Local Government (Structural Changes) (Miscellaneous Amendments and Other Provision) Order 2009

As Members of the Committee will know, this order is consequential on the local government structural change orders that Parliament agreed in early 2008. The order makes specific provision to ensure that various matters relevant to the new single-tier councils are dealt with before the reorganisation date. These changes are necessary to update the statute book in light of the changes made by the structural change orders. Without these provisions, some of the new unitary councils would have to continue to refer to themselves as county councils, which is extremely confusing for their communities. Areas with historic traditions, including city status, would be lost to local residents. For example, Chester City would no longer be Chester City; new unitary councils would not be able to appoint members to relevant national parks or areas of outstanding natural beauty conservation boards within their areas; and there would be no administering authority for the Cheshire and Bedfordshire pension funds. I am sure that noble Lords would agree that these are necessary and sensible measures. I shall take a little time to go through the order in more detail. Part 2 of the order makes provision to ensure that members of the new Central Bedfordshire Council’s shadow executive can continue as members of that executive until the June election notwithstanding that the authorities from which they were appointed will cease to exist before that date. Provision is also made to amend the electoral arrangements for some parish councils in Bedfordshire so that their elections are properly synchronised with the election cycles for the new Bedford Borough Council and Central Bedfordshire Council. Part 2 also adds provisions to the structural change orders for Cornwall, Northumberland, Shropshire, Wiltshire and County Durham to make provision regarding the names of the new councils, essentially allowing them, subject to resolution, to omit the word "county" from their legal names. This is entirely sensible. It was requested by the councils themselves to provide the new unitary councils with the opportunity to adopt truly new identities in the eyes of their residents and, just as importantly, to make a fresh start in the eyes of the new council staff, whether they are from the previous county or district councils. Part 3 of the order makes provision for the appointment of charter trustees as appropriate bodies in which historic rights and privileges may vest for parts of Cheshire West and Chester, Cheshire East, and County Durham. As has been requested by both the new and outgoing councils in the areas affected, we are creating charter trustees for the cities of Chester and Durham, the towns of Crewe and Macclesfield and the historic area of Ellesmere Port, to which historic rights can be transferred until such time as an appropriate parish council is established to which those rights can transfer. Members of the Committee should note that the actual transfer of historic rights and privileges to these charter trustees is made in regulations of general application which have been laid before this House. Special provision is also made in this order in relation to market rights in Chester, where we have provided that these rights vest in the Cheshire West and Chester Council, essentially allowing the new council to continue to run the Chester market. Part 3 also provides for the retention of the ceremonial counties of Cheshire and Bedfordshire by amending the Lieutenancies Act 1997 and the Sheriffs Act 1887 to update the definition of counties for the purposes of these Acts. Part 4 of the order makes provision for the vesting of the local government pension fund maintained by the Bedfordshire County Council and the fund maintained by Cheshire County Council. It provides, further to the results of the consultation with those affected, that these funds will vest in Bedford Borough Council and Cheshire West and Chester Council respectively. Part 5 of the order makes amendments to a number of port health authority orders. These orders are amended to reflect the changes as a consequence of the new local government arrangements in Cheshire, Cornwall and Northumberland, and provide for the new single-tier unitary councils to exercise the port health functions after 1 April. Part 6 of the order makes provision regarding the membership of the conservation boards for the Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty and the Cotswolds area of outstanding natural beauty to reflect the changes to local authority arrangements as a consequence of reorganisations in Bedfordshire and Wiltshire. Similar provision is made for the membership of the national park authorities, the New Forest and the Peak District, to reflect the changes as a consequence of the changes in local government arrangements in Wiltshire and Cheshire. Part 7 of the order makes a number of miscellaneous amendments. These include amendments to primary legislation which use local authority boundaries to define geographical areas and which are updated to refer to the new local authority arrangements. Provision is also made in this part for the membership of the River Tweed Commission consequential upon the restructuring in Northumberland. Provision is also made to designate Central Bedfordshire Council as the relevant council for Bedfordshire and Luton coroner’s district within the meaning of Section 1(1)(a) of the Coroners Act 1988. The relevant council is responsible for the appointment of coroners and has other functions in connection with coroners under the 1988 Act. I am