English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
I was going to stay quiet, but unfortunately for the Minister I was inspired by her speech, so I hate to disappoint the Government Whip by speaking very briefly. The Minister, quite rightly—it is her job—outlined that she wants to rectify some of the supposed damage done to the national health service over 14 years, but I gently remind her that waiting lists are increasing and that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is looking at possible strike action while putting forward a reorganisation that he cannot afford.
I look to the Minister for some reassurance regarding whether wider health policy, such as that reorganisation and some of the local functions of integrated care boards, which we know are changing, may affect the provisions in the clause. Could there be some effect on the ground that may create delay or necessitate some changes to the clause in the longer term?
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
I beg to move amendment 299, in clause 53, page 57, line 31, leave out subsection (5).
This amendment removes the provision for the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/246) to apply to a transfer by virtue of section 53 regardless of whether the transfer is relevant to the regulations.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
We understand the overarching aims of this clause, and the debate does not necessarily have to revolve around whether or not it should happen, but we tabled this probing amendment because we understand that the legislation is essentially applying TUPE regulations regardless of whether they legally apply. We want to challenge that and probe why, if TUPE regulations need not legally apply in cases of transfer, the Government have insisted that TUPE regulations have to go into this regardless. Can the Minister answer that key question?
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
I thank the Minister for her full and direct answer, and I understand it. I take it she accepts that TUPE is being put into this clause regardless of whether there is a legal necessity for it to apply. Has she had any correspondence or lobbying from the trade union movement to make sure that it is included?
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
I feel very reassured that the Government are following the excellent judgment of the last Conservative Government. On that note, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment made: 221, in clause 53, page 58, line 16, at end insert—
“(8A) Regulations under this section are subject to affirmative resolution procedure.”—(Miatta Fahnbulleh.)
This would make regulations under clause 53 subject to affirmative resolution procedure.
Clause 53, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 54
Prohibition of secondary legislation removing functions
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
This is a difficult one for us. I am not saying that the Minister is trying to bind the hands of future Governments, but it does feel like the Government are trying to make this increasingly difficult. We would argue that any elected Government have a mandate to make legislative changes as they see fit. I wonder whether this is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Of course, we accept the need for parliamentary scrutiny, but an elected Government should be able to use any mechanism they want to use. I ask the Minister once again to consider whether she thinks this is really necessary. A Government who might want to remove some of the functions would have a democratic mandate to do so, and arguably very good reasons for doing so when future structures need to change. I would like to challenge her on whether she thinks this is absolutely necessary, which may depend on our forcing a vote on this issue.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
Clause 55 essentially goes to the heart of the Bill. As we argued when we voted in the House against local government reorganisation, the thing in this Bill that most people out there—our voters—will notice, aside from the devolution aspects and the creation of mayors, is the bread-and-butter transactional services that people see on the ground. That will be the biggest impact the change will have on their daily lives.
We oppose clause 55 because we believe the Government have no democratic mandate to deliver local government reform. It was not in their manifesto, they did not ask the British people to vote for them on the basis of local government reform, and we fundamentally have—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth looks shocked at my proposition, but if he can refer me to where this was in the Labour party’s manifesto, I will happily withdraw that point. I suspect he cannot, because it was not there. That is a key aspect of why we oppose the clause.
The other reason why we oppose the clause is because there is no overwhelming evidence showing that services or local government would be more efficient with larger organisational structures and a larger population being encapsulated into unitary authorities. I am a big fan of unitary authorities—I declare an interest in that I am a former lead member of one, and I was very happy to be so—but we have to accept that the nature of devolution means that a standardised model is not adequate for everywhere in the country. In some areas, it may not be what is best or wanted by local people. That comes back to the democratic deficit we believe the Government have in announcing these LGR proposals.
