Lord Beecham
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Lord Beecham
Lord Beecham
My Lords, this group of amendments concerns governance issues, the part of the Bill to which we now move. The amendments deal with some of the regulations which the Bill empowers the Secretary of State to make. I have a vision of a group of civil servants in the subterranean depths of Eland House employed full time in drafting regulations on all manner of things, many of which we will encounter as the Bill progresses through Committee. In the interests of health and safety, if nothing else, of those who are so engaged and of local government, I suggest that the Government look again at the degree to which they are seeking to regulate.
The amendments relate to Schedule 2, page 189, and seek to limit the degree to which regulation will take place other than at the request of local authorities. Amendment 34 suggests that regulations should be made only if asked for by authorities. Amendment 35 would limit significantly the arrangements that the Government seek to make under these proposals and would ensure that any such arrangements are consistent with the principles of localism and the representative democracy which featured so largely in the initial debate on the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. I beg to move.
Lord True
My Lords, it might be helpful if I speak to my Amendment 37, which is in this group and relates to governance arrangements. I apologise for its rather dense language but it imitates the drafting style of the Bill and I was trying to be as accommodating as possible to the Government. The real issue here is about the relations between lower tier and higher tier authorities, and how we achieve localism where things are done to local people by higher tier authorities.
I have a very live example: before leaving for the House this morning, I received an extremely angry e-mail from a person in my ward asking, “Why on earth are you wasting my money moving bus stops on our high street?”. The answer is that I am not doing that. I have had meetings with TfL asking it not to move bus stops. But it is all being done by a higher tier authority within a lower tier authority without any open consultation with the people affected.
There are many other examples of this kind of thing, and I am sure it does not only go on between London boroughs and regional government—it probably goes on between lower tier authorities and county councils and, in some cases, parish councils. Another example would be the one I cited at Second Reading where, after consultation with local people, we proposed revised parking standards in a neighbourhood. Without holding any public consultation, we received a letter from a higher authority saying that the arrangements were not satisfactory and did not accord with its standards, and we were asked to change them.
I do not wish to unpick the constitutional arrangements between lower and higher tier authorities in this country, but I do not think that the Bill is very localist when it comes to London boroughs. Indeed, it strikingly fails to be localist in that respect. What I am really asking for in the amendment, although I do not expect my noble friend to agree to it at first bite nor do I necessarily want to add to the huge bible of regulation that is emerging from this Bill, is recognition of the important principle here. If we believe in localism, at the very least it should be open to the lower tier authority to be able to say to the higher tier authority, “If you are considering planning changes which specifically affect an area”, such as whether to have high-rise buildings in the centre of Twickenham, which happens to be a live issue in my authority, “meetings should be held by the higher tier authority to gauge the opinion of local people”. It might even be that we could ask officers to come and hold public meetings, or indeed have the right to require that that should happen.
At the moment there is no formal ability for a lower tier authority to act on behalf of its local residents to do what we would regard as absolutely normal in terms of explaining to residents what is going on. It is absolutely inconceivable, if we were planning to change the alignment of a high street in a village or small town centre, that that would be done without prior and detailed public consultation with local people. The purpose of the amendment is to give a lower tier authority such as my own, a London borough, but also those outside London, the ability to propose or suggest arrangements to the higher tier authority to ensure that it conducts itself in a proper, localist fashion in respect of matters that affect local people. I urge my noble friend to reflect on the issue being raised here.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, we believe that the leader and cabinet model is a good one. We also believe that the leader should be able to select those whom he wishes to have with him. It is a very close relationship, and it is very important that it works well. We think it right for a leader to be able to appoint his own executive team.
Amendment 38 would prevent the maximum size of an executive being set at a figure lower than 10 members. I accept that current experience with 10 members is about right, but I would not accept that future circumstances will be such that, while it might be right to increase the maximum limit of the size of an executive, it might not be right to have a lower limit. I think that that is what the noble Lord’s amendment suggests. Experience demonstrates that 10 is about the right number, and that a lower number may be too little and a higher number too much. Most of these cabinet systems are working quite well as they are. One might also point out that the more cabinet members you have, the more you have to pay. I hope that that resolves some of the questions.
Lord Beecham
I thank the Minister for her reply and thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for the support that he gave to some of the amendments. In relation to Amendment 37A, in practice there would be little advantage in going along that route. It would be a foolish leader who endeavoured to appoint an executive without the support of his colleagues. He would not last long in leadership, I suspect. In reality, I do not think that this particular provision is required.
On Amendment 38, however, the Minister rather skates over the implications of the Bill as it presently stands. I cannot see any reason why the determination of the size of the executive should not be entirely at the discretion of the local authority. At the very least, it would be wrong to leave the Secretary of State with power arbitrarily to reduce the size of the executive to, potentially, one or two members. Generally speaking, 10 is about the right figure; in the case of my own authority and that of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, the new administration has actually reduced the number of cabinet members, to use the phrase adopted, from 10 to six. That is legitimate and a matter of decision for the authority. In my submission, it would not be legitimate for the Secretary of State to prescribe that. Given the increasing spread of responsibilities, the partnership arrangements that now exist and the structures that now surround local government, it may well be creating an onerous burden on members of executives if their numbers were to be confined. I hope that the Government look again at this really rather purposeless provision.
The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, raised the question of principle, which it may be as well that we dispose of today. He asks very legitimately where the power of general competence is in all this. I had the pleasure of working with, or perhaps beneath, the noble Lord when he was Secretary of State for the Environment and chaired the Inner City Partnership committee in Newcastle. He was always clearly committed to local government. The problem is not so much around the concept of general competence as that the Bill, or much of it, rests on an assumption—certainly on the part of civil servants, and perhaps of Ministers of all Administrations—of general incompetence in local government and those who serve in it. I fear that that suspicion lies behind many of the manifold provisions in the Bill which purport to increase the degree of regulation that the Secretary of State can impose, if he sees fit. I hope that on reflection, as we go through the Bill, the Minister and her noble friends will think again about the degree to which they are taking upon themselves a burden that is effectively unnecessary. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Harris of Richmond)
I must inform your Lordships that if Amendment 39 is agreed to I cannot call Amendment 40 by reason of pre-emption.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I speak to Amendments 40 and 43 and, in doing so, endorse very much what the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has said. This is another example of what Tony Blair might have described as “regulation, regulation, regulation”. It is certainly well over the top. In particular, new Section 9EA(2) of the Local Government Act 2000, which he read out, is as classic a piece of Civil Service gobbledegook as I have seen for some time. I guess that, as I go through the Bill, there would be further examples.
Amendment 40 would delete that clause, and Amendment 43 would deal with the prescription as to the size to be covered by an area committee, limiting it to two-fifths. In principle, I would like to see that matter left entirely to the discretion of local authorities. However, if the Government were not disposed to take that view, my amendment would reduce the size of the committee to something which is less like half the total size of an authority and more like what most of us would regard as a manageable area in which it is possible to reflect the views of local communities and members. If the Government wish to have some guideline on this, I invite the Minister to opt for something lower than the proportion indicated in subsection (5) as it now stands.
Lord Tope
My Lords, briefly, I support my noble friend Lord Greaves. He certainly has more experience of rural areas than I do, but I speak from the perspective of what he referred to as a “compact urban area” or, more accurately, a suburban area: a fairly small—in terms of area—London borough. We have six local committees on the council as a whole. There are 43 Liberal Democrat councillors and only 11 Conservative councillors. However, because of the political demography, one of those six local committees is still controlled by a Conservative majority.
Each of those local committees has limited executive powers, which we hope will be extended further, and each operates in quite different ways, partly because of the councillors on them and the way in which they choose to react, and partly, and more particularly, because of the nature of the areas that they represent. All of the councillors for those areas are members of those local committees, to a varying extent, and the local residents in those areas come to those meetings certainly to a far greater extent than they attend meetings of our executive. They take part in those committees and, to varying extents, they feel that they are part of the deliberations.
As a council we have not felt it necessary to prescribe in great detail what each of those local committees shall, or shall not, do or how they will, or will not, behave. They behave sensibly, even the one run by the Conservatives behaves moderately sensibly. We demonstrate, in a very obvious way, the difference between a Conservative-run committee and a Liberal Democrat-run committee. That is what democracy is about; it is what we ought to be doing. As a council, we have not felt the need to prescribe it, nor have we ever thought that we should have prescribed it. I commend to the Government the fact that they too should trust local authorities in this case, as we trust local committees.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I commend the reply of the Minister on this group of amendments. I advise her to use that exact wording for every group of amendments that we put forward throughout the rest of the Bill; however, I do not say that very optimistically. There are clearly some discussions to be had.
