Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

I am pleased to have the opportunity to address the Minister while he is in his place. To my surprise, I have a few moments, so I shall touch briefly on two issues. I reiterate the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) about the timing of the Bill. As the Minister for Local Government said from a sedentary position earlier in the debate, the issue of local government reform has been on the agenda for over two and a half years. The Lyons review was commissioned by the Government to look at the restructuring of finances for local government. It is due to report in March. Why is the Bill not presented for our consideration after the Lyons review has reported? That is extraordinary. Another timing issue that I should raise is why areas have been asked to volunteer to change their status by Thursday this week, after Second Reading but before the Bill has completed its passage through the House. We heard from the Secretary of State that she intends to make amendments to the Bill, which could be significant, to do with the powers of the Secretary of State to direct local councils. Councils are being invited to abandon their existing structure for a structure that is still unclear, in terms of both the powers that will be available to them and the financing regime within which they will be operating. That seems a peculiar way to go about making legislation that will affect local government. I welcome aspects of the Bill. I welcome the reduction in targets, which we have heard about from many hon. Members in all parts of the House. I welcome the reduction of best value reports. My council—I should have reminded the House that I am still a local district councillor and proud to be so—has to produce best value report notes on some of the most minute aspects of the council’s service, which seems quite unnecessary. I welcome some of the plans for increased powers for parish councils. But there are many aspects of the Bill that concern me. Other Members have covered those in great detail, so I shall highlight three in particular. One is the loss of the committee structure, as directed in the Bill. I, like many others, have served on committees and found, when I arrived on the council, that that was a suitable way of learning the procedures and methods of council working. In the event of unitary structures being imposed, and with councils perhaps as strong as 80 to 100 councillors, in a cabinet system of government individual council members will be merely voting fodder and will not have access to discussion or decision-making as they do on committees at present, which has cross-party benefits and allows people to mature and perform various roles on the council. My second concern, which has not been covered much in the debate, is the impact of increasing city regions on rural areas. There are many rural areas which, even if they become unitary, will not be sufficiently adjacent to cities to be able to be included in city regions. It is important that we consider in Committee whether the similar powers that will be available to city regions will also be available to rural areas, perhaps working together.