Communities and Local Government/Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

I already have on my desk a number of glossy brochures from various local authorities—not yet including Bedford, although I look forward to receiving one. I would very much prefer local authorities to have the freedom to decide their arrangements, for both internal leadership and the partnerships they choose to make with other local authorities, but when we know from reading the White Paper that only a small, limited number of councils will obtain the magic badge they seek, it makes little sense to throw open the competition. It is a bit like bidding for the lottery, where for every bid accepted 19 are rejected, but in this case money from the public purse is being wasted. The important thing is what the Bill does not contain, and the disappointment for me and my Liberal Democrat colleagues is that there is no sign that it will deal with the issues that actually matter for local government. What will be their sources of revenue? What level of freedom will they have to take decisions on behalf of their local communities and, in particular, why does the Bill not contain a simple measure to return the national business rate to the power of local councils? Why does it not tackle the reform of the council tax? Why does it not deal with returning to the control and discretion of local authorities the huge sums of money being spent by quangos in each local authority area? Surely, that should have been in the Bill. I was interested to hear what the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) had to say, which I would sum up as precisely nothing. The Conservatives introduced the poll tax and the council tax, and now they are introducing the too-early-to-say tax. The too-early-to-say policy is popular with them: whether it is housing, local government finance or Iraq, it is always too early to say. The Liberal Democrats have made clear what we believe should be in the Bill—measures to return power and responsibility to local government. We shall follow those themes when the Bill is published and comes before the House. The Secretary of State referred to the planning Bill. She might have spent a little more time explaining to the House in greater detail what she believes the balance should be between the protection of the environment and local communities on the one hand and the creation of wealth—sometimes for only a limited number of people—on the other. Her Bill threatens to upset that balance. As we understand it, the Bill will contain provisions to allow local decision making to be set aside in respect of major projects of so-called national importance, which might be the additional runways that are being discussed and the new terminal—terminal 7—at Heathrow. Some of my hon. Friends who represent constituencies adjacent to Heathrow are fairly well convinced that there is already a secret agreement to build a terminal 7. Will projects such as those be fast-tracked through the planning and inquiry system at the expense of local communities and the local environment? We do not know about the new generation of nuclear power—perhaps it will be yes, perhaps no—but there is every indication that the aim is to bypass the local inquiry process. Nuclear waste disposal is another key national strategic issue that may well bypass local communities as a result of the Bill. The Liberal Democrats believe that any change to planning legislation should increase local input, not reduce it, and we shall certainly make that clear when the Bill is published. We believe that, whatever process is put in place to deal with such major national projects, it should be objective and thorough, and it should in no way return to the half-baked proposals that were floated three or four years ago for the House to be directly involved in manning the inquiries into such projects.