Local Government Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market and Baroness Hanham
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market
My Lords, I, too, declare an interest as a resident of Norfolk for many years. We have had debates on the wider issues affecting this Bill for some time already in this House and I will not repeat the arguments. I will make three points in relation to this amendment—I very much agree with my noble friends Lord Tope and Lady Shephard.
First, it is important to remember that there were reasons other than financial ones—although I stress the importance of them—why many of us resisted the unlawful attempt by the previous Government to carry through the unitary authorities. It was very unpopular in most of Norfolk, where other councils were going to be severely affected. The county council and most district councils were opposed to this. In the only poll taken of the people of Norfolk, only 3 per cent voted for the proposal. There are other arguments apart from financial ones: there would have been considerable effects on the other authorities if the proposal had gone through.
Secondly, I wonder what the point of the amendment is. Within two or three years, we will not have seen the full six-year evaluation of the costs and so on, and in any case I very much doubt whether, with the coalition Government still in existence, it will make any difference to policy.
My final point is about costs. All the up-front costs will come in the early years and the savings, if they come in the way that is intended—and very often these calculations made at the outset are wrong—will come much later. Of course, it is in the two or three years when the costs would be incurred that the particularly severe effects of financial constraints on public expenditure will apply. This would be an additional cost at a time when we would least want it. That is why I, too, do not support the amendment.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I thank everybody who has spoken in this short debate on what I considered a slightly strange amendment to be brought forward at this stage. It is worth reminding the House that the orders have been quashed—they are null, void and gone. With them have gone the alterations and changes to any thought of unitary authorities in those areas. They have been quashed not only in terms of not going forward as unitaries but also in terms of the other processes that we will come to, such as elections.
The judge was clear. In the original judgment, he said that the proposals were unlawful because the previous Government had not followed their own guidelines and criteria in coming to decisions, and had changed their mind from time to time. They had started off being very opposed to unitary status for Norwich and Exeter and then, by dint of a few squirls and whirls as time went on, they decided that there were compelling reasons why these two orders should go through.
That is the background. We are finishing off a process that was started—as my noble friend Lady Shephard said—with our commitment to getting rid of these orders when they were first put through the House, against the strong advice of both of the opposition parties, who said then that if and when they were in government, they would alter that. The Bills started, but in the mean time the judicial review was put in hand and came up with the view that the orders should be quashed.
We are not in a position to be talking or bothering about reports for the future. The fact is that we are now back to having two city councils in county council areas. It would be patently absurd to have a report on these two proposals and authorities when they are not going to be doing anything different to what they were doing—and nobody has even thought about having reports on the other unitary authorities and how they differ from other authorities. Therefore, I completely reject the arguments about the need for a report. This is not about post-legislative scrutiny; it is about trying to tie up matters and ensure that at some stage Norwich and Exeter can bring forth another application for a unitary authority. The amendment is trying to bring about information that will not be available to any other authority.
There have been a number of questions and a number of criticisms, and I should like to start with the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, who asked specific questions about costs. He asked how much it would cost for Exeter to go unitary. The answer is £19.9 million. In addition, the combined cost of restructuring the two unitaries would be more than £40 million. I think that local authorities have other things to do than waste £40 million on restructuring at present.
Local Government Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market and Baroness Hanham
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I am sure the noble Lord will forgive me for saying that I did not say that the Merits Committee report supported or not unitary status. I said precisely what he said: that the Merits Committee drew the attention of the House to certain aspects with which it was deeply unhappy. I am certain that that is what I said; it is certainly what I meant to say; I do not believe that the noble Lord can draw any inference from what I said that I thought that the Merits Committee was either supporting or not supporting unitary authority status.
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market
Is it not the case that the Merits Committee raised an enormous number of questions about whether the evidence was satisfactory and left the House to decide? I have never known a Merits Committee raise so many questions and doubts about a statutory instrument, and the House took a very clear view.
Baroness Hanham
I thank my noble friend for his intervention. He is correct. A large number of questions were raised. As I said at the beginning, it was one of the most withering reports that I have read. I think that we should let it rest at that for the moment.
The question of judicial review was originally raised as a possibility by the Permanent Secretary when he was demanding categoric instructions to allow the unitaries to go forward. Judicial review became possible because they were orders, so it was a judgment not on a parliamentary decision, but on secondary legislation that arose from primary legislation. The judge was quite clear in what he said and has quashed the first article of the orders. The second article, which relates to the elections, has yet to be decided, and presumably will be so decided at the next hearing of the court on 5 July. How much of the Bill proceeds depends on what happens there, and we will move amendments accordingly.