Sustainable Communities Bill

The hon. Gentleman makes an accurate point on police funding. Policies on police funding, in particular the precept, where some powers rest in Cardiff and some in London, require the Welsh Assembly Government and the UK Government to get their act together, which we successfully did eventually for police funding for this current financial year. On the core of the difficulties raised by the right hon. Member for West Dorset and the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood, the latter places great importance on including a specific provision to enable local authorities to request the transfer of function from one body to another. That is his first issue. I have made that provision in subsections (2) and (3) of new clause 1. Following on from that, he has three concerns. One is that replacing clause 5 with my provisions rather than his will disrupt the narrative—the understanding—of the Bill. As I said, I have some sympathy for that, but it is the integrity of the legislation and its consistency that concern me. That will be important in the other place. We must be able to show that the Bill is consistent. Should new clause 1 be adopted, I would be more than happy to work with the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood—indeed, I would welcome it—to develop a broader narrative, in the wider sense of the word, to explain the Bill to local authorities and the wider public in documents or other material in plain English. This is a useful opportunity for me to make a point about plain English, although I know that he is not criticising us in that regard. The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) said that part of the problem with engaging the public is the language that we and public institutions use. Anybody who attended the Adjournment debate last night on the north-east regional spatial strategy would have needed a masters degree in public administration to keep up with it. It was difficult enough just reading my speech out. The subject of the debate of my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) is hugely important to the north-east, but the language used was impenetrable. I take my share of the responsibility for that. We want to explain the Bill in plain English, so that the public understand it and do not have false expectations. I shall now turn to a more substantive objection. New clause 6 allows local authorities, having considered information in a local spending report, to"““make a recommendation to the Secretary of State for a transfer of functions from one person to another.””" It goes on to say that"““the Secretary of State must either adopt and implement…or reject the recommendation””" within six months, and that if functions are transferred"““the moneys for the discharge of those functions shall also be transferred””" and"““any local authority to which the functions are transferred may determine the policies to deliver the objectives of the function””." The difficulty with that is that, in effect, local authorities would decide how any public money in their area should be spent and how any public functions should be delivered. If they could not convince their local partners to agree, they would call in the Secretary of State to arbitrate—and, they would hope, to take their funding and functions off them. That is not only impractical, but undesirable for the following reason. It would require the Secretary of State to step into any number of local disputes between local partners. The Secretary of State’s remedy would be to compel the transfer of one body’s functions and funding to a local authority. In that respect, the measure would strengthen the hand of the Secretary of State to determine what happens locally. Therefore, it would create further centralisation, not devolution. There is also concern that the Government’s drafting and process for achieving the transfer of functions does not include funding. That is simply a drafting point. The function includes the finance; we are very clear about that. If a proposal were made about transfer of a function, it is extremely likely—and would, therefore, most often be the case—that it would cover a proposal about moving funding. A proposal covering transfer of function and movement of funding would clearly, therefore, fall within new clause 1. That is not only my view; it is also the view of the lawyers.