sure that Members of the Committee will agree that the provisions in the order are sensible and necessary consequential amendments following the structural change orders that Parliament has already approved. I propose to speak now to the Cornwall (Electoral Arrangements and Consequential Amendments) Order 2009. This order contains necessary and sensible provisions which are consequential on the Cornwall (Structural Change) Order that was approved by Parliament in February 2009. The order makes provision for the 2009 local government elections to be held on the basis of 123 electoral divisions, implementing the Boundary Committee’s draft recommended warding arrangements as published on 2 December 2008. These changes are necessary as without them the elections in Cornwall would be held on the basis of 71 wards returning 82 councillors, a number which is widely recognised by all in Cornwall and all involved in electoral administration as not sufficient to provide the strategic leadership that is needed for the new unitary Cornwall Council. As we come to debate the order we find ourselves in unusual circumstances, to which the Merits Committee has referred, and I will address some of the issues it has raised. The circumstances are unusual because, in most cases, provision for electoral arrangements would be made by the Electoral Commission on the basis of recommendations by the Boundary Committee. However, Members of the Committee will be aware of a series of events which explain why we are in this unusual position today. I shall explain the background and put it on the record as part of understanding the order. In February 2008, when the structural change orders establishing the new unitary councils were approved by Parliament, we planned that three of the new unitaries based on existing county areas—Cornwall, Shropshire and Wiltshire—would have elections in May/June 2009 on the basis of new ward electoral divisions, together with a new number of councillors, reflecting the new unitary status of the council. It was for the Boundary Committee and the Electoral Commission to decide the number of councillors there would be in future and to designate new wards, which would be established by a non-parliamentary order made by the Electoral Commission following a process of consultation undertaken by the Boundary Committee. The Boundary Committee commenced its electoral review in Cornwall, Shropshire and Wiltshire in February 2008. The Electoral Commission and the Boundary Committee have essentially done what was expected of them and completed the review in Shropshire and Wiltshire. We understand that the orders for these authorities specifying the new wards which will be used for the 2009 local government elections in June were made by the commission on 6 March. However, in the case of Cornwall, the Boundary Committee and the Electoral Commission have, for a number of reasons, failed to deliver the new electoral arrangements in time for the June election. This is unfortunate. Delay has largely been caused because of the difficulty that the Boundary Committee and the council have about agreeing the appropriate size of the new council. On 15 August 2008, the Boundary Committee wrote to the leader of Cornwall County Council, confirming that on the basis of the evidence available to it, it was minded to base its draft recommendations on a council size of 123 members for the new unitary authority. However, ""given the serious delay to which this review of Cornwall has been subject, the view of the Boundary Committee is that there is now no possibility of any new electoral arrangements being implemented in any combined elections in June 2009"." Members of the Committee can see the difficulty we face. All, including the Boundary Committee, are in agreement that there should be 123 councillors for the new unitary council, instead of the existing 82 for the current county council. However, the Boundary Committee is not in a position to specify the new electoral divisions. Indeed, it only finished consulting on a draft of what the new wards could be on 10 February 2009, and there is no prospect of it making an order specifying new wards in time for the 4 June elections. When the Merits Committee said in its report that the decision to proceed with North Cornwall council elections in June 2009 had not been an obvious one, I would point to this process and the reason why there has been delay, and the admission by the Boundary Committee that there was no prospect of it making an order specifying new wards in time for the 4 June elections. Furthermore, when it became clear that the Electoral Commission was not going to be able to make an order in time for the elections, in the debate on the draft Local Elections (Ordinary Day of Elections in 2009) Order 2008, the Minister for Local Government stated that he was, ""minded to introduce for consideration an order that would, exceptionally, move the election date for Cornwall from the beginning of June to the end of October 2009".