Sustainable Communities Bill

The hon. Lady asks a serious and pertinent question that has been at the centre of much of our discussion as the Bill has progressed. She can be reassured—this is not a bone of contention between the Government and the rest of us—by the fact that under any version of the Bill, a local authority will be able to propose that it should spend money differently, but will not have the right to determine that it should do so. The Secretary of State of the Government of the day will be able to consider the proposal. If that Secretary of State thinks that the proposal is zany and that local people should not be able to elect a government that would do such a thing, he or she will be able to say no and that will be the end of the matter. The hon. Lady can relax, because there is no potential for monkeys to distribute peanuts instead of jobs. However, let us say that we are not talking about a lunatic proposing nonsense, but about a genuine disagreement of view between the centre, whoever is in government, and local government, no matter what its political composition may be, about how an objective is best met. Let us take the example of employment that hon. Lady mentioned. In our version of the Bill, the local view would generally prevail. However, the Secretary of State could still battle it out and say no, if they were really determined to do so. Let me give the hon. Lady an example of where such a process would be useful, not dangerous. In Kent, because of the local area agreement, one of the most productive things that have happened is in the field of employment. Through agreement in the local area agreement framework, the county council has taken the lead in changing some of the ways in which are people got into jobs, so that people have more sustainable jobs for longer, which has saved the Department for Work and Pensions and the Treasury benefit and tax credit expenditure. Under the local area agreement, that can be recycled into yet more efforts to help more people into sustainable jobs. That is clearly a virtuous circle on which she and I would agree.