Local Government Reform

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Alec Shelbrooke]

An enhancement of contribution would be a better description than more powers. My constituency includes several parish councils and a town council—I would encourage two of my towns, Rothwell and Garforth, that they need a town council. Where the contribution is not taking place is between Leeds City Council and the areas that do not have a town or parish council, on the future direction of planning policy. It is not a question of passing more powers down, but of enhancing the ability of areas to take part in sensible negotiations and conversations, and reflecting that in council policies.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is providing an interesting overview of local government. I served as a councillor for 12 years. On the point about parish and town councils, the direction of travel through reorganisation and changes of financing arrangements is clearly to give more responsibilities—to passport them down—to lower, possibly more accountable tiers. Does he agree that whereas district, county and borough councils now know that there is a capping regime, the occasional uncertainty from the Department about the precept and capping makes long-term financial planning not as easy as it could be for town and parish councils?

[Alec Shelbrooke]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about some of what I see as the disconnect in long-term planning among different levels of council, from those at the top—the county or unitary authorities—down to the parish councils. One of the ways in which I hope to simplify local government is to give clear delineation and planning for a fixed period.

The key change that I am talking about is effectively to have unitary county councils, with one member per ward of 15,000 people. I have chosen that figure, but I am not wedded to it; it is simply the case that in my city of Leeds, we have three councillors representing wards of 15,000 to 18,000 people. One councillor representing those wards would have more of a direct link to those people, rather than the link’s being diluted among three councillors. That is by no means to disparage any councillor. My experience has been that the local councillors in my constituency all work hard and make a contribution to the community, but I have reached the conclusion that it is time for councillors’ hard work and the fact that new powers have been passed down to them to be recognised by paying them a much larger salary. That would allow people to take up the role of councillor and give it their full attention on a full-time basis. I proposed in my paper that that salary should be £37,481, which is half of a Back-Bench MP’s salary.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) for securing this important debate and note his report on local government reform. I certainly welcome the opportunity to discuss this matter. My hon. Friend said that he wanted to trigger a debate on how local authorities are governed, and he certainly has triggered debate in this Chamber. There have been many, varied views from hon. Members and colleagues who have considerable experience in local government, including my hon. Friend.

Local authorities play a vital part in all our lives. They deliver local services, from collecting our bins to caring for some of the most vulnerable citizens in our society. At a time of wider public sector fiscal constraint, and as demand for many of the services increases, the best of local government has shown itself to be agile and enterprising. Government too are focused on ensuring that wherever people may live, they benefit from effective and efficient services. We committed to that in our manifesto and we will continue to set the right conditions for that to happen. We have committed to giving councils greater flexibility and control over their budgets, introducing the ability to retain 100% of business rates in their areas, giving them greater certainty through offering guaranteed funding across this Parliament, rather than annual budgets, and offering the ability to use capital receipts from sales to fund innovation and reform of local authority services.

I share my hon. Friend’s desire for local government to be efficient, effective and accountable. As I know many councils believe, more can be done to improve local government and service delivery, and to provide accountable and stronger local leadership. However, I do not believe that change should be centrally mandated. The right approach is bottom-up, where the initiative is taken locally. When I come to mention my hon. Friend’s comments in more detail, I will elaborate on that.

That is the approach underpinning the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016. It is the approach that we are following for devolution and bringing about governance changes, whether as part of a devolution package, in anticipation of a devolution package, or free-standing to give local people and taxpayers a better deal. Government enacted the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act to enable us to take proposals forward and to implement them where we, and Parliament, are satisfied that they will deliver the better local governance that an area is seeking. There must be a good deal of local consensus. Any new structures must be sustainable and facilitate public service delivery, including effective partnerships with other public agencies, and they must also avoid any unnecessary fragmentation of local services.

Our manifesto set out the need to

“devolve far-reaching powers over economic development, transport and social care to large cities which choose to have elected mayors.”

We have already achieved significant success with 10 devolution deals agreed, nine of which either have established or will establish mayoral combined authorities, covering 30% of England’s population. We remain open to discussing credible proposals from other areas. I will go on to clarify some of the points raised, in particular by my hon. Friends the Members for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) and for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers).

