Local Government Bill [HL]

My Lords, I wish to speak in support of Amendments 1 and 2. These amendments invite the Government to reintroduce principle into their consideration of local government restructuring. The Secretary of State would be obliged by 2013 to consider whether further unitary reorganisations might in principle be permitted, and to state his criteria for deciding for or against such reorganisations. I will, if I may, explain some of the principles to which I believe the Government at that time should have regard. I will illustrate them by reference to Norwich and Exeter, as it is those cities with which the Bill is concerned. The principles illustrated in relation to Norwich and Exeter should be taken, however, as models for general application as and when the Government abandon their present unreasoning hostility towards creating new unitary local authorities. There is, of course, a very strong case in principle for unitary local authorities. Unitary local government can be expected to lead to better provision of services in terms of quality, efficiency and economy, arising from closer local knowledge and responsiveness and better adapted service models. In the case of Norwich, a local authority dedicated to serving Norwich, its members all local people, would have intimate knowledge of the issues and needs in Norwich which, in a complex and sizeable urban community, are very different from those of rural Norfolk. Cities such as Norwich and Exeter need their own distinct policies and distinct administration if their distinctive problems and opportunities are to be addressed to best effect, and to enable such cities to realise their full potential, economically, culturally and socially. Unitary local government that enabled Norwich and Exeter to maximise their economic and cultural success would of course be to the great benefit of Norfolk and Devon. It is plain common sense that unitary government will be more economical, having no duplication of staff, no fragmentation of functions, no complex procedures for co-ordination and no opacity in accountability. Unitary local government is also good for democratic culture. It provides for clear and accountable local political leadership. Norwich councillors and Exeter councillors would be straightforwardly answerable to Norwich people and Exeter people. In a two-tier system, there are two councils, two sets of councillors, two sets of policies and two sets of service delivery arrangements. County and district are conflicted and confused between the competing demands of rural and urban needs. Some responsibilities are split; for example, housing and social services. Some overlap; for example, planning, with businesses having to negotiate two overlapping bureaucracies. In a two-tier structure, there can be no clear focus in policy-making, no clear strategic direction, no clear political leadership and no clear political responsibility. The Conservative Party used to understand that local government was the seedbed of our democratic culture—a culture that has become all too withered. One cannot overstate the importance of reviving our democracy from its local base. It is a consideration of principle that should recommend itself to the Conservative Party, if it still has a sense of history, that the structure of local government should enable communities to be proud communities. Many of the cities that have become unitary authorities within the past 20 years were historically proudly self-governing county boroughs independent of their surrounding counties—some of them, like Norwich and Exeter, with charters going back many hundreds of years. For them, the 1974 reorganisation was an historical aberration. No one recently has better described the importance of place than the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, whom I am very pleased to see in her place. She comes from Bradford, like Mr Pickles. She has been chair of the Local Government Association. In a SOLACE Foundation pamphlet in January 2009, she wrote about, "““the more difficult agenda—the holistic agenda of growing a place’s unique character. This is where the true genius of local government really lies. Not just being the deliverer of a Whitehall agenda but by being the champion of a locality … Pride in place is not just about good services and sound finances, critical thought these are, but it is also about being the guardian of an area’s character, knowing and reflecting its personality and preserving its identity. It is to protect and enhance its story and this is best achieved by those who, day by day, walk local streets, suffering with the electorate their traumas and sharing in their achievements””." The noble Baroness expressed it extremely well. I ask noble Lords on the Benches opposite to understand just how demeaning it is when, without any consultation whatever, the county, none of whose cabinet members represent Norwich wards, decrees that the street lights in Norwich should be switched off at night, when it seeks to impose closure of cherished daycare centres, when it imposes a restructuring of children's services, or when it refuses to permit the locally desired pedestrianisation of an historic street. A two-tier structure invites that kind of arrogant and improper behaviour by the county. The Conservative Party in truth has no objection in principle to unitary local government. Indeed, the previous Conservative Government created unitary local authorities wholesale. That