Local Audit (Public Access to Documents) Bill

Teresa Pearce Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 24th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I do not want to get too side-tracked, Madam Deputy Speaker, and you would not allow me to, but it is fair to say that the BBC does not help in these matters because it pinches local content and shoves it on its website free of charge, making it difficult for local papers to monetise their work. I welcome what the BBC said, but I do not know whether it will work in practice in the way that is envisaged, because what I see, Madam Deputy Speaker—I do not know what is happening in Derbyshire or in other parts of the country—is local papers still shedding staff rather than recruiting staff. I have not noticed any difference in that regard since the announcement was made. We will have to see what happens. However, as my hon. Friend says, we cannot rely on local newspapers being able to fill this void. I think he is on to something with amendment 2, which is the strongest of the group.

Amendment 3, also tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, mentions

“including any politician or journalist”.

I got the sense that my hon. Friend felt that, between them, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North had torpedoed his amendment with regard to the definition of “politician”, which is clearly unsatisfactory. As they both said, to include people who are elected but exclude those standing for election would be unacceptable, because everyone should be on a level playing field. Because amendment 2 is so good, it rather exposes the weaknesses in my hon. Friend’s other amendments. He seems to be making the best of the bad job, working on the premise that if amendment 2 is not accepted, let us see what else we can do to try to make the Bill better. I think he should be focusing his fire on amendment 2; the others do not really cut the mustard.

My hon. Friend is also on to something with amendment 4, whereby he wants to include non-domestic ratepayers. He is absolutely right about that. I suppose that if he had not tabled amendment 2, I would have supported amendment 4, but if we go for amendment 2 we do not need to bother with amendment 4, because it rather weakens what he is trying to do with his lead amendment.

In amendments 5, 6 and 7, my hon. Friend is trying to make the best of a bad job with his “accredited”, “professional” and “qualified” definitions of journalists. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North pointed out that those were not good enough, and I accept that. I suspect that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is a rather unenthusiastic supporter of those three amendments, but I appreciate his tabling them because they have prompted a debate to consider whether they have any merit. I think we have generally concluded that they do not, but I am grateful to him for allowing us to look at them.

Amendment 8 is about removing the definition of “journalist”. Again, that amendment has merit, but amendment 2 rather supersedes it.

I wish to touch on amendment 1, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North. I am interested in both the amendment and his defence of it. He made some very good points. I moved between supporting it, opposing it and supporting it again as he was making his remarks. He certainly put up a very good defence of it. I agree with the thrust of what he is trying to achieve, which is to extend the definition of “journalist” to cover as many people as possible. That is the common theme of what those of us who have spoken so far are trying to achieve. We want as many people as possible to have access to this information. The question is how we best achieve that.

Amendment 1 was a rather imaginative way of effectively trying to include virtually everybody. In some respects, it makes everybody a journalist, including those on Twitter and Facebook. I am not entirely sure how many people are not on Twitter or Facebook—they are the sensible ones as far as I am concerned—but probably not that many. I am not on Facebook, but I am on Twitter. I regard going on Twitter as probably one of the worst things I have ever done in my life. I have about 16,000 followers, all of whom hate me. It is very interesting to read what they have to say, but it all seems rather pointless. They can hurl as much abuse as they like—it does not bother me—but I am not entirely sure that it gets us anywhere. My hon. Friend wants to include those people in his definition of a journalist. As somebody who always wanted to be a journalist and actually did the National Council for the Training of Journalists course at Sheffield college, I am not entirely convinced that those of us on that course would think that any old moron on Twitter should be able to describe themselves as a journalist. None the less, that is the age that we are in. There is a lot of merit in what my hon. Friend says, and it would be bizarre in this day and age to exclude those people who publish material in those ways. That is the way of the world, and we must accept that whether we like it or not. It seems that he is working within the spirit of the Bill, and he made that clear during his remarks.

As my hon. Friend was speaking, I saw that the Bill said that

“‘journalist’ means any person who produces for publication journalistic material (whether paid to do so or otherwise).”