I know the Minister is relatively new in post, so she will not have had as much communication with local authority leaders as her predecessor did—that does not reflect on her or her ability; it is just the nature of her period in post. But, in previous sittings, she outlined and indicated to this Committee that there is overwhelming excitement from many local authority leaders who welcome LGR and the new mayors proposed by the Government. She will also be aware that this has caused a huge amount of disruption to local people and the working of local authorities, at a difficult time for their operational capacity and capability, with reduced budgets. This is not needed.
For example, there are now three proposals to Government in my area. One is from the 12 district councils, which absolutely do not want to be abolished. There is unified agreement on that, except from Gosport borough council, which has opposed everything completely. There is a county council recommendation, lauded previously by the Minister, which is not supported by MPs who represent the area. And there is another proposal that is contested. One of my Hampshire colleagues has just entered the room, and he takes the same view as me.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
I agree entirely with the hon. Lady. As I have said before, she has the best interests of Stratford-on-Avon at heart. From her experience in local government, she knows the expertise held by district councillors who know the areas they serve.
In my local area, two new unitary authorities are proposed —one that looks eastward and one that looks westward. What happens to the semi-rural areas of my constituency, now having new unitary councils headquartered in Southampton and Portsmouth? Those unique connections that district councils have, which suit their smaller areas, will not be served as well by a larger unitary authority. That view is endorsed by the District Councils’ Network, which suggested in its briefing note that focusing on authority scale and population size during local government reorganisation would not lead to optimal outcomes. It stated:
“it will be tempting to pursue approaches to LGR that make it as easy as possible to implement—focusing only on scale and minimising disruption.”
The Government say they want to deliver growth and get the public finances in good order, but there are no concrete suggestions for how their proposals will save money. Just going bigger and larger, and having one tier across the whole UK, does not necessarily mean that services will be better. As I have said consistently, many district, town and parish councils do not want this to happen. Many Members across the House may say, “That is the vested interest of elected people who are going to be got rid of,” but that is not the case.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
I will finish this point, and then I will give way, because I am a fan of the hon. Gentleman. Smaller district, town and parish councils know their local areas. This is not an efficient way of delivering reform. We will have councillors on a larger scale who do not take into account the unique structures and environments in which we serve our constituents.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
The hon. Gentleman hits the nail on the head. There were unique circumstances where everything was going bankrupt, so strict action had to be taken. This Government are proposing, unilaterally and without any consultation with those who do not want it to go ahead, to change local government structures across the whole of the United Kingdom without democratic legitimacy.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
If the Minister is seriously suggesting that a complete and wholesale reorganisation across the whole United Kingdom is the one answer to making sure that local government can operate on a sustainable footing, I do not buy that at all. There are many things that this Government could do to make local government much more efficient and to deliver for people. First is an uplift in funding.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
Well, the Minister should speak to the many council leaders across the country who do not agree that it is enough.
If the Minister is seriously saying that abolishing 90% of elected councillors in rural areas across this country will somehow be the miracle cure for local government, and that is what is driving these measures, then I am sorry but this Government need to go back to the drawing board.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
I think it was reorganised under a Labour Government. When people in this country went to the polls in July 2024, and we accept that we lost the election—[Interruption.]—and lost it pretty badly, as the hon. Member for Huddersfield says. I absolutely accept that, and I do not think there is any disagreement on why or how that happened, but can the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth point me to where his party’s then local government spokesperson, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), said to councillors in her party that they were about to be abolished, or where she said to local government leaders or the general public that Labour would carry out a huge reorganisation of local government? If he can, I will eat my words. I challenge him to show me where his party said at the general election that it was going to do that. Can he do that?
