Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

moved Amendment No. 204CK: 204CK: Clause 96, page 61, line 35, leave out subsection (3) The noble Lord said: This is a more important and substantive matter. It relates to the interaction of the direct democracy part of parishes, which is the only part of local government where these recommendations exist in a statutory form, and the other processes set out in the Bill. I am grateful to the Minister for telling me in reply to a Question for Written Answer that there are about 10,000 parishes and that approximately 8,900 have councils and 1,100 have only meetings. That was about the only detail she could give in reply to a fairly detailed Question on the number of parish meetings, the size of parish councils and so on. Interestingly, this information is not kept at central level for this parish level of government. Perhaps that is understandable as people forget about parishes. I remind your Lordships that parish councils were set up during a brief spell of Liberal Government in the middle of the 1890s. They were extremely controversial. I have no doubt that a lot more people attended the discussions that took place in this House then, and that there were some very angry people who thought that having democratically elected parish councils would bring forward all sorts of anarchism, socialist revolution in the countryside and so on. I do not think that has happened with parish councils, but they are, nevertheless, very valuable. The Local Government Act 1972 sets out that there will be a parish council if there are more than 200 electors. If there are between 150 and 200, there may be a parish council. If there are fewer than 150, there may be a parish council if the parish meeting resolves that it wants one. Obviously we are talking about small rural communities, which nevertheless may be very active and vibrant. We should remember that there are parish meetings everywhere. Every parish in the country has an annual parish meeting which all electors may attend, even where there is a parish council. That meeting can call a parish poll, which is a referendum in the parish involving local government electors. This inbuilt right to a parish poll is unique in our local government system. Parish meetings and parish polls therefore already exist as part of the system. There are not many parish polls, but people know about them and they are often very significant. The Bill is more flexible on parish councils in that there does not have to be a parish council in a newly created parish. Existing parishes will simply continue as they are, but a newly created or reorganised parish does not have to have a parish council unless there are more than 1,000 electors, and it will not have one if there are fewer than 150. Although the Bill is more flexible in not allowing a parish council, it is considerably less flexible in allowing small parishes to have a parish council. That is one issue behind this group of amendments. I am trying through the amendments to restore the flexibility which the Government are removing, as well as to explore the relationships between parish meetings and parish polls and the system of creating, changing and abolishing parishes and putting to parish meetings and parish polls the decision—if that is what people want locally—to create a new parish if the area is very small or to abolish a parish. Amendment No. 204CK would leave out the provision that the review must recommend that the proposed new parish should not have a council if it has 150 electors or fewer. The amendment would mean that such a recommendation could go to the electors in the parish itself. Amendment No. 204CM would mean that if the number proposed was under 150, the council would need the resolution of a parish meeting and confirmation in a parish poll if there were to be a parish council. That does not automatically mean that there would be a parish council; it means that a parish council could be created in very small parishes that might cover quite a large rural area and that might have a vibrant community, but only if a parish meeting says that it wants one and a parish poll votes in favour. Amendment No. 204CN is about the abolition of parish councils, and would provide that a parish meeting would have to pass a resolution or may hold a poll in order to abolish a parish council. If it held a poll, the decision of that poll would prevail. This is fundamental and only fair. None of this would happen, however, if there was a general view that an existing parish council should be abolished. If, however, there were a dispute and a proposal to abolish the parish council, surely the existing institutions of the parish meeting and the existing institutions of the parish poll should be brought into play. That is a very important provision, because the abolition of a local authority, even if it is only a parish, is not a minor matter. Amendment No. 204CP would apply the same provisions to changes in groups of parishes, although I do not press for this quite as strongly as I do in relation to abolition. The first half of the amendment would apply the same provisions to a parish meeting and a parish poll coming into play, if that is what people want, in an ungrouped parish where it is proposed to group parishes. The second half—proposed new subsections (5) to (8) of my amendment—would apply to changes in grouping arrangements that could be subject to the same procedure across the group. The grouping issue is less important or vital here. Surely, the creation of parish councils, whether new small parishes can have one and the abolition of them are matters that should involve the existing statutory institutions of the parish meeting of everyone in the parish. In a small parish, a huge proportion of the people might turn up. A parish meeting vote, a parish poll, is an established and acceptable means of making decisions in rural areas. I beg to move.