Local Government

I hope the hon. Gentleman will excuse me if I do not. My time is very limited. I want to raise again the point about officers' grades being open to competition. I look forward to reading the proposals that the Minister will publish shortly. I understand his argument about the need for fairness to individuals and his view that the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981 should apply, but this is not unique territory. In the corporate world companies take over other companies of both similar and differing sizes, and TUPE applies in those cases, but in those cases the best person for the job gets it. In some cases none of the incumbents gets the job, and a replacement is recruited from outside. I see no reason why that should not apply to the most senior grades in this instance. The directors of each major service area in particular should undergo an open process, so that the population at large can feel that it is not just a stitch-up by the county council—which, I am afraid, is the impression that they have had. The council will continue to face challenges when it becomes unitary. It has been argued that this proposal is about financial resources and efficiency savings. Over the past 10 years, the Government have allocated funds to match their own priorities. As a result, the allocation of funds to areas such as education which are the responsibility of a unitary authority, and organisations such as the police which are funded through council tax, has been heavily skewed towards inner-city urban areas which, by coincidence, happen by and large to be represented by Labour Members of Parliament. Such allocations have been justified by a plethora of data to do with deprivation, crime, social needs, health inequalities and so on. With much of that I have no argument—I think it appropriate to take such matters into account—but a degree of balance is needed. Operating services in rural areas costs money. In those areas, it costs more to deliver many of the services for which local authorities are responsible than it does in urban areas. Waste collection, for example, is relatively straightforward if populations live within a few miles of each other, while school transport is obviously more expensive when people are having to be bussed long distances—many more of them, because fewer are able to walk. The provision of elderly care is much more expensive in rural areas, particularly when efforts are being made to move care closer to the community—which I support—and to establish a network of district or other specialist nurses to provide services in people's homes. That is much easier to do in an urban environment. Not only is it easier to recruit people to do the work, but they can use their time much more effectively if they can walk or drive short distances from one patient to the next. In some areas in my constituency, a district nurse can deal with only five appointments a day because so much of her time is spent travelling from one person to the next. If the Government had taken those issues into account, much of the justification for the unitary proposal would not have been necessary. Let me give the Minister a couple of examples of the splendid work done by councillors in my area who are fighting for their local communities. Many of them may well not wish to become councillors in a unitary authority, because of the time commitment that that would involve. I want to single out Joe Meredith, currently serving his third term as chairman of South Shropshire district council. He is fighting for the post office that is under threat in his village of Ashford Carbonnel, and for two schools that are under threat of amalgamation. His deputy leader, Councillor Jackie Williams of the Kemp Valley ward, is doing a valiant job while her chairman is indisposed, fighting for her post office and school at Lidbury North which are threatened with closure. Those stories could be repeated right across my constituency, and in other parts of Shropshire. Many of these valiant, public-spirited people might not continue their lives in public service because they do not wish to do so within a unitary environment, which would be a great loss to the fabric of public life in this country.