The Government have presented us with yet another very bad Bill. Indeed, it is so bad that it is difficult to know where to start, but let me begin by saying that there is a certain irony in what we are doing today. As was pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), the Audit Commission was established by a former Conservative Government 30 years ago, and here we are now, debating this Bill because another Conservative Government want to get rid of it.
Government Members, including the Secretary of State himself, have suggested that the exposure of the gerrymandering of Westminster city council, which was exchanging homes for votes, had nothing to do with the Audit Commission. I wonder, however, whether the regime that the Government are now proposing would have been able to unveil that appalling scandal, as the district auditor did then. It really was an absolute disgrace, and it led to a huge surcharge on the leader of the council.
The role of the Audit Commission has been both extended and reduced over the years, but I often found its interventions very helpful when I was leader of Derby city council. It was able to assess the effectiveness of local public services, thus providing us with a benchmark in relation to local authorities in other parts of the country and the services that they provided. It did so by means of the comprehensive area assessment which has been so ridiculed by the Secretary of State, and which was one of the first things to be ditched when the Government came to office.
It is probably not surprising that the Government made that decision, as it coincided with their imposition on local authorities of unprecedented cuts, which have continued year after year. The comprehensive area assessment would doubtless have highlighted the significant diminution in the quality and breadth of the services provided by local authorities that resulted directly from the Government’s cuts agenda—and a very unfair agenda it was. As we know, the cuts fell most heavily on the local authority areas in greatest need, although, perversely, some authorities in other parts of the country received an increase in Government grant. I think that, had it been allowed to continue, the comprehensive area assessment would have put the Government parties in a highly embarrassing position.