I would just like to respond to the amendments spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and particularly to Amendment 43, which I disagree with fundamentally. In a sense, the amendment reflects the diversity and variety of local government and the representation of local government in your Lordships' House and in this Committee. It is a big-city view, a view of big authorities: in a big city, an area committee of 40 per cent would, in almost any conceivable situation, be ridiculous. However, that is not necessarily the case in smaller authorities.
Perhaps I can tell the Committee the position in my own authority in Pendle. We have five area committees and they range from 32 per cent—these figures are based on mid-year population estimates for 2008—down to 10.7 per cent. The 32 per cent is for the town of Nelson, which has an estimated population of 28,745, which, by big-city standards, is not excessive—it might be just two wards or one and a half wards in some big cities. It would be ridiculous to split Nelson because it is a community with a town centre. You walk from the middle of the town centre and you get to the edge of the town and Nelson stops and you are in the countryside and into smaller communities. I believe that the figure of 40 per cent is right. Quite clearly, there needs to be sensible reflection on the basis of local knowledge in a particular area.
Lord Beecham
Does the noble Lord agree that the best course would be to dispense with the clause altogether and leave the matter entirely to the discretion of the local authority, which is my first preference?
Lord Greaves
The noble Lord knows that I agree with him on that. It should be left to the good sense of local authorities. It is difficult to see a situation in which you would want a system of area committees where one area committee was more than half, but there might be such circumstances. There might be a district authority with a large town that is surrounded by a constellation of smaller communities. That would be the sensible way to do it. I believe that if it is left to sensible local discretion, the areas will be based on the real communities that exist there in the best possible way they can be defined on a sensible working basis.
I thank the Minister for her interesting reply on Amendment 39 and I look forward to discussions on it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, we are back again to the same arguments that we had on the previous amendment on area committees. It relies on the regulations. I thank my noble friend Lord True for suggesting a way in which amendments might come. I think we need to look carefully at what has been said. Perhaps I need to review this before the next stage to see whether anything needs to be done about these provisions.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that very helpful response. We are now into the realm of guidance. It seems to me that guidance is a more acceptable face of regulation—or its better looking twin, as it were—but there is a little bit too much of that as well in the Bill. Matters like this can perfectly sensibly be left to individual local authorities and the guidance that other bodies, such as the Local Government Association, would be prepared to offer. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. As we go through the Bill, I think there will be many examples where all sides of the House would wish to see precisely that accommodating attitude reflected so that we do not end up on Report with many detailed amendments which should not be dividing us at all.
Lord True
It may have been for others. I did not know that the noble Lord, Lord Tope, was there. In those circumstances, had there been a scrutiny system with four scrutiny committees, under this amendment a member of the opposition would have found himself or herself chairing two scrutiny committees. The principle behind the amendment is a good one but in practice it simply would not work. In my humble view, the so-called “cabinet” system that was imposed on us by the previous Administration has tended, as many of us involved in local government know, to create a potential gulf between the executive members and the back-bench members of the governing party and local authorities have had to work against that all the time. It is vital that back-bench members of the governing party have full involvement—often very sceptical involvement—in the operation of the authority. It is desirable that they should also be given the opportunity to take a leading role in challenging the authority and scrutinising it. This is often the case in many authorities that I know and have visited. It would be outrageous for the opposition party to be excluded from chairing scrutiny committees but equally, as well as being impractical in certain circumstances, it would be undesirable to exclude the back-bench members of a governing party from being involved in taking executive decisions and playing a leading role in scrutiny. Therefore, I am afraid that I cannot support my noble friend’s amendment.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I begin by paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and his colleagues for changing the system that we operated in Newcastle when they took office in 2004. I will let the noble Lord and your Lordships into the secret that prior to that date I had tried to persuade my colleagues at least to emulate the system in another place of a balance of chairmanship of such committees, but with my usual lack of cogency I failed to persuade them at that time. However, they have now been converted by the noble Lord and his colleagues, so things move on.
I entirely accept what the noble Lord, Lord True, has said about the impracticality of the suggestion behind the amendment. I can give a better justification. The borough of Newham has 60 Labour members and no opposition members at all—or at least no overt opposition members—so clearly the amendment would not work there. The Labour Party advice about scrutiny committees is that the relevant duty should be shared. That is national Labour Party advice and I hope that the same is true of other political parties as well. It would make a great deal of sense.
If I differ from the noble Lord it is because, as has rather often been the case, he has tended to view scrutiny as something retrospective and as a case of holding an executive to account for decisions that it has made or is about to make. That is part of the job but it overlooks the forward programming of an authority and the development of policy. One of the great advantages of properly resourced scrutiny is that it allows members to develop policy free of the operation of the whip, which should not apply in scrutiny.
After 24 years chairing committees and leading a council, I was eventually voluntarily dispatched to my Siberian power station; that is, the arts and recreation committee in Newcastle. I found that being a back-bencher was very different from chairing a meeting. As the chairman of a meeting, you had an agenda and if you were any good at it you knew what you wanted, you had a discussion and you got it through. In Newcastle’s case I would have a pre-meeting with 15 Labour members for an hour. That represents an average of four minutes each. The dialogue was not Socratic in its nature. It was not the highest level of political debate and many members were simply concerned to get through the meeting as quickly as possible. By contrast, scrutiny actually allows people to think. Some people found the transition to be rather difficult, but it is welcome.
The whole thing can be summarised for me by my moment of revelation, which came when, having missed a meeting, I went to a meeting of the arts and recreation committee—a very worthy committee with a big agenda —and I read in a minute that a member had raised the question of birds eating grass seed on the Leazes Park allotment. I thought, “Has it really come to this? This is not really an effective way of running things”. I therefore support in principle the executive scrutiny split, provided that scrutiny is adequately resourced.
Subject to those reservations, I generally support scrutiny. I will refer briefly to Amendment 48 in this group relating to new Section 9FC and the guidance being proffered. New subsection (3) states that in exercising the power to refer matters to a scrutiny committee,
“the member must have regard to any guidance for the time being issued by the Secretary of State”.
The notion that 20,000 councillors are going to consult the bible on scrutiny issued by Eland House before they are able to refer something is, frankly, ridiculous. I anticipate that the Minister will acknowledge that this could be excised from the Bill without damage. I invite her so to indicate.
Lord Tope
My Lords, I am sure that we will all forgive the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for paying tribute to my noble friend Lord Shipley. It was a well deserved tribute. Perhaps I may also help him with the problem he enunciated about the London Borough of Newham. Of course, it would make it very much easier for Newham to implement my noble friend’s proposals were we to have proportional representation in local government. For the past 25 years, the first past the post system in local government has very ill served the Conservative Party; it has, throughout pretty well all those 25 years, been most unjustly served by our current electoral system. None of that was what I intended to say. In fact, I rose to speak to Amendment 46 and 47 in this group. My noble friend Lord Greaves will speak to Amendments 49 and 49C.
Amendment 46 is self-explanatory. Its provisions recognise the reality of a situation that in many authorities it is not a single officer who alone has the scrutiny function. That person will inevitably, in most cases, need other officers in the discharge of those functions. That speaks for itself and my amendment is a better way to reflect reality in most authorities.
Amendment 47 is rather more serious. Its purpose, if we are to have this part of the Bill, is that the scrutiny provisions should apply also to district councils. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Greaves has far greater experience. I have no experience of district councils because I am in an inner London borough. I know of no reason why—albeit with lesser functions—district councils should not be treated in exactly the same way as all other local authorities of whatever type in the country, as far as the scrutiny function is concerned. That is why Amendment 47 seeks to remove from the Bill the new subsection that excludes district councils from these provisions.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I shall start by saying that I recognise a lot of what I have heard from noble Lords regarding how councils operate. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, would make it compulsory for scrutiny committees to be chaired by the leader of the opposition party on a council. This amendment is unnecessary. I know of many councils that do precisely that, whereby a leader or senior member of the opposition party chairs review and scrutiny meetings. That is absolutely proper, but such a provision does not need to be couched in either guidance or legislation. As the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, pointed out, there may be some areas where there are no opposition members, but the amendment would make such a provision mandatory. There are some areas where all members are Conservatives and the issue is the same. I hope that from the tenor of the debate noble Lords will agree that such a provision is neither appropriate nor necessary, and that we should not return to it. The annual scrutiny survey, which, I must say, I did not know existed, shows an upward trend, with 42 per cent of authorities allocating scrutiny chairs to members outside the majority group. This idea is clearly taking off well enough, without any interference from Parliament.
