Communities and Local Government/Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

I listened carefully to what the Secretary of State had to say as she introduced the debate today, and she painted a rosy picture of benign change by a Labour Government since 1997 with further benign change to follow. For those of us who are perhaps a little closer to the grassroots, it was not a picture that we could recognise. Local democracy in this country is in disarray. Public participation in elections is at its lowest level ever. The scope for independence for local councils to meet the needs of their communities has been more restricted by this Government than by any previous Government. Not surprisingly, the diversity of provision and the innovation of thought that should be the hallmark of local government have been diminished in that time. The communities that local democracy serves are under strain. The Secretary of State acknowledged that there are major problems in many different aspects of the provision of housing. We could easily add transport, pollution and the wellbeing and cohesion of communities. I turn to the issue of the Queen’s Speech and the Bills that relate to the Secretary of State’s Department. It is disappointing that the local government Bill does not include the measures needed to plug the gaps and remedy those deficiencies. That is not to say that the White Paper and the Bill do not include some measures that the Liberal Democrats welcome and support. We favour reform of the Standards Board for England and its operation. We also support local councillors regaining the powers to stick up for local residents and communities on key issues such as planning and licensing. It is good that councillors should have further powers to hold to account other public bodies that deliver services to their communities. However, the Secretary of State should take a careful look at the totality of her proposals for increasing powers. She wishes to increase the powers of parishes, ward councillors and council leaders. In democracies, power can be neither created nor destroyed: it can only be redistributed. If one strengthens the power of all three, the question is where the extra power will come from. The Bill singularly fails to say what extra resources will be made available to local government to deliver the enhanced power for each of those layers. Until the Secretary of State answers that question, it will be difficult to take her Bill seriously.