Thames Valley local enterprise partnership, Buckinghamshire Business First, which represents about 10,000 local businesses, and the children’s services commissioner.

That said, both proposals commanded local support. The question for the Secretary of State, therefore, was whether they both also satisfied the two other criteria for local government reorganisation: improving local government and representing a credible geography. For reasons that have been outlined in various statements, the Secretary of State felt that the proposal for two unitaries was not in keeping with those two criteria. One of the LEPs thought that the proposal did not represent a credible geography, and there was concern, especially from the children’s services commissioner, about the fragmentation of services in Buckingham if we went for the option of two unitaries.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole said, there was a significant question about size. One of the unitaries would have 188,000 people in it, which is considerably below the Government’s published recommendation that local government reorganisation should happen in areas in excess of about 300,000 or 350,000. That judgment is based on research and analysis carried out by the Department and others, which suggests that the optimal size for a unitary authority is 400,000 to 600,000. As my hon. Friend said, some smaller unitaries are more concerned about financial stability, their ability to attract high-quality leadership and other such things, given their small scale.

On that basis, the Secretary of State decided to implement this locally led proposal. I would be the first to acknowledge that it came as disappointing news to the district councils, but the Government and I have strived hard to work with them to alleviate their concerns about the implementation of the proposal. I have had a very constructive meeting with all the district council leaders, and my officials have had several meetings with them. We are currently working with them on the nuts and bolts of the implementation of the proposal, and we are making good, constructive progress.

I draw the Committee’s attention to the press release that all district councils issued when the decision about this proposal was announced. It said:

“This is a golden opportunity to transform all service provision in Bucks”.

I hope that is a statement of their constructive attitude. That is what I have found when dealing with them.

There was mention of a judicial review. I am pleased to quote from the letter received from the district councils, which states:

“The legal action is not intended to frustrate the process of creating a new council. We have been working with our district and county colleagues and will continue to do so.”

I thank them for that.

[Dame Cheryl Gillan]

I judge that the Minister is about to conclude his remarks?

[Rishi Sunak]

No.

[Dame Cheryl Gillan]

That is good, as I will have another opportunity to intervene later.

On the judicial review, I think the district councils have taken that action because they feel that not enough progress has been made. If the Minister is now offering me assurances that progress will be made with my district council and the other two district councils involved in the judicial review, that gives me some cause for optimism. Will he perhaps say when he will meet them again, and what progress he has made since the judicial review was instigated?

[Rishi Sunak]

It would be remiss of me to comment in detail on legal proceedings or the legal strategy that district councils might wish to pursue. I met them right at the beginning of the process to understand their concerns and to ensure that the Government work with all the district councils and the county council to put in place structural change orders that can command widespread support.

The Secretary of State’s special adviser is meeting all the leaders tomorrow, and I would be happy—as I always am—to meet them to follow up anything that requires my attention. We have been discussing things such as the number of councillors, the timing of elections and whether the new authority should be a continuing authority. I am pleased to say that, on almost every item of business that the district councils raised with me, we have been able to meet their requirements. There is of course one sticking point, which is the leadership of the shadow executive. The hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton raised that issue, and I will come to it in a second. I am pleased to say that, on almost every other concern they have, the Government have shown them that we are willing to work with them—as, indeed, is the county council, which also deserves credit for its constructive attitude. I remain positive and optimistic that we can all come together, and that the structural change orders, when finalised, will command broad support from all concerned.

That brings me to the question of leadership. It was alleged that the Government are imposing top-down leadership on the new body. It was said that that is not good for localism and is something that the district councils are concerned about. The hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton asked specifically about precedent. I am pleased to tell him that there are considerable precedents for central Government specifying the leader of a shadow executive or an implementation executive in such situations. He may be keen to know that in the last wave of large unitarisations—carried out by the Labour Government in 2009, in Cornwall, Durham, Northumberland, Shropshire and Wiltshire—the Government specified a particular leader for the shadow or implementation executive in all cases. That was also the case in Bedfordshire and Cheshire. I hope that he feels that there is suitable precedent in that regard, at least from his own party.

We are going one better than that, because we believe in localism. From day one, the shadow executive will have the ability to elect its own leader or change the leader that has been appointed, but it will start with an appointed leader who is named. Thereafter, we are specifically discussing that kind of issue with the district councils. I hope that the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton is reassured that that outcome respects localism and local choice.

I turn to the specific questions about process and the suggestion that the right papers have not been laid, which is not at all the case. As I outlined, we are discussing the regulations that enable the process to take place. The orders that have been mentioned will be the subject of a full parliamentary debate, such as this one, when they have been finalised after discussions with the district councils. There is no question of Parliament being deprived of the opportunity to scrutinise and debate those orders. I look forward to the contributions of Opposition Members and Members on this side of the Committee who have expressed an interest in those orders when we return for that fixture, hopefully in a few weeks or months.

There is no legal requirement for the structural change orders to be laid at the same time as the regulations. That has been possible in the past but, in this case it was not, as the orders are still being worked on with the district councils. That said, a draft of the orders is very much in development and has been shared with all the district councils as it is being worked on and finalised.

On the suggestion that we did not have the right consent to lay the orders, I am pleased to tell the Committee that we received subsequent and unambiguous consent from Buckinghamshire County Council. If there was any suggestion that its original consent was conditional, I would be more than happy to place a copy of that letter in the House of Commons Library, if that will please hon. Members. I assure them that all suitable consents for the regulations have been sought.

[Dame Cheryl Gillan]

I have two things to say. First, I read a direct quote, as I understand it, from a letter from the Secretary of State that said that that consent is on the basis of his decision on the draft structural changes order. So that is a strange thing for the Minister to say, when that was set out in a letter—I do not have the date it was sent. Certainly, that is how I was advised by my district council.

Secondly, I hope that we will resolve this and get all our councils working together and pulling in one direction, but there needs to be some meeting of minds and joint working. This morning the county council put out a press release, announcing unilaterally its members of the shadow authority, rather than working with the district councils and announcing that jointly, which is not a strong indication that it will work with the district councils. I hope that jumping the gun and doing things unilaterally will become things of the past. If elected representatives would like the new authority to work positively, they should do things together, not separately or individually—that is a red rag to a bull.

The Minister knows that it has been an uncomfortable time in Buckinghamshire for many reasons, and we would like to see that healed. I am sorry that my colleagues are not here to speak up on such matters from their perspective, but I hope that I have put forward the case of Chiltern District Council and the other district councils that are having problems with the way this is moving forward. I urge him to try to find a speedy solution.

[Rishi Sunak]

That is a perfect place to conclude. I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. It is time for a fresh start for Buckinghamshire. It is time for people to forget about what has happened in the past, leave aside the tags of district and county, and come together to work for the benefit of residents. I hope that I can work collectively with my right hon. Friend, all hon. Members who are interested in the area and all local government agents in Buckinghamshire, to ensure that we foster that new sense of purpose and of new beginnings. Based on my experience in meetings, I remain positive and optimistic that that is happening. Of course these things are difficult, but we are moving through them positively. I remain confident that, before too long, we will have a happy resolution to all outstanding matters, and that the people of Buckinghamshire can look forward to a bright future.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Buckinghamshire (Structural Changes) (Modification of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007) Regulations 2019.