Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend. Many people in local government find it difficult to understand the purpose of the targets they are asked to meet. Officers know that they have to meet the targets, because if they do not it would be difficult to go to another local authority and say, ““Please can I have job? I never met any of my targets in my last job.”” If one is a councillor, it is difficult not to work towards achieving targets, because the council will be slagged off in the press for not having the right number of stars. Councils might even be penalised in terms of grants and freedoms. This morning, I met a group of councillors from a number of local authorities who made the point quite strongly that when the whole performance culture was introduced, a clear signal was given that those who achieved the targets would get extra power, responsibility and freedom. They said that now that they face the next generation of targets, they cannot see why they should try hard to meet them because they did not get anything worth while when they met the original targets—[Interruption.] The Minister will no doubt have the opportunity to explain not only what councils have had, but what they will get as the number of targets shrinks and they focus more accurately on things that matter. New clause 30 would simply set up a mechanism for developing a proper relationship—a constitutional relationship, if one likes—between local government and central Government. It could lead on to measures of decentralisation—indeed, it points in that direction—such as a cull of the quangos that take up so much of central Government spending. My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington referred to a parliamentary question that he had asked about ring-fencing of funding for local authorities. Another aspect of the issue is the huge amount of spending from central Government that used to be channelled through local authorities, which had some discretion over its use, but is now spent by quangos of one sort or another. The Learning and Skills Council is often quoted as an example. We have been moved to bring the proposal back to the House for yet another go because we are not at all persuaded that the Government understand the need to set that constitutional framework and to protect both central Government and local government from all the distrust and misinterpretation in the current relationship. If the Minister rejects the new clause, what exactly does he propose instead? Are the Government really serious about the good intentions that have appeared time and again in his comments and those of the Secretary of State for a while? I do not know whether amendment No. 253 will be pressed, but my hon. Friends and I certainly support the intentions of the Bill, which are the genesis of that amendment. If the opportunity arises, we will support it.