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
Councillors across this country aim and strive to do that day in and day out, within the current structures. Any suggestion otherwise is an insult to elected councillors across the UK, and I am not saying that he said that—I am saying that every councillor in this country is elected to serve and to deliver services in the best way they can. My fundamental disagreement is that, as the Minister has said, reorganisation in a pure attempt to save money and deliver more efficient services is not provable. Many unitary councils across the country—a single tier of local government established in the last reorganisation in 1997—are now in huge financial trouble. That is not just because of the allocations that were put forward by the previous Government. It is because a single tier of local authority of that size does not necessarily deliver for an area. This Government’s aim of ensuring that that goes on across the whole country will not tackle some of the fundamental financial issues that our local authorities suffer from.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
The hon. Gentleman is uniquely qualified to speak about his local circumstances—that is why he is sent here every day to serve his constituents—but I do not understand his argument. If he is saying that a larger authority that serves the whole of Kent, or two authorities in Kent, will know the unique circumstances of two fundamentally different areas, I suggest to him that nothing is going to change.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
What the hon. Gentleman describes is the very essence of devolution. I absolutely believe that if local authorities or local people want that reorganisation and unitarisation, that is up to them. My disagreement is with the Government and the Minister—not just this Minister, but the previous Minister, the hon. Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon), who said in the House that everybody must do it. If this Government are seriously saying that this measure is universally welcomed by local authorities, they are heavily mistaken.
This Government are forcing reorganisation. They are putting a gun to the head of our county leaders and other local authority leaders in areas such as Hampshire and elsewhere in the country who have essentially been made to feel that they have to do this now or it will happen to them anyway. That is not genuine consultation. That is not devolution that allows local authority leaders to choose the structures that they want. It is unilaterally forcing all local authority leaders to undertake a form of reorganisation—gainsaying them. The Government do not have the democratic legitimacy to drive that forward. That is the fundamental difference between the Minister and the Labour party and the Conservative party. We believe that people should be able to restructure and reorganise, but in the way and at a time that they want. That is not to case under the Government’s proposals.
Finally, the Conservative party does not support the delaying of local elections if the Bill comes into force. Other parties have made many suggestions that the Conservatives have been calling for the delay of local elections. The pending creation of other local authorities has created a fundamental democratic deficit in the country. Some councillors who were elected in 2021 are still in post. That is not a sensible or ideal solution. People deserve to have a say in elections over the way their services are run. This Government’s unilateral reorganisation has prevented that from happening. We believe there should be local elections, so I hope that the party political literature stating that we want to stop the next local elections will cease.
I think I have made my point clear—I hope so, at least. We will oppose the clause.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
The hon. Lady is making a very interesting point. It has been argued that a single tier, under one authority, might improve democratic participation, but does she agree that someone in Hedge End in my area, whose council headquarters will be far removed from them geographically, may feel that their council represents them less, and therefore democratic participation would be reduced?
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
My hon. Friend, as an experienced local government leader, is making a very good speech. Many Government Back Benchers groaned when he spoke about the Government saying that better services would be delivered through the reorganisation. He outlined councils that have been reorganised, where services have not improved. The Government claim that austerity over the previous 14 years was the problem. Has he seen any policy proposition from the Government to suggest that local authority funding will get better, and that therefore councils will improve their services, if they go through the reorganisation?
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
In talking about London not being reorganised, my hon. Friend makes what I might describe as a cynical but correct supposition that that is slightly related to the party political colours of the councils elected in London. Does he share my concern—the Minister might call me cynical—that 90% of rural councillors being abolished through this reorganisation also reeks of party political gerrymandering? Most of those councillors are Conservative, so there will be much more Labour representation in local government as a whole.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
Government Members raised their eyebrows when my hon. Friend talked about local referendums. Does he remember that it was a stated policy of the last Labour Government to have referendums when they were looking at devolving to regional assemblies?
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
The Minister says that there is no gun being held to local authority leaders’ heads. Can she therefore outline, in a clear way, what would happen to a county or district authority that said that it did not want local government reorganisation and refused to engage? They would be forced to reorganise, would they not?
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
I thank the Minister for giving way one more time. She is being very generous, especially as I know that I have spoken for a while. [Interruption.] I am delighted to hear that Government Back Benchers are so delighted with my speaking.
