Draft Dorset (Structural Changes) (Modification Of The Local Government And Public Involvement In Health Act 2007) Regulations 2018 Draft Bournemouth, Dorset And Poole (Structural Changes) Order 2018

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 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 Dorset (Structure Changes) (Modification of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007) Regulations 2018.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. I am delighted to see so many hon. Members present. The statutory instruments were laid before this House on 29 March. If approved, they will provide for the abolition of the nine existing local government areas in Dorset and their councils, and similarly affect the existing boroughs of Bournemouth and Poole, the county of Dorset and the boroughs and districts in the county of Dorset. They will also allow for the establishment of two new local government areas and two new single-tier unitary councils for the area on 1 April 2019.

The Government, as made clear in our manifesto, are committed to supporting those local authorities that wish to combine to serve their communities better. We have also announced to the House that we will consider any locally led proposals for local government restructuring that are put forward by one or more of the councils concerned and that improve local government and service delivery, create structures with a credible geography and command a good deal of local support.

The Dorset councils’ proposals would establish a single tier of local government across the whole of Dorset, replacing the nine existing local government areas and their councils with two new local government areas and councils: one to cover the areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, and a second covering the rest of Dorset.

Dorset estimates that that has the potential to generate savings of at least £108 million over the first six years. The full transformation programme, which unitarisation makes possible, offers the potential to save more than £170 million over that period. In bringing forward their proposal, the nine Dorset councils undertook extensive engagement and open consultation. That included a formal consultation from August to October 2016, comprising the following elements: an open consultation; a representative household survey; a survey of all parish and town councils; 15 lengthy deliberative workshops; nine in-depth telephone interviews with representatives of some of Dorset’s largest companies; and finally, the opportunity to submit written submissions.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Could my hon. Friend amplify two points? First, the proposal is to create two new councils, not to merge existing local authorities; secondly, the most germane point is that this has been a grassroots-up proposal, not a top-down diktat.

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank my hon. Friend for both his points, which he made well and with which I am delighted to agree. This locally led and locally driven proposal came from the bottom up for Government to consider.

The consultation programme achieved well over 70,000 responses. There was clear support for moving to two unitary councils. In the representative household survey, 73% of residents were supportive. In general, across all the areas of Dorset, there was an emphatic preference for the proposed option, with 65% of residents in the representative household survey supporting it.

The then Local Government Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), told Parliament in February last year what criteria Government would use for assessing locally led proposals for local government restructuring, namely that the proposal is likely to improve local government in the area concerned; that it has a credible geography; and that it commands a good deal of local support.

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[Rishi Sunak]

I thank my hon. Friend for that comment. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch that I am happy to discuss the issue now, except I fear that he may want to return it in reference to the exchanges on the passing of the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016 and the assurances he believes he was given. He has corresponded at length with the Department on that point. Suffice to say, I think there was a misunderstanding on his part about what was said. It was clearly set out by the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), that the Government would not impose a top-down solution on local government but would respond to locally led and locally driven proposals. That was further clarified in the other place by Baroness Williams of Trafford, who made it explicitly clear that no one council should have a veto on restructuring proposals.

[Simon Hoare]

It is not only the noble baroness who has confirmed that point. In early December, during the Adjournment debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, the then Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), confirmed in response to an intervention by me that unanimity was not required.

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In fact, my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton told the House that the Government’s intention was for those criteria to be assessed in the round and across the whole area subject to a reorganisation, and not to be considered individually by each existing council area.

Following on from that, on 7 November 2017 the then Secretary of State told the House in a written statement that he was “minded to” implement the proposal made by the Dorset councils. A period of representation followed, until 8 January this year, during which we received 210 representations. On the basis of the proposal, the representations and all other relevant information available, the Government are satisfied that all the criteria are met. On 26 February 2018 the Secretary of State announced his decision to implement the proposal, subject to parliamentary approval, and on 29 March laid the draft statutory instruments.

We believe that the proposed governance changes for which we are seeking parliamentary approval will benefit people across the whole of Dorset, in every district and borough. Our aim as a Government is to enable the people of Dorset to have as good a deal as possible on their local services. That is not the view of the Government alone; it is shared by 79% of all councillors across the whole of Dorset, and by other public service providers and businesses, including in particular those responsible for the provision of healthcare, and the police, fire and rescue, and rail services across Christchurch and the wider Dorset area.

