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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

I hesitate to intrude on matters in Northumberland and Shropshire by dragging the debate in a direction just beyond the south-west extremes of England into the Duchy of Cornwall. I wish to address amendments Nos. 2 to 4 in particular. The change in relation to the Secretary of State from any"““person he believes to have an interest””" to"““such other persons as he considers appropriate””" gathers to the Secretary of State a great deal of power and discretion to take into account only, for example, a chief constable, and not someone who is simply in receipt of local government services. One might interpret the first form of words as applying to every resident in the area likely to be affected by the change in local government. That therefore implies that there should be a referendum—that there should be an opinion poll, or that there should be consultation of all residents of that local authority area and not only the chief constable and a few people whom the Secretary of State believes it to be appropriate to consult. One could use the example of the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) in that regard. The Minister said that the purpose of the changes is also to ensure that principles of devolution are properly implemented. The implication, therefore, is that the Bill itself provides a substantial opportunity for local authorities to receive devolved powers. Although the amendments before us do not address devolution, there are some important devolution issues to consider, and Cornwall is a good case in point. During the process of bidding, consideration and the Secretary of State's acceptance of a particular bid—in the case of Cornwall, there were two bids—the Government need to make clear what they are offering to local authorities that will be brought together to provide, in Cornwall's case, a unitary authority. It is important that we do not receive mixed messages, and I fear that the message that Cornwall county council—the successful of the two bidders for a unitary authority—received from the Secretary of State and the Department during the process was mixed. During my conversations with the Minister's predecessor and others in the Department, it was unclear whether they were telling Cornwall's local authorities that they could be a great deal more ambitious regarding the powers that they could draw down from agencies outside Cornwall to take decisions on affordable housing numbers, how NHS money is allotted to private hospitals, and a whole range of other planning and resource matters. In my view and that of Cornwall's local authorities, decisions on convergence funding—what used to be called European objective 1 funding—are far better taken by those elected to represent the local people than by those appointed indirectly or directly by Government to take such decisions for them in Bristol or Exeter, for example, and who are therefore not locally accountable. It is very important that the Government provide clarity on this issue. The Bill was debated on Second Reading in January and on Third Reading in May and votes were taken, but things have moved on and the scenario may well have changed. That, in turn, may well have changed the attitude of many of us to the Bill. Many engaged in this process were initially optimistic, even though the then Secretary of State made the veiled threat in the message put out to local authorities that no change is not an option; that, at least, is certainly how they understood it. A great deal of ambition was shown during the discussions on Cornwall's bid. In fact and as I said, we had two bids. The bid from four of the six district councils clearly argued for the abolition of all Cornwall's local authorities and their replacement with a single unitary authority. The county council's bid was pretty much the same—in fact, the two bids were similar in many respects. However, they still could not agree on the exact configuration of internal matters within the proposed authority. As a result of the Government's selecting only one bid, rather than two, for further consultation within Cornwall as a whole, the district councils decided to campaign against the county council's bid. In four of the six districts as part of that campaign, they carried out their own opinion poll, which was effectively a referendum. Whether the prevailing climate was the right one in which to undertake a referendum is open to question. This has been a contentious issue in Cornwall, but it was clear that the vast majority of people voted no—against the proposed single unitary authority. The Minister needs to reflect on the fact that the changes proposed in amendments Nos. 2 to 4 give the Secretary of State power to ignore the vast majority of people who will be affected by such a change to local authorities. I consider that a substantial change that the House needs to reflect on. In effect, these provisions are saying that a substantial change to local government is a matter on which the Secretary of State need consult only the chief constable, in the case of Northumberland, and a few other so-called stakeholders—I do not like that expression—but not the stakeholders who really matter: those who consume the services provided by those local authorities. I hope that the Minister will reflect on this issue and reassure us that, if need be, he will go back to the drawing board, make sure that local communities are fully consulted about the proposals, and clarify the mixed messages coming from his Department, so that in future, places such as Cornwall can pursue the ambition that I have described today: to draw down powers that will give Cornwall the substantial authority that it richly deserves.