Local Government Bill [Lords]

Robert Neill Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Williamson]

The members from the hon. Gentleman’s party in Norwich were pretty irrelevant, actually, to—[Hon. Members: “Oh!”] They were irrelevant to the extent that they represent—[Interruption]—if the Secretary of State will allow me—a rump in that authority. Let us be clear about that.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)]

If the hon. Gentleman regards the issue of party support and the views of councillors as the sole determining factor, can he explain why his right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), when she was Secretary of State, rejected exactly the proposal with which we are concerned because it did not meet the required criteria?

[Chris Williamson]

The hon. Gentleman is not listening to me. I did not say that that was the sole determining factor at all, and he should listen a little more carefully. I know that this is one of my first appearances at the Dispatch Box, but if he listened more carefully he might learn a thing or two.

Labour Members very much support the benefits of unitary status for local authorities.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)]

Perhaps I should start by congratulating my opposite number, the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson), on having achieved the remarkable feat, in his first speech at the Dispatch Box in a debate of this kind—although we have addressed some previous business on a less contentious matter—of having managed to string together more clichés than I have ever heard in a single speech. He did so without any visible trace of irony whatever; that is what I find really impressive. I can see now that the route to advancement on the Opposition Front Bench is to adopt that well-known school of advocacy, “If in doubt bluster, keep your head down, bluster a bit more and wave your arms around a bit.” That is not so easy to achieve at my height, but if Members see something happening behind the Dispatch Box they will know that I have adopted it.

This has been a rather short sharp, debate, in more ways than one. I suppose it can be said that it has proved that it is possible for a dead cat bounce to have life. [Hon. Members: “Cliché!”] It takes one to know one; I am just checking that hon. Members are still awake. I agree with the hon. Member for Derby North about one thing: in some ways, it is regrettable that we need to have this debate at all. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I love coming to the Chamber, but we might have found matters to occupy our time other than having to introduce this Bill and keep hon. Members here.

It is worth looking at the history, so let me go back, as best I can, to the beginning. It was not all that long ago, although it may have seemed so to hon. Members at some points in the debate. The Bill is necessary to deal with the consequences of a nakedly political and questionable act by the Labour Government in their dying days, in ramming through a measure that they themselves had previously rejected—something that might be regarded as gerrymandering, according to any normal definition, and certainly as one of their ultimate U-turns.

Back in 2006 local authorities were invited to put forward proposals for unitary authorities. Some of those have been dealt with and have gone through the process. The purpose of the Bill is to deal with those left outstanding at the end of that process. Let me explain why they are outstanding. Exeter and Norwich submitted unitary bids on the basis of their existing boundaries. In July 2007 the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears)—she still sits on the Opposition Benches, as far as I remember—judged that there was a risk of their bids not being achieved. Indeed, she concluded that Norwich city council’s proposal was such that there was “not a reasonable likelihood” of its achieving the outcome specified by the five objective criteria that she had set, particularly the affordability criteria. She then asked for some further advice from the boundary committee.

The right hon. Lady asked Exeter city council for extra information, which arrived in December, and concluded that its proposal, if implemented, was also unlikely to meet the affordability criteria. Confronted with what might have been a vaguely partisan dilemma, she thought that she would ask the boundary committee to explore the idea of unitaries across the rest of the county, but that did not work either.

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) said that the public wanted those unitaries. I can speak only for Norfolk and Norwich, where in the only printed consultation the public said no. I still have not heard any Labour Member refer to clear polling other than the published polling, which showed that 85% wanted the status quo, 10% wanted a unitary Norfolk and only 3% wanted a unitary Norwich, which the then Secretary of State took forward anyway. The people said no, and the local councils, except one, said no. The House of Lords had concerns, as did the Joint Committee. The Secretary of State then went ahead. That is exactly the opposite of what the hon. Gentleman claimed: it is top-down gerrymandering, whereas this Government are moving forward with true localism and letting the people have their say.

[Robert Neill]

As I hope I can demonstrate to my hon. Friend in a moment, what caused the previous Government’s plans to go awry was the fact that, not liking the results that they were getting, they decided to shift the goalposts at the very last moment—

[Stephen Pound]

Cliché!