As has been mentioned, on 29 November a number of my right hon. and hon. Friends with constituencies in the area wrote to the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), urging him to support the proposal submitted by the Dorset councils as the option that commanded strong local support and that will do the job that needs to be done. They stated that

“the further savings required to be made, if our councils are to continue delivering quality public services, can only be done through a reorganisation of their structures”.

The representative household survey, commissioned by the nine Dorset councils, estimates that 65% of residents across the whole of Dorset support the proposal. Of the nine Dorset councils, eight support the proposed change and have formally consented to the necessary secondary legislation.

Regarding the one Dorset council that does not support the proposal—Christchurch Borough Council—a third of its elected councillors do support the proposal. Those councillors wrote to my right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State, stating:

“We are acutely aware of the constraints on local government funding and the financial pressure that upper tier services are facing. We therefore consider it our duty to respond to these challenges by supporting the restructuring of local government in Dorset.”

Finally, it might be helpful to say something about the statutory framework.

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I think the poll he refers to was an open-ended one run by the borough of Christchurch, which accounts for only 6% of the population of the Dorset area. Secondly, it is not only Christchurch Borough Council that is responsible for the services provided to the residents of Christchurch. The county council provides about 80% of those services. Across the piece, in the representative household survey, which was designed to be statistically representative, there is strong support among more than 60% of Christchurch residents for this particular proposal.

[Simon Hoare]

I have searched, as I am sure the Minister has, all the regulations and guidance for the status of a referendum in this process, but it cannot be found. To call it a referendum is incorrect. It was a parish poll, which is not binding on the commissioning body—that is, the borough council—and it is certainly not binding on Her Majesty’s Government.

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[Rishi Sunak]

I am happy to do that. The Department has received what is called a pre-action protocol letter from Christchurch Borough Council, informing of its consideration of a judicial review. It is important to note that that is not the start of a formal legal proceeding. It is an exploratory letter, to which the Government have responded extremely robustly. We have set out in no uncertain terms why we believe—

[Simon Hoare]

rose—

[The Chair]

I call Simon Hoare again.

[Simon Hoare]

I note the use of the word “again”, Sir Henry. Is my hon. Friend the Minister aware that in two conferences with leading counsel, which my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has referred to and one of which he attended, leading counsel advised Christchurch Borough Council that there were no grounds for a judicial review?

[Rishi Sunak]

That is a very interesting intervention from my hon. Friend.

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[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. We find ourselves in the middle of what seems to be a rift in the Conservative party. Luckily, we have been gently eased into that sort of thing during Brexit negotiations, so we are very much used to it.

[Simon Hoare]

rose—

[Jim McMahon]

I might start before I give way, if that is okay. The principle for any merger or reorganisation ought to be that it has the consent of local people, is in the spirit of democracy and will lead to good governance and good public services being delivered. As an observation, we know that a number of members of the Committee who have voting rights support the regulations; it does not sit well that the single Member from the area who does not support the plan is not allowed to sit on the Committee with voting rights. I understand that that is about managing the process and not wanting to create division on the Government Benches, but it is not quite in the spirit of having robust debate where there is clearly a difference of opinion.

[Simon Hoare]

This is an enormously important point. There are eight Members of Parliament—they happen to be Conservative Members—representing the county of Dorset, and none of us is a voting Member on this piece of legislation. We happen to be exercising our right, as any Member can, to turn up to a Delegated Legislation Committee and speak. However, when Sir Henry calls for votes, no Dorset hands will be able to go up or stay down.

[Jim McMahon]

I am grateful for that clarification.

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[Simon Hoare]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole. I echo many of the comments made about the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton, who leads for the Opposition on these matters, and the very careful way he has dealt with the issue. He and I served for some little time on the Local Government Association resources panel when we were both councillors. He was the very respected leader of Oldham Council, and it is nice to see him in his place today.

These debates could be characterised as or could come under the heading of 101 things that you wanted to know about Dorset local government but were too afraid to ask. I notice that the Labour Whips, on their Twitter feed, have promoted this afternoon’s joust:

“If anyone wants to watch the Tories having a fight about local government—there’s live entertainment going on in Committee room 9 now.”

It must be a salutary lesson for colleagues on both sides of the House when the Whips come and tap them on the shoulder and say, “Would you mind serving for a few minutes on a Delegated Legislation Committee? It won’t take that long,” and in fact they have to rearrange their diaries. But anyone who now wants to enter the pub quizzes in their constituency with all sorts of questions about Dorset will come top of the class.

