Cheshire (Structural Changes) Order 2008

My Lords, when the Victorian county boundaries were settled, those responsible tried to follow natural boundaries as far as possible. In the case of Cheshire, that was the River Tame, the River Mersey, the Derbyshire hills and the Welsh border in particular. The church followed that, so the Diocese of Chester, when it was formed in its modern size, followed the Victorian county of Cheshire. In 1974, there was radical change, with about a third of the diocese, in population terms, moving into the new metropolitan counties of Merseyside and Greater Manchester. Subsequently, there was the formation of Holton and Warrington unitary authorities, spanning either side of the Mersey. So modern Cheshire is about half what it was until 1974. The past 30 years have seen further evolution in the former areas of Cheshire, with the demise of the metropolitan county structure and the emergence of the unitary authorities of the Wirral, Tameside, Stockport and Trafford, which impinge in various ways on the old county. My diocese now comprises the current county of Cheshire plus the various areas which have been affected by that series of reorganisations. My ministry has been across all those areas for the past 11 years and I have learnt to love, respect and serve them equally. One conclusion that I have drawn is that, when it comes to local government, it must be local and relate to local realities, beliefs, practices, traditions and aspirations. People do not want a sense of local government being imposed against the will of local people, being imposed roughshod. On the details of the proposal before us, although all the changes of the past 30 years or so have been happening to the north, the current county of Cheshire, with its county council and six district councils, has generally worked well. I endorse all that the two noble Lords who have just spoken have said about that. The county council in particular can claim a great deal of credit for its consistently excellent performance, which has been acknowledged by successive performance reviews. I imply no criticism of the district councils, with their more limited and local remits, but there has been overwhelming appreciation for the work of local government in Cheshire. In the performance assessments that have been made, the education service has always been a special beacon of excellence. I can testify to that from my direct experience of visiting very many schools—infant, junior and secondary—as well as the quite exceptional special schools that are such a credit to Cheshire. Current school provision across the county is generally good. I know this from comments of my clergy who move around the diocese with children. I very rarely have any problem with children not settling into new schools. In other parts of the country, a different tale is often told. I was therefore not surprised to see that those who are responsible locally for schools, as we have heard, have made particular and unanimous representations against the current proposals. As we all know, education is a very sensitive subject today in society, and indeed in politics, and rightly so. The unanimity of opposition from those responsible for educational provision to the proposals should be weighed particularly carefully. If what I have said so far is broadly accurate, we may well ask why we do not leave things as they are and encourage the county and the six districts to deepen and develop their partnerships and joint working. As the Minister said at the outset, that was one of the possibilities which the White Paper and the subsequent Bill permitted. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. In many ways, reflecting on the discussions of the past year or two, that would have been the wiser course. It is not where we are now. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, that the single unitary authority has obvious objective merits, but the path to get to that other than by a process of much better consensus has been stony and difficult. Having seven different councils can look a little complex and messy, and so to some extent it was and is, but Cheshire is best seen as a fellowship, a family, of quite distinct, yet closely related and competent, communities: from Neston to Macclesfield, from Congleton, Crewe and Nantwich to Chester, from Alderley and Knutsford to Middlewich and Malpas—I could name many others—each with their strong local institutions and civic traditions, their town and district mayors. I have met dozens of them over the years. All of them are a credit to the county, and all aim to serve their people and to be examples of what we have heard of so far. The present two-tier arrangements may have degrees of inefficiency, but they are honed to work well and are widely appreciated, so where did the impetus for change come from? Inevitably, we would need to delve into the rather murky world of local politics to understand what started this current juggernaut to roll. There was also a belief, which came to be shared more widely, that a real case can be made for unitary local government. I accept that. Indeed, I lived through it in Yorkshire where I was a vicar before I went to Chester when Humberside County Council was dismantled. From a combination of political boxing and coxing, on which I would rather not speculate, and from a sense that in an ideal world the unitary structure probably was best, two clear proposals emerged: for a single unitary authority based on the current county boundaries; and for two unitary authorities based on an east-west split. The problem with the east-west split is that there is no natural geographical, social, cultural or business north-south boundary in Cheshire; it is a purely arbitrary line that is drawn to separate east and west in the way that is proposed. Unsurprisingly, given the strong traditions and many very able people involved in local government in the area, both these proposals were recognised as meeting at least most of the criteria which the Government had set down—for affordability, strategic leadership, empowerment of neighbourhoods, and value for money in public services—although the evidence that I have seen suggested that the bid for a single unitary authority would produce better value for money. It is much less clear to me that either proposal has support across a broad cross-section of partners and stakeholders. Indeed, in one sense it is a little illogical to pretend that both can, because in one sense they are mutually exclusive. This seems to be recognised in paragraphs 7.12 and 7.13 of the Explanatory Memorandum to the order. Paragraph 7.12 says: "““In all areas, a wide range of views was expressed””." That is, there was a lack of consensus right across the views that were expressed. Indeed, if you were to distil the consensus, as has been said, it would be for the single unitary authority. On proposals to restructure this House, the Government are on record as saying that consensus is by far the best way to proceed. There is no consensus in Cheshire for either of the present unitary proposals, not least for the Government’s present proposal. It does seem that the process has gone badly wrong somewhere along the line to get us to where we are this evening. If we need a clear demonstration of the lack of consensus, we need only look at page 9 of the summary of responses in the stakeholder consultation. I will not go through them—the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, has already done that very effectively—but it is difficult to read them and pretend that there is consensus for the proposal for two unitary authorities. One is left wondering why the Government have decided on the other option of two unitary authorities. It certainly does not seem to have been decided on the merits of the case, certainly not to the people of Cheshire. That is why I shall support the amendments. Let me emphasise that I, and everyone in Cheshire whom I know, will work hard to make work whatever is put into effect, however hard that will be. There is the good will and desire at the end of the day to make things work, but it is very difficult, speaking on behalf of the community in which I minister, to realise that we are starting from such an unsatisfactory proposal. In the short term, there will be much disruption, despite the good will with which the transition will be attempted. In the longer term, I fear especially for the educational provision, which has justly received beacon status and which is so important to the communities themselves. The Government say that achieving a broad cross-section of support does not mean doing a head count of those who support what is being proposed, but that what is being proposed is in the best interests of the people of Cheshire. I can tell the House that people want good schools and good education. They have it. They want a director of education, not a director of adult and children’s services all combined together. That is one of the ways in which the two unitary authorities proposal is made to be affordable: by lumping too many things together. Let me draw my remarks to a close with a more general point. Those who favour the two-unitary solution have tended to do so on the basis that, whereas west Cheshire relates to Liverpool, east Cheshire relates to Manchester. The summary of responses speaks of city regional strategies in this regard, and the Secretary of State’s letter giving her decision contains similar hints. I do not believe that the people of Cheshire think of themselves as outlying citizens of city regions. There is simply very little evidence that they think in that way. They think first and foremost with pride of the deep historic links in Cheshire itself. Perhaps those in the areas that were detached in 1974 have come to think of themselves as relating primarily to Manchester and Liverpool, but not those in modern Cheshire, which has many thriving rural and semi-rural areas along with urban areas such as Crewe. The essential unity of Cheshire as such has emerged quite clearly once again during the recent recession in agriculture. One of the things I fear is that, if government agendas are driven so much by city and urban agendas, rural policy will not be given its own integrity and proper consideration. That is one of the consequences of driving a wedge through what is clearly the integrated agricultural county of Cheshire itself. So I hope that there is yet time for the Government to think again, hard though that may be to contemplate, to consult the people of Cheshire more fully and to ponder the right way forward before continuing on the present hasty path.