[Robert Neill]

It was pretty much in extra time, with the referee about to blow the whistle. Then there came the next stage earlier this year, when the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles had bravely walked into the outer darkness—I believe that the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) did so at much the same time, but she has returned to bask in the sunlight of the Opposition Front Bench, so clearly does not share her right hon. Friend’s opinion now. The then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham), decided that his assessment of the Exeter and Norwich proposals was the same as his predecessor’s. However, he decided to do the opposite, concluding that there were compelling reasons, which had never previously been articulated anywhere, to depart from the presumption that a proposal had to meet all five criteria. That decision was ultimately struck down by the courts. That attempt to ram through a change and shift the goalposts in the dying days of a Government is why we are in the present mess.

The hon. Member for Norwich South (Simon Wright) is right to say that we need not go into the legitimate debates that we could have about the efficacy or otherwise of unitary authorities, because we have here a classic example of how not to go about a local government reorganisation. That is why we need the Bill—to sort out that mess and put an end to the proposals that, having been struck down by the court, would otherwise have been left hanging in the air at the end of the process.

I shall say a word about two of the arguments that have been deployed this afternoon, the first of which is the need for local councils to be master in their own house and restore power to what I accept are ancient and proud cities. There is a serious flaw in that argument, which runs through all the Opposition’s arguments: the fact that they confuse structures with power. That underlines and sums up the error in their approach to local government. They believe that we should give local authorities power by changing structures, reorganising and calling an authority unitary. On the contrary, we seek to give real power back to local authorities by removing the ring-fencing of centralised grants, providing them with the power of general competence, enabling them to work together collaboratively and removing restrictions on their right and ability to represent their constituents. That difference is a classic demonstration of the Opposition’s idea that power is all about tinkering, whereas we think it is actually about giving communities real choices rather than worrying about structures.

[Brandon Lewis]

I thank my hon. Friend for being gracious enough to find time to give way, unlike the Opposition Front Bencher.

Does my hon. Friend agree that although we have heard an awful lot of figures for savings that can be made from a change to unitary status, the real savings come from not spending money on any reorganisation at all, and instead letting local councils share services, without the on-costs that unitary status brings?

[Robert Neill]

That is precisely right. I have known the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) for a long time, and I admire his record in local government. He is no longer in his place, but I hope he would not take it ill if I said that despite his historical reference back to the times of the county borough changes, things have moved on. The argument now is not about restoring county boroughs but about shared services, collaboration, joint working and driving out costs from the corporate core. Creating small unitaries, as Labour proposed, would not have achieved any of that. My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he brings me neatly on to the next point that I wished to make.

There seems to be a misapprehension about the whole issue of value for money and costs. We have always recognised that some savings can be made through restructuring, but the information that the councils supplied in their bids—it is in the impact assessment—showed that there would be set-up costs of £40 million, and that the transition could bring savings of some £39.4 million. However, Labour Members ignore the point that we have repeatedly made, which is set out in the first paragraph of the impact assessment: there is no reason for not making the savings through joint working and shared services—they are well developed in Norfolk, where there is a good shared services agreement, and there are good collaborative arrangements in Exeter—without having to incur the up-front costs of the reorganisation. That is why it is manifestly cheaper not to go down the unitary route. Labour Members conveniently ignored that.

With all due respect to the right hon. Member for Don Valley, she fell into the fallacy of thinking that structure was the same as power. She did not seem to grasp the fact that one her of predecessors on the Front Bench caused the mess that we are tackling.

[Chris Williamson]

If structures are so bad, were the Conservative Government wrong to create so many unitary authorities in the 1990s?

[Robert Neill]

From listening to the hon. Gentleman, I got the impression that unitaries would have become compulsory under a Labour Government. We accept diversity. We believe that if a unitary would cover a small urban area, its impact on the surrounding counties must be taken into account. That aspect is left out of Labour Members’ analysis, although several of my hon. Friends raised it, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) and for Broadland (Mr Simpson), who effectively shredded the arguments of the right hon. Member for Don Valley.

[Chris Williamson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Neill]

Of course; we have all the time in the world.

[Chris Williamson]

I know we have. I wanted to give the Minister another chance to answer the question. Were the Conservative Government wrong to create so many unitary councils in the 1990s, particularly when many were formed in the teeth of opposition from the county councils—[Interruption.] I can hear the Secretary of State saying, “Don’t bother, don’t answer,” but I would be grateful for a response. The Minister appears to believe that it was wrong for us to try to create unitary authorities in Exeter and Norwich, so were the Conservative Government wrong to create so many in the 1990s? It is a simple question—yes or no?