Government were in deep difficulty, as was the whole of local government, as a result of the crass misjudgments of the 1974 reorganisation, the anomalies left by the abolition in 1986 of the metropolitan counties, the chaos created by the poll tax and the progressive erosion in the 1980s of local government powers. The noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, as Secretary of State for the Environment, trying to recoup something from this crisis of local government, decided to review not just the financing of local government, but its structure and management. A consultation paper in 1991 proposed, "““a move towards unitary authorities where these do not already exist””." The Conservative Government set up a new quango—the Local Government Commission for England—to undertake a review and make recommendations. The criteria given to it for evaluation were not just those of financial costs and benefits, but to strengthen identity, accessibility, responsiveness and democracy. In September 1993, the noble Lord, Lord Deben, then the right honourable John Gummer, Environment Secretary, strengthened the presumption in favour of unitary local authorities replacing two-tier structures. He said: "““Authorities must be big enough to do the job and small enough to know the people””." On 1 October 1993, the Financial Times reported Mr Gummer as announcing that: "““England’s two-tier local government structure should be replaced with a series of unitary authorities, even if it costs more than the present system””." On 20 October, he said in another place, "““we would expect the norm of local government to be unitary authorities … we point to the importance of unitary local government because it ensures that people know whom to hold to account when decisions are made. In two-tier local government, there is often a grave difficulty with that””.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/10/93; col. 261.]" Admittedly, the Banham review as it developed was pretty chaotic, and Howard Davis of INLOGOV afterwards described the review as, "““an object lesson in how not to do things””." None the less, the outcome of the process driven through by the Conservative Government was the creation in England of no fewer than 46 new unitary local authorities, 19 of which finally came into being shortly after the 1997 election. The litany of unitary authorities newly created or recreated in England in that period includes Hartlepool, Hull, Middlesbrough, Stockton on Tees, Bournemouth, Brighton and Hove—of which my noble friend Lord Bassam was a distinguished leader—Darlington, Derby, Leicester, Luton—of which my noble friend Lord McKenzie was another distinguished leader—Milton Keynes, Poole, Portsmouth, Southampton, Stoke on Trent, Swindon, Reading, Slough, Wokingham, Peterborough, Halton, Warrington, Plymouth, Torbay, Southend, Thurrock, Blackpool, Nottingham and Telford and Wrekin. How can it reasonably be contended that the two cities of Norwich and Exeter should not be included in such company and, indeed, in the company of the further unitaries subsequently created by the Labour Government? In Scotland and Wales, the Conservative Government went further and simply replaced the inherited structures of two-tiered local government with a consistent pattern of unitary local authorities everywhere. There are 32 in Scotland and 22 in Wales. The previous Conservative Government created in all, for very good reasons, 100 new unitary local authorities. That is even better than Don Bradman’s test batting average of 99.6. It is striking that no local authority has ever applied to be allowed to revert to being part of a two-tier structure. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, never, so far as I know, but may be she will tell the House that I am incorrect on this, when she was a distinguished leader of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea—I know she was because I was one of the contented people who enjoyed living in the borough under her leadership—proposed that matters should be restored so that the proudly Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea could be placed once again under the GLC and ILEA to jog her elbow and take the big decisions for her community. Never did she express nostalgia for that. As one of Newport’s MPs from 1997, I witnessed how Newport County Borough Council, later Newport City Council, responded most positively and effectively under the leadership of Councillor Sir Harry Jones to the opportunity created by unitary status. The noble Baroness and I both know from our different responsibilities as elected representatives how unitary status challenges and allows communities to thrive on the basis of local self-government. The new coalition makes grand professions about localism. The Secretary of State said in his statement on the Queen’s Speech on 10 June: "““if you want to restore faith in politics, you make sure that local government is properly accountable to the voters … If you want people to feel connected to their communities, proud of their communities, then you give people a real say over what happens in their communities. And the power to make a difference … Everything we've done””—" said Mr Pickles— "““has been about giving up control””." Tell that to the people of Norwich and Exeter. The Minister for Decentralisation, Mr Greg Clark, in his speech to the Local Government Association conference on 8 July, said: "““we will put people back in charge of their