Local Government Bill [Lords]

I fully support the Secretary of State's comments when he referred to this whole debacle as a horror story. It was interesting to listen to Opposition Members, particularly the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint). Whereas the Secretary of State described a horror story, their description of what happened with the unitary authorities until the formation of the coalition Government was a romantic story. Looking back at what has happened, it almost seems like a farce to me. Over the entire period, going back to 2006—I will focus on Norfolk in particular—this has been more than a case of Norwich having a fantastic offer that everybody wanted, with this coalition Government being the first to stand in the way of that. In all that time, I have never heard a single resident, surprisingly enough—and I have knocked on doors in Great Yarmouth and in Norwich, when I was there with my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith)—ever say, ““Please, will you give us a unitary authority? Will you please have local government reorganisation in Norfolk?”” In fact, there was huge frustration. The argument was not simply whether we should have a Norwich unitary authority. It started back in 2006, with people looking at different options. That created confusion in Norfolk, with people considering whether Great Yarmouth, my constituency, should be linked in with Waveney, creating Yartoft, with an east-west divide in Norfolk, or whether there should be a full unitary option. There was complete chaos, and the finance never added up. What concerned me from the beginning, quite apart from the clunking top-down approach of, ““This is what will happen; there will be unitary,”” which was the clear message that authorities were being given, was the expense. One chief executive in Norfolk said to me that their estimate in 2008 was that their senior officers were spending 40% of their time talking to other officers in other authorities about plans for unitary and about all the various different plans. We should consider that in light of the number of senior officers there are across Norfolk, and consider whether they were spending anywhere near the time estimated by that chief executive. Officer time and money are not included in the figures. Money has already been wasted over the past three or four years because it has been spent on looking at plans and organisation rather than delivering front-line services. I dread to think what the cost comes to, let alone the financial chaos that will no doubt be delivered on the people of Norwich, who have to pick up the tab for Norwich city council's amazing decision to spend about £90,000, as advertised, on an implementation officer before it even got the go-ahead for the change. I was horrified to find out when I was on a BBC show with the leader of Norwich city council that the leader was getting an allowance of £12,000 to £15,000 on top of his leader's allowance to chair an implementation group. I do not know what the other members of the group were getting or what that was costing, but it seems to me that an amazing amount of money has already been wasted. To say that that would have been a good decision based on the savings of £6.5 million from 2015 onwards sums up, to me, the problems that we now have, looking at the figures and the implementation costs referred to by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), which are about £40 million. The savings would have started, had they been delivered, in 2015-16. We all know that the previous Government spent a lot of time spending money now in the hope that it would come later, and we have seen the economic mess that that got us into, with the deficit that we, and local government in particular, are now having to deal with because of the mess that the old Government left behind. We now have to pick up the pieces economically. It is a clear sign of what the Labour party thinks of Norfolk that it seems to want to focus only on Norwich. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson) rightly says, the reality is that a decision made for Norwich has an impact on the whole of Norfolk, and the whole of Norfolk had a view on this. The people of Norfolk were asked about unitary status and, as I said to the hon. Gentleman, 85% wanted the status quo, 10% wanted a county council in Norfolk and only 3% wanted a Norwich unitary authority. In my experience, people on the streets did not want a unitary authority. When the Boundary Commission referred back to it, it did not want a Norwich unitary authority. The House of Lords had concerns about it and the permanent secretary at the Department had concerns about it, yet the Secretary of State in the Labour Government at the time went ahead with it anyway. That seems to me a clear example of ignoring local views. The view that the Labour party has of Norfolk, saying that the only thing that matters is Norwich, is probably a clear example of why there are no Labour Members left in Norfolk. Constituents and businesses in Great Yarmouth have the opportunity for economic growth because of measures in the Budget, with the outer harbour and renewable energy. I am sure that businesses throughout Norwich, in places such as Hethel, which is not in Norwich, and King's Lynn, would take the view that they have a great economic offer to make to Norfolk. It seems, from beginning to end, that this has already been a costly exercise, but it would be interesting to know just how much money local government has lost in Norfolk on spending time researching this matter. Quite apart from the money that has been wasted on implementation committees and officers, it does not seem appropriate to focus on Norwich, where we have a local authority that has made some dubious and questionable decisions recently about its services with Connaught, with Greyhound Opening and with housing. That does not seem to me to be a fit authority to be used as an example of what could be a perfect unitary authority. In fact, it seems the antithesis of that. The best thing that can happen to Norfolk is for this sorry saga—this horror tale of horror tales—to be put to an end once and for all. I fully support the Bill.