Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

Listening to my noble friend, I got the impression that perhaps she understood this rather better than I did. We are firmly in the morass and maze of ““best value.”” When first introduced, this was to be the new, simplified, liberating system to replace compulsory competitive tendering, which had been introduced by the previous Conservative Government and was generally disliked within local government. The Labour Party came to power promising to abolish CCT and replaced it with best value first in the 1999 Act and then in the 2000 Act which introduced the concept of community strategies, which we all now know and love. I cannot understand what Clauses 138 and 139, and the rest of this part, will do or change that is not covered by the existing legislation. The proposed new Section 3A(1) of the 1999 Act refers to ““involvement of local representatives””. There is already something about involving the people in the previous Acts. For example, the 2000 Act says that in preparing or modifying its community strategy, a local authority must consult and seek the participation of such persons as it considers appropriate, which seems a fairly straightforward statement in simple, easy-to-understand language. Then you get to the morass introduced by the second part, which says that it must have regard to any guidance for the time being issued by the Secretary of State. That is where immense complications come in. Now we have this wording in the Bill. If anyone can tell me what this means, I would be very grateful. New Section 3A under Clause 139 states: "““Where a best value authority considers it appropriate for representatives of local persons (or of local persons of a particular description) to be involved in the exercise of any of its functions by being—""(a) provided with information about the exercise of the function,""(b) consulted about the exercise of the function, or""(c) involved in another way,""it must”” —" ““must”” is a very strange word, there— "““take such steps as it considers appropriate to secure that such representatives are involved in the exercise of the function in that way””." That is either a revolutionary statement or it means nothing; I think it means nothing. What is the purpose of putting words like that into legislation? All it says is that a council, when it feels like it, can tell people what is going on, ask them what they think about it and involve them in some way. They can have a survey, a questionnaire, a citizen’s panel, or invite them to meetings. When councils want to do this, they already do so. There is no difficulty about it. There are no legislative provisions which say that you cannot do this. So why do we need this incredibly convoluted, complex, new section, which, if it means anything at all, simply means that you can do things you have been doing all the time? Clause 139(5) is the usual stuff. It states: "““In deciding how to fulfil its duties under subsection (1)””—" its duties are only when it considers it appropriate— "““an authority must have regard to any guidance issued by the Secretary of State””." That takes us back to Clause 138, which says, in effect, that the Secretary of State can issue instructions—it is called guidance, but no one goes against it—to councils to do anything he wants them to do, in any way and at any time. The whole thing is incredibly centralist. It is part and parcel of the system in which central government, particularly through its regional offices in this case, has its very close grips on local authorities. All this talk about devolution turns out not to mean very much in practice when this kind of legislation is passed. I am very cynical about the whole thing, which is why I have put down these amendments. Why does the Bill not just say, ““Consult who you want or consult everyone who wishes to be consulted””? I shall give an example of how this will work out in practice. Pendle Council, of which I am a member, is in the fairly early stages of consulting people under the 1999 and 2000 legislation on the community strategy, which is now suddenly called the ““sustainable community strategy””. I think that it is the same thing. I do not know where the word ““sustainable”” appeared, but it does not appear in legislation. We have to call it sustainable now, which is fine, and we do not mind doing so. At the same time, we have the horrifically complex, new planning legislation, which went through your Lordships' House about two years ago, setting up the local development framework, so the two go side by side. Instruction from regional offices—that is, the Secretary of State—is very prescriptive about how you have to consult, otherwise it is not approved. In effect, the consultation taking place now is a blank-sheet consultation. People are being asked, ““What do you think about the future of Pendle? What would you like to see in Pendle and what kind of place would you like it to be?””. This overlaps with all sorts of other consultation that has taken place. There is consultation fatigue, so very few people will respond because they do not believe that that kind of consultation has any meaning. It is counterproductive because it brings the process of consultation into disrepute. I speak as someone who thinks that public consultation and involvement is very important. I argued that a long time ago when organisations such as the Labour Party thought it was all nonsense. Because the consultation is open-ended, it is unrealistic and meaningless. People might come along and say, ““We would like 5,000 new houses built””, or ““We would like a university””, or ““We would like the Leeds and Liverpool Canal turned into a continuous marina””. However, they might say, ““We want no more development at all””. For consultation to be relevant and sensible, it has to be based on practical things. If people ask sensible questions about practical situations in the real world, they will come up with sensible answers and will tell you what they think. You may or may not agree with them, but there will be sensible consultation. Open-ended consultation is being forced on local authorities by the regional offices and the Secretary of State. I fear that this part of the Bill is simply more of the same. It is written by people who have not the slightest idea of what consultation and involvement of people is like on the ground in the real world. I hesitate to use the words of John Prescott about teeny-boppers in Downing Street, but one suspects that a lot of this legislation comes from such people.