Localism Bill

Given that the right hon. Gentleman spoke and, I believe, voted against the inclusion of that provision in the Bill, I should have thought that he would welcome the fact that the Bill in its present form reflects his point of view more accurately than it did before. The amendments take the power and local responsibility of local authorities further than the Bill as originally drafted. Although the original Bill set out to achieve that, we always made clear that there was more to do, and that we were willing to listen when there were sensible arguments for going further. That is what underlies the amendments, all of which—as was pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Minister—secured support throughout the other place. During the debates both here and in the other place, a number of Members of both Houses made sensible suggestions about additional areas in which we could free up local government. Let me highlight two examples in which the Bill now goes even further than we originally proposed in freeing local authorities to manage their own business as they consider appropriate. Good arguments were advanced in the other place in support of the view that the rules on area committees were too prescriptive. In response, the Government tabled Lords amendments 269, 271 and 272, which remove the Secretary of State's powers to make regulations in relation to such committees. When we were discussing the earlier group of amendments, the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) maintained the argument—which does not bear close examination—that, in some mysterious way, inserting these proposals in the Bill, and improving them today, constituted an act of centralisation. Nothing could be further from the truth: our amendments relating to area committees demonstrate not just our intentions, but our delivery of increased localism for local authorities. Good arguments were also advanced in the other place for the view that the rules on area committees were too tight. We therefore tabled Lords amendments 263, 267 and 270, which enable an executive of a local authority to delegate its functions to an area committee and to arrange for the discharge of those functions by an officer of the authority. That enables councils to establish whatever area committees they wish to establish, and to give them whatever executive functions they consider appropriate, without asking the Secretary of State for regulations or permission. Lords amendment 273 also removes the restrictions on the maximum size of area committees. The Bill gives more powers to local authorities in respect of local elections. We have responded to representations about unnecessary restrictions on authorities wishing to change their scheme of elections, and the significant time constraints that were built into that scheme. Lords amendment 14 removes the rules stipulating when authorities may change their scheme of elections. It leaves them to make such decisions at a time that is right for them and their local communities without being dictated to by central government, and enables them to decide the date on which they will hold their first whole council elections. Members of both Houses expressed the fear that the Government's proposals would place unnecessary burdens on local authorities. We reflected carefully on those arguments, and discussed them at length with appropriate parties both inside and outside the House of Commons. One example relates to the point raised by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) about the proposed mayoral arrangements. As a result of comments made on Report—by the right hon. Gentleman, among others—and on Second Reading in the House of Lords, we agreed to streamline our proposals for elected mayors. Lords amendment 312 and a number of consequential amendments remove our initial proposals on shadow mayors as precursors to directly elected mayors, while Lords amendments 94 and 296 and a number of consequential amendments remove our proposals on mayoral management arrangements, under which the elected mayor would also have become the chief executive of his or her authority.