Local Government White Paper

My Lords, we live in one of the most centralised states in western Europe and, after the effects of this White Paper have been felt, that will remain the case. This is a wasted opportunity. The White Paper has not been worth the wait of the many months that it has taken to get this far. It does nothing to address the increasingly unsustainable burden of council tax or to deal with the dominance of central government funding for local government services. That lack of local financial flexibility is at the core of the weakness of modern local government. The White Paper does nothing to return the powers of central government or quangos back to town halls. The document is full of motherhood and apple pie, or as I have been taught to say in this new era of equalities, ““non gender-specific parenthood””. The Government now claim that they have discovered localism and decentralisation. Of course we welcome their conversion to the idea, but we remain deeply sceptical about whether they have any real understanding of it. The implementation is via a zoo of acronyms and action plans, all of which have the capacity to blur genuine accountability. The Government remain besotted with the notion of mayors. So far there have been 34 local referendums resulting in 22 rejections and 12 wins. That has been the choice of local communities. But Mr Blair wants mayors and so Mr Blair shall get mayors. We are going to get them through consultation now, not through referendums. If you do not want a mayor, you can have an enhanced leader. This is the imposition of the mayoral system by the back door, and I ask the noble Baroness why the Government are so determined to emasculate back-bench councillors in the same way as they have emasculated Back-Bench MPs. Vesting all executive power in an authority in one person is a highly dangerous move and should be resisted at all costs. There is a proposal to allow some areas that have already expressed an interest to become unitary councils if they choose to do so, and we believe that this is a sensible way forward. But we would like to know what the triggers are for this and how consent will be determined. Who will have a vote in such a proposal and who will make the final decision? The exact proposals for parishes are unclear, but giving very local communities more say in service delivery and local well-being is of course to be welcomed, provided that democratic accountability is not lost. A right to initiate a call to action must not turn into mob rule, and principal councils must retain the capacity to take strategic decisions and deliver big services for the benefit of the whole community. If it is left to the weight of numbers, the fix-the-pothole lobby will always be larger than the special-educational-needs lobby, but that does not make it right. In passing, I should like to comment on the flow chart on page 37, which describes what will happen in a call to action. It has come straight from the Janet and John book of local government. For anyone who has spent time in local government, it is risible. City regions are a case of the dog that has not barked in the night. We heard a lot about the idea in the Miliband era, but sadly it now seems to be rather silent. Several metropolitan areas are now ready for co-operative working, which they see as a way of unlocking devolved powers from Whitehall. So the crucial issues are the governance proposals that will be linked to the scheme: are they to have mayors; are councils to merge; and are we to have federated structures? More important, what powers would be on offer to those who choose to go down this route? If the scheme is linked to travel-to-work areas, existing council boundaries will be crossed and therefore local consent mechanisms are very important. Strengthening passenger transport authorities is to be welcomed in principle. Members on these Benches regret that this White Paper has been published ahead of the Lyons review so that the issues of powers, finance and structures will not be considered together despite the fact that they are inextricably linked. We believe that the failure to link these important issues will probably ensure that, even by its own meagre objectives, this White Paper is doomed to fail.