Amendments 46 and 47 would change the arrangements on designated scrutiny officers, particularly to make it clear that a designated officer could lead other officers in the discharge of scrutiny functions, as well as requiring district councils in two-tier areas to designate a scrutiny officer. Again, the amendments proposed are not necessary. Of course, we envisage that scrutiny will involve a number of officers to support a scrutiny committee. That already happens, it is part and parcel of the way scrutiny committees are run, and indeed in some councils they are completely separate from the rest of the administration so that they are completely independent. It is unimaginable that one scrutiny officer could not appoint somebody to help him. It is certainly not necessary to make that mandatory because I am quite certain that in most local authorities that is precisely what happens. There is nothing to prevent a district council in a two-tier area designating a scrutiny officer but statute does not require this. Noble Lords have made the point that district councils perhaps do not have quite such onerous responsibilities as county councils and therefore it is not mandatory for them to have a designated officer, although of course if they choose to have one they can. That is perfectly in order.
Amendments 48 and 49 remove the requirement on members to have regard to the guidance and the regulation-making powers of the Secretary of State in relation to referral of matters to a scrutiny committee. These powers enable the Secretary of State to ensure that certain important safeguards are in place. Regulations made under the power that noble Lords are seeking to remove protect against vexatious or discriminatory matters from being placed on the scrutiny committee meeting agenda. They also exclude matters for which there are already statutory processes and rights of appeal, such as planning and licence decisions or matters relating to an individual. It is not unreasonable that those matters should be placed before scrutiny committees in the course of their business.
We believe that the existing framework is working pretty well without removing the requirement for scrutiny committees to make reports and recommendations relating to partner authorities and local area agreements. Having said that, I have some sympathy with Amendment 49C, which is seeking to remove the link between local improvement targets and local area agreements—that might indeed become otiose. We are absolutely clear that where authorities operate executive governance arrangements, scrutiny arrangements must be in place. We recognise that scrutiny plays an important role in holding the executive to account and contributing to policy development in authorities. I certainly support what the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, says—that overview and scrutiny committees, like planning committees, should not be whipped. They are clearly committees where scrutiny and challenge should take place and that should not be done against a background of being told what to do.
Amendment 69 would make it mandatory for councils with committee systems to have an overview and scrutiny committee. That is not necessary. The committee system in itself should have a scrutiny role and always did in the past—that was one of the benefits of the committee system. Therefore, that amendment is not necessary.
With the various explanations and assurances I have given, I hope that noble Lords will not press their amendments.
Lord Beecham
I am grateful to the Minister for her response. In relation to Amendment 69, which I did not address before, scrutiny ought not to be just a matter of looking at the internal workings and policies of the council itself. It should be used, and in many cases is being used, as the noble Lord, Lord Tope, mentioned, to look beyond what other organisations are doing—or not doing, more to the point—in the locality beyond the statutory requirements, for example, that would apply to the health service for authorities with adult service responsibilities. The amendment does not quite address the issue in the terms that perhaps it should have done but I would welcome some encouragement from the Minister for authorities which do not necessarily have a scrutiny committee to use their own committee system for that purpose, and to encourage those to whom application is made for some explanation of what they are doing in a locality to respond as if this were a request from a scrutiny committee. It would be helpful if Ministers said something to support such activity on the part of councils, particularly district councils, which perhaps do not have a full-blown scrutiny process but which may seek to follow the example of other authorities which do have that process to explore the workings of organisations, be they public sector or private sector, and the impact they have on their community.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their amendments, and I start by saying that I shall be helpful in relation to some but not to others. As noble Lords have said, the various amendments in the group seek to remove the guidance or regulation-making powers of the Secretary of State—a common theme this afternoon. In each case, the powers enable certain safeguards to be in place. Although noble Lords are critical of regulation, sometimes it is necessary at the same time to protect other aspects with which they are concerned.
Amendment 45A would remove the ability to issue guidance on important matters such as scrutiny chairs, as we discussed on the previous group. Amendments 48A, 48B and 48C would remove the requirement for members to have regard to guidance and the Secretary of State’s regulation-making power in relation to the referral of matters to a scrutiny committee. However, as I said, these powers enable the Secretary of State to ensure that certain important safeguards are in place. We have discussed some of them, such as vexatious or discriminatory matters being placed before a scrutiny committee, which we talked about on the previous amendment. I do not think that it is unreasonable that that sort of aspect should be ruled out of the scrutiny committee’s responsibilities. Some might take that view and some might not but I think it is sensible that they are left with no option about that. As well as rights of appeal, the amendments would also exclude matters that are already statutory processes, such as planning and licensing decisions or matters relating, for example, to an individual. Therefore, I shall not be able to accept those amendments.
Amendments 49U and 49V would remove the ability of the Secretary of State to make regulations to guard against the duplication of requests by scrutiny committees to other partner bodies. They are regulations that seek to minimise the burden on such authorities and make best use of the available information.
Amendments 47A, 49A, 49B and 49D to 49T also look to reform existing scrutiny provisions by simplifying and expanding the definition of “partner bodies”. They would expand the matters in relation to which scrutiny committees may rely on their powers, removing the link to local area agreements—which we have already agreed I should look at—and extending the powers of district council scrutiny committees, among other things, as we have already discussed.
As I said in the debate on the previous group, we do not believe that the existing framework hampers innovative practices by scrutiny committees. However, I have some sympathy with the aims of some of the amendments, and, again, I shall draw them into the discussions that we need to have. They seek to bring up to date the scrutiny regime that sits across various Acts of Parliament in light of recent changes, so it is right that we should look at them.
I am happy to consider Amendments 47A, 49A, 49B, and 49D to 49T. In debating previous amendments, we also discussed committee system authorities and the operation of scrutiny. Our view is that such authorities should be able to choose to have overview and scrutiny committees. Proposed new Section 9JA makes this clear. Removing the section entirely would create confusion. It would be unclear whether committee system authorities could operate scrutiny committees, and what the role and powers of such committees would be if they did. Therefore, the amendment is proposing that is unnecessary.
The provisions that Amendments 87ZB to 87ZD seek to change replicate existing provisions in the Local Government Act 2000, which reflect the important interests that the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church have in the provision of education, given the significant number of voluntary-aided schools in most if not all local authorities. It is correct that these significant partners in education should by right have representation on the relevant scrutiny committees. Therefore, we do not support the amendments.
With those explanations, the realisation that we discussed some issues when debating the previous group of amendments, and my acceptance of further discussions on some of the amendments, I hope that noble Lords will not press their amendments.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, again I found that a very helpful answer, and I agreed with most of the comments and responses that the noble Baroness gave. I offer a suggestion about where an assurance at some stage would be helpful. In exercising his powers to proffer guidance, the Secretary of State might wish to consult either or both—preferably both—the Local Government Association and the Centre for Public Scrutiny. One would not want to write the Centre for Public Scrutiny into statute, but an indication that there would be those discussions, particularly with the Centre for Public Scrutiny, which is quite independent, would be helpful in ensuring that the guidance was broadly acceptable to the local government world and beyond. I take the point that it is necessary, in order to ensure public confidence and that minorities within local government are protected—given that the politics can be a little difficult at times—that there should be some guidance on this range of issues. If the guidance were informed by the Centre for Public Scrutiny and consulted on with the LGA, that would be a way forward. The provision does not need to be statutory, but an indication would be very helpful. I do not ask the Minister to respond immediately.
Lord Beecham
Lord Beecham
My Lords, the amendment touches on the question of transparency and the openness to the public of meetings. It seeks to reflect what I understand to be the present position, which is that meetings are open unless council committees or executives decide to exclude the press and public, usually on grounds of confidentiality. This might be commercial confidentiality or sensitive staff issues and the like. The amendments in my name create a presumption that the meetings will be open to the public unless there are good reasons for not having them as such. Those reasons clearly would have to be enunciated. It is difficult to find a form of words that fully meets the case. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, will speak to his amendments, which import the term “necessarily”. However, the question then arises of how one defines what is necessary. There is no simple answer, but it is important to have the presumption in the Bill if we can get it, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister in due course.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 53, 54 and 55 in my name. Each is a probing amendment to get confirmation from the Minister that there will be no deterioration in the access of the general public, the press and opposition councillors to meetings and to information. I seek that reassurance because, as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, says, it is quite difficult to get the right wording. The overriding intention must be that there should be no deterioration in what currently pertains in local government for individuals—the public, the media or other councillors—seeking access to meetings and information. The Bill confers an awful lot of powers on the Secretary of State to make decisions in that area. I understand why that is, but I would be more comfortable if it was absolutely clear to the general public that there will be no diminution in their access to information and meetings.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the current presumption of meetings being held in public comes under the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2000, with which I am sure the noble Lord is entirely familiar. The general principle of that is that there is a presumption in favour of openness, where key decisions of executives are made.