I ask the Minister again, because she has not committed to this in clear language: if a county council leader or a number of district councils refused to engage with the Government’s process on local government reorganisation, they would be forced to reorganise, would they not?
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
I am grateful for your indulgence on this, Dame Siobhain, because I know that we have had a very long debate on the substantive clause to which it relates. I want briefly to speak to amendments 48 to 51. Most of the amendments are consequential on or directly related to amendment 50, and they are all in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore). My hon. Friend thinks that this is a simple amendment that goes to the heart of what we were just discussing: the driving force behind devolution should be local situations and the local wants and needs of local people, rather than the standardised, central, top-down approach to local government reorganisation that this Government are advocating and forcing on local authority leaders across the country.
Amendment 50 would allow the Secretary of State to invite or direct—the emphasis is on “invite”—an authority to split into more than one single-tier authority. This applies to many of the situations across the UK where there are a number of district councils or county councils that do not want to engage with the Minister’s local government reform, but are being forced to do so, as we discussed in the last segment of this Bill Committee. Local people or a local authority leader could decide to enter into a form of local government reorganisation, but do so in the way that suits them best. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend, in tabling this amendment, would have been referring to the situation around Bradford. Many people in the surrounding areas and in his constituency have indicated to him that they do not wish to be part of a local authority including Bradford. There is nothing wrong with Bradford—I have been there and it is a wonderful city—but there are two different and distinct types of geographical area within the single area proposed by the Government.
The same could be said of my local government situation. Many Members across the House know the distinct nature of Hampshire and the differences in approach to life between the people of Portsmouth and the people of Southampton. They would not necessarily want to be in the same local authority as each other—that is not the circumstance at the moment—but district councils in the proposed reorganisation simply do not want to engage because they want to stand alone to form a single-tier authority, perhaps with some of their partners. One proposal, which would not have met the Government standard test, was for a single-tier authority between Fareham, Gosport and Havant. They should be allowed to do that, but they are not, because of the top-down nature of the reorganisation.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady in that we need responsibility, bearing in mind that amendment 51 would give the Secretary of State the power in this case to enforce that flexibility. A problem in the proposed local government reorganisation is that it focuses overly on the role and consent of county authorities, but the voice of district councils has not been listened to in this approach, as I outlined earlier when quoting Councillor Sam Chapman-Allen, who was leader of the District Councils’ Network.
I know what the Minister will say to our amendments, and I respect her position in doing so, but the Conservative party believes that devolution can mean so much to so many if done with the bottom-up approach that the Minister insists is hers. We want some words of encouragement that she may look—although I know she will not—to reduce the restrictions on a single tier for larger geographical areas. I do not intend to press the amendment to a vote, as it is a probing one. However, I have it on the good authority of my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley that he will table similar amendments on Report. We will listen to the Minister’s response with great enthusiasm.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Ninth sitting)
I thank the Minister for what she said. I absolutely knew what she was going to say—that comes as no surprise to us in the Opposition—but this is about what we discussed before. She said that it would not necessarily be to the advantage of local people were we to allow the splitting of unitary authorities, but she is missing the fact that some people want that. I think that the non-uniform approach to local government works. I still believe that this is a community empowerment and devolution Bill. One size fits all across the UK is not the way that the Government should be going. I will withdraw the amendment, but I have no doubt of further amendments of this nature on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Deirdre Costigan.)
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
I beg to move amendment 45, in schedule 24, page 247, line 38, at end insert—
“(aa) after subsection (3), insert—
‘3A The Secretary of State may not in any case make an order under subsection (1)(a) unless he has satisfied the conditions under Section 7A (Requirement for a public referendum).’”
This amendment is a preparatory amendment for Amendment 46.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. I rise to speak to these amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore). These are simple amendments—the Minister has heard me say that before; any amendments that we have tabled are very simple and aim just to do the job adequately.
