My Lords, Amendments 44H, 44J, 44K and 44L are in my name. They are probing amendments, and in speaking to them I am very proud to declare an interest as a member of Cumbria County Council. I speak to these amendments with the full support of the Labour leader of Cumbria County Council, Stewart Young. I very much hope that the outcome might be some kind of constructive cross-party—I emphasise that—dialogue between the county council, the generality of local government in Cumbria and DCLG Ministers about how best to streamline what are really cumbersome arrangements for local government in our county in the wider public interest.
We desperately need a simplification of the present structures to provide better value for money at a time when things are very tight and will possibly get a lot worse; to make local government more effective at doing its job with limited resources; to improve democratic accountability and closeness to the people for the entirety of the services that we deliver; and, most importantly in the context of the Bill, to enable the people of Cumbria and the new authorities in Cumbria
to seize the opportunities for devolution of power from an overcentralised Whitehall that the Bill is all about.
The amendments are to Clause 10. We are quite far along in our deliberations but it is the clause that justifies the inclusion of “and Local Government” in the title of the Bill because it widens the scope of what we are talking about from what I think in reality initially started out as a big cities government Bill into something that can transform local government in many of our smaller city and county areas. I remind my Labour colleagues that I think this is in line with the party policy at the last election, where we stressed the importance of devolution to county regions as well as city regions.
Clause 10 does not seek to impose a single model on local authorities, and that is very welcome. That flexibility is right but the aim of the amendments in my name is to remove what we in Cumbria believe will be an insuperable obstacle to the necessary transformation of structures; that is, the requirement in Clause 10(3) that regulations can be made,
“only with the consent of the local authorities to whom the regulations apply”.
This requirement for local government unanimity—in my view and, I venture to say, in the view of many people in Cumbria—gives far too much weight and leverage to what I would describe as the forces of small “c” conservatism. I hasten to add that the position I am putting forward is supported by many large “C” Conservatives in the county. This is not a party issue; this is a view that unites people across the parties in my county council.
My amendments try to offer a number of options for what could take the place of Clause 10(3) to facilitate the creation of new single-tier councils in what are at present two-tier local government areas. I emphasise that in Cumbria that would not necessarily be a single, unitary council but it would be a streamlined model of authorities. In our view, substantial consensus in the community would be necessary to support such a measure but not unanimity, which experience has shown over 25 years—it has been 25 years since this was first discussed—is impossible to achieve. I am putting these amendments forward as options. Some are mutually contradictory. We are interested to hear what the Government think and whether they are prepared to move on this question.
9 pm
We are putting forward what I would describe as a proposal to enable the Government to be permissive. It would allow progress, which is so important, and I would like briefly to concentrate on the reasons why.
First, in the age of austerity that we are in, unifying councils will save considerable amounts of money. We have to be grown-ups. We know that there is going to be an intensification of austerity, probably starting with the Budget next week. It is our duty as elected representatives in our county to try to safeguard front-line services as best we can in these circumstances. I am not trying to generate a political argument. I just think that it is the clear duty of everyone, of whatever party, to try to do their best to maintain front-line services.
We commissioned a study from EY, which said that having a unitary authority for the whole of Cumbria would save at least £28 million a year in operating costs, which is about 6% of the revenue budget of the county and district authorities combined. That is a substantial saving. Even if the necessary savings might be double—or in the worst-case scenario, triple—6%, that would be a substantial chunk of the savings that the county would have to make in the process of fiscal consolidation, and I am told that the evidence is that where unitary authorities have been established the savings have been rather larger than initially anticipated.
Secondly, it is important to concentrate functions in a single authority if we are to be effective in local government. It really is a nonsense to have planning in one place and economic development in another, to have rubbish collection in one council and environmentally sustainable disposal in another, or to try to have a transport plan if one council is in control of highways and another of off-street parking. There are innumerable instances of this kind. So, for effectiveness, this change is desirable.
Thirdly, it would improve democratic accountability. The great problem with the present arrangements is that it is the under-resourced, tiny district councils that see themselves, and are seen by the public, as the local voice of the people, although they are largely powerless in reality to turn that voice into action, while the county council—which has 85% of the resources—is by definition seen as remote and people do not understand it. It is unhealthy for local democracy to have this division between a pretty meaningless local accountability and a council that is remote from the people, and it is bad for the attitude of the people who work in the authorities.
Fourthly—this is the key point in relation to the Bill—it is only through having a scheme of local reorganisation that we will be able to take advantage of the further opportunities for devolution in the Bill. I think the Minister had an exchange last Wednesday with my noble friend Lady Hollis. She outlined how there could be a local level combined authority, which could then be part of another combined authority, which could then be part of another combined authority. The Minister was very clear that this Russian doll model would not work. If in Cumbria we are to play a part in the devolution of power, we have to find a way of simplifying our local government structure. That is vital if many local problems are to be addressed. For instance, a unified council in north Cumbria could ask to become part of the combined authority being established in the north-east to try to improve east-west communications, or we could try to extend the remit of our LEP outside Cumbria by partnering with others to address issues such as regeneration, business growth and skills, where we are just too small to get a handle on those things.
One of the biggest problems, although it is outside the Minister’s remit, is that we have some of the worst-performing health bodies in the country in our county. They are running up very big deficits. The solution to all the bed-blocking and the problems that exist has to be much closer integration with social care. There has to be a way of doing that, but it would be very difficult to do it with a two-tier structure.
For all those reasons I am hoping that this set of amendments will generate a discussion. I know that the argument has previously been made that, “We don’t want to waste time on local government reorganisation, and anyway we will only consider proposals for its reorganisation if everybody is agreed on a way forward”. I think that many of the noble Lords in the Chamber come from metropolitan areas. Although there have been strong competing rivalries between councils in metropolitan areas in the past, a strong mutual interest has prevailed in those rivalries. In two-tier areas, it is different. There is an inbuilt structural tension between the authorities and conflict between them. There is a debate which is existential for quite a few people, and you will never get agreement. That is why I am asking not for the Secretary of State to dictate but for an openness to incentivise local authorities to talk to each other and begin to reach an agreement by saying, “There are circumstances in which we could go ahead and streamline local government even if we don’t have unanimity”. I leave it there for now, in the hope that the Minister will take on board some of this unsolicited advice.