We are—I hardly dare to say the word—aiming to make new regulations which will remove some of the current prescription that make it clear that there is a presumption in favour of public meetings. As the noble Lord has already said, it is essential that there is some ability for a committee to close its proceedings for private or confidential reasons, but those must not be outwith what would normally be discussed in public. We are going to retain the parts in the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2000—I will not go through that again—to ensure that written records of certain decisions must be available to the public. We are also going to regulate how they must be made available so, as a result of what we are proposing, there will not be any deterioration in the right of access to meetings. We will just tidy up to make it clear that, as the noble Lord and other noble Lords have said, the presumption in favour of open meetings is absolutely understood.
Lord Beecham
I accept the Minister’s helpful suggestions, as ever, and I shall refer to the 2000 local government regulations. I shall look them up tonight. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord True
My Lords, I have a number of amendments in this group, and I want to follow on from what the noble Lord, Lord Tope, has said by thanking very sincerely my noble friend for the leadership and responsiveness she has shown on this matter. Those of us who have been present in the Committee today will also have noted the openness, warmth and positive way in which she has responded to a number of the points that have been put forward. We are all grateful for that.
I am slightly confused by the groupings, which have changed a little overnight, perhaps for reasons related to pre-emption or to a number of other points. By the way, I should pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding, who played a big part in raising this issue at Second Reading. There was unity across the House that to create shadow mayors before the electors in the cities concerned had had an opportunity to have their say was not a good idea. The Minister then came forward at the earliest possible opportunity to say that the Government had accepted the arguments, so the principle does not need to be debated at any great length, and I do not propose to do so. However, I should give notice, in speaking to the large number of amendments within this grouping, that it should be taken that I have also spoken to Amendments 74A, 77A, 77B, 79A and 81A. They are not in this group, but they relate to the same subject. Even if I have it wrong, I hope that the Committee will accept that I shall not come back to those amendments later, and I repeat my thanks to my noble friend for taking up the point in the positive way she has.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, relates to the part of the Bill which defines a mayor as distinct from a councillor. I wonder whether that is particularly well advised. I cannot recall the precise clause or paragraph in the schedule that deals with the eligibility of people to stand for election as mayor. It lists a whole series of officers of an authority who may not stand. At the moment, a serving member or employee of a local authority is disbarred from standing as a councillor. If the mayoral position was to be treated for all purposes in the same way as a councillor, you would not need a provision in the Bill to identify all the authority officers who could not stand for that position. Indeed, it could be argued that if you do not treat the mayor as a councillor, you might find that some people are inadvertently omitted but who perhaps should be barred from seeking to be elected because they already hold a position within the authority. My understanding is that the bar will remain in place for some time after their period of service has concluded.
Would it not be sensible for the Government to rethink this provision and simply state, unless there is a regulation the other way, as it were, that all provisions relating to councillors such as declarations of interest and all the rest of it should apply to elected mayors, rather than reverse the procedure and require regulations specifically for the elected mayor which could otherwise be avoided?
In relation to the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord True, there was a problem, and indeed there still is a problem, in the grouping of these amendments. As I read it, many of the noble Lord’s amendments tag on to provisions for the implementation of the mayoral system, with reference to a referendum having taken place on the basis of three possibilities. One is the decision of a local authority itself, but subject to a referendum. Another is a petition from the public generally, and the third, which is the problematic one for many of us, is the requirement to hold a referendum by the Secretary of State. As I understand it, the noble Lord’s amendments, along with those of his noble friends, assume for the purposes of their amendments that the compulsory referendum remains part of the Bill. Last night I endeavoured to turn the debate around the other way so that we could deal with that issue first. When we come to consider the Bill on Report, perhaps we might look at how to address the issue.
The implementation points are perfectly valid and apply to the two non-compulsory forms of acquiring an elected mayor, but while I know that the Committee will not divide on them today, if the amendments were to be accepted on Report, it would be assumed that the compulsory referendum had been agreed. Some of us, perhaps many of us, have different views about that. In today’s groupings there are amendments which address that issue of principle, and I hope that the noble Lord understands where some of us are coming from in that respect.
Lord True
I thank the noble Lord. I have seen his Amendment 81B, and obviously that implies the direction he is coming from, but I certainly do not want to be unhelpful to the Committee in any way. My objective, which the Government have now said is theirs as well, is to erase the principle of shadow mayors. However, I agree that the point of principle he has raised does merit discussion at some point in our proceedings. I will be as co-operative as I can, under advice.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, unfortunately these amendments were grouped and degrouped rather speedily overnight, so we were slightly surprised to see this morning where the degroupings were. However, I accept the fact that the noble Lord will want to deal with the referendum issue at the next stage. Is there an amendment to which he wants to return? Otherwise I will accept all the amendments I have already said that I would accept, and I will go through them quietly again. The noble Lord indicates that he does not have an amendment to which he wants to return. That being the case, within the groupings of the noble Lord, Lord True, I shall list which amendments I am willing to accept, and if there are any differences about that, we shall look at the issue again. The amendments are Amendments 62A, 66A, 69A, 69B, 69C, 73A, 74A, 75A, 77A, 77B, 79A, 81A, 84A, 84B, 84C, 84D, 87A, 87B, 87C, 87D, 108A and 187. In listing them, I repeat the undertaking that I gave at the outset of Committee to remove the provisions for mayoral management arrangements.
I shall deal finally with Amendment 56, to which I suspect the noble Lord will want to return at some stage. The amendment would remove the provisions about whether an elected mayor is to be treated as a member or councillor of a local authority. I am told that these provisions replicate those in the Local Government Act 2000, which put in place the default position that a mayor is not to be treated as a member or councillor unless regulations provide that they should be. I do not know which side of the bed we are now on, or whether we are getting into it or out of it, as the noble Lord has said, but the default position is already in regulations.
Lord Beecham
I am just anxious that we should not have senior officers of the authority clambering into the bed. It might be easier to deal with it in the way that I have described, but perhaps that can be looked at. If regulations already exist and the intention is to replicate them, that might serve. On the other hand, it may be simpler just to revert to the principle of treating the mayor for all purposes as a councillor. But we can look at that before Report.
Baroness Hanham
I thank the noble Lord for that. Unless I have not done something that I ought to have done, I ask that the amendments that I have listed be accepted and that the noble Lord withdraw Amendment 56 for the moment.
Lord Tope
My Lords, my name, too, is on this amendment like that of my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market. Unfortunately my noble friend is unable to be here today—which I think she particularly regrets given the other names that have now been added to the amendment. I echo all that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has said, and I am relieved to know that even with all his experience, he is possibly nearly as confused as I am about exactly where we are left with this, except that it is certainly in a much better place than it was a few days ago, which is welcome.
I understand now—in the proper spirit of localism, I suppose—that those mayors who are minded also to become chief executives, as I think is intended in Leicester, are at liberty to do so. I said at Second Reading that localism must mean the right to make the wrong decision. Therefore, I have to defend the right to make the wrong decision. There should be a clear difference between the role of an elected political leader and the role of a chief executive—I realise that we still have a head of paid service. A chief executive is usually, in theory, apolitical. There is a clear distinction and I regret the extent to which that is becoming blurred.
Once again I thank the Minister not only for her support for the amendment but for being willing and able to come out and say so at an early stage in the Bill. Like the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, I look forward to a clear exposition of exactly where we are, and what is and is not in the Bill, as we go forward.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I join this love fest with enthusiasm and congratulate not only the Minister on working this small miracle but other noble Lords—particularly the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, whose long experience and stature have no doubt contributed to bringing about a change of mind on the part of Ministers generally—on achieving this very satisfactory result to what would otherwise have been a very unfortunate situation. I am happy to endorse everything that has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, in thanking all those involved.
Lord True
My Lords, perhaps I may take a minute of the House’s time and speak now to the two other amendments in the group on which I lead and which have the same welcome effect, as noble Lords on all sides have said. I, too, repeat my salute to my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding and the Minister. The separation of mayor and chief executive is a good idea and we should maintain it. I am grateful to my noble friend.
Lord Beecham
Lord Beecham
My Lords, this group of amendments relates to still more regulatory powers conferred on the Secretary of State, this time in connection with the mayoral position, however derived, in respect of terms of office and the like. The schedule gives the Secretary of State power to regulate the term of office of an elected mayor. I am asking, through the amendment, whether “the term” is used in the sense of a four-year or five-year term, or whether it also gives the Secretary of State power to limit the number of terms. For example, under the police reform Bill, there is a limit to the number of terms that a police commissioner can serve—if that cataclysmic proposal should reach the statute book—to two terms of four years. There is nothing in the Bill to suggest that that is the Government’s intention this time, but it would be welcome if we could have an indication that it was not intended to limit the number of terms for an elected mayor. I say that having served what would have been four and a bit terms, had that term applied to the leadership of the council in Newcastle. But I declare no interest whatever in being elected mayor of Newcastle. I make that very clear.