Let us remind ourselves of why we have got to this point. The Minister has been absolutely right, as have other colleagues, in saying that this has been a grassroots movement from the bottom up. This is not an impost, a diktat or some Act of Parliament forcing us to do it from central Government, but council officers, councillors, statutory consultees, the public and other groups coming together to say, “What have we done? What are the issues? And where can we go?” It is not as if we are starting from a position whereby nine councils in the county and unitary areas of Bournemouth and Poole have been working in splendid isolation. They have frankly screwed the maximum amount of savings and efficiencies from collaborative working, be that in Christchurch and East Dorset, North Dorset, West Dorset, Weymouth and Portland, or be it in Bournemouth and Poole.

[Richard Drax]

My hon. Friend mentions south Dorset and Weymouth, so may I pay tribute to our chief executive, Matt Prosser, who is the leader of our tri-councillors and a superb chief executive? As I think colleagues have mentioned, this move will see a lot of people lose their jobs.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is right, and I too pay tribute to Matt Prosser, and to the leaders of councils that cover my constituency—Councillor Graham Carr-Jones is the leader of North Dorset District Council, and Councillor Spencer Flower leads East Dorset District Council. Councillor Rebecca Knox is leader of the county council. They came together—this has been a salutary lesson for us all, and I firmly believe that that was one of the lead motivators for seven of the eight Members of Parliament representing constituencies in the county to support them. They have tried all those efficiency savings and had some signal success.

My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset is right. I have been in post for just three years, but in that time I have noticed—as has my caseworker, Diana Mogg, who served my predecessor for 18 years—an absolute peak in people contacting us, and coming to advice surgeries with questions about children’s services, special educational needs and statementing, rural transport, and the provision of adult services. There has been a spike, and the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton was right to point out the indisputable fact that local government has shouldered a heavy burden as we try to get the national finances back to some semblance of normality. Colleagues, irrespective of where we stand on these proposals, have argued with previous Secretaries of State and with the Treasury to get a better funding settlement for our county.

[Jim McMahon]

Although austerity has bitten and every Department was expected to take some responsibility, the burden has fallen disproportionately on local government. As it stands, the local government workforce is at its lowest since comparable records began, and the central Government workforce is at its highest.

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Gentleman is right, and in the seven years that I was cabinet member for resources on West Oxfordshire District Council, we faced such issues, just as he will have done as a former leader of Oldham Council. He is right to point out that the local government family has shouldered the largest burden.

It cannot be a coincidence that the proposals submitted to the Government command such comprehensive support. Colleagues speaking in support of the proposal have listed some of that support, and my checklist includes the local enterprise partnership, our town and parish council association, the clinical commissioning group, Dorset chamber of commerce, the Port of Poole, the two universities, the police, seven of the eight Members of Parliament, and eight of the nine councils.

Let me pause for a moment, because it is important to put on the record that until some months ago, six councils in Dorset supported the reorganisation and three did not—Purbeck and East Dorset District Councils have been on a journey. They have forensically examined the proposals, and after a period of time and reflection, they came to the clear perception that this is really the only song on the hymn sheet that will do the job that is needed. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch said that the proposal could mean “doomsday for a lot of Conservatives in Dorset.” He might be right—I believe that he will be wrong—but, in a way, it does not actually matter. It ill behoves us to suggest that the motivation of public service rests entirely on being tested against the balance of party political advantage. Public service should trump everything. As a number of colleagues have pointed out, it is not that we Members of Parliament are turkeys voting for Christmas; but that our councillors, having exhaustively explored and delivered savings over three, four or five years now, realise that this is the next inexorable step that has to be taken.

I say with as much respect as I can muster that although those of us supporting the proposals in the political arena were described by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch as ignorant and predators on these matters—allegations to which I take exception and that I would certainly refute; although perhaps we could be called those things, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset could never be referred to as ignorant—we have come to the judgment that this is right for public service.

When we ask our constituents—often the most vulnerable in the county who are reliant on the locally provided public services—whether they think that it is right to reduce the number of councils and councillors and, in so doing, continue to provide quality public services, or simply to manage provision that is declining quantitatively and qualitatively while saying, “By golly, do not worry, we have preserved x officers, x buildings and x councillors”, I would say from my experience of 12 years as a district councillor, three years as a county councillor and two years as a parish councillor that most of our constituents are pretty normal people and they could not really give a toss, Sir Henry—

[The Chair]

Order. Will the hon. Gentleman withdraw that last remark?

[Simon Hoare]

My apologies, Sir Henry. If it is unparliamentary, I will. I did not intend that. They really could not give a—

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

A fig!

[Simon Hoare]

My right hon. Friend, as always, has the pithy word that I sought in vain.

