Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones). I agree with practically everything that he said—I am sorry if that damages his career prospects—and perhaps that is because he spent a long time in local government before he came to the House, as did I. I wish that some other people had done the same. I am sorry to say it, but the truth is that the Bill is thoroughly disappointing. It is devolution of the kind that Napoleon Bonaparte brought to Europe. He said: ““I bring freedom to the peoples of Europe, provided that you (a) subscribe to the French governance model, (b) subscribe to the code of Napoleon, (c) subscribe to the continental system of tariffs in trade, and (d) send a levy of troops to the Grande Armée. Once you’ve dealt with all that, you’re entirely free to do what you like.”” The same situation applies to the Bill. The provisions are totally constrained, and the leadership model is a good example of that. When I was a London borough councillor in Havering, we had strong political leadership, and we had a leader and a cabinet. It was the leader who chaired the policy and resources committee, and he and the committee chairman met, and gave the officers and the authority the direction that they needed. There is no need to tinker with that, because it worked. The other problem with the Bill is that it is all about tinkering and creating a plethora of new structures, but what we should be doing is reinforcing existing democratic structures. That brings me to the buzzword of empowerment. The first thing that we could do is empower democratically elected councillors as local champions. I had the pleasure of being the deputy chair of the commission on London governance; I think that the Minister for Local Government is acquainted with some of its work. My chairman was the former Labour leader in Croydon, and we had input from leading Liberal Democrat council members, and we came to an all-party view. We thought that much more could be done, not to diffuse accountability, but to reinforce and concentrate it around the elected councillor as the local community champion. I am sorry to say that the Bill misses an opportunity in that regard, but I suggest that we could change that by taking some simple thoughts on board. We could strengthen the position of councillors by giving them a statutory right to be consulted by all public service providers in their ward. I was horrified to find that under the model for safer neighbourhood teams, the involvement of local councillors is almost discouraged, but they should be involved. Local councillors should be consulted about local health provision, on issues such as where a local surgery should be sited in their ward. We could strengthen their powers in that regard.