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Code of Recommended Practice on Local Authority Publicity

My Lords, when looking at the two Motions before us this evening, I asked myself, what it is that most council tax payers want from their council? I believe that it is the provision of good or excellent services as cheaply as possible. Taxpayers want value for money; every pound spent wisely, especially in these straitened times. I should declare that I was a local councillor for a number of years. My district council, Breckland in Norfolk, is in the top quartile for performance—indeed, it has beacon status—and it still has the lowest council tax in the country; about £60 for a band D house. As a taxpayer, that is exactly where I want it to be: it is good value for money. The code deals with two main issues; new or tougher rules for local authority newsletters and the use of lobbyists by local authorities. Dealing with the use of lobbyists first, I ask myself the question, as a council tax payer: do I want my council paying tens of thousands of pounds to an outside firm to lobby MPs, public officials, political parties and government Ministers? The answer is an emphatic no, for two reasons. First, councillors and officers of the council already have open-door access to their MPs, Ministers and public officials. Why on earth do councils, therefore, need to pay good money to lobbyists to do their job for them? This leads me to my second point: it is a waste of taxpayers’ money, money that would be better spent in improving or maintaining front-line services. The other issue is that of newsletters. I listened carefully to the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and I have to say that I cannot understand the position he has taken. It does not seem logical to me. If the Minister had come to the Dispatch Box to say that all restrictions for local council publications were to be removed, I could perhaps understand the noble Lord’s position if he opposed that. Indeed, there might well be opposition from all around the House, and understandably so. Imagine the outcome if there was this free for all. There would be editors’ comments, opinion pages, hand-picked letters, all peddling the politics and policies of that particular council. I, for one, would find that undesirable, as, I suspect, would the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, especially as his party controls only less than 15 per cent of councils in the country. He would rightly argue that the Conservatives would have an unfair advantage, because they currently control more than 50 per cent of councils. Some rules need to be laid down to ensure an even-handed approach. The second issue is whether some local authorities create unfair competition for local commercial newspapers. I should stress that the vast majority of local councils publish no more than a quarterly newsletter, as has been mentioned, and the content is largely confined to making the electorate aware of the services provided by the authority, highlighting local concerns, and informing people how they might respond to them. That is perfectly right and proper. This code of conduct will not affect any of those authorities’ newsletters. Unfortunately, a small minority of councils go far beyond that, and feature TV guides, entertainment listings, puzzle pages, sporting news, commercial advertisements, and film and theatre reviews. This clearly strays into direct conflict with the commercial local newspaper industry. For instance, Tower Hamlets Council’s newspaper employs nearly 50 per cent more staff than its commercial rival, the East London Advertiser, and it has almost double the number of pages. Think of the cost of production, which is probably hundreds of thousands of pounds, all paid for by the poor council tax payer. This money would be far better spent on front-line essential services. Greenwich Council’s weekly newspaper costs the taxpayer more than £500,000. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, conveniently talks about localism. However, is it really localism to allow councils to produce their own newspapers that will not publish any criticism of themselves, are paid for by the council tax payer who has no say in the matter, and are in direct competition with the local commercial newspaper? Or is it a more healthy localism to have a flourishing independent local newspaper that finances itself, is able to comment on and criticise the activities of the council, and allows the electorate to comment through letters? I think that I know the right answer. I welcome the provisions introduced by the Minister. Council newsletters should be just that—newsletters, not newspapers—and councils should not pay good money to lobbyists to do a job that councils are perfectly able to do themselves. In both instances, the money would be better spent on front-line services.