Our constituents really could not give a fig how the product is arrived at as long as there is a product for them to access and a service for them to use.

[Jim McMahon]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Simon Hoare]

I will.

[Jim McMahon]

Perhaps this will help the hon. Gentleman to regain his composure. Does he accept that although the public absolutely want to see more efficient public service, local identity is really important? No reorganisation should try to redesign local identity that people feel strongly about.

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[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. In my part of the county, we are incredibly well served by hands-on, proactive and locally engaged town and parish councils. Just last Friday, I met the clerk and senior leadership of Blandford Forum Town Council, who are 100% behind the proposals and are egging them on, because they see an enormous opportunity in a slimmed down and more efficient local government geography within the county to make even closer ties with the communities they serve.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West alluded to the fact—I must confess that I am not a geographer in these matters—that one can start from the boundary of Poole, Christchurch or Bournemouth and drive, walk or cycle through all three, and apart from some rather nicely designed signs saying welcome to one or thank you for visiting the other, one frankly does not know where one is.

[Philip Davies]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Simon Hoare]

Of course I will give way to the sage of Dorset, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley.

[Philip Davies]

I am very grateful. My hon. Friend was giving us his definition of public service, and I just wondered whether he would include a Member of Parliament who speaks up for what 84% of local residents vote for in a poll. Would he call that public service, too?

[Simon Hoare]

Rather like red wine—and even claret, Sir Henry—there is good ordinary and premier cru. I will leave it to the Committee to work out which I think might be which.

My hon. Friend invites me to comment on the public support for this proposal, and it has been there. The councils were at great pains to ensure that the company that they commissioned had a proven track record, to set beyond peradventure the results that it derived. As my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset and my hon. Friend the Minister suggested, that provided a level of support for option 2b, which is what we have been discussing this afternoon, across all geographies in the county, including within Christchurch—scientifically based and properly analysed.

In echoing the thanks that my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West gave to the officials at the then DCLG, which is now the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, I also pay tribute to the huge professionalism of Paul Rowsell—who, I believe I am right in saying, is a resident of Christchurch and steward of the priory and who has a huge knowledge of the county—and the clear and sensible way that he has dealt with these matters.

[Conor Burns]

We know the poll result in Christchurch and we understand the divisions within the council and the population of Christchurch, so does my hon. Friend agree that if the new local authority is forged, there will be a special responsibility on all of us in the rest of the conurbation to work incredibly hard to allay the fears that have been built up in getting to this point?

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. “Magnanimous in victory and gracious in defeat”, I think is the old phrase—I forget the order; it may be the other way around. That is the test. We have been convinced of the merits. Rather like my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset, I am not known for my radical tendencies. I am not a great thrower-up of all the balls into the air to see how they will come down.

This has been a forensic exercise and the case has been made to the vast majority of us who have the great privilege of representing communities in Dorset. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is absolutely right that local identity matters, so whether it is a mace or gown, a tricorn or bicorn hat, or a town’s ancient ritual—I see the mace bearer in Blandford and the clerk, who wears her black gown and her legal wig, on civic occasions—these are important things for communities. They are what defines us as English—I think I can just about say that, as a Welshman—and British.

[Richard Drax]

My hon. Friend is making a wonderful speech, as have other colleagues. To pick up on an earlier point, I entirely concur with what my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley said: I have the highest respect for our hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, and yes, he has stood up for his constituents. He has done all he possibly could, and any other MP in that seat would have done the same. I pay tribute to him; we all do. But when we have all voted, when this has been forensically looked at and when the evidence is there, bearing in mind all the facts that we have to take into account, surely there comes a point when a decision has to be made for the benefit of us all, and at that point I think an MP has to stand down.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend—who is, dare I say it, the epitome of Englishness—is absolutely right. We need to convince our friends and colleagues who reside in the Christchurch constituency or within the boundaries of the Christchurch borough that this is the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do for public service, the right thing for good, sensible, conservative, prudent financial management and the right thing to guarantee the future of local government in our county.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Simon Hoare]

Of course, although I am tempted to say that, with the exception of the Minister, my hon. Friend is the first member of the Committee to intervene.

[Michelle Donelan]

I thank my hon. Friend. On that note, does he think it would be wise to look to the neighbouring authority of Wiltshire, where we have not lost our identity by amalgamating, but have gained economies of scale? Our unitary council has not closed one library.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend strikes to the heart of the matter. It is not about constructs: it is about delivery of service. It is not as if Dorset is treading a virgin path. Bedfordshire, Shropshire and Cornwall have done the same thing, and, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, Wiltshire has done it too.

