Local Government Reform

Teresa Pearce Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I am standing in for my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris), who is very disappointed that he cannot be here today. I thank the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) for initiating this important debate and for his thought-provoking report—I would expect nothing less than thought provocation from the hon. Gentleman.

With the recent unprecedented cuts to local authority funding, reform and the new wave of devolution, the future of local government is a matter that we now need to look at, and all hon. Members and their constituents share an interest in it. I would welcome any changes to local government that bring about a greater accountability and connection between local people and those who are elected to represent them. The decisions made on their behalf affect them every day—they affect their town, their village, their street—and quite often local people do not know how those decisions are made or who is making them. Often they will ring our offices, thinking that it was us, when in fact it was not us at all. We need to make that connection.

This has been a measured and very well informed conversation. It is interesting that we have heard contributions from many different constituencies, such as Strangford, Cleethorpes, the Isle of Wight, North Warwickshire and Glasgow. That shows that one size does not fit all and that decisions should be made locally, because across our country communities are very different.

The hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell spoke about his report, in which he made a number of recommendations. He said that many of them are radical, and they are, but a radical shake-up is needed. We needed to start this conversation, and I am very glad that we are doing so. Any report on the future of local government is welcome, but there are many questions, and I hope that the Minister will be able to share his thoughts on some of the concerns that have been raised and some of my concerns.

On council structures, the report makes a recommendation that a uniform system of unitary councils be introduced. I would be interested to know the Minister’s estimate of the sort of impact that that would have on local services. Does he agree that local government should be invited to determine local structures, rather than something being imposed from the centre? If reforms such as that were pursued, how would our cities and elected mayors fit into that model?

The proposal features a separately elected mayor who would sit above the council and have powers including approval of the budget. Would that not simply reintroduce a second tier? Does the Minister agree that vesting powers in an executive county mayor would add another layer of government, which would be expensive and sometimes prolong decision making? Should not local people be in the driving seat in terms of determining localised policy, rather than a potentially remote county mayor?

On council funding, the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell recommends powers to generate income through council tax, income tax and business levies. I hope that the Minister accepts that council services have been decimated in some areas as a consequence of cuts. We need to look at new ways of funding, but I fear that if the proposed model were pursued, it would create a greater imbalance between local authorities and there could be a postcode lottery. What effect would that model have on individual residents’ finances if they were asked to pay income tax both nationally and locally? Does the Minister agree that devolving powers without a clear way to increase finance would simply be to devolve cuts, and the blame for those cuts, to local government?

The final question I would like to ask came to mind after the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), raised the issue of salaries. One of the things that concerns me, and I would be grateful if the Minister looked at it again, is pensions for local councillors. Many local councillors give years of service. Sometimes that means they have to forgo career progression; sometimes it means they have to give their careers up altogether for a period of time.

A colleague of mine was a headmaster of a local school and he could not possibly do that while running a local council, so he had to give to give up that career and consequently about 15 years of his pension, I think. If we are going to encourage people with ability into local government, we need to understand that they are giving a lot of themselves. Where we are trying to encourage the whole nation into auto-enrolment, we should really look at what is a fair return for the years that local councillors give.

I reiterate my thanks to the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell for bringing forward this important debate. Any debate on the future of local government is welcome, particularly in this period of uncertainty, when the old ways of doing things do not work any more and we need to look at new ways. In the wake of the outcome of the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union, we have seen calls for a readjustment of our constitution, from reform of the House of Lords to reform of local government, and I am sure that this debate will be just the start of a coming conversation on local government reform. Local government faces new and varied challenges and requires new, and maybe radical, solutions. I look forward to the Minister’s response.