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

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 General Committees

[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.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

We have heard from many local Members about their support for the proposal. I have a letter here from the leader of Christchurch Borough Council outlining its view that Bournemouth and Poole could go together but, because 84% of residents voted against it in a referendum, Christchurch should be allowed to stay independent. Could the Minister explain why he came to the conclusion that Christchurch should be forced into it when the people seem to be saying that they are against it?

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Toby Perkins]

If I have understood the hon. Gentleman correctly, he says that he is aware of what the policy of this council—which does not have any policies because it does not yet exist—will be on building on the green belt. I can only imagine that he says that because he knows what kind of people will stand for election for the Conservative party. If he suggested that people voted Labour at the next general election, there might be an Administration that was against building on the green belt, which might solve his problem.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

The hon. Gentleman talks about upcoming elections. I fear that if these proposals go ahead, it will be doomsday for a lot of Conservatives in Dorset. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Poole in his place. Poole Liberal Democrats and the Poole People party are dead against these proposals—they are as concerned about them as people from Christchurch. If this change is forced on the people of Christchurch, what hope will people standing in Christchurch as Conservative candidates have of getting elected?

Years ago, when the Conservative party brought in the right to buy, the Labour party lost its last representatives in Christchurch. The Christchurch Labour councillors at that time felt strongly that the right to buy was the correct policy and, because they did not like the way the Labour party opposed it, left the party. However, in so doing, they left a legacy of independents. They did not join the Conservative party; they became independents. If this shambles is allowed to develop in the way that the Government seem to want it to develop, it is likely that there will be a rise in independently minded people across the conurbation and a rise in support for the Labour party. To give the Labour party its due, it came a good second in Christchurch at the last general election. Okay, it was 25,000-plus votes behind me, but it nevertheless came a good second and made a big improvement on its previous performance.

[Toby Perkins]

Would it therefore be reasonable to say that it was a two-horse race?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I will go along with that, yes. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, who is a betting man, knows exactly how to bet on two-horse races.

Let me return to the issue of consent. Neither my hon. Friend the Minister nor others drew the Committee’s attention to the 26th report of the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which was published in April. That Committee drew specific attention to these instruments—particularly the draft modification regulations, which we are discussing at the moment—and to the local advisory poll in December 2017,

“in which 84% (numbering 17,676 votes) of those taking part voted ‘no’ to the changes.”

It reports in its conclusions at paragraph 11:

“MHCLG has told us that Ministers have made clear that they will apply the criteria for local government restructuring ‘in the round’ for the area subject to reorganisation, rather than considering whether the criteria would be met in relation to each individual council area.”

It goes on:

“However, given the scale of opposition to the proposal expressed both by Christchurch BC and by its residents, we consider that these instruments give rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House.”

I hope that, in looking at this issue, hon. Members will indeed have regard to what that Committee said and to the appendix to its report.

That draws attention to the outcome of the poll. My hon. Friend the Minister said that some councillors from Christchurch had written to the Government saying that they rather fancied the idea of being councillors in a new unitary authority and thought it would be in the best interests of Christchurch residents that that should happen. When that was debated and voted on at the Christchurch Borough Council meeting in January, not a single councillor raised his hand to vote against what was proposed—in contrast to what happened a year previously. The reason was that they knew that if they did so, the electors in their wards would have been completely at a loss to understand how they could be insulted by their elected members.

Remember that at the borough council elections in Christchurch in 2015 there was no talk whatsoever of any structural change. Indeed, at that time there were plaudits all round for the savings, extending to several million pounds each year, being achieved as a result of Christchurch and East Dorset working together in partnership with one chief executive, one set of chief officers and one headquarters premises. As a consequence of what is proposed today, that partnership will be broken, with all the dis-economies of scale that will flow from that. That joint working will be undermined, and one part of the partnership will be set against the other. The Government have not faced up to that, which is another reason to be concerned about the proposals.

I would also bring the Committee’s attention to this point, which the Minister anticipated I would make. The background is that, under section 2 of the 2007 Act, the Government have the power to invite proposals for local government reorganisation from two tier to single tier. That is indeed what the Government recently did in Northamptonshire. The 2007 Act also gave the then Government the power to insist that proposals be brought forward, but that power was time-limited and has expired.

There was no power in that Act for councils to make their own proposals to the Government where there was not consent. That is where the regulations are problematic, because they say that the 2007 Act shall be changed retrospectively to operate in a way that allows councils to put submissions to the Secretary of State without their having invited such submissions. As the Minister said, the regulations being used to try to achieve that require the consent of at least one councillor in a particular category.

However, during the passage of the 2016 Act in December 2015, the Government said they would give a guarantee that powers to override the democratically expressed will of an individual council would not be used for that purpose. The background to that was a Back-Bench amendment to the Bill that was considered on Report, which is now reflected in section 15(5) to (8). I and my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), along with one or two others, expressed concern during the debate on that amendment that, if literally interpreted, the power it created could be used against a council against its will. I sought various undertakings in that debate, but the junior Minister was tied to his brief and unable to satisfy either me or my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough that the powers would not be used in the adverse way that we feared.

Then—this is relevant, because it is how this came about—my hon. Friend and I spoke to the then Secretary of State during another Division on Report and said that if he did not give a stronger undertaking on Third Reading, we would divide the House. The Secretary of State told us that he would give us the undertaking that we sought. It was on that basis that I asked the Secretary of State this specific question on Third Reading:

“Will my right hon. Friend give the House an assurance that amendment 56”—

the one that changed what is now section 15(5) to (8)—

“will not be used by the Government to force change on any local authority?”

The Secretary of State replied:

“I will indeed.”—[Official Report, 7 December 2015; Vol. 603, c. 822.]

My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough then pressed the point, citing his fear that the power would be used to impose changes in Lincolnshire that he and his people did not want. The Secretary of State went further and said that the powers were designed to bring councils together into discussion and not to impose the will of the Government on one council, as compared with another, against its consent.

I have since spoken to our former colleague, the junior Minister at the time, who told me of his horror when he heard what the Secretary of State said in response to the questions that I and my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough put to him on Third Reading. Our erstwhile hon. Friend, who sadly was defeated at the general election, took the view that what was being said was thoroughly misleading—that is what he says. What we have is a situation where I and my hon. Friend, and the House, were misled by the Government—I am not saying deliberately—and made to believe that the Government would not introduce changes against the will of elected councillors.