I should be prepared to wager a small amount of money with my hon. Friend or any member of the Committee that if we were to knock on a door in Wiltshire today and ask the person who answered whether they would have preferred the library to remain open, or to have 300 councillors all drawing their stipend, most—unless, possibly, they were one of the councillors—would say they preferred the library. Why? Because the library is a good thing. It is a community asset. It encourages children to read. It is a social and community hub. That is why the protection of those things is important.

Certainly, Baroness Scott, the leader of Wiltshire Council, has been a trailblazer in ensuring—particularly in a rural area—that such issues are taken into account to preserve, conserve and promote local identity. I am perfectly prepared to give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch if I have got my local government history wrong, but I think Christchurch became a borough council only in 1974. Prior to that, it was a town council in Hampshire. I shall work on the assumption that that might be correct.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

No, it is incorrect. Christchurch has been an independent borough since 1215.

[Simon Hoare]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but let us look at the word “independent”, because he has used it on a number of occasions in the House. I think, actually, he has deployed the phrase “sovereign and independent”, which suggests something like the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, or Liechtenstein. He was, of course, a councillor in Wandsworth—effectively a unitary, but Members present who have had experience in a two-tier council will know that the room for manoeuvre, whether in a borough or a district council, is tiny.

Housing numbers are effectively shaped and dictated by central Government, and freedom to raise council tax is curtailed by a capping regime. According to the estimates I have heard about services delivered in a two-tier authority, between 80% and 90% of the services delivered to Christchurch, Stourbridge, Sturminster Newton, Sturminster Marshall, Blandford Forum, Gillingham and Shaftesbury, which is in my constituency, would be provided by Dorset County Council. By definition, the larger voting number would not come from one specific geography, so I perceive real opportunities from the new council.

That is an important point. The change is not a merger—hostile or friendly—and it is not a takeover; it is the creation of two new councils. Certainly in Dorset rural—the existing county minus the borough of Christchurch—we are reviewing our boundaries. We are not calling them divisions; we are going to call them wards, because it feels more granular. If you talk to most people, they refer to their ward councillor, not their divisional member. That boundary review will allow new wards to be created straddling existing north-west or south and mid-Dorset boundaries.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

My hon. Friend is talking about lines on maps. We are talking in Christchurch about a community with a long history and a great, strong local identity. Although he was not in the Christchurch constituency, he intervened in the Christchurch referendum to try to persuade people to vote in favour of Christchurch restructuring. Can he explain why he thinks he so manifestly failed to persuade the people of Christchurch that he was right and I was wrong?

[Simon Hoare]

I am not entirely sure that four tweets from a Back-Bench Conservative Member of Parliament could be described as an intervention. This is hardly a Russian-sponsored cyber-attack of some form. I do not have that many followers. My hon. Friend gilds me with powers that I would not even presume to aggrandise with myself.

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the fact that 17,000 people took part in the parish poll. It was a postal poll, so people did not actually have to turn up to polling stations. I think people could bring in their form to the borough council headquarters if they wished. As a percentage of those who are eligible to vote within the parliamentary constituency, 17,000 is a number, but it is no more than that. That point strikes at the heart of this argument. Nobody can doubt the passion that has been deployed on either side. The split between Dorchester and Sherborne—that historical divide of the civil war—is a vicar’s tea party in comparison with some of the blood pressure increases that we have seen as the process has gone forward.

I take the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West made. Irrespective of where the public were on this issue two years ago or a year ago, or even where they are now, they should have no doubt—I would hope that they had some considerable pride—that we have all engaged passionately in this debate not out of narrow party interest or narrow self-interest, but because of what we believe, in our hearts and our souls, to be good for those who send us here.

The key point is that unanimity is not required in the legislation, because it would make a nonsense of the law, but it is desirable. Let us be frank: if not, we would not have taken up so much of your time, Sir Henry, or that of those colleagues who have had the enormous good fortune to be drawn in the Whips’ Office raffle to sit on this Delegated Legislation Committee.

[Michael Tomlinson]

My hon. Friend mentions that unanimity is not required. He is absolutely right. Can he think of any other examples? I can think of Cornwall, where there was not unanimity, and yet it was still reorganised.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I think that unanimity would be deeply worrying. It would almost suggest a “couldn’t care less” attitude, where something is done down the line of least resistance. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham knows, not all constituent parts of Wiltshire wanted the change to happen. The intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole inexorably provides me with the key test. The logical step is to go and ask anyone, “Would you want to go back to having two-tier local government in Wiltshire? Would you want to go back to having two-tier local government in Shropshire? Would you want to go back to having two-tier local government in Cornwall?” I think the answer uniformly, and probably definitely, would be no.

