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Local Government

: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, very much for securing and introducing the debate. I congratulate him on putting his finger firmly on a number of serious areas of current concern about the structure and powers of local government and its make-up, the vagaries about its finances and, as other speakers have mentioned, the imposition of administrative means of running councils—such as cabinets, which have not been widely welcomed and have left many councillors adrift with insufficient knowledge of what is going on. We have had some excellent speeches this afternoon. Many of them have demonstrated an underlying frustration not with local government, but with what is going on in it—its inability to deliver what it wants for all the reasons that have been put into words today. My noble friend Lady Byford demonstrated clearly the problem in rural local government with housing—the inability of local authorities, including county councils, to have real control. I was fascinated by the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, which clearly brought home the difficulties of running city government. She must have been a great leader when she was there and clearly enjoyed it. Unfortunately, my noble friend Lord Brooke is not still running Camden council—it would be a great deal better if he was. He gave us his usual words of wisdom about the Lothian question. The noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, also demonstrated some of the frustrations that we feel. I must declare an interest as a currently elected member of the very excellent royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea. I am standing for re-election, so I am thick in politics at the moment and hearing what people in the area are saying. As our royal borough is so excellent and is running such great services, I do not receive many comments about problems associated with the local council, but one of the main subjects raised is the congestion charge and the inclusion of the royal borough within it. That was resisted strongly by the local council—by councillors, by residents, by anti-congestion charge groups and, overwhelmingly, by respondents to at least two consultations. I see the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, muttering in the ear of the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, that that has nothing to do with local government, but I say that because, as a result of the complete lack of attention paid to the views of local people by the Mayor of London, there is enormous cynicism about the value of democratic involvement. The local authority is unable to protect its residents from the wilful decisions of the strategic authority. That is of no benefit in increasing the number of electors who will turn out to vote. They think that it is not worth it because no one—certainly not the Mayor—pays any attention to what they have said. Why should they bother? That is terrible. Even in London, the Mayor is seen as remote, out of touch, interfering and uncontrollable by the Greater London Assembly. It is no surprise, with that example, that elected regional government was comprehensively rejected. The noble Lord, Lord Bowness, touched on the problems resulting from the Government’s unremitting desire to meddle with the structures of local responsibility by forging ahead with moving more and more responsibility to non-elected assemblies, including matters that fundamentally affect local people, such as—I realise that, as it stands, this is strategic—planning, housing, economic development and transport. There is also the extremely overhasty and ill considered removal of the police to a regional level. This is despite the electorate’s antipathy to the remoteness of bodies based at regional level, whatever that really is. I return to the Mayor of London, who is much on my mind at the moment, because he is also seeking to take on a strategic role for housing and planning, which are not currently his responsibilities. The Government are now considering these proposals as part of their wider review of local government structures and responsibilities. We have heard about the wider review. We are being told that it will be subject to a White Paper in, I believe, July, and we are led to understand that it will build on the extended remit given to Sir Michael Lyons and his inquiry, and on the very undercover proposals for wholesale structural reform which emanated from Mr David Miliband. The Government originally hotly denied that these proposals existed. They came to light only as a result of a memorandum leaked to the Daily Telegraph in November, and have had some limited exposure—more by gossip, I am bound to say, than by any formal consultation. I remember, when the memorandum was leaked, inviting the Minister to comment on what I described as the Miliband review—I am glad to see that the name is now sticking—but that invitation was without success. A Miliband review there surely was, and what is now being demonstrated as a result of that would mean, as other speakers have said, a really fundamental shake-up of the current structures of local government. The imposition of unitary local government across England’s 34 counties, inevitably involving the loss or absorption of counties and districts into units of an unknown size or geography, or however they were going to be structured, would inevitably reduce the number of councillors. In other words, there would be a massive shake-up, and for what purpose? As other speakers have said, local government should by definition be local. All parties are signed up to localism. But, to this Government, localism seems to be local beneath regional. I must tell the Minister that such reorganisation is not wanted, and there appears to be no reasonable rationale to justify it. It would deliver nothing but the loss of our shire counties, and would be massively expensive. It is estimated that to create one unitary authority for each county would cost at least £1 billion per new authority—or between £200 and £350 per household—just under £2 billion for two authorities, and £3 billion if there were three. What a waste of taxpayers’ money, although that would not be the first instance of that for this Government. It has also been suggested that local elections in 2007 would be scrapped while these proposals were being developed. The Minister may like to comment on that, because that is a very firm rumour. That would be a further denial of the important role of democracy. Are the Government intending to push ahead from a White Paper to legislation without proper debate or manifesto proposal? Even Phil Woolas, the Minister in the other place, is reported to have said that there is no clear democratic mandate for any structural overhaul. The Government have a very poor record of recognising the important impact of constitutional changes. They have a rotten grasp of the importance of history and tradition, and I hope that the Minister will give a clear commitment today to ensure that any proposals that emanate from these reviews will be put to the electorate before they are implemented. While these plans are being gestated, further changes are being made to the powers of local government. Not satisfied with taking into the bailiwick of the Treasury the Deputy Prime Minister’s responsibilities for housing by instigating the Barker report, the Chancellor has now gone a step further and asked her to undertake a review of land planning use and planning policy. While there were many good things in the initial Barker report, the maintenance and control of the development of housing by local authorities was not one of them. It does not augur well for Barker’s views on planning. Housing and planning are matters of immediate local concern. The increasing reduction in local accountability for planning decisions, as highlighted by my noble friend Lord Bowness, and the reduction in the concept that decisions about things that matter to local people should take place at local level are becoming more apparent every day. That this is happening is increasingly being noticed by the people who matter—the electorate. However, the electorate have so far had no opportunity to consider whether they want radical changes made to the level of government which affects their lives most. This Government appear to have decided that devolution to the local level means devolving only from government to the regions. As has been made clear on many occasions, a Conservative government will sweep away the apparatus of regionalism. Regional assemblies would be abolished and their powers over planning, housing, transport and all the other myriad bodies that are parasitically attached to them would be returned to local control. This Government have a propensity for reorganisation, or perhaps more accurately for what they call modernisation, in all areas of public service. Experience from the health service, in particular, suggests that a little change at a time would be more beneficial than attempting to make fundamental changes all at the same time, finding that they do not work and making further structural changes before the last ones have been given any chance to work. The Government’s intention with local government seems to have the same danger signals. Decisions on housing, education, planning, economic viability, transport and health all need to be sensitive to the local communities, and not taken further from them by the Government. There is a real role for local authorities to play. They must be given the opportunity to do that. It must be left with them at a local level. We have heard much today about the value of local councillors. Being one of them, I hesitate to add my voice to that. Local representation, and the fact that people are committed to helping and working with their local communities, is one of the most valuable assets that we have in this country. We prejudice that at our peril. There is a very real danger that local government is becoming completely disconnected, for the reasons that I have mentioned, from its local community. If we are not careful, we will find that local people will not want to represent their local communities. That would be a disaster.