Amendment 65 refers to the wide-ranging powers in regulations and would restrict those necessary for the purposes of this part of the Bill. Amendment 66 relates to a curious provision on elections and their administration. Under subsection (5) of new Section 9HN, the Secretary of State may make regulations,
“exercisable … on, and in accordance with, a recommendation of the Electoral Commission”,
with a curious exception which I do not really understand. Perhaps the noble Baroness can help me, if not today then subsequently, because it goes on to say,
“except where the Secretary of State considers that it is expedient to exercise that power in consequence of changes in the value of money”.
I do not understand to what that relates. It might relate to election expenses, but it is certainly not clear from the section what it relates to, and a little elucidation would be extremely welcome.
Amendment 67 seeks to ensure that the exercise of the Secretary of State’s powers to regulate in this whole issue of elected mayors and their elections is subject to approval by the Houses of Parliament. These are matters going to the heart of the exercise of local democracy, and they should be subject to affirmative resolution.
I think that the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, will speak to Amendment 86. One particularly odd matter is covered by Amendment 87ZA, which curiously has the Secretary of State involved in the appointment of mayoral assistants. I cannot think why that should be the case. I recall once in Newcastle, when we had a twinning relationship with a city in China, their mayoral delegation came over and the mayor addressed the council. He went up to the dais and one of his retinue came up with his spectacle case, opened it and handed the mayor his spectacles. That seemed an interesting position to hold, and I thought I would indent for a spectacle bearer to the leader of the council, but in the end refrained from doing so. Presumably the Secretary of State would now get involved in such an appointment. It cannot be right, can it, for the Secretary of State to be making regulations for the appointment of a mayoral assistant? Perhaps the Minister can explain. If she cannot do so today—and I would not at all blame her—perhaps she might write to me and others of your Lordships on that point. I beg to move.
Lord Tope
I shall speak to Amendments 86 and 87 in this grouping. My noble friend Lord Shipley has unfortunately had to leave for an hour for another very important engagement, as things would have it at exactly the moment when his amendments come up, so I find myself once again in that position.
The amendments are fairly self-explanatory. They deal with the appointment by the elected mayor of a deputy mayor. Amendment 86 says that such an appointment should be subject to agreement by a majority of the executive. That is certainly desirable; the amendment would say that it was essential, and that would be quite proper given what the role of the deputy mayor could be.
Amendment 87 deals with a situation when there is a vacancy in the office of deputy mayor and the elected mayor has to appoint another person to be deputy mayor. There is no provision that that other person need be a member of the executive; therefore, it is even more important in those circumstances that the other person appointed by the deputy mayor should meet with the agreement of a majority of the executive. As the noble Lord, Lord Beecham said earlier in a slightly different context, any sensible mayor, like any sensible leader, would make sure that they did that. On the other hand, it is still a little easier to remove a leader if it is necessary than, quite rightly, to remove an elected mayor. Therefore, we feel that this provision should be in the Bill for the sake of good government.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for this little exchange. I will see what I can do. Amendment 64, as the noble Lord said, seeks to remove the power of the Secretary of State to make regulations changing the term of office of elected mayors. This is an important power that allows for transitional arrangements to be made following the first election of mayors. In October 2001, when a number of mayoral elections were held, the Secretary of State was able to vary the mayors’ terms of office so that the second elections were held in May, and in some local authority areas the mayor’s term was varied to enable the mayoral elections to be held at the same time as local government elections. We believe that it is important that this power, which has been available to the Government since 2000, is retained.
Amendment 65 is unnecessary as regulations made under new Section 9HN can relate only to the conduct of mayoral elections, and changes to electoral law or regulations cannot be made for any other purpose under this power.
The noble Lord has queried the provision at new Section 9HN(5). The Secretary of State is able to make regulations placing limitations on election expenses. However, in most cases he must do so only following a recommendation from the Electoral Commission. The only exception when a commission recommendation is not necessary is where the Secretary of State makes changes to any limits in line with inflation. That would mean an upgrading of the mayor’s election expenses owing to the fact that there had been inflation, which of course we do not have at the moment so it would not be necessary. The noble Lord asked what “money” relates to here. It means election expenses, which can be uprated by the Secretary of State. Again, this replicates provisions in the Local Government Act 2000.
Amendment 67 seeks to require regulations made by the Secretary of State under new Section 9ID on the election, terms of office and filling of vacancies of executive leaders to be subject to the affirmative procedure. We envisage that any regulations made under this section would be used for transitional purposes when a change in governance arrangements takes place. Furthermore, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, having completed its review of the Bill, is satisfied with the level of parliamentary scrutiny of regulations made under new Section 9ID. We are therefore not convinced that the existing arrangements in the 2000 Act, whereby such provisions have been subject to the negative procedure, should be changed. That remains the situation.
On the question of deputy mayors, Amendments 86 and 87, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, seek to require the mayor to gain the agreement of his or her cabinet when appointing their deputy mayor. The Government’s view is that the decision about who to appoint as their deputy mayor should be a decision for the mayor alone. It seems unnecessary for a directly elected mayor, accountable to the electorate of an entire local authority area, to have to seek the agreement of a cabinet, the members of which they themselves have appointed, to determine who the deputy mayor should be.
Amendment 87ZA seeks to remove an elected mayor’s ability, if he or she wishes, to appoint an assistant. Such assistants can currently fulfil a similar role to those carried out by political assistants to the main political groups on the council. Given the significant role that elected mayors play in their local communities—taking key strategic decisions, acting as ambassador for the area and facilitating effective partnerships are just part of what they do—then, in the same way as leaders are supported by political assistants, elected mayors will need an assistant to effectively carry out these roles. There are currently four independent and local authority mayors in England. As such, independent mayors are ineligible to have a political assistant who works only to the main political groups on the council. Amendment 87ZA may have the effect of leaving such mayors without any access to any political support or assistance.
However, we are not saying that an elected mayor must appoint an assistant. The appointment of a mayoral assistant is entirely optional and we would expect mayors to have regard to existing support structures within the council, both political and administrative, and its financial resources when reaching a decision on whether it is necessary to appoint an assistant. The Secretary of State has, of course, no involvement in a mayor’s appointment of an assistant.
I hope that these responses are helpful and will convince the House that these amendments are unnecessary and need not be pressed.
Lord Tope
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Shipley wished to move this amendment but, as I explained earlier, he has unfortunately, from my point of view, had to go to another engagement and will be there, I think, for another 15 minutes or so.
At a later stage of the Bill, we will probably spend a considerable amount of time discussing local referendums and the many issues that arise in connection with them. This is the first, and perhaps in some ways slightly premature, time that we come to this subject. Amendment 73 would raise the threshold for calling a referendum from 5 to 10 per cent of local government electors. We believe that 5 per cent is too low a figure. When we get to the later provisions, we will have a lot more to say about what the threshold should be and how we should get there, as well as other issues.
My noble friend Lord Shipley would have said that, if the need for a referendum is strong, there really should be more signatures to demonstrate that, and they should be easy to collect. I think we all recognise that the cost of a referendum, wherever it is conducted, is significant—it is not something that is simple to carry out. A whole range of matters has to be dealt with in conducting a referendum and, if it is to be done at significant cost, the need for it must be truly demonstrated. Public demand for it should be there, and 10 per cent—I would say at least 10 per cent—is a better figure because it balances the right to have a referendum, which is conferred under this legislation, with the need for it to be held and the implications of doing so. I beg to move.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, this is another example of possible misplacement in the groupings, for which I do not blame anyone. It is very difficult to get a perfectly rational system. In fact, I pay tribute to the officer of this House who works so hard, so long and so late in trying to make sense of my and other noble Lords’ belated efforts to table amendments. She does a wonderful job and I have every sympathy for her. At least she does not have to read my handwriting, which would make the task impossible and not just difficult.
In relation to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, I certainly concur, as, I think, do these Benches, with the proposal for a higher threshold. However, I want to address the rest of the amendments in this group, which go to the critical question in relation to governance of whether there should be compulsory referendums at the diktat of the Secretary of State. The amendments that follow essentially relate to that.
The Minister has fortunately helped us by removing the conflation of the position of mayor and chief executive, and she has dealt with—perhaps liquidated—the position of shadow mayor. We are now left with this element of the compulsory referendum. In that respect, it is necessary to look at the whole question of the mayoral system—its provenance and development.
I was present at the meeting about 15 years ago when Tony Blair launched on an unsuspecting Labour Party, and an even more unsuspecting shadow Secretary of State in the person of Frank Dobson, the notion of an elected Mayor of London and, following that, the possibility of having elected mayors elsewhere. I took his motivation at face value. He thought—and others who have advocated this in the past have thought and currently think—that it would invigorate local democracy, improve turnout at local elections and enhance the accountability of local political leadership because the elected mayor would have a mandate from across the whole authority. That was the theory; let us look a little at the practice.