[Robert Neill]

I do not think that they were wrong, but although I am always interested in history, I am not a prisoner of it. Since the 1990s local government has developed mature and sophisticated means, which were much less well recognised then, of working jointly across boundaries. It is also worth remembering that several issues, which must be tackled—interestingly, they arise in the case that we are considering—require cross-boundary working. For example, the ambitions for economic growth and development in both Exeter and Norwich involve developing important sites outside the city boundaries. I have been to both cities; I have not simply telephoned. Many of the development sites, which in Exeter stretch towards the airport, involve collaboration with the district councils, which will be the planning authorities, and with the county councils, which will be the highways authorities, in those areas.

Ernest Newman described extracts from Wagner operas as bleeding chunks, removed from “Tannhäuser” or “Parsifal” to be used at a concert. Taking a city out is extracting a bleeding chunk, disconnecting it from its hinterland. The proposals that Labour Members advocate would be the worst thing for the welfare of the citizens of both cities and counties.

[Mr Bradshaw]

Why, then, did all the business organisations in Exeter, which also reach outside Exeter, support the city’s unitary bid?

[Robert Neill]

Because they had not realised the extent to which an incoming Conservative Government would encourage and facilitate joint working through creating local enterprise partnerships rather than remote economic development associations, and grant the power and general competence to enable local authorities to set up special purpose vehicles. We can answer the arguments very well, without incurring the costs of reorganisation, which is a distraction at a difficult time.

I shall skim briefly through the other contributions out of courtesy. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), like several other of my hon. Friends, forcefully made the point about the need to recognise links. To remove considerable elements of the tax base from the two counties and leave sparsely populated areas with a lower tax base but with, as is generally accepted, the higher costs of delivering the full range of services across rural populations, would significantly undermine their ability to deliver quality services in their areas. That is why the views of residents of the surrounding county areas must be taken into account just as much as those of the residents of the cities. The Opposition have been conveniently silent on that subject.

[Mr Keith Simpson]

On a very important point, I failed to catch the eye of the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson), but he gave the impression that there was a sharp distinction between the poverty-stricken urban deprivation of Norwich and the wealthy rest of Norfolk. I do not think that he has ever been there. That, of course, is the problem. Labour has no MPs in the area: the nearest one is in Luton. The people of King’s Lynn, Great Yarmouth and Thetford would be amazed at such a caricature.

[Robert Neill]

My hon. Friend, who has lived in and around the county pretty much all his life, makes a very well-founded point. I know from when I used to practise as a lawyer in parts of East Anglia that there is real deprivation and difficulty in some of those villages—a fact that seems to be ignored.

That brings me neatly to thanking the hon. Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) for his contribution. It was much appreciated, particularly by Government Members. He confirmed that as a Luton MP, he was the nearest Labour MP to Norwich—a mere two and half hours away—which was a wonderful and graphic illustration of the abyss into which the Labour party has fallen. Next time, so that he can strengthen his arguments about Norwich rather than rely on a telephone canvass, we will all club together and get him a day-return fare. He can go there in person, which I hope will help.

[Gavin Shuker]

If the Government were not increasing rail fares by the retail prices index plus 3%, I would be delighted to go to Norwich.

[Robert Neill]

There is sometimes an argument for quitting while in front, but the truth is that the hon. Gentleman demonstrates the complete lack of touch that the Opposition have with people in that part of England, which is why they did not understand the point about rural deprivation that my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson) just made.

We would rather not have brought the Bill to the House, but it is necessary to undo a mess that was created by our predecessors for reasons of the grossest party venality. That must be put right. They pursued that process for no reason other than to pay off some party debts and settle some party scores. It lacked objectivity and intellectual coherence, so now perhaps the kindest thing to do is to lay it gently to rest.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL [LORDS] (PROGRAMME)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7),

That the following provisions shall apply to the Local Government Bill [Lords]:

Committal

1. The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.

Proceedings in Public Bill Committee

2. Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Thursday 4 November 2010.

3. The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.

Consideration and Third Reading

4. Proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.

5. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.

6. Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on consideration and Third Reading.

Other proceedings

7. Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of any message from the Lords) may be programmed.—(Robert Neill.)

Question agreed to.