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Democracy: POWER Inquiry

My Lords, I am delighted to support the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, in calling attention to the Power inquiry report. As a Yorkshireman, I congratulate both the Lincolnshire Fen man, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, and the Lancastrian sheriff, the noble Lord, Lord Lee of Trafford, on their maiden speeches. We hope to hear more from them on future occasions. As the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, indicated, I, too, have to declare interests in that I have been a trustee for some years of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the JRSST Charitable Trust, which have jointly funded the inquiry. I have also chaired the Citizens’ Inquiry trust, which has been overseeing the inquiry. Apart from our real endeavour to make sure that we had a credible group of commissioners, our job has been to make certain that the report is, in the phrase that one hears these days, ““on time, on budget””, but the work of the commission and the report is theirs. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, and Ferdinand Mount, who were chairman and vice-chairman of the inquiry. I also congratulate the staff members—Pam Giddy, Adam Lent and Caroline Watson—who have been with the inquiry throughout, and the talented group of young people who have assisted them. It is their report, and it has been enhanced by the deliberations and involvement of many people. ““On time, on budget””—it really has been on time and timely. The published book is split into two parts. The first half sets out the democratic dilemma and the second half has 30 ideas for improvement. Many can wax lyrically about the faults of our current democratic system, but it is good to have 30 specific proposals. Some, of course, are more exciting than others; I cannot say that I am hostile to any of them, and they sit well as a package. But these are ideas, not Bills and certainly not Acts or parts thereof. I want to highlight five of the ideas, but, before I do so, I will briefly mention some others. First, reference has been made to votes at 16. I have come to the view that this is not a bad thing. There are some people at 16 who you would be delighted to see have a vote and others who you might not. But I take the same view of folk at 66; there are some I like to see with a vote and some I would rather not. I believe that getting involved in democracy and in democratic principles early is a good thing. This is an important part of the report. Secondly, I was interested to see the whole business of the Whips and of the power particularly of the Government Chief Whip in the House of Commons. I contrast that with the benign operation that I operate as the Liberal Democrat Chief Whip here. But we learn things all the time. Thirdly, the whole business of the growth of the quango state is referred to throughout. The fourth item is that new ways of citizen involvement are important and worth pursuing. Let me move on to the five items that particularly attract me. Before coming to this place, and even for a few years while in it, I spent 25 years of my life in local government. Therefore, I think that it is important that we look at local government. The report says three things: there should be an unambiguous process of decentralisation of powers from central to local government; there should be a concordat between central and local government setting out respective powers; and local government should be given enhanced powers to raise taxes and administer its own finances. In a debate about four years ago, I picked up the minute book of Halifax Borough Council for the year 1937 and looked at all the areas over which local government had influence at that time—health, public utilities such as gas, electric and water, public transport, further education, the totality of planning powers, and many more. The debilitation of local government has been constant. There were areas where it was obvious that local government should be involved. The Government will say to give themselves credit, ““One of the things we really want to brag about is Sure Start””. But that is a very simple matter of putting time, effort and money into giving under-fives a good start in life. Why on earth do we need multitudes of quangos to operate it? Why could it not have been entrusted to local government?