—[Official Report, Commons, 20/11/08; col. 771W.]" However, before introducing such an order, the Minister proposed to take soundings seeking views from those affected in Cornwall and, as necessary, from the Boundary Committee and the Electoral Commission. That exercise was commenced on 1 December last year, when the Minister wrote to Cornish MPs, all Cornish councils, the Electoral Commission and the Boundary Committee. As part of the exercise, he made it clear that central to any decision on deferral was the likelihood of the Electoral Commission putting in place the new electoral arrangements in time for an October election. If there was any significant likelihood of this timetable not being met, he believed that it would be wrong to defer the election and a preferable course might be to hold elections on 4 June 2009, but on the basis of interim electoral arrangements to be specified in an order which, if Parliament approved, the Secretary of State could make under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. The Minister was quite clear that there was an option here, and a condition being set. That is in part our answer to the concern of the Merits Committee. The Electoral Commission’s response to the soundings exercise stated: ""Aiming to hold elections in October 2009 using electoral arrangements which have been approved by the Electoral Commission relies heavily on meeting an uncertain timetable for implementing the electoral review recommendations and could involve considerable risk to effective administration of the electoral process"." In other words, the commission could not guarantee what the Minister had asked for—that the arrangements would be finalised for an October election. Given this position, the Government felt that it would be wrong to proceed on any basis other than a June 2009 election. On 19 February 2009, the Minister for Local Government confirmed that the local elections to the new unitary council for Cornwall would go ahead on Thursday 4 June 2009 and that the Government intended to lay an order before Parliament that would provide for the elections to be held on the basis of the draft electoral arrangements that the Boundary Committee has been consulted on, which would have the effect of returning 123 councillors for the new unitary council. As I have said, without such an order, the elections in Cornwall would be held on the basis of 71 wards returning 82 councillors, a number which is widely recognised by everyone in Cornwall and everyone involved in electoral administration as not sufficient effectively to run the council. Accordingly, we have laid this order before Parliament, and we find ourselves debating it this afternoon. If it is approved, we will make the order under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, specifying the electoral divisions for the Cornwall 2009 local government elections on 4 June. Some have questioned whether the Government’s objective of providing for democratic legitimacy—that is, a fully elected council—for the new Cornwall Council as soon as possible after its inception could have been more fully achieved if elections had taken place after the Electoral Commission had completed its electoral review. This question was also raised by the Merits Committee. However, as I have just explained, even in January when the Boundary Committee responded to the soundings exercise, it felt that the timetable for implementation was uncertain and that it could not be sure that it would be able to make an order in time for an October 2009 election. It appears that there is still no certainty about when the order will be made. Is there then some suggestion that the council should have to wait until an unspecified later date when the Electoral Commission has decided on finalised boundaries before it has a newly elected and mandated council of sufficient size to lead the new council? When would this election be? Would it be in May 2010 or May 2013, when there would be more and unforgiving uncertainty? If the local elections are not held in June, the council will continue to be run, until elections can be held, by the implementation executive, which, as noble Lords will remember from our debates, is essentially an appointed body made up of county councillors and some district councillors whose councils are being abolished on 31 March 2009. I cannot believe that that is a situation that noble Lords would wish to see. It certainly was not a situation that the local MPs in the area wanted to see. In an ideal world, we would see an election held in June on the basis of boundaries made on the final recommendations of the Boundary Committee, and the Electoral Commission would have made an order to establish them in time for the election. However, this is not the situation in which we find ourselves. It is most important now that we ensure that the new Cornwall Council gets off to the best start and that it is of a sufficient size to ensure that it has the strength of leadership to deliver improved service delivery from the earliest opportunity. The Merits Committee said that the Government should have willed the means to ensure that the preparatory stages were completed in time. Both the Electoral Commission and the Boundary Committee are independent of government. There is no role for government in influencing the electoral review process. As I said, the order provides for the draft electoral divisions on which the Boundary Committee has been consulting. There were suggestions in another place to modify these boundaries. Referring to the debate in another place, I am sure that noble Lords understand that it would be quite wrong for the Government to amend boundaries on an ad hoc basis following representations from individuals who may have a vested interest without the means to test the validity of the boundaries suggested by local people. It has also been suggested that boundaries could be amended where there is consensus among parties or councils. However, altering boundaries is not a simple decision based on agreement. Representations would have to be considered against the key criteria of electoral equality, community identity, and effective and convenient local government. Indeed, those representations have been made to the Boundary Committee and not to the Government. The