Bearing in mind that until now, and until the legislation changes, only 5 per cent of the electorate in any authority has been needed to requisition a referendum, there have been, I think, only 41 referendums, if one takes Leicester into account, in the 10 years in which this option has been open. One area has had second thoughts and has terminated its adoption of the system. Of the 40 referendums, 14 were in favour of an elected mayor and 26 against.
What is perhaps more significant is the turnout in the referendums and the turnout in the local elections. This, after all, was going to be the great advantage to local democracy of this new system. There have only been two referendum turnouts greater than 40 per cent and both of those took place on a general election day. Some referendums had turnouts of less than 20 per cent, 10 had between 20 and 30 percent, and 17 had between 30 and 40 per cent. The upper thirties is probably about average for a local election—by no means satisfactory, but self-evidently at least no worse, and in many cases better, than the turnout in these referendums. It is quite significant that the turnouts were also very low in the ensuing elections. Some of the referendum turnouts were abysmally low: Bedford had a turnout of 16 per cent; Lewisham had a turnout of 18 per cent; among the best were Hartlepool with 34 per cent and Torbay with 32 per cent. However, this does not give any grounds for saying that this is an enormously popular reform that people are rushing to adopt.
Nor has the turnout in elections been very much greater, even in London. The turnout in the first mayoral election in London was 37 per cent. In the second, there were two—how shall I put it?—charismatic or certainly very visible candidates, and an election that seemed to run for a year, such that every time I stepped out of a Tube station in London and saw an Evening Standard banner, it was always proclaiming something about Ken or Boris. It was impossible, even if one wished to, to escape the fact that there was a London mayoral election. However, even then, the point seems to have eluded 55 per cent of the London electorate. Again, there does not seem to be much evidence for the initial inspiration of this change: that it would improve—whether dramatically, modestly or even at all—the turnout in local elections or interest in local government.
The other arguments were about visibility and effectiveness. Many of the elected mayors have been capable people. In London, I can certainly cite three of them: Robin Wales in Newham; Steve Bullock in Lewisham, albeit with a referendum there of only 18 per cent and, I think, a mayoral election turnout of about the same, when he was first elected; and Jules Pipe in Hackney. All of them, incidentally, had been council leaders before they became elected mayors. However, what sort of alchemy is it that is necessary to transmute a council leader into a mayor? Or is it—and I hope the right reverend Prelate will not take exception to my analogy—some process of transubstantiation that transforms a less visible and accountable leader into an all-singing, all-dancing mayor with much enhanced visibility and effectiveness?
It was interesting that, in promoting the idea of elected mayors, the Labour Party saw fit to send a delegation to the Netherlands to see how this wonderful system was working. They slightly overlooked the fact that, in the Netherlands, mayors are in fact Crown appointees and not elected at all. Similarly, those who pointed to very successful continental mayors, such as the mayor of Barcelona, seem to overlook the fact that he was not personally directly elected—he was the leader of the largest group or faction in the Barcelona council. He was a very able—in fact a brilliant—local politician and extremely effective, but he but not directly elected. In our own politics, although I remember Tony Blair saying in a television broadcast, “The people of Britain elected me Prime Minister”, actually they did not. They certainly have not elected the present Prime Minister. That is not to disparage him; it is just a fact. Why should it be assumed that it is necessary to have that direct personal mandate to be a legitimate leader?
It is said that if authorities adopted the mayoral system, extra powers would be given and a certain amount has been given to mayors in that position. Yet the question arises that we discussed briefly at Second Reading and earlier in Committee: why should those powers be confined to the directly elected mayor, as opposed to the leader and executive model? There seems to be no particular rationale on that. One thinks of great local government figures of the past, from all parties: of Joseph Chamberlain in his initial, Liberal incarnation; of Neville Chamberlain, who was slightly dismissed by Lloyd George as a good mayor of Birmingham in a bad year but who nevertheless had a considerable local government reputation and, it is fair to say, did a lot for it as a Minister; or of Herbert Morrison, a great leader of local government; or, perhaps slightly more controversially, of one of my capable but slightly flawed predecessors as leader of Newcastle council, Dan Smith, who was nevertheless a hugely influential and creative figure, in the best sense, during his surprisingly brief period. People in all political parties have also been extremely effective. Why should it be assumed that council leaders are necessarily less visible, accountable or effective than elected mayors?
There are problems stemming from the system as it has been created, not simply because of the accretion of powers in a single pair of hands but because of the structure around that. It takes a two-thirds majority to overturn an elected mayor’s budget. Yet you can have a situation with an elected mayor from one party and a majority of the council from another. It has happened twice in the authority adjoining mine. It happened with a Labour mayor and a Tory council and it is now exactly the other way round, with a substantial Labour majority in North Tyneside and a Conservative mayor. That highly anomalous situation raises two questions. First, what is the other councillors’ role in that kind of situation? It has to be a substantially downgraded role from what we are used to and what is appropriate. Secondly, will there not come a day when people wonder, “What is the point of electing councillors at all, or of voting for a particular political party, if you are required to have at least two-thirds of the council to vote down a proposition from the mayor”? Most particularly, there is the most crucial decision of all: that about the budget. There are, it seems, real difficulties inherent in the system.
There is also a suspicion, certainly on this side of the Chamber—it may be in certain parts of the other side of the Chamber—about the current political motivation for this decision to take the power to require referendums to be held. I refer in particular to a speech made by the Member for Grantham and Stamford in another place, Nick Boles. He is, I suppose, a Tory intellectual. There are people unkind enough to think that term a bit of an oxymoron but I would not allege that in the case of Mr Boles, who is an extremely bright, intelligent and articulate man. Yet he said some time ago, apropos of this position about elected mayors, that it was the only way in which there would be a ladder back into power for the Conservative Party in places where its chances were pretty minimal. I think that he cited Manchester and other places where Conservative representation has been minimal, if not nil, for some time. I hope that is not the Government’s motivation and I would not for a moment imagine that the Minister would subscribe to that motivation, but others elsewhere might.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the amendment has excited a deal of interest. I wish to make it absolutely clear that we are not talking about imposing mayors on cities; we are talking about imposing a referendum. It is crucial that we do not get too exercised about the imposition of a certain form of government. We are saying that it is the coalition Government’s view that cities would benefit enormously from having a mayor; they would benefit democratically and from all the interests that a mayor brings and all the influence that a mayor can exert. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, who is obviously not totally behind us on this, has pointed to the success of the London Mayor. When we first saw that starting, I do not think any of us thought that it would be very effective. In fact, it has been under two separate Governments; it has raised the profile of London.
We are trying to give a similar profile to other cities or to give local people the opportunity to say whether they think that would be an appropriate form of government for their city. The only imposition will come from the requirement to hold a referendum, and that requirement will be introduced under this legislation.
We believe that the economic growth and prosperity of our larger cities is absolutely essential to the economic recovery of the country as a whole. If we do not have good economic situations in the cities, things will look very dismal. We believe that a mayor would promote extra economic growth.
The Institute of Governance and the Centre for Cities have highlighted in their recent joint report that cities are the heartbeat of the United Kingdom’s economy. I think we would all support that. Although they occupy less than 10 per cent of the United Kingdom’s land, they contribute 60 per cent to its economic output.
The Government believe that it is clear that mayors are right for every major city. We remain true to our localist credentials, and it is absolutely up to the citizens to decide whether their city will have an elected mayor or not. We think they should, and we will be doing our utmost to ensure that everyone has all the facts about how a mayor can benefit the city and do a good sales job for its businesses and the people who live and work there. But finally and ultimately, the decision will be theirs.
We are committed to this in the coalition agreement. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, was going to go seriously off-message and he may indeed seriously be still off-message. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Tope, is not off-message, or all the other people who have signed up to this amendment. This is part and parcel of the coalition agreement that we should give local people in the larger cities in England a direct say on whether they want their city to have an elected mayor.
I know that local people can already petition for such a referendum. They can do it under previous legislation, and their elected representatives can decide, as they did in Leicester, where they have gone ahead of the game. There the council decided that the city should have a mayor, with the first mayor being elected there in May. We are convinced that the issue is now of pressing importance for the cities and for the country as a whole, and that people in the major cities should have a simpler, more immediate means for addressing the question. In short, as soon as practicable, people in each of the largest cities should have an opportunity of deciding whether they want an elected mayor. Some see this as central government imposition and “anti-localist”. We disagree completely with that. It will be for the local people to decide.
We have listed the cities, but the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, tabled Amendment 81B, where he wants specifically to have the cities named in the Bill. We will not agree to this, as it would have the effect of making the Bill hybrid, which would be a terrible mistake. Apart from that, even if that was not the situation, it would provide uncertainty, and I think that the House feels that that should be avoided. Given that the House will be asked to approve any order under Section 9, which is the order-making power, and we will have an opportunity to debate the merits of each city holding a referendum, I do not believe that it is necessary to set that out in primary legislation. I will certainly resist Amendment 81B.
