Sustainable Communities Bill

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. To be fair, the Government are moving towards filling that hole in representation in our cities. Town and parish councils will not necessarily be the final resting point for powers: the hon. Gentleman and I both know that some estates in our cities have identifiable communities and neighbourhoods and, sooner or later—I hope sooner—we need to reach a position in which they feel that they have a say over their estate. We are not there yet, but the Bill tries to begin the process. My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood made considerable progress in anticipating the Government’s arguments, and I think that I know what two of their main arguments will be. The first is that the Bill to be considered on Monday includes the concept of a duty to co-operate, in which they seek to give more effect to the spirit of local area agreements and to have agencies and Departments represented around the table in local area agreements pay more heed to local voices. I welcome that. It is a step forward. It also in no way contradicts this Bill, which would in fact take matters much further. I shall illustrate my point with a concrete example. My hon. Friend mentioned Kent, where some £8 billion of public money is spent. About £2 billion of it is spent by local authorities and some £6 billion by the Government and their agencies. The local area agreement is one of the most effectively organised in the country, and it is certainly one in which everybody has tried to co-operate. It has done a great deal of good, but if one talks to people in Kent, one discovers that the degree of influence of the local authorities is heavily circumscribed, because they are not the principal budget holders. In this House we spend a lot of time legislating and talking about legislation, but we are all grown-ups and we know perfectly well that power in government today largely resides in the control of the money, not in the control of the law. The truth is that the Bill, by enabling a significant transfer of the power over the money—however it is amended during its passage—will alter the relationships within local area agreements, so that the whip hand increasingly transfers to the local authorities. I say increasingly, because the Bill, by defining the role of the Minister as setting the limits of what is ““of primarily national significance””, will create a gradually opening lock gate. To begin with, I anticipate that Ministers will set a fairly narrowly circumscribed area in which local authorities can control spending, and will reserve a large part to Ministers and agencies by widely defining what is ““of primarily national significance””. Over time, local communities will demand an ever greater say, and Ministers of all Governments will come under increasing pressure to narrow the scope of what is defined as ““of primarily national significance”” and hence to enlarge the scope of local authority power. We shall see a gradual shift in the balance of power in local area agreements. If the hon. Member for Caerphilly were serious about the remarks he made in the first, and rather interesting, 10 minutes of his long speech, he would see that as the kind of progress that a certain strand of democratic socialism, which I admire, advocated years back. If he had not spent so much time occupying the House, I would cite for him some of the words that carry those connotations. My second point in anticipation of the Minister’s remarks—indeed, my last in that connection—is that I anticipate that he will advert to the possibility of an unwieldy bureaucracy. Why do I anticipate that? I have heard from a number of Members who appear to be involved in an activity—or an operation, as I believe my friends the Whips call it—with regard to the phrase ““unwieldy bureaucracy””. I take it that somebody has drafted that brilliant and coruscating phrase. We heard the interesting observation that what would make the bureaucracy so unwieldy was the need for the Minister to consider many plans and for the local authority to develop large plans. When one pauses to think about that, Mr. Deputy Speaker—as no doubt you did, because we had a long time to do so—one realises that such an observation must have come from somebody having drafted the phrase before reading the Bill rather than afterwards, because under the Bill no local authority has to produce any plan at all. It is entirely open to local authorities to do nothing whatever by way of producing plans. If local communities do not want to act, they do not have to do so. No bureaucracy will be imposed locally. It is entirely open to the Minister not to veto a single plan; indeed, in many instances, I hope that that would be the case.