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Constitutional Reform

My Lords, it is always a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Morgan, but I thought that he thought that the greatest Liberal was Lloyd George. We learn differently now—and of course he is quite right. I was not sure whether he thought that the unparliamentary word was "democracy" or "socialism", but I shall not pursue that. Instead, I shall talk about local democracy and public involvement; representative democracy and participative or direct democracy, done properly, go together. In doing so, I declare an interest as a member of Pendle Borough Council and sundry local groups, some of which are in the Register of Interests. My problem is that local democracy in England is being slowly but systematically abolished. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, said that in the past decade there had been a lot of democratisation within this country. At local level within England that is not the case; the opposite has been happening—there has been a sort of de-democratisation. Representative local democracy is slowly being closed down, with the formation of larger and larger unitary councils, which are being told that they have to run themselves like businesses. They may be democratic, but they are certainly not local. Participative democracy is much more difficult; the further that the institutions get away from the citizen, the bigger they become. The proliferation of partnerships and quangos, populated by professionals, means that it is much more difficult for ordinary citizens to get involved. One example of the trend towards much bigger authorities is Northumberland, which is now, apparently, the largest unitary authority in England in area. It has the lowest population density, with 310,000 people, and a combination of the largest area and lowest population density, with just one local authority for that huge area, which is some 100 miles from end to end. That is not local government as I understand the term. I should apologise to the Liberal Democrat leadership of Northumberland since the initial elections, led by Councillor Jeff Reid, for criticising it. I am certain that it is doing a much better job than if control of the authority was in the hands of the Labour or Tory party, but the job that it is being asked to do in local democracy is impossible. It has set up three area committees, which was agreed when the unitary was set up, called north, south-east and west. How on earth do people associate themselves with south-east Northumberland? They are not even the old districts, of which there used to be six. There are now 67 councillors when there used to be more than 300. That is a significant reduction in democracy. I have a sheet here that sets out all the functions of the area committees; they are all consultative and advisory, and the first function is to, ""enhance the reputation of councillors"." That says a great deal about the system. I compare that with an area committee that I sit on in Pendle, where we represent 16,000 electors—an area of a small district council—but make real decisions that have a real effect on the lives of local people, who can come along because we are there in Colne where people live. They do not have to travel 40 or 50 miles to a meeting of an authority. I wish the Liberal Democrat leadership of Northumberland all the best in its aim for better services, greater efficiency and easier access to local services. I think that it will find it extremely difficult. When the Northumberland unitary was set up, the Government promised around £17 million a year savings and lower tax bills. Now there are no lower tax Bills—they went up, and the savings have all been swallowed up. My right honourable friend Alan Beith MP said that it was nonsense at the time, and the public did not believe them. Can we trust the Tories on this issue? There are not many Tories here to ask, but those who are here will perhaps listen. In Lancashire three or four years ago, the Labour county council set up a system of Lancashire Locals, which were area committees, one for each district in Lancashire—the 12 districts. We thought that they were a bit big, but they have made some decisions. They are only very local ones, such as on traffic management issues and allocation of grants, but there has been a forum there and a way in which a very remote and large county could devolve some of its public discussion and decisions. They are now being abolished by the new county regime since the Conservatives got elected last June. Whatever words we hear from the Tories about localism and devolution, the experience in Lancashire is that they will do the opposite if and when they get into power. The future is the reinvention of democratic, representative local government. No party at the moment has a blueprint for this, or knows the way to go exactly, but it has to take place. At the moment, it is going in the wrong direction. Alan Beith said in Northumberland that we have to devolve responsibility for town councils and give them a bigger role. I am sure that that is part of it. It is no secret that "civic", used in expressions such as civic society, refers to towns. When the Victorians invented democratic local government, a great deal of it was concentrated and based on towns—large cities, smaller towns, including very small towns. Towns have a presence and an existence, and I believe that probably local government will have to be reinvented on the basis of the towns that exist, not large arbitrary areas that do not really represent anybody. My noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire is currently chairing a group in the Liberal Democrats looking at devolution and localism. I look forward to his report, but even we in our party have not begun to think about the radical evolutionary changes that will be necessary at local level if we want to reinvent local democracy. That will be a major task for this country over the next 10 to 15 years.