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Government Regulation

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman endorses the point that I am making. It is surely much better to make local government genuinely more accountable to its electorate. Under our system, whereby central Government controls everything, there is a dependency culture that enables local councils and local politicians to blame central Government for everything. If we had a system with genuine local autonomy and accountability, the buck would stop with the local authority and the system would be much better for it. The same principles apply to health and education services, which are constantly dragged down by a centralised Whitehall target-setting agenda whereby the instinct is to micro-manage everything from London. I was struck by a comment from a hospital manager who told me that he and his colleagues not only have to account to the Department of Health through all the performance measures that are imposed on them, but have the Prime Minister’s delivery unit on their back as well. Two departments of central Government are looking at every move they make. The common thread running through all this is the emergence of a state where the centre seeks to control everything. The intention is often, but not always, laudable—identity cards being one example where the intention is clearly not laudable. However, the law of unintended consequences means that whether for entrepreneurs, local authorities, schools or hospitals, the spirit is too often dulled or destroyed by an overbearing state.