The direction of travel is clear. What we are trying to do in Dorset is not eccentric or perverse; it is not in any way weird. It is a democratic response, underpinned by intellectual and academic argument to deliver on that principal propulsion of public service. That is what this is about. We can see the situation evolving in Northamptonshire, in Oxfordshire—[Interruption.] Look—people are fighting to come in. The bouncers are asking for ID. People are being asked to turn up with their grandparents and sometimes great-grandparents in order to get a seat in this marvellous Delegated Legislation Committee. As I was saying, it is happening in Northamptonshire. I understand that neighbours in Somerset are looking at it, and that Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire have proposals that are either with the Secretary of State or shortly to come before him.

Two-tier local government will be a bizarre construct to the Opposition spokesman, having come from the metropolitan borough of Oldham, but he will know of the speedy and more efficient decisions that can be taken by single-tier government.

[Jim McMahon]

It is important to say that a lot of government is in constant evolution and change. Although local government appears to be a single unit, we have parish councils in some areas, town councils in others, and the emergence and growth of the combined authority.

[Simon Hoare]

That just goes to show how right it is that the proposal has not been in response to an impost, a diktat, or a Secretary of State’s fiat: “This is what is going to happen.” One size does not fit all. [Interruption.] Well done, sir—you have been able to get a ticket to come into this great event. You might have fought to come in, but you will be fighting to get out in a moment.

I have always thought that we in Dorset have been phenomenally lucky that we have been so readily and easily cleaved into two parts. I have always used the titles—working titles, I admit—“Dorset rural” and “Dorset urban” for new councils, able to respond to new initiatives, new endeavours and new demands reflecting specific local concerns and requirements. That is why, unlike some of my colleagues, I was never persuaded of the merits of having one unitary council covering the whole of the county of Dorset. My anxiety, as a rural Member, was that rural concerns and imperatives—the need to scope, sculpt and deliver services in a bespoke way in a rural community—may well have been trumped by the louder siren voices of Christchurch, Bournemouth and Poole.

[Conor Burns]

Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?

[Simon Hoare]

The siren voice of Bournemouth rises.

[Conor Burns]

I am delighted to intervene on my hon. Friend with my not-too siren voice. Does he understand that exactly the opposite fears were felt at the urban end of the county—that our service sector and tech economy would not be understood by a rurally led county council covering the whole county from Dorchester?

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is right. It depends from which end of the telescope one looks at this, which just goes to show the compelling validity and veracity of the proposal that colleagues in local government across the county submitted for ministerial decision. They looked at a number of options with officials in London, officers in their relevant jurisdictions, and their councillors. Clearly, the proposal addresses the conundrum that I posed from the rural end of the telescope, and which my hon. Friend has posed from the urban end. One could describe it as a win-win situation.

If hon. Members will allow me to purloin a phrase, it will allow councillors within the conurbation, and councillors in the rural area, to take back control. [Interruption.] The Labour Whip very kindly chortles at my observation—chortles, perhaps, to the point of expiration. This is an important point, because it will allow people with the most granular knowledge of their geographies to deliver in a way that their constituents and voters want. After the savings have been made, the money will allow them to provide the services that our local residents most need.

As public servants, we often talk about hard-to-reach communities. Very often, the people who are the most dependent upon our public sector services are the least likely to engage in this progress. Why? Because, frankly, they are just too damn busy getting on with the daily grind of life and trying to make ends meet, trying to keep a roof over their head or trying to get the council to sort something out—the free school meals, the bus pass, the school place, whatever it happens to be. That is a really important point. In this process, we will ensure that rural services are delivered in rural areas, and conurbation services are delivered in conurbations.

[Richard Drax]

While I have the Minister’s attention, I want to say that we hope the rural unitary will be as important as the urban unitary and will receive equal investment.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend strikes a very telling point, which he, I and my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset have made to organisations such as the Dorset Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Dorset local enterprise partnership. Dorset’s economy does not end halfway up Wimborne high street. It is in our former milking parlours, our little industrial units, our small starter units in Sturminster Newton or Blandford Forum, in our hubs and hives of enterprise, job creation and innovation, wherever they happen to be.

