Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]

This has been a very good debate. It follows full proceedings in the other place, which were ably led from the Government Benches by Baroness Andrews and Lord Patel, with strong contributions from all parts of that House, as there were tonight. There were strongly felt but reflective contributions from both sides of the Chamber this evening—expertise from local government and of local government within national Government. I cannot recall a Bill that I have led or a debate to which I have responded in the House when quite so many Members on both sides with direct ministerial experience of the issues at the centre of the debate have contributed. I welcome that and encourage all to continue that debate with me and the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Mr. Khan) in Committee. I look forward to that. The Bill has two broad aims, both of which developed from earlier legislation and earlier policy statements that we have issued. The first broad aim is to continue the drive towards stronger local democracy, with more powers to both local authorities and to local people to hold their local authorities to account—principles set out in the White Paper, "Communities in control". The second aim is to do more to promote economic recovery and long-term prosperity and economic development, implementing the proposals first set out in the sub-national review of economic development and regeneration. As the Conservative chairman of the Local Government Association said, the Bill will give councillors the power to effect real economic change in their local areas. She was right about that. I was interested in the speech from the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt). He was right, and he was the only one to say this tonight—in the crisis that we face, political parties have an important role. While we look at the procedures of our own Parliament and at questions over the constitution and the political system for the future, we need political parties that are more active, particularly locally and we, as leading members of those parties, have a big part to play within our own parties. The Bill may well be, as the hon. Gentleman said, the first Bill that the House is considering after the Telegraph apocalypse, as he put it, but it does not set out to answer all the questions that have been raised about our politics over the past two to three weeks. It is not constitutional reform legislation, but it sets out a series of sensible, useful steps to improve the way that local authorities can respond to their residents and the ways in which they can work together. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said earlier, the Bill is important at the moment because we are trying to ensure that people's anger is answered in some way—modestly, in this Bill—through practical changes that both allow them to see more decisions taken within their reach and give them greater influence over and information about such decisions, not just by local authorities but by other agencies in their area. That is what the Bill sets out to do. I commented earlier on the high quality of most contributions, but I was really disappointed by the contribution of the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) from the Opposition Front Bench, and by that of her hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) just now. She either misreads or misrepresents the Bill's content, because her case against it is confused and her alternative proposals are incoherent at best. She says that much of the Bill is based on best practice and plain common sense, and she is right. The point of the legislation, and the reason it is needed, is that we want all local authorities to do what the best already do. We want them to do so on petitions; by involving people in local decisions not just by councils, but by other local agencies; through a framework, so that those local authorities that want to formalise collaboration with neighbouring local authorities to tackle the economic challenges that go beyond the boundaries of their own area can do so; and by undertaking local economic assessments systematically in every major area. The hon. Lady became most confused when she moved on to discuss the regions. She said to the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) that if his local authority wanted an RDA, it could have one. Then she said that the Opposition would get rid of the whole regional tier. This is not, as she suggests, a Government or a Bill with an obsession about regionalisation; the legislation is a recognition that it is necessary to do some things beyond the boundaries of single local authorities, because the alternative, as in the past, is that decisions are taken and things are done by Whitehall. We have regional economies of about 5 million people, and they are as big as some European Union member states. In that respect, our economy in Yorkshire is bigger than those of Norway, of Singapore and of Ireland, so if we do not have serious economic plans in our regions, we will lose out on important inward investment. We need such a policy in all regions, because in the early 80s and 90s too much was centred on the greater south-east, while London overlooked the potential and problems of the north and midlands. When we consider the big economic shocks that our country has faced in recent years, such as Longbridge, the Selby pit closures, foot and mouth and the summer floods, we see that the RDAs have proved that they can respond more rapidly than Whitehall and with more clout than any single local council. The alternative to regional level action and plans is either national decisions taken by people in London without the necessary local knowledge, or big councils holding sway, which means that smaller cities and towns lose out.