I will be resisting the other amendments, including that on raising the threshold from 5 per cent to 10 per cent. In the cities, 5 per cent would be a very substantial proportion, and we should not make the hurdle any higher than that. As it is cities that we are talking about, we would not want to change that percentage.
I am not going to address each amendment. I have given an indication of why we believe that the mayoral referendum proposal should first of all come to this House and, if agreed, should go on to the cities to be carried out as soon as possible so we can have a decision and get on with having elections in the next year or the next 18 months. I thank noble Lords for their contributions but regret to say that I will not be accepting any of the amendments. I ask the noble Lord who moved the amendment to withdraw it.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply, which was almost precisely in the terms that I expected. I shall refer briefly to the interesting speech of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, who talked about the success of the mayoral system in London. Arguably, that is the case, but there were successful leaders of London before the mayoral system—Herbert Morrison has been cited but one could also cite Horace Cutler as a Conservative leader or indeed Ken Livingstone in his original incarnation.
I am not sure whether it was the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, or the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, that Ken Livingstone was referring to on one occasion when, on emerging from Marsham Street, as it then was, having had one of a series of meetings in the dark days of the 1980s when the GLC was at loggerheads with the Government, he was asked, “Why are you going to see him again?” and he replied, “I think he likes me for my body”. Whether it was the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, or the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, who said that, I am not entirely sure.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
I assure the noble Lord that it was not me. I would also question whether or not it was my noble friend Lord Heseltine. It may be a bit apocryphal.
Lord Beecham
I recall seeing it on television at the time. At all events, the noble Lord refers to a continental pattern, but the continental pattern is actually very varied. He mentioned Barcelona but, as I pointed out, in Barcelona there is no direct election for mayor. There are direct elections or indirect elections in different places and, as I also indicated, there are places where the mayor or burgermeister is a Crown or state appointment. The proposition here is more American in its origins, rather like the unfortunate police commissioner proposal —and equally tainted, in the view of some of us.
The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, also referred to Liverpool. I well remember those days, and I remember the noble Lord going out of his way to be helpful to a very difficult group of people who, having managed to persuade him to make some concessions, then went extremely triumphalist at his expense and indeed may have caused him to move on from his job, an ill reward for a Minister who was doing his level best to help a difficult situation, but not one that surprised those of us who knew those with whom he was dealing. I recall a Sunday Times “Life in the Day” when Mr Hatton was talking about his family and how his daughter was very keen on horses. The article ended by saying that she liked nothing better than “to have a little trot around”, which seemed to me entirely appropriate. The noble Lord was extremely patient and forbearing, and those of us who remember him at that time acquired then and have since retained great respect for him and his style of politics.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
The noble Lord is being more than generous. I should point out that that most demanding of bodies, the 1922 Committee, had absolutely no doubt that I had been suborned by the leaders of Liverpool, and I had overwhelming support from that committee.
Lord Beecham
The noble Lord certainly deserved it.
The Minister talked about Amendment 81B as being out of place because it would provide uncertainty. On the contrary: the point of that amendment is to limit the operation of the imposed referendum—I accept entirely that an imposed referendum is what we are discussing, not an imposed mayoral system—to these 11 cases. If there is a technical problem with what is in effect a sunset clause dealing with that group of authorities, perhaps on Report we will have to recast it. I think that it is fair to say that it will be our intention to test the opinion of the House at that stage about whether it is right to press on with imposing referendums in the way that the Bill provides. We do not think that it is right to do so. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has raised a legitimate question about the cost, which will no doubt feature in any campaigns which have to take place.
One further point is something of a puzzle. The expression regarding the definition of these authorities was that they were the “11 largest cities”. Well, that is not the case. Assuming, for the moment, that some of them are in fact cities, there are others: the city of Sunderland has a larger population than Newcastle; Kirklees, a collection of Yorkshire towns, is also substantially larger than Newcastle; and there is Hull. I do not quite know the basis on which the 11 have been chosen. However, these are the lucky 11 that remain in the frame. We on this side of the House will do our best to see that the overall principle is rejected by the House and then, if not, that the mandatory exercise is confined to these 11 authorities.
Baroness Hanham
I will address two issues. I said that we were rejecting Amendment 74A. Of course, we are not; we have already accepted it. We were asked for the estimated cost of the mayoral referendums. It is about £2.6 million, and the department will bear the cost.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, the noble Baroness has a rather more pleasant duty to attend to in a few minutes when she goes to, presumably, the town hall in Kensington and Chelsea. We wish her well, and an enjoyable evening. We look forward to resuming the debate next week with the new freeman of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I will be very quick; we would not want the Minister to be late. She is quite right: I am totally off message on this issue as far as the coalition agreement is concerned. I am not off message as far as the coalition is concerned. The Government should learn. They have had a huge car crash, as people say nowadays, with the AV referendum; I voted loyally for that on every occasion and now I wish I had not. This will be another, in the modern phrase, car crash.
Whatever has been in coalition agreements and manifestos, there are times when, politically, Governments have to consider what is likely to happen. In most if not all these places, it seems likely that the Liberal Democrats will be campaigning vigorously against having an elected mayor—alongside the Labour party in many cases, and, I suspect, the Conservative party in so far as it still exists in some of these places; it certainly exists in some of them.
I am grateful for the information on the cost. I did not quite catch who was going to bear it. Was it central government? Yes. Well, a waste of public money is a waste of public money, whoever pays for it. I wonder whether the Government can direct me to some serious evidential basis for the view that having elected mayors provides better local government than would otherwise have been the case. I have not seen that evidence. There is lots of political and other argument about it, but I have seen no serious evidential basis for that proposition. If the Government have it, I would be grateful if they would make it available.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
My Lords, as I spoke at length to the earlier amendment, I can deal with this extremely briefly. This amendment and Amendment 79, which are in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, are intended to be paving amendments to the substantive amendment which we discussed in the previous group, Amendment 82. My noble friend may wish to refer to some of the amendments to which she has put her name in this group. I beg to move.
Lord Beecham
I just want to confirm that the effect of the amendment is to remove the possibility of an authority being required to hold a referendum again within 10 years once a first referendum has rejected the idea of a mayor. I understand that to be the position, but having worked quite long and late on these matters, I was not entirely sure that my mind was sufficiently clear to appreciate that point. The Minister seems to be confirming that situation, which is eminently satisfactory.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, we had a long discussion on the previous amendment, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, says, and I think that that covered what has been raised here. I can confirm that Amendments 76 and 77 would prevent another referendum within 10 years. Therefore, I ask the noble Lord not to press Amendments 76, 77, 78 and 79. Government amendments have already been agreed to. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for his very kind remarks. I am off now to become a free woman.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I rise to do something which my noble friend on the Front Bench will regard as unusual, if not unique. In the absence of an opportunity to speak on whether the clause should stand part, I state that, although I am interested in the answers to the ingenious questions that my noble friend Lord Greaves has asked, I am principally concerned to declare my undying support for this clause, as I understand it.
I have already indicated that my wife has been chairman of Braintree District Council, is currently the cabinet minister for planning and strategy—I think that that is the right description—is on the planning committee and, indeed, represents me on Braintree District Council. Indeed, I even voted for her. When my wife became a district councillor for the second time about eight years and a few months ago, I could not believe it when I discovered what these predetermination rules were. Any MP would have had a fit if he had been told that he could not indicate to his constituents that he shared their view on a matter that was likely to come before Parliament and would vote accordingly. I think that I have the purport of this right. Noble Lords are indicating that I have. Why should councillors not be able to say to their constituents that they agree with them on a matter and that they will vote accordingly when it comes before the council? I cannot see the slightest merit in that position. I do not think that it is democratic or defensible and, if, as I understand it, this clause gets rid of it, I am in favour of the clause.
Lord Beecham
Surely the noble Lord thinks that there might be a distinction between a quasi-judicial function such as a planning or licensing matter and a matter of general policy.
Lord Hart of Chilton
I want to make just one contribution to this fascinating debate. The arguments alleging bias are few and far between and almost invariably fail, for the reason that the noble Lord, Lord Newton, gave; that is, it is almost impossible to get to the bottom of whether somebody is biased. The issue here, however, is that, in relation to a planning application, councillors are charged with giving full consideration to all material factors and the local plan, and reaching a decision in the light of the officer’s report that they have received. This is not to preclude councillors saying whatever they want and they can campaign until the cows come home on particular issues, but here we are talking about a particular councillor considering a planning application. Any councillor can go the planning committee, make representations and argue the merits of a case, but we are concerned here with a decision-maker who has said unequivocally that he is on all accounts against a proposal. It does not matter what he has heard; he will be voting against. In those circumstances, how can that person, sitting there and evaluating the application, be deemed to be fulfilling his duty to give due consideration to the application before him? The words rather indicate that, from now on, this will be a bias charter. Those who wish to campaign in that way will always then have a defence, saying, “You cannot indicate that any of the things that I said up to the moment of the application being considered is evidence of bias”. It will now make situations where bias was always difficult to prove almost impossible. Bias in relation to an application considered by councillors is not a proper course to take.