Government are not in a position to test representations without regard to the key criteria. The only way in which to proceed with any safety while recognising, as we do, the imperfections, is for the elections to go ahead on the basis of the boundaries proposed by the independent Boundary Committee. The approach that we are proposing will therefore give the new Cornwall Council full democratic legitimacy as soon as possible as a newly elected body of councillors in June. In the expectation that the next election to the council will be held in May 2013, on the basis of the Electoral Commission’s final electoral arrangements, our proposals will allow the new council from its early days to have the strength and stability necessary to pursue innovative and demanding improvements in service delivery and give it clear and effective leadership particularly at this time of great economic challenges. A final issue is capacity to implement new arrangements to a very tight timetable so close to the election. The timing of this order specifying the wards for the 4 June elections in Cornwall is about the same as the Electoral Commission’s own orders for Shropshire and Wiltshire. We accept that electoral administrators in Cornwall, unlike those in other counties, have not been certain about when or on what basis the elections would be held. The Minister for Local Government announced his decision as soon as was practicable, on 19 February, in order to provide all those in Cornwall with clarity as early as possible. We know that the work being undertaken in preparation for an election on the basis of new electoral divisions is challenging, but it is significant that Cornwall Council is confident that it can meet it. Indeed, senior officers of Cornwall County Council have commented that they believe that the 4 June combined local and European elections can be organised on the basis of new wards. They have sufficient resources to deliver this, they have dedicated resources, and they have sufficient programme management resources to ensure that the election is delivered successfully. With the correct support, the job is entirely doable. Officials in CLG have facilitated discussions between those leading the preparations in Cornwall and Ministry of Justice officials, the Electoral Commission, the Association of Electoral Administrators and SOLACE’s electoral panel, about providing support for Cornwall. All of them have been incredibly helpful. Following the discussions the Electoral Commission and the AEA are working with the council directly, undertaking a series of assurance reviews to support the combined election within Cornwall. An initial review undertaken on Tuesday 10 March looked at, among other things: the overall approach to delivering the combined elections within Cornwall to ensure that a low-risk approach is being undertaken; the governance, management and reporting arrangements relating to the project; the risks and issues, with associated mitigating and corrective activities; the process for generating polling districts’ electoral registers from Boundary Committee draft recommendations and verifying those registers; the polling district review approach and evidence; and polling day arrangements. I have gone into this degree of detail because they are precisely the challenges that we need to know Cornwall is capable of meeting. This initial review was very encouraging. Both the AEA and the Electoral Commission were impressed with the amount of work that had been done in Cornwall and the progress that had been made. I am told that they are confident that, on the basis of the plans to date, sufficient programme management arrangements and measures are in place to deliver a successful election. Following the initial review, the AEA and the Electoral Commission are continuing to provide periodic review check points in line with the key stages of the project plan and to provide further assurance. In addition, the AEA will review the council’s plan and the risk register weekly to ensure that any areas of concern are addressed quickly. My officials, too, are in contact with the council on a weekly basis as a minimum, and they have very recently visited the council as part of a stock-take exercise on unitary implementation progress that the Minister has asked them to undertake. The immediate challenge for administrators in Cornwall is finalising and publishing the updated registers on the basis of the new electoral divisions for 1 April 2009, ahead of the notice of election on 28 April. That, too, has been a challenging deadline but I am told that the council is on track to meet it. Following the publication of the register the council will essentially move into business as usual as far as preparation for the elections is concerned. Of course the timing is tight and of course we wish it had been otherwise. However, in our judgment the risks posed are wholly manageable. The alternative—no new electoral mandate for the council, and the implementation executive, which was always meant as a temporary forum, continuing to lead the new council—presents a serious risk to the success of the new unitary council and puts in jeopardy the delivery of local services in Cornwall. That is a risk we cannot run. As the Minister for Local Government made clear when he confirmed the decision to proceed with an election on this basis, what is most important at this point is to provide effective local leadership and improved service delivery for Cornwall’s people and to ensure that the council has real democratic legitimacy at the earliest opportunity, which would give it the best start possible. I commend the orders to the Committee.