Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

Yes, I have obviously missed something. There are obviously councillors sat around this Table looking forward to their fat pensions when they get booted off the council. That is not a world in which I live and I do not think that it exists in Lancashire. But I have learnt something by putting down this amendment. The amendment probes what kind of remuneration and allowances will be expected for people sitting on these bodies. There is a general view that some councillors who sit on all kinds of bodies and partnerships and the rest of it get rather more money than they ought to nowadays. This seems to me to be adding to that. This may be a minority and unpopular view among some Members of this Committee, but it is certainly my view and I shall continue arguing the case. There is the question of remuneration of non-councillors and who they might be. My noble friend asked who they would be if they were not councillors. I shall tell you who they will be—the modern version of aldermen. They will be unelected people appointed by members of a quasi-local authority, sitting as members of that quasi-local authority. They will be just like aldermen of the past, expect that I do not think that aldermen of the past ever got paid any money. I turn to what the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, said—I almost called her a councillor; I was upgrading her. My heart warms when I listen to the noble Baroness, as the Conservative spokesman here, trumpeting the values of devolution, local democracy, community government and so on. I hope that she speaks for the Conservative Party and I hope that if the Conservative Party ever gets the opportunity to do anything about it, it sticks to the kind of principles that she is putting forward, because it is not what we have been hearing from the Conservative Party for the past 30-odd years. However, the last great flowering of local democracy and the last occasion when central government put real trust in the councils was the Local Government Act 1972 and the reorganisation of 1973 and 1974. It might not have got the structures right in all cases, but it was an expression of confidence and trust in an elected local government. It has been downhill all the way since then, through Governments of all persuasions, so I wish the noble Baroness the very best of luck in keeping her party on the right track.