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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

My Lords, I am sorry to say that I feel that this amendment is cynical in spirit. It seems to me to be a wheeze. This wheeze of calling for a referendum on proposals for a single tier of local government is a palpable delaying tactic because the Conservative Party, with its strong position in the shire counties, naturally does not like the thought that communities within those shire counties might be able to come out from under and have some larger degree of independence from it. It is also a smokescreen for Conservative uncertainty and division. Across the country, the Conservatives are very unsure of how to respond to each situation as it presents itself locally. One must ask on what principle the Conservative Party is calling for these referendums. It is no part of our constitutional tradition—and the Conservative Party ought to respect constitutional tradition and precedent—that referendums should be required when there is a redrawing of local authority boundaries. The Conservative Party has become quite promiscuous in the matter of referendums. I heard William Hague saying at the time of the Conservative Party conference that if the Conservative Party had its way there would be referendums every time there was some redrawing of the administrative relationships—the respective powers, however minor—between the Government of this country and the European Union. Of course, for major constitutional issues, it is part of our tradition; the precedents are there. It is right that referendums should be held when there is a question of major constitutional change, but we cheapen the principle of a referendum if it is invoked every time the Conservative Party wants to get itself out of some political inconvenience or embarrassment. The Conservatives have got hold of a new idea; historically, they were never concerned. The redrawing of Welsh local government in the early 1990s was highly controversial in parts of Wales but at no point was it suggested that there should be a referendum on that. The Government proceeded with insouciance and indifference towards the opinion of the Welsh. Perhaps even more significantly, in the 1980s the abolition of the Greater London Council was of major importance and caused London to be the only major capital city without municipal government, but the Conservative Government of that time did not contemplate a referendum. If we go back to the period of the Heath Government from 1970 to 1974, a vast restructuring of local government was carried through by the noble Lord, Lord Walker, in which more than a century of tradition was overthrown and the sense of place and identity of very large numbers of people—people in local government and citizens all across the country—was profoundly affronted, but at no point did the Conservatives suggest that there should be a referendum. This seems a pretty opportunistic invocation of the principle that the people should be consulted by means of a referendum. If we look at the specifics in the proposal in this amendment, we have to say that it is shockingly imprecise. Who should determine the question? Why should the process be in the hands of the county? The county will, of course, be biased in favour of the status quo: it is not going to want parts of its territory and population to gain independence from its government. Why should it not be in the hands of citizens and their representatives in other areas or other levels of local government? Evidently, if the population of a county outweighs the population of the area that is proposed for unitary status, the county will have an enormous political advantage in the process. The hostile propaganda of the county will clearly give powerful momentum and advantage to a ““no”” campaign, so the whole process of a referendum on the terms proposed in this amendment would be polluted. The amendment, if it became part of the law and we had to do these things, would stack up advantage in favour of the status quo. A vote in such circumstances would have paltry legitimacy. Of course it might happen that the whole thing was treated with indifference by local people, that it turned out to be a yawn and that there was a very low turnout. That is a possibility. Albeit that people feel strongly about identification with their local authorities, it does not unfortunately follow that they would necessarily come out to vote. That way, too, a decision taken by this means would lack legitimacy.