Just last Friday, I visited a business in Blandford that operates over a two-storey floor space that I would suggest is no larger than this room, but has just signed a £10.5 million export deal with Nigeria to provide LED lighting. That strong contract was cited by the Minister for Trade Policy in departmental press releases during the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. Little Blandford Forum—such a hub of innovation!

The complexity—the confusing mosaic; the fit-inducing kaleidoscope—of the geography of local government that we have at the moment has allowed larger bodies to concentrate their attention unduly on the conurbation, almost allowing one side to be played off against the other. In this new regime, that cannot be the case. In my assessment, the economies of the whole of the county will benefit.

[Michael Tomlinson]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument. Will he please comment on my brief intervention, in which I mentioned our joint campaign on infrastructure on north-south routes? Does he believe that this order will help bids to be put in to secure more infrastructure investment in Dorset?

[Simon Hoare]

Without a shadow of a doubt, my hon. Friend is right. He and I have sat with the former Minister, our hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), and the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, our hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), and of course we will be sitting down and discussing these issues with the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole is absolutely right that a unified voice from one local authority will be able to make a case for that strategic investment. We have seen it happen. My hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham is more than welcome to chip in—if you will forgive the pun, Sir Henry—at this point. Certainly, there has been a far greater level of investment in the A350 corridor since Wiltshire became unitary than when there was a county council and districts. The proof of the pudding is very often in the eating, and that trail of investment—that opportunity to make a cohesive and cogent submission to Whitehall—is far more likely to be efficacious under a unitary approach than in the “let’s play one off against the other” two-tier system.

I think my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole would concur with this statement: that when the proposition—the tantalising prize—of reorganisation within the county has been put before other decision makers, interest that has existed has become more alert and acute when they have realised that there is likely to be a slimming-down in the relationship of dialogue that is needed to take decisions.

[Michael Tomlinson]

Perhaps my hon. Friend could throw one last thing into this matrix as well. When Members of Parliament across the country also speak with one voice—as he and I do on this project, as well as our hon. Friend the Member for Poole; the A350 starts near the port of Poole—that also lends greater weight.

[Simon Hoare]

Absolutely right, and the work that our hon. Friend the Member for Poole does on behalf of his constituents should not be neglected in these matters.

I will go back briefly to one issue, because I am conscious that I did not deal with it with the weight and attention that I believe my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West as an individual both requires and deserves. The local identity is hugely important. No Conservative likes the big and the monolithic. We quite like the quirky, the different and the local—it is what makes up, I think, part of our Conservative DNA. I have always gone into this process with the firm and clear caveat that local Mayors—whether it is the Mayor of Shaftesbury, the Mayor of Blandford Forum or the Mayor of Verwood Town Council—can continue in office and have a role. I actually think that role would be augmented and enhanced when they are no longer the junior tier of local government, with the district or the borough sandwiched somewhere in between, but instead have a more direct link up to the unitary council and down.

There is also Weymouth to consider. I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset shares my view and I am sure that he, like I, welcomed this change; it falls within his bailiwick. My support for it, and indeed anything else, is absolutely ancillary to the case that Weymouth makes, but what a marvellous initiative of Weymouth to work towards the creation of a town council, because that will ensure that granular, democratic accountability.

I take entirely the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch made, because—frankly—anybody who has listened to him for more than two minutes could not fail to have noticed the most enormous pride that residents and public servants of Christchurch have—rightly—in the history of their part of the county, which was once in Hampshire and is now in Dorset. But that is the point, I say to the Minister: it makes no difference where they are; it is what they are that is important. It is how they feel that motivates them and makes them tick.

Blandford Forum would be Blandford Forum if it were in North or West Yorkshire, or in Wiltshire, because it would still be Blandford Forum. And Christchurch has been Christchurch whether it has resided within the county boundary of Hampshire or the county boundary of Dorset. Why? Because it is Christchurch. And should the good burghers of that borough seek the creation of a town council, I think it would be the most phenomenal success.

[Michael Tomlinson]

My hon. Friend talks about Christchurch, but before he did so he mentioned Weymouth and its town council. Perhaps he could say something more about the opportunities for town and parish councils to have a beefed-up role if this particular order is passed, and about where he sees the opportunities for our parish and town councils as well.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is right to point to that opportunity.

I pay tribute at this point to Councillor Simon Tong, a former headteacher who will certainly be known to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole. At the first opportunity that Councillor Tong had to vote on this proposal as a member of East Dorset District Council, he voted against it. One of his reasons—in fact, his principal reason—for voting against it was the very germane and specific concern that my hon. Friend raised: the potential for a disconnect and for a subversion of town and parish councils.

