John Stevenson
Main Page: John Stevenson (Conservative - Carlisle)
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on Report on this important Bill. I appreciate that there are a lot of amendments, however, and that many hon. Members wish to speak, so I will be as succinct as possible. I would like to refer to amendments 2 and 3. They are small but significant amendments that deal with the election of elected mayors. Because of their significance, I hope to press them to a vote tonight, unless Ministers see their merits.
I fully subscribe to the localism agenda. I believe that we have become an over-centralised state, with too much power at the centre, whether with Ministers or civil servants. The Bill will start to turn the tanker around. I accept that progress will be slow, but it will take the agenda in the right direction. On Second Reading, I said that a cultural change was required first in Whitehall, with less interference and prescription from the centre, and, secondly, in the town hall, with people there taking more responsibility. However, localism has three strands: the division of power; tax-raising powers; and governance. I would like to concentrate on governance, particularly elected mayors.
I am a strong supporter of the concept of elected mayors. That is the direction in which we should be going. They are open, transparent and accountable, and I also believe that they will help to revive local government. I thought that there was broad cross-party support for them, because they were introduced by a Labour Government in 2000, and because, obviously, the coalition Government are retaining the concept and looking to introduce 11 new mayors in due course.
Kelvin Hopkins
I accept that elected mayors were a Labour concept, although I was not in favour of them. It is noticeable that across the country many local authorities have rejected the idea, and that many of those who voted for them now regret doing so.
John Stevenson
I accept that they are not universally supported by all parties, but I believe that there is broad support. The hon. Gentleman raises a separate point, though, because there are several reasons why elected mayors have not caught on. However, I want to concentrate on my amendment 2 about their actual election.
At present, mayors are elected under the supplementary vote system, which is retained in the Bill. Effectively it is a form of the alternative vote. My amendment 2 would change that so that future elections are done under first past the post. That would provide a consistent approach to elections. Varying the voting system creates confusion and a lack of certainty for the average voter. Two weeks ago, this country went to the polling booth for a referendum on whether we wanted AV or first past the post. Had the voters supported AV, I would have withdrawn this amendment. I would have accepted the will of the people. In fact, there was an overwhelming and emphatic vote for first past the post. As one hon. Member said to me, “The people of this country did not say no; they said never.” I accept that judgment, but I believe there has to be consistency. I support the amendment on the basis that we should have a consistent approach to our elections and that elected mayors should therefore be elected under first past the post. I genuinely hope that the House will agree with what the people said two weeks ago and support the amendment.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
I want to address new clauses 13 and 14 on EU fines. I believe that ministerial advice stated that individual fines to local authorities would be appropriate where there was a direct causal link, and where councils were guilty of action or inaction. One example is waste, on which I would like to address two key issues: EU directives on recycling and landfill taxes.
The Local Government Association briefing is dismissive of the Government’s proposals. It states:
“Moves to allow Ministers to force English councils to pay parts of fines imposed on the UK government by the EU are unfair, unworkable, dangerous and unconstitutional. This is an unprecedented power for Ministers to avoid Parliamentary scrutiny and will inevitably lead to legal battles as Government tries to apportion “blame” for EU fines.”
The LGA urges that the policy be scrapped, and continues:
“In effect it means a Minister may simultaneously be prosecutor, judge, jury, and co-defendant, when Ministers themselves may actually be responsible for fines being levied. This is neither impartial nor localist.”
There are reasons why the Government are responsible for such fines perhaps being levied, but I want to address the confusion that seems to exist in Government. The Minister for the natural environment—the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—said in Committee in March that local authorities would not face what I describe as “bin taxes”, which are charges on local authorities and their residents for not reaching the EU’s 50% threshold. I asked him:
“I want to press the Minister on EU fines for England and Wales on waste collection. Does he support the individual fining of authorities that do kerbside collection and that are struggling to reach 50%, as suggested by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government?”
The Minister replied:
“I can tell the Committee that local authorities will not be fined individually for not achieving 50%. I can give that assurance…If we are failing, it will be lamentable”.—[Official Report, Fourth Delegated Legislation Committee, 8 March 2011; c. 9-10.]
There seems to be a great deal of confusion between the Department for Communities and Local Government, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on this issue. To be honest, I would like the proposal scrapped, but we at least need some clarity on how to reach 50% recycling rates and avoid EU fines.
The Bill does nothing to protect my constituents, particularly given that councils in east Lancashire have been hit extremely hard by DCLG cuts. Residents in my local authority, which was Conservative until last Thursday night—thankfully we now have a Labour authority—had achieved a 40% recycling rate, or just under. In effect, we are talking about a bin tax by any other name, and it is unfair. The message to the Minister this evening is that it is not the fault of the residents of Lancashire. The county council’s waste private finance initiative schemes would have resulted in a 90% recycling rate, but they were scrapped a few months ago. Up until a few months ago we had a strategy that would have enabled us to avoid EU fines, and we are talking about some of the most deprived communities in this country.
There are also issues around recycling centres. If the Government will not invest in recycling centres, or if the spread of recycling centres across the country is disproportionate, that is not fair either, but that is a Government policy. It is not an EU policy; it is a policy that the Government will be answerable for. The LGA is quite correct to say that the Government will be held to account; indeed, this issue could end up in the courts.
However, there is a second, more important reason why the scheme is not fair—a reason that I put to the Under-Secretary—and it concerns the difference between kerbside and co-mingled collections. Kerbside collection rates are around 30% to 40%, whereas co-mingled collections through recycling centres are hitting 80%, 90% and beyond. Local authorities in areas with co-mingled recycling will have high collection rates, but they will also have problems with contamination, which I accept. The Government are trying to encourage people not to co-mingle, but to separate. However, collection rates in areas with kerbside collections are much lower, so EU fines are unfair.