lives. Put businesses and councils back in charge of economic growth. Put town halls back in charge of local affairs””." Unfortunately, the professions of coalition Ministers have not been matched by their actions and their policies. All the signs are that the new localism will be about bypassing elective local government and recklessly creating excessive dependence on unaccountable community groups. Most flagrantly so far, the one tangible policy for local government that the coalition has introduced is this Bill, which denies Norwich and Exeter the local self-government that the coalition’s professed principles should have caused it to endorse. It is a policy that is nakedly driven by calculations of party political interests: no more and no less. At no point in any of our debates have the opponents of unitary status for Norwich and Exeter, whether on the Front Benches or the Back Benches, provided any argument of principle in support of their position. Their arguments have all been splutter, irrationality and irrelevance. We have heard from them unfounded and offensive assertions that Norwich is not competent in its financial management, bogus points about costs and the tangential accusation that the Secretary of State in the previous Government had not proceeded in accordance with criteria that he had published three years before in very different circumstances. They have produced no arguments against the merits of the case for unitary reorganisation, which is the proper heart of the matter. The coalition’s policy in this Bill may or may not be hybrid. The case for hybridity was in the event not fully tested by the Examiners, because Norwich and Exeter withdrew their memorial, not having the resources to pay for an appeal against the judicial review. What it certainly is, is discriminatory. Eric Pickles seems to have forgotten that he is no longer chairman of the Conservative Party. I have known him for many years, and I hold him in affection. I know him to be a tough, opportunistic party politician, and no one will drum him out of the Carlton Club for that, but bullying is another matter. In this policy and this Bill, he is bullying the people of Norwich and Exeter and their elected representatives, particularly the local Liberal Democrats. He is also bullying his officials. He is on record as saying that he intends, "““to keep a … pearl-handled revolver in my drawer, and the first civil servant who suggests local government reorganisation will be shot””—" spoken humorously, of course, but unmistakably threatening and not an appropriate tone. No Minister should set out to scare his officials from offering him their honest advice. Eric Pickles is Secretary of State now—““Bottom, how art thou translated””—and he should behave like a proper Secretary of State. He has wider responsibilities than just to his own party. His bluster, of course, is the product of some embarrassment that he is repudiating the principled position in support of unitary local government that his party espoused a few years ago and which he cannot find rational arguments to disavow. I should like to ask the Minister why, in preparing the Bill and giving instructions to Treasury counsel, the Government did not repeal Part 1 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. Is it that the Secretary of State and CLG officials are not after all opposed to unitary local authorities in all circumstances? Have they deliberately kept the door ajar for new unitary counties in the future? If they want to see new elected mayors in major cities, as they say they do, that surely implies unitary cities. Their objection to unitary status for Norwich and Exeter is based not on principle but on blatant political opportunism, including on the part of Mr Cameron in Norfolk during the election campaign. There remains an ancien régime attitude among the Norfolk Tories, courteous and elegant as they are, that the little people—the plebs of Norwich—should be bent to their will and made to suit their convenience. Mr Cameron’s Conservative Party still, in the 21st century, considers that humbler folk should tug their forelocks. It is a selfish state of mind: ““what we have we hold””. It is a primitive state of mind: territorial primitivism. Their objection to local self-government for Norwich has nothing to do with principle. In not repealing the 2007 legislation, the Government make it clear that they do envisage further unitary reorganisations. These amendments would oblige them to revisit the issue of unitary reorganisation by 2013—a reasonable timescale—and to articulate the principles on which they base their policy in regard to the structure and functions of local government, as well as their criteria for individual decisions on applications for unitary status. The amendments would provide a further opportunity for local authorities which have been victims of this Government’s discrimination—Norwich, Exeter and Ipswich and the Suffolk authorities—once again to make their case to be allowed the same opportunities as so many other comparable authorities. By then, Mr Pickles and his pearl-handled revolver will be no more than a distant folk memory in CLG or what remains of it. Indeed, it is probable that the coalition will equally have melted into thin air. If there is anything left by then of local government itself, we must hope for a fairer and more principled approach by Whitehall to local government restructuring. These amendments point in that direction.