The deals that we are talking about are to give local leaders the power to drive growth in their areas, but I would reiterate a comment that I have made many times before: there is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Devolution is not just about our largest cities; it is for the whole country—cities, towns and rural areas of all sizes. I have also said many times before that each deal will be negotiated to meet the needs of the area in question. However, devolution must include effective, efficient and accountable governance arrangements commensurate with the size and scope of the powers to be exercised. In some areas, that might mean that local areas may wish to look again at their governance structures.

The report by hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell also recommends changes to local election arrangements, including moving to whole council elections and single member wards. This is generally for the Local Government Boundary Commission to consider, but that does not mean councils cannot approach the commission to request a review of their electoral arrangements, should they wish to. My hon. Friend’s comments today may well stimulate significant debate in that regard.

The role of a councillor has been discussed, but I would certainly say that a councillor is a community champion, and that the role is a vocation and not necessarily a profession. That is not to say that councillors do not bring significant professionalism to their roles; they make complex decisions that impact on the lives of tens of thousands of people in their areas. They do that repeatedly and successfully and, in my experience, the vast majority of councillors do it in an extremely professional way. In keeping with that vocational role, councillors receive not a salary but an allowance to ensure that they are not left out of pocket as a result of performing their public duty. Standardising a scheme of allowances, as my hon. Friend mentioned, would go against the principles of localism and devolving power to local authorities. We should trust councillors to ensure that the scheme of allowances they set is fair and proportionate.

Certainly, having a full-time job and being a councillor can be a challenge. I know that a number of hon. Members in this room have experienced the challenge of juggling different roles. My experience is that I was the leader of a district council, I had a full-time job and, latterly in that role, I was also the parliamentary candidate. I did feel as though I was spinning lots of plates and trying to run from one end to the other to keep those plates in the air. I do think there are benefits, as one or two hon. Members have mentioned, in having councillors that can bring their employment experiences to the council chamber. There are also benefits to people being able to take their experiences of the council chamber and the council back to their workplaces. That can benefit businesses and the roles that they undertake in their private capacity.

At this stage, let me pick up a few points that have been made. My hon. Friend gave us a very eloquent run-down of the history of local government. This Government have used that history to learn significantly from what has happened, which is why we have gone for a bottom-up, rather than a top-down, approach.

My hon. Friend mentioned the importance of parish councils and town councils, and the Government recognise that. He said that one or two areas in his constituency may benefit from having a town council, and I would direct him to have a look at Sutton Coldfield Town Council, one of the latest town councils to come into being. It is in a district of Birmingham, which is the largest local authority in the country, so he may want to look at that example.

My hon. Friend made an important point about how we conduct local government elections. He and I are absolutely on the same page, as are the Government, on retaining first-past-the-post elections as the best way to hold elected representatives to account.

[Simon Hoare]

The Minister mentioned town and parish councils. Clearly, with devolution there is a flow down to a more granular level, and we all welcome that. May I invite him to give some departmental thinking time to the codes of conduct and standards? They are very clear on the lines of communication at a county, district or borough level, but are less so at lower levels of local government. As they are going to be handling more money and be more involved in the delivery of often complex local infrastructure and facilities, we need to have a little think about that, because there is a lot of confusion about which rules cover town and parish councils and which do not.

[Mr Jones]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Parish and town councils are there to serve local people; they should have transparent arrangements and be accountable to local people. That can obviously be done through the ballot box and through parish polls. Generally, when there is an issue of standards, the person with that issue can seek redress through the monitoring officer of that local authority, which is usually the principal council for that area. That said, my hon. Friend makes an important point and the arrangements in that regard are something that we constantly look at. We will continue to do so.

Let me mention an issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes, who welcomed the devolution agenda and having a strong and accountable elected mayor. I reassure him that there is no change in policy in that regard. The choice about whether a local area wants an elected mayor is very much one for that area, but when significant and ambitious powers are to be devolved from Whitehall and from Secretaries of State, who are currently accountable in the Chamber to Members of this House as the local representatives, we— understandably, in my view—require a strong figure who would be locally elected and locally accountable.