Local Government Bill [HL]

My Lords, whatever I say about the Bill, it is only fair to say at the outset that I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, to the Front Bench. She has been an effective speaker for her party in the past and I am sure that she will be a good Minister, but I do not think that she will look back on this Bill with any pride. In truth I doubt whether the Conservative-Liberal coalition, when it looks back on its "accomplishments", as I am sure it will describe them as being, will see the Bill as one about which they can feel proud. With the exception of my noble friend, everyone seems to be lost in the technicalities of the arguments here. In essence, the Bill is actually saying to the two great cities of Norwich and Exeter, "We do not think that it is right that you should govern yourselves". That is what it is doing; it is preventing that happening by law. That should not be a source of pride. It is at variance with the framework of the manifestos of the Tory party, the Liberal Democrats and the coalition, which repeat almost ad nauseam the importance of localism and of local people making their own decisions and having their own powers and authorities. I will not quote all the manifestos; it would almost be embarrassing. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, is quite right: it is true that the Conservative manifesto said that in respect of the Bill that we have now they would be, ""scrapping Labour’s uncompleted plans to impose unwieldy and expensive unitary councils"." I have heard unitary councils being described with all sorts of adjectives, but never "unwieldy". The unwieldy bit is the two-tier system; it is far more unwieldy than any unitary proposal. I am particularly surprised because this is so much at variance with the performance of the previous Conservative Government, whom I freely pay tribute to for the orders that they brought in establishing unitary local government. It gave me a great trip down memory lane to read the report from July 1996 when I had the pleasure of standing up and supporting the order brought in by John Gummer—I am pleased to say that he is now in this House—which provided for Telford to become a unitary authority. Maybe some of your Lordships have not yet had the opportunity of reading my speech on that occasion, but I was strongly in favour of the order. My main gist today is: let us not look into a crystal ball when we can read the history books. I want to share with the House a bit of our experience in Telford. The theory of unitary local government, rehearsed by my noble friend Lord McKenzie on the Front Bench, is, to me, pretty well unarguable: that it is so much better to have local government functions contained within one local authority. No one starting with a blank sheet of paper would dream of having two-tier local government. The boundary between the two authorities is complicated at best. I have with me a quotation from a Local Government Commission report about the distinction between transport functions in district and county councils. It states that county councils’ transport functions included for example, public transport, highways and parking, traffic management, footpaths and bridleways, and transport planning; and that district councils’ transport functions include unclassified roads, off-street car parking, footpaths and bridleways, and street lighting. Who on earth knew that? I did not until I read it. Certainly, the electorate do not know it. It is that kind of absurd distinction in planning and other parts of local government services that makes a two-tier system almost unintelligible. Many people in this House who have been MPs, the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, among them, will know that when people come to their surgery, they are not remotely interested in—they never necessarily know—whether a problem is a county or a district function. It is so much better for them and for the structure of local government and its overall intelligibility if services are provided by one local authority. I should mention also, in the light of yesterday’s debate on Lords reform, that we are in severe danger of voter fatigue if we have elections at parish, district, county, House of Commons and House of Lords levels. We shall have them for police authorities before long—or some variation of that—not to mention for the European Parliament. Anything which takes out one level has something, at least in principle, to commend it. What we learned in Telford would be just as applicable to Norwich and to Exeter, should they have the benefit, as I unarguably believe it is, of unitary local government. We achieved it in 1998—we have been running for 12 years. Inevitably, there was opposition; there was profound hostility. As the sitting MP, it was very difficult to find myself with a Labour-controlled district council and a Labour-controlled county council. Predictably, they were at war with one another on this issue. I am not in the least surprised that Norfolk and Devon mounted a massive campaign against any change. We had a lot of opposition from teachers. "Why are you breaking up the education authority?", I was asked—"You must be ready for opposition". However, I also found that it was a very unifying operation. We received tremendous support, as I understand has been the case both in Norwich and Exeter, from a huge swathe of people across the community, and from all political parties. We were supported by the Labour and the Conservative parties—I was told that all four parties were supportive in Exeter and three in Norwich. Other bodies, too, such as the churches—even Telford Football Club—supported what we were doing. It is very invigorating when you get that level of support. However, let us not consider what might be; let us consider what has actually happened in the county of Shropshire and in Telford since Telford came of age—that is how I would describe it. It is not "breaking away"; it is not "wrecking"; it is a big town coming of age. The change has not badly affected the relationship between Telford and the rest of the county; relations have been extremely good. The council has won many awards. I shall not dictate them—it is up to the MPs for the area to do that kind of thing these days—but it is significant that, in July 2006, Telford, then only eight years old, received the Municipal Journal award for the best unitary authority. Best of the lot is that the remaining county of Shropshire, many of whose councils had fiercely opposed Telford gaining unitary status, showed that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery by becoming a unitary authority. They obviously see the benefits of what is happening, just as it was clear to us in Telford. I am really at a loss as to why the Government have decided to proceed with this. Much as I admire the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, when I looked in her speech for a real, convincing case for saying to Exeter and Norwich that they cannot have their own system of local government, she simply said that we need this Bill because of non-compliance with the five criteria. We are not going to sing hymns about non-compliance with the five criteria. We need to answer the question about what is best for the citizens of Norwich and Exeter. What is the best structure for local government and what are the people asking for? Surely that is the question that should be asked. The basic values of both parties in the coalition are very much in support of localism—so why are they doing this, often in the teeth of local opposition and in the face of the evidence, with so many examples of unitary authorities being established? I would be very grateful if the Minister could refer to that when she winds up. Are any of those authorities looking to revert to their previous status? Are any single-tier authorities saying that they should be a two-tier authority? Has it not been a success? It was, I must say, a triumph of the previous Conservative Government that they had the sense to do this and to recognise that populations change, as well as previous Labour Governments. I conclude, as did my noble friend Lady Hollis, although I do not say this in a triumphalist way, that I have no doubt whatever that sooner or later these two cities will be allowed to govern themselves. It is inconceivable that this blocking mechanism can go on indefinitely. It is not only that I pray and hope that there will be a Labour Government again before too long, although I do. But the inexorable logic of the case and the power of the argument of the people in these two cities will sooner or later deliver it, and I wish that the Government would acknowledge that by withdrawing the Bill.