In the explanatory notes, it says that it covers journalists,

“including ‘citizen journalists’, that is bloggers and others who scrutinise local authorities but who may not be accredited members of the press to enable them to access a wider range of accounting material in order to report and publish their findings so that it is available to local electors in an area, thus providing them with information that will enable them to better hold their local council to account.”

What this Bill seeks to do is what my hon. Friend’s amendment states. I look forward to what the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills have to say in response. I cannot work out whether there is any reason for my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills not to accept the amendment, because it seems to be the thrust of what she is trying to achieve, or whether there is no point to the amendment, because it will already be covered by the Bill. I cannot work out which of those two it is; it may well be an element of both.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North is trying to make sure that it is clear who is covered. It may well be that these people are already covered, but he wants to make that clear in the Bill. If that is what is happening, I do not see why anyone would want to oppose it. If all he is doing is clarifying what is intended anyway, it seems that we are all in agreement. I look forward to hearing whether amendment 1 is what this Bill is supposedly doing anyway.

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch made a very good case for all his amendments. I just wish to touch on amendment 10, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North called the most “controversial” one, and my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch called the most “radical” one. I describe it as radical rather than controversial. I am not entirely sure why it would be controversial, but I do accept that it is radical. The amendment would ensure that the provision includes health service bodies. I would be very interested to hear the argument against what my hon. Friend is trying to do. Why would we not think that there should be full scrutiny of the accounts of a health service body? Why would we want to focus just on local councils? Why should other local health authorities not be subject to the same rigours? Surely no one could suggest that it is utterly terrible for a local authority to be wasting or misappropriating money, but that it is absolutely fine for a local health authority to do so.

If we want to be sure that local authorities are not doing things that they should not be doing, and that there is full accountability to the people whom they are supposed to serve and to the people who may take an interest in what they are doing, the same rules must apply to a local health authority. I cannot see why anyone would argue against that. Again, I am interested to know what the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills have to say on that and on why they think that one is more important than the other.

In many respects, one could argue that people might be more concerned about what is happening in their local health authority, rather than in their local authority. It may well be more important to their day-to-day lives. Again, the amendment is certainly radical, but I cannot see why it should be controversial. Many people would be astonished that a local health authority is not already included in the Bill. I praise my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch for being absolutely forensic when scrutinising legislation, and this House would be much poorer without him doing so. It goes to show why Bills should not go through this place on the nod, and why we should have proper scrutiny. Lots of things come up in the course of that scrutiny that people have not considered. I do not blame my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills for not including these measures. Indeed, it is why we have a debate and why we have amendments. The wisdom of 650 is quite clearly better than the wisdom of just one. Other people think of things that we would never have thought of. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch does so on a regular basis, and I commend him for that.

In summary, my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch and for Bury North have done the House a great service by seeking to improve the Bill. Anybody can see that they are not trying to ruin it; they are trying to make it better. It is a good Bill so far, but it would certainly be improved by some of these amendments. My final analysis is that if my hon. Friends are to press any of their amendments to a Division—with your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, of course—they should do so with amendments 2 and 10, because those amendments are the most powerful. The Bill represents an improvement, but amendments 2 and 10 would turn it into something that will be very good for the public and will stand the test of time. I wish the Bill well, and hope that it will pass with those amendments.

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

I thank the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) for introducing the Bill. As someone who has brought a private Member’s Bill to the House, I know the hard work that goes into it. Her Bill has got far further than my Bill did, and I wish her every success in taking it further.

--- Later in debate ---

[Teresa Pearce]

I do not intend to make more than a few remarks on Third Reading, as this Bill has the support of the Opposition, the Government and the Local Government Association. It is a short, and welcome, piece of legislation which aims to improve transparency and accountability of local public bodies. In an era in which local newspapers are in many places diminishing and in some places do not exist at all, extending transparency of public bodies benefits all of our local democracy.

Indeed, as we devolve more powers and sometimes even funding to local authorities, there is an ever increasing need for greater transparency. There are many other important Bills to be debated today, so I will draw my comments to a close.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I call the Minister.