Lord Beecham
I recall at Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, speaking very passionately about how one needs to respond to constituents. The assumption is that a councillor will always be on the side of his constituents, but that may not be the case. A councillor may decide that a particular project—let us say, an application for a bail hostel or something of that kind—is one that he, having heard the evidence, would want to support. It might be an incinerator or an abattoir, which may not play terribly well with his constituents. How would those constituents feel, as opposed to the commercial developer who might be the applicant—which is assumed normally to be the case—if they believed that their councillor had made up his mind in favour of something that they did not want without being open to persuasion and hearing their arguments and representations at the decision-making meeting? If one takes that point of view into account, one has the grave concerns which both my noble friends have advanced and which require detailed consideration by the time we get to Report. This is not a one-way street. We have to be very careful about how we might seek to change the balance within what is, as I implied in my earlier intervention, a quasi-judicial function. It is about only those that I think we are concerned.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
The noble Lord has degrouped amendments which address that issue; perhaps we will come on to that matter later. The failure of an elected politician to fulfil the wishes of their constituents or to fail to respond properly to their wishes cannot be legislated for; the solution lies in the electoral process, at a subsequent general election. The illustration that the noble Lord used could not be covered by legislation in any way that he would have wished.
I believe that we have satisfactorily demonstrated that the purpose of this clause is to clarify the position of elected councillors to make it possible for them to campaign and engage fully with their local communities on issues which concern them without inadvertently—as has been the case in the past—excluding themselves from the decision-making process by doing so. That is why this is a great step forward and why it is in the Bill.
Lord Beecham
Lord Beecham
My Lords, this is the first in a series of amendments on the position of standards committees. A small number of us might like to have seen the Standards Board preserved, but clearly that will not happen. The focus of this amendment and subsequent amendments, which will be moved by other noble Lords, is on the preservation of standards committees in councils. This amendment deals with the position on page 256 of the Bill of authorities which currently have such committees and it would amend the previous legislation to omit most, if not all, of those listed. It is probably an accident of grouping that it appears here rather than with Amendment 97, to which I have added my name and which the noble Lord, Lord Tope, will move. I assume that the noble Baroness will not be here. I apologise to your Lordships for the fact that if we go more than a few minutes past seven o’clock, I will not be here either because I need to get back to my home in the north tonight. In case that eventuality arises, I add my strong support to the requirement for standards committees to be preserved. We need a mechanism in councils that is independently chaired—other amendments go into the detail of how such a procedure might work—to retain the confidence of the public in the standards to be observed by those who represent them locally. I hope that it will not be the same as the standards regime in another place but experience suggests that there is a need for a properly constructed scheme under which complaints can be ventilated and dealt with speedily, locally and impartially to sustain confidence in local democracy. To that end I move this amendment and indicate my support for the subsequent amendments.
Lord Wills
I hope that my noble friend will comment on a concern brought to me by a constituent when I was the Member of Parliament for North Swindon, which powerfully illustrates the case that he is making for the amendment.
A couple of years ago the constituent came to me with his concerns about the Wyvern theatre in Swindon, which is owned by Swindon borough council but the management of which is contracted to a private company. My constituent had learnt that the business of the lead member in the Swindon borough council cabinet with primary responsibility for letting this management contract had been given thousands of pounds worth of business—from memory, it had been given £10,000 to £12,000 worth of business—by the theatre. It was clear that the councillor concerned had acted properly in leaving the room whenever this contract was discussed. However, that did not satisfy my constituent who made the point to me over and over again that if a Minister had been in an analogous position there would have been a scandal and the Minister would have had to resign. He kept saying to me that even if the councillor had done nothing wrong himself, the private management company might still be trying spontaneously to curry favour with that councillor as his decisions could be of enormous importance to its commercial well-being.
I told my constituent that in my view there was nothing necessarily wrong with a councillor getting business in this way. Councillors are not paid a salary in the same way as Members of Parliament are, for example, and most councillors need to earn a living. I told my constituent that the way to deal with the matter was to find out whether a proper procurement process had been followed, whether the contract had been put out to tender, if it had not been, why not, and if it had been, how many people had responded to the tender, what prices had been offered and whether the contract had been awarded on price, quality or for some other reason—in other words, whether it was all transparent. My constituent pursued this route and I did so on his behalf. We went to the council, which could not do anything. We went to the private company which was not covered by the freedom of information legislation and refused to give any information, so the situation was completely opaque and remains so to this day.
I hope the Minister will agree that such a lack of transparency on such a potentially sensitive issue is not acceptable and that this amendment may provide a way to tackle the opaque nature of such a transaction. I am sure that this situation is not unique to Swindon. If the amendment is not acceptable, perhaps the Minister can come up with some other proposal. I hope my noble friend will agree that his amendment would help to deal with this sort of issue.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I am not sure that it would. Standards committees were established to investigate allegations about members’ conduct. If a member has complied with the requirements of registering an interest and declaring it, unless there was any evidence on the part of a complainant that he had done something improper such as lobbying colleagues behind the scenes or something of that kind, I cannot see that the standards committee route would avail. Other processes might be worth pursuing—for example, via the audit committee of a council or possibly the district auditor. However, I cannot see, in the particular circumstances that my noble friend has outlined, that that would fall within the province of a standards committee or the Standards Board. There does not seem to be a sufficient prima facie case of misconduct on the part of an elected member who has actually declared an interest and absented himself from a decision-making process. I am sorry that that does not sound too helpful, but the system was not designed for such a case as that which my noble friend has outlined.
Lord Tope
My Lords, I hesitate to intervene at this stage. This is almost the first time in a very long local government career that I actually think that central government should be imposing something. I share the views that have been expressed that it must be a statutory requirement that each local authority must—not may—have a code of conduct. There is a separate issue concerning how that code of conduct is drawn up but I think that it would be nonsense for each local authority to have a different one. There should be a uniform code. I believe that the Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors—we used to call them legal officers—is drawing up a code of conduct that could be adopted. That is good and right, and I do not suggest for a moment that central government should draw up the code and impose it; I am saying, and I believe quite strongly, that Parliament—central government, if you like—should say that a code of conduct is mandatory, not voluntary. Good local authorities—the vast majority—will adopt a code of conduct, but the ones that most need, and should have, a code are probably those least likely to have one. That is why it should be a mandatory requirement.
The code does not have to be drawn up by central government; it could be drawn up by the association that I mentioned or by the Local Government Association. However, I believe that it needs to be a uniform code so that we do not have different standards wherever they happen to suit particular local interests, usually because it is those local interests that are most in question.
My other question relates to the standards committee. Again, I feel that in the general, although not universal, rejoicing at the departure of the Standards Board for England we are in danger of throwing out a baby with the bath water. We are in danger of moving to a situation that is worse than the one we had before the Standards Board was put in place. Therefore, I believe that it should be mandatory for each local authority to have a standards committee. I say that as one who will constantly argue against prescription, but this is one area where it is particularly important. My noble friend Lord Shipley has proposed a way in which standards committees might be constituted. There are lots of discussions to be had around that, and they could well be had within local government and not necessarily involve central government. However, again, the mandatory requirement to have a standards committee is fundamental.
Those are two issues where, unusually for me, I argue that there should be at least a minimum requirement of a mandatory code of conduct and a standards committee, the composition and nature of which could be subject to further consultation and discussion. Those two requirements should be in the Bill.
Lord Beecham
I endorse everything that the noble Lord has said. I could not have put it better myself. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Beecham
I hear what the noble Lord says but the Bill distinguishes, does it not, between matters which will be made criminal offences. Failure to register or to declare an interest are offences at the serious end of misconduct. But is that not a national provision? What is the difference in principle between obligations of that kind and obligations of other sorts of conduct that can affect a community that a council is representing?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I do not think the noble Lord is suggesting that to offend the code of conduct in any way should be made a criminal offence. What is clear is that some aspects of conduct in public office are indeed criminal matters and therefore subject to prosecution under the existing law. We will come on to the declaration of interests at a later point.
This has been a worthwhile debate, but I hope that noble Lords understand exactly where the coalition is coming from and why it is seeking to introduce a regime that puts the responsibility on local authorities themselves to ensure the proper conduct of their members and their business. We will have useful opportunities between now and the Report stage to discuss these matters further. In the mean time, I hope that my noble friend will withdraw his amendment.