It was one of those odd situations where one would be damned if one did and damned if one did not. If one had gone into all the minutiae of precisely who would be procuring the pencils, the highlighters, the ring binders, the desks, the table lamps or any other office stationery, or who was going to commission the painter of the livery on the side of the van, one might quite legitimately have been said to be putting the cart before the horse. However, it was then realised pretty quickly—I believe this was one of the concerns expressed by Purbeck and by Weymouth and Portland—that there was a question about the role, scope and vision for town and parish councils. I think that is now starting to emerge. This cannot be done top-down; it has to be done in collaboration.

[Richard Drax]

I agree entirely that there is going to be greater scope for town councils. When the Minister sums up, he might just allude to that and reassure us that town and parish councils will indeed have a role in the future.

[Simon Hoare]

I concur with my hon. Friend. If my hon. Friend the Minister cannot do that, I will be performing the greatest volte-face in Dorset’s political history and joining my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch.

[Michael Tomlinson]

Thank goodness you don’t have a vote.

[Simon Hoare]

So says my hon. Friend. If I may pinch a phrase from more auspicious colleagues, one of my red lines has been the role of the town and parish councils—making sure that there are local voices and that that relationship is forged with ward members. Gillingham will end up with three councillors, and Blandford will end up with two; part of the skill set that we will be looking for, certainly in our candidate, is a very firm commitment to close liaison with those town and parish councils.

[Michelle Donelan]

In Wiltshire, the town councils are extremely important, and we have a process of devolution—devolving powers down to those town councils. However, it is important to remember that this is not something that is going to be forced on people; it is the unitary councils’ responsibility to shape this with the will of local people. It is a process that is happening bottom up.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is right. I suggest—this may put the fear of God into her—that we may be beating a path to her door and to that of her senior council leadership, because we do not want to reinvent the wheel. We want to find out where some of the pitfalls have been and what the success stories have been. We want to emulate and gild the success and not to repeat any errors that Wiltshire, Cornwall, Shropshire and so on have made. That is the clear path to making this a success.

Likewise—my hon. Friend alluded to this incredibly important point in her intervention—it will be crucial for our two new councils to be member-led. When we have member-led authorities that are responsive to and reflective of the concerns, fears and aspirations of the electorate, as expressed on the doorstep, at surgeries and through the ballot box, we are more likely to have a specific, bespoke level of services authored from the membership up.

This is going to require strong political elbows in a joint endeavour. I draw huge comfort from the fact that, in terms of the main parties of the county—when I say the main parties, I mean the Labour party and the Conservative party, because they are the two main parties as far as the last general election is concerned—we have the support of the Dorset Labour party in this initiative, because it, too, is committed to this level of public service.

--- Later in debate ---

[Conor Burns]

I am sure it would be very useful for us to hear again from my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch about how he envisages playing a part in moving Christchurch on if, as seems to be the will of the Committee, the motion is passed.

[Simon Hoare]

That was a typically elegant invitation from my hon. Friend, urging me, in his polite and dulcet tones, to draw what I would have characterised as my opening remarks to a peroration.

[Michael Tomlinson]

Shut up and sit down!

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole, in some uncharacteristically cheap sedentary chunter, says, “Shut up and sit down!” I note the ironic “Hear, hears!” from members of the Committee. I view that as an invitation to move on to volume 3, but I shall not. Let me draw my remarks to a close—

[Chris Elmore]

Shame!

[Simon Hoare]

Tantalising though the hon. Gentleman’s invitation is, I hope he will not hold it against me if I do not avail myself of his invitation at the current time, but I reserve the right to return to it at a later stage.

Let me close as I opened. I want—and I hope that all of us, as practitioners of party politics, will want—all our constituents, whether they voted for us or not, whether they think we are the best thing since sliced bread or the worst thing since the bubonic plague, to have confidence in this one unassailable truth: that we have locked horns and engaged in strong, heartfelt, passionate debate. That debate is now drawing to a close. Something tells me that there is very little this afternoon that will reconcile the viewpoint of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West and myself on this issue.

The one thing that will ally us all is a strong affection and admiration for our former Prime Minister, Baroness Thatcher. We all remember that scene—often now parodied as a pastiche, but heartfelt at the time—when the new Prime Minister on the steps of Downing Street prayed in aid the words of St Francis of Assisi. It was a very heartfelt, moving, spiritual prayer. Let me close with the words of St Paul: we have fought the fight to the finish; we have the run the race to the end. We have now got to the end. Let us now roll up our sleeves and make this damn thing work.