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Summer Adjournment

I should like to draw attention to yesterday’s written ministerial statement, from column 68WS of the Official Report onwards, on the Government’s determination on the bids that they have received for councils to receive unitary status. I deplore the fact that the Government have made a written statement and that the Ministers concerned did not come to the Floor of the House with it. Contained in the statement is the fact that the Government are minded to implement the bid on behalf of Exeter city council to become a unitary authority. I and other hon. Members, on a cross-party basis, met Ministers during the consultation period—in fact, we had a constructive meeting with the Minister concerned. I want to draw attention to the five criteria that the Government have set themselves in deciding what would and would not qualify for unitary status, which are listed at column 69WS. The first criterion states that the bid"““must be…supported by a broad cross section of partners and stakeholders””." Last week I tabled a named day question to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government asking"““whether it is her policy to approve unitary status only for those councils which command broad stakeholder support.””" Although the question was meant to have been answered by Tuesday, the Minister for Local Government replied:"““I will answer this question shortly.””" I do not know how long ““shortly”” means in the House, but today is the last day on which we are sitting and the question should have been answered on Tuesday. I checked the letter board before coming into the Chamber and found that as yet I had received no reply. However, the issue is pertinent in respect of the criteria that have been named yet again in the ministerial statement, because I do not believe that the bid for Exeter commanded the full support of the community that was consulted. In fact, when I receive my reply, I anticipate that the statistics will show that 83 per cent. of the responses that the Government received, including those from members of the public, were against the city of Exeter being made into a unitary authority and that only 14 per cent. were in favour. If that is a true reflection of where the figures lie, there is an obvious reason why the Minister has delayed answering a straightforward question, in the light of the ministerial statement. I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House, whom I welcome to her position on the Front Bench, will make it a matter of urgency to ensure that I receive that reply in terms before the close of play today. Another criterion was that the bid should"““deliver value for money and equity on…services.””—[Official Report, 25 July 2007; Vol. 463, c. 69WS.]" The Government considered bids for unitary status in Lancashire, a large rural county, by both Burnley and Lancaster, but because of the impact on the rest of the county, the Government reckoned at the time—and I think have failed to implement unitary status for this reason—that those bids did not deliver equity on public services. Exactly the same argument can be deployed for the county of Devon, a large rural county with two moors that are national parks, where Torbay and Plymouth already have unitary status. If we take Exeter out of the Devon equation, we are left with a difficult situation for Exeter, which is far too small to be sustainable as a unitary authority in its own right, not least because there has just been a major restructuring of education in the city of Exeter, which was three-tier and is now two-tier, the cost of which is being borne under a private finance initiative county-wide. If Exeter is given unitary status, the city and the ratepayers of Exeter will have to pick up the long-term implications of that enormous PFI project. I am not just raising the issue from the point of view of a Member of Parliament representing a peripheral rural part of the 600 square miles of my county that abuts the city of Exeter. However, I am particularly concerned about the impact on the whole of Devon, which, if we take Exeter out of the equation is sparsely populated with a population of 93 people per square kilometre. We must also consider the economies of scale that can be achieved in some of the important services that have to be delivered, especially the complex care services delivered by the primary care trust across a rural area. Economies of scale of expertise can be pooled by the city of Exeter and the rest of the county, and there is clearly a question mark not only over the financial implications of taking Exeter out of the equation but over the subsequent ability to deliver acceptable, good quality services, particularly in an area with a large number of elderly people. I was not going to raise this issue, but as the matter has come to light today, I must now ask the Minister to ask her colleague to give me an answer to my question as a matter of urgency. The Government’s decision about the city of Exeter in today’s ministerial statement is profoundly flawed and will almost certainly be challenged. There is cross-party agreement on this, although perhaps not from my neighbour, the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw), who holds ministerial office. I imagine that he will be batting for the other side on this matter. These issues cannot be taken in isolation in a county such as ours. I have watched on television the plight of the many people around the country who have suffered from their homes being flooded in the most dramatic way. I also speak from personal experience. In 1997, my house in Devon, in which I had lived for 30 years, was flooded by an overnight flash flood. It was the first time that it had ever happened. We left the house that night, and were unable to return for five months. It is the most traumatic experience that can happen to anyone. A lot is being said about the lessons to be learned from building on flood plains. Opinions vary as to whether the recent levels of rainfall are unique, and there was an interesting article in The Sunday Telegraph last week by Philip Eden which gave the statistics from the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. They showed that we are not experiencing unique levels of rainfall, but we clearly have to take account of what we now know about the predicted climate change when we propose to build on flood plains. There are proposals to build a new town, Cranbrook, in my constituency, starting with about 3,000 properties and building up to 10,000. It is a pretty big development. An environmental study was carried out into the consequences of building a new town on an area of land, much of which comprises flood plains. The Environment Agency has approved the proposals, saying that although"““current guidance in PPG25 requires developers to avoid development within floodplain defined on the basis of the 1 in a 100 year (1per cent. probability) event,””" it accepts that, in the case of Cranbrook, it would be defined on the basis of a 1 in 1,000- year event, which is much less likely to happen. The real point, however, with any large-scale development—goodness knows, a whole new town is pretty big—is that a lot depends on whether the infrastructure to help with the drainage, the run-off and all the other problems associated with a lot of new build will be put in place on time. My experience of developments of this scale is that, regardless of any negotiations about the infrastructure to be provided by the builders, that is almost the last thing to happen. We can see the consequences of that, especially as drainage infrastructure needs to be among the first things to be built, rather than the last. That involves spending money up front on the basis that the developers will anticipate getting more contracts to build and that the planning will go ahead as predicted. I will not rehearse the arguments about whether we should have this new town; that is a battle that I fought and lost many years ago. I will say to the Minister, however, that if we are genuinely to learn lessons, it cannot be acceptable to use predictive figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that have been on the books for a long time when planning large developments such as these. When this kind of infrastructure is required, we need to determine at what point in the development the developer should put it in. That will involve ensuring that the firms that win the contracts have the money and resources to provide that infrastructure, because there is often a question mark over their own viability. They usually want to sell the houses and get the money into the bank before they invest too much in any infrastructure other than the basic bits, usually the roads. If lessons are to be learned from the tragedy that many people have experienced in the past few days, that issue must be looked at, particularly in the context of planning policy guidance note 25. Finally, Mr. Deputy Speaker, may I wish you, members of staff and all colleagues here present and elsewhere a very happy summer recess? Devon awaits you. It is looking glorious, as always. If you want a weekend break or have not yet thought about where to go, the county of Devon will welcome you all.