Sustainable Communities Bill

That is a very interesting and serious question that I will reply to in two ways. First, yes, my hon. Friends and I do support a whole series of moves to bolster town and parish councils, and I think that I can say from the Dispatch Box today that we will support such measures when the Government bring before the House on Monday a Bill on that issue. Secondly, although those measures are not in the Bill before us today—not least because they are in the other Bill—the two Bills are in that respect complementary, just as they are in many other respects, which I shall come to in a moment. Borough and district councils will be given significantly more power compared with central Government if this Bill becomes law. It is much easier for parish and town councils to influence borough and district councils than it is for them to influence central Government. They are manifestly much closer to the scene of the action, and much more interpenetrative. In my area, for example, district councils typically attend parish and town council meetings. I do not suppose that the Minister has time to do that in every parish and town in Britain, and nor would I expect him to. Therefore, the Bill before us moves in the direction of increasing power at a lower level even than the district or borough, but it goes beyond that. There is specific provision for parish and town councils to be part of the group of people who are actively consulted when a local plan is being made. The hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac) has given me the chance to move on to my next point. This Bill does not create a one-off shift in the nature of our government. This is a Bill in the fine tradition of British constitutional development. It creates the basis for a gradual and progressive revolution in government over many years, because it sets up a ratchet that will exert increasing force over time. Once people comprehend the degree of power that the Bill will give them over how money is spent in their localities, they will increasingly demand more and at a lower level yet. There will be pressure for some of the decisions that the Bill conveys into the hands of boroughs and districts to be further conveyed into the hands of towns and parishes, and—who knows—perhaps eventually into the hands of even smaller neighbourhoods. I have considerable sympathy—I would have even more if it had been carried forward into action in some way—with the doctrine expressed by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, before he occupied that post, that we should have double devolution. We certainly do not see the district or borough council as the last word in localism. On the contrary, they are important staging posts on the road towards that.