---

Unitary Authorities

I add my congratulations to those of other hon. Members on your presence in the Chair, Mrs. Humble, and on keeping us in order almost all the time. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) on initiating the debate. He is persistent in raising the matter for the third time in the interest of his constituents. I am grateful to him, and I know from my visits to Norfolk that his constituents are grateful as well. It has struck me on my visits to all three of the counties that we are concerned with that there is frustration and exasperation about the handling of the matter. Neither the Government nor the boundary committee for England comes out with any credit. There is a book by two well known academics, Michael Chisholm and Steve Leach, which I am sure the Minister has, like me, read—he sighs, because he knows it is not exactly complimentary; it is called ““Botched Business””. That term is a polite summation of what has happened. What we have heard from hon. Members is compelling evidence of a farce of misunderstanding—I was tempted to say of black comedy—between the Department, and the Secretary of State must take personal responsibility for that, and the commission. The issue has been ill handled and the question of conducting any sensible debate, as suggested by the right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), has been made impossible by the way it has been dealt with. A disservice has been done. I work from the premise, as did, I think, Mr. Justice Cranston in his latest judgment in the East Devon case, that the process should be driven by the evidence and that the decision should be evidence-based. It should be based on evidence and an adherence to the five criteria, which he restated in the judgment, and there should be a proper and adequate consultation, which he found had been lacking in the Devon case and the preceding cases. The Government already stand condemned. They are fortunate that Mr. Justice Cranston decided that it was premature to intervene at this stage, because if one reads behind the headlines of that decision the findings of fact are damning. My hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon) referred to extraordinary confusion, and that comment is reinforced by Mr. Justice Cranston's judgment, in which he points out that at the very beginning of the making of requests in relation to the three counties, as would naturally be expected, preliminary discussions were held between officials of the Department and the Boundary Commission. Why on earth the extraordinary confusion was not picked up at that stage beggars belief. It raises questions of the basic competence of those responsible, politically and administratively. That farce was compounded by the Secretary of State's U-turn about what was meant by an aggregate. Having started by saying that the criteria should be considered in aggregate, she had to explain herself and say that ““aggregate”” did not mean aggregate, but capacity. That did no service to sensible government. The criteria are not met for the other issues that are raised. The democratic deficit was mentioned by practically every hon. Member. The fact that the counties in question are large and rural makes that worse. In addition, the question of cost has allegedly been at the forefront of the Government's consideration, but the relevant formulations have been comprehensively destroyed. Professor Chisholm and Mr. Leach effectively destroyed them in ““Botched Business””. In previous debates the Minister has rejected their figures, but the subsequent evidence proves, if anything, that not only were they right, but they may have underestimated them. I shall present two figures to the Minister. As has been pointed out, the unitary bid for Cornwall estimated transition costs at £19 million. Professor Chisholm suggested that they would be more—about £28 million. The Minister pooh-poohed that in a previous debate. In fact, the One Cornwall transition costs have just, in a public document made available to the implementation executive, come out at £42.5 million. Northumberland was in the previous tranche of six, and the Minister himself has had to write complaining that rather than producing a saving, the new unitary council has produced a £10 million deficit. The Government's own figures on cost are incredible and the methodology used by their independent financial advisers is discredited. A future Conservative Government will place no reliance on it. My hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) was said to keep a pearl-handled revolver in his cupboard to use on anyone who mentioned local government reorganisation to him. When he left the shadow team for his current job he left the revolver behind, and my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) and I know exactly where it is; so anyone who is tempted to think of applying for a lucrative post within a unitary authority should be on notice that if the legislative process is not finished, our incoming Government will stop it and will ensure that there will be no more nonsense of that kind in the future. It is possible to achieve cost savings, and I take the point that has been made about the importance of achieving them. However, the irony is that of the councils in question, Norfolk has an excellent shared services agreement, which has been in place for some time, that highlights how costs can be saved by joint working, and Suffolk has a pathfinder scheme for joint working that has achieved beacon status. Why on earth not let those excellent systems of collaboration run their course, rather than interfere with them? ““If it ain't broke, don't fix it”” is a maxim well worth remembering in politics. Secrecy is another matter of concern that has been raised in relation to costs. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning) explained her difficulty in getting information from the Department. She is not alone. Although the Department has sought to rubbish the figures given by Professor Chisholm and his colleague in ““Botched Business””, it has never issued a rebuttal, and it has declined at least two freedom of information requests in addition to that from my hon. Friend: one from the late hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich, Mrs. Dunwoody, and another from those distinguished academics. What have the Government got to hide? The methodology on which they rely does not hold water. I shall conclude, because I want to give the Minister ample time to reply. The criteria, whether they are taken individually, on aggregate or as a matter of capacity, are not met in any of the relevant cases. The idea that large rural counties can meet the democratic requirement with 100 councillors per 700,000 is regarded by most people as ludicrous. It might be worth remembering why in many continental countries local government is in better health, and there is far more local pride in it. It is because often the units are more coherent and are closer to the individual. Generally, as it happens, they are two-tier as well, but joint working and procurement are the norm. Perhaps there is a lesson that we should take from that. The concept that we are discussing is fundamentally flawed, as are the particular proposals and the process. The criteria are not met. There is no clear cross-section of support as was required, and, as several of my hon. Friends have said, it is a bizarre priority in the middle of a recession. The Minister should stop it now, because if he does not, we will. If he will not take it from me, may I give him a gentle hint from an independent source? Judges of course would never dream of telling Ministers what they should do. However, sometimes, in their judgments, as experienced and sophisticated people, they can give a subtle hint. At the very end of his judgment in the East Devon case, Mr. Justice Cranston quoted, in the last paragraph, what he described as ““a significant passage”” in a letter from Councillor Sara Randall Johnson, the leader of East Devon council, in which she said that leadership"““brings with it an understanding or acceptance that concerns are shared and understood and that the leaders are not so far removed from those that they govern that a sense of alienation and disempowerment or irrelevance is experienced. On this basis it is my genuine belief that a unitary County Council would be too big and too remote to provide effective leadership””." The judge then said:"““In my view, all these matters deserve the closest attention of both the Boundary Committee and the Secretary of State. For East Devon, Councillor Randall Johnson is in a sense the most important consultee, elected by constituents, and then by her colleagues to be leader of the council. I hasten to add that there is no reason for me to think that her response will not attract that attention. But I make these remarks because of what I said at the beginning: this is an area where legal sensitivity to meaningful consultation is heightened—the future of local, representative assemblies is at stake.””" That is a subtle but clear judicial hint. I urge the Minister to take the hint and pull the plug.