Debate on the Address

My Lords, like some other noble Lords I wish to speak to the local government aspects of the debate. Before I do, I shall pick up the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, who talked about the Lake District. I endorse everything he said about the Lake District and the high fells. It is a very serious matter that the Government have to take account of. Three weeks ago we were presented with the local government White Paper, and, like other noble Lords, I shall assume that the White Paper will heavily influence the contents of any Local Government Bill we receive. I said then, on the basis of a quick flick through, that the White Paper was full of much talk of devolution but little evidence of it. I said that it seemed to be mostly about greater central control and that in many ways it was authoritarian and centralist and would lead to greater uniformity. Since then I have had the opportunity to reconsider those remarks and to read the White Paper in detail, and I am more convinced now than I was then that what I said is true. No doubt we will have time to scrutinise exactly what the Government mean by that and whether sceptics such as myself are right or wrong. My noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market, in an outstanding speech at the start of the debate, and the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Lockhart, who made a very interesting maiden speech, both commented that we are unique in this country in the high degree of centralisation in our governmental system. We are unique also in the large size of our local authorities. On average, we have the largest local authorities in Europe, perhaps in the world, and all that this White Paper will do is make some of them even larger. It is time that people stepped back and asked why that is. The main theme that runs through the White Paper is strong leadership. The missing theme is democracy; in the local community and in the council. Many councillors and many people in local government believe that the new arrangements since 2003 have been disastrous, and that the effect on the role of most councillors has been disastrous. What is the solution? The Government’s solution, as my noble friend said, is to go even further to concentrate power in the hands of one man or, perhaps occasionally, one woman. Having a choice of three systems that are set out in a prescriptive way is really quite ridiculous. There is the system to elect a cabinet en masse has not been thought through, and it will be fascinating to see how that will work. There is the system for the council to vote to have an elected mayor, with no more referendums. The people do not like mayors, therefore the council will vote to impose them on people. This is a shoddy proposal, even more so because it is a one-way change. It is made clear that you will be able to move to have a mayor, but if it does not work you will not be able to move back. This comes from a Government that claim to be devolving responsibility and decision-making. There is the suggestion of a four-year term for ordinary council leaders, which will cause enormous problems in practice, which we may have the chance to discuss. It is not strong leadership that is needed in local authorities; it is good leadership. Sometimes you put all your eggs in one basket, and you might get a good egg, but you might also get a basket case, and the mayors who have been elected probably span that spectrum. There are excellent mayors, and there are some who are less excellent. Quality of leadership depends on a person or people more than structures. You could have one leader elected by one of these methods and the leader will be weak or stupid. Giving them a four-year term will not make them strong or wise. The experience of London has been fundamental in persuading some of the policy wonks in No. 10 to come up with these ideas, but London is a very special case indeed. To try to transpose what is happening in London—even if it is perfect and the perfect model for everyone; and I am not sure my noble friend Lady Hamwee would agree with that—and say that that should be the model for every other type of community in the rest of England is stretching it. I remind the House of the original big town boss who at the time was lauded as an example for all of us—T. Dan Smith in Newcastle. Look at the problems that he got into. At local level, I suggest that good local leadership is not about strong macho posturing imposing tough decisions; it is about bringing people together, reconciling conflicting interests, providing a democratic forum for open decision-making, providing vision, yes, getting things done, yes, but in a way that is collective, collegiate and co-operative. The best local authorities have always been summed up by those words, which used to be at the very foundation of what the Labour Party stood for. It is astonishing that it has now moved away from that towards an authoritarian, some would say neo-fascist, idea. The Government are concerned about councils in no overall control, but they are setting up structures that are specifically designed not to be suitable for councils in no overall control. It is possible to run very good councils indeed under no overall control, and many members of my party have had experience of that, but you do not do it by setting up structures that are specifically designed for overall control by one party. We have the whole question of the role of councillors. Some noble Lords today have asked, ““Why do people stand for council?””, ““Why do people vote for councillors?””, ““Why do they turn out to vote?””, ““How do councillors get experience for leadership roles?””. In my experience, most people stand for the council originally because they have a fairly vague idea that they want to improve things, and they want to get things done. They particularly want to make a change in their own neighbourhoods, and they want to take part in the decision-making processes that affect all these things. They want influence, and the people, having voted, expect those councillors to have influence, especially at the most local level. I do not think that councillors get elected to nod through an endless supply of enormous policy and strategy reports, most of them great big fat reports full of impenetrable new Labour management-speak, which have already been agreed in detail before they go to the council. The council meetings to discuss them are formal and ceremonial, but they do not in practice make decisions. In practice, the decisions have been made long before then. Any ordinary back-bench councillor will tell you that most full council meetings are a waste of time and that they have to attend to make up the numbers, just in case. Councillors certainly do not get elected to spend hours monitoring and scrutinising decisions made months and years before. The point has been made that councillors want to be involved in making decisions about what is going to happen and do not want to spend much time trawling over the past, particularly when, out of a council of perhaps 50 people, six, seven, eight or even 10 will be on the executive, the cabinet, and be involved in making decisions, while 30 or 40 have a scrutiny role. There is a role for scrutiny in local government, as there is elsewhere, but it is a specialist role of minority interest. To suggest that it is the main function of the majority of the council is one of the main reasons why there is so much dissatisfaction among ordinary back-bench councillors in their current role. This White Paper is strong in talking about involving local people—““engagement”” is a silly, new Labour word, but means the same thing, I think—but it is weak on new ideas about how to achieve it. It contains some established ideas, but some made me laugh. It talks about tenant management, but most local authorities are selling off their council houses, if they have not done so already, and are involved in stock transfers. In a couple of years, very few councils will have any council houses to involve their tenants in managing. It is too late. The paper talks about neighbourhood management—the trendy idea of a couple of years ago. I am a member of Pendle Borough Council in Lancashire, where I am heavily involved in neighbourhood management. It can be successful, but it needs enormous resources. One the one hand, the Government demand ““efficiency savings, efficiency savings””, which means, ““bring your base levels of spending down””, while, on the other, they say ““put all the spending into neighbourhood management””. You cannot do that on the cheap, as it is heavy on resources. It does work in deprived and disadvantaged areas in all sorts of ways, but costs money. A lot of the ideas in the White Paper cost money, but you cannot spend that when the budget is being pulled back year after year. The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, made interesting remarks about the Cheshire Landscape Trust, which is one of a huge number of local organisations, groups, campaigns and schemes in which people are now involved. Wherever you go, such schemes are operating and they are part of what I believe is an upsurge of civic involvement. But what is the role of councillors in them? From my experience and that of my friends, the councillor acts as an important link between those organisations, the council and other official bodies. Yet, if you are not careful and you make the mistake of paying a subscription to one of those organisations when it is discussed at a council meeting, you have to declare an interest and leave the room, just because you have paid over a fiver to help that organisation, which you are working with anyway. That is absolute nonsense and I hope that the talk in the White Paper about planning and licensing will be extended in a commonsense way to public bodies, local campaigning bodies, local amenity bodies and the sort of body that the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, talked about. I beg his pardon for promoting him—my point is that councillors are elected. I hope that we can discuss that interesting matter. There is a great deal to discuss in this White Paper that will, no doubt, be included in the Bill. I am not happy about it at all, although it contains some good stuff. It is a further step in this country’s withdrawal from local democracy. I hope that I am wrong but time will tell. At some stage in the future, someone in this country is going to have to reinvent and recreate local democracy. That might happen after our time but, at some time in the future, it is going to have to be done.