My hon. Friend has tabled these amendments because, as we have said, the Conservatives believe that this is a top-down reorganisation that has not been endorsed by the people we serve. As I said earlier, it was not in the Labour manifesto. Many local authorities do not want to go ahead with local government reform, and the Minister tacitly acknowledged earlier that any local authority that did not want to go forward with local government reform would be forced to do so anyway.
We believe that is wrong. The lack of democratic legitimacy and the democratic deficit in the decision to pursue this very expensive and needless local government reorganisation require the people who we serve—the people who councillors serve—to have their say. There must be democratic accountability to them, which means there should be a requirement for a public referendum when a new authority is proposed.
The Government should not fear that. In fact, the policy of the last Labour Government, from 1997 to 2010, was massively to advocate for local referendums. The Greater London Authority was created following a public referendum in 1998 in which the Government wilfully accepted that it needed to be created. It was their proposal, they sought the consent of Londoners, Londoners approved, and they went ahead and created the GLA. I think that is a very good thing; they had democratic accountability.
In the early 2000s, a north-east assembly was proposed by the late Lord Prescott and rejected by a referendum that the Government sought. It was rejected by the people who would have been affected by the proposal. The Government not only gave them a referendum, but listened and took away the proposal for that assembly because people did not want it.
The last Labour Government therefore had a history of listening and asking people for their democratic consent to reorganisations, so I do not understand what this Government have to fear. They have chosen to go forward with this reorganisation without any consent. These referendums would provide the consultation that the Government have so far lacked by asking and ascertaining, with certainty, whether people back it in local areas.
So far, the Minister is charging into a tunnel without any public say. I am sure that she will talk about local government consultations in her response, but most of the consultations that have happened have been very small and the democratic participation has been very low. In areas such as Gosport, which neighbours my constituency, people do not want this reorganisation and their council has refused to engage. They do not want it to happen, but the Government will force it to.
Under the Local Government Act 2003—passed by the previous Labour Government—an authority can hold a non-binding referendum on any local issue that it wishes. I do not believe that any local authority has undertaken that yet, but we certainly would encourage them to do so. The Government do not have to follow or respond to that referendum, but I wonder what weight the Minister and the Government would place on a referendum held by a local authority, given that the legislation was passed under a previous Labour Government.
The previous Labour Government had some quite radical thoughts on reorganisation that we opposed at the time, I think—I was at secondary school then; I know many people will not believe that, looking at me after more than six years in this place! That Labour Government believed in consulting the people who they served when implementing huge reorganisations of central, regional and local government.
That Labour Government had a proud history of listening to the people, but unfortunately, in many areas of policy, this Government have shied away from that. Instead, they have pushed ahead with policies that were not in their manifesto and do not have the democratic mandate of the British people. I have been clear from the beginning that they have a democratic mandate to govern, and a huge majority—although it was won with a very low proportion of the vote—but they do not have a democratic mandate for this local government reorganisation. They should not be afraid to ask people whether they want it or not.
The Government should take this amendment on board and make it part of this flagship legislation.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
I will respond briefly. The Minister is entitled to say that she does not want to accept the amendment, but I ask her to look not at the logistical and legal arguments of the legislation, but at what is right and what is wrong in the practice of implementing local government reorganisation. As I say, we are all democrats—we are all elected to serve here—so she should not fear asking the people whether they endorse the local government reform that she is currently implementing without the consent of the public or many local authority leaders. We will not press these amendments to a vote, but notwithstanding what I have said before about other amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley, we will table amendments of this nature on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the schedule be the Twenty Fourth schedule to the Bill.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
The Minister says it has not, but I will convince her that it has. All morning we on the Opposition side have been talking about the fact that the Government are forcing this to happen without consent. The mask has slipped because this clause disapplies the ability of a currently existing council to refuse consent for the creation of new authorities.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
Fine. I thank the Minister for her intervention, but the point I am about to make still applies: the people who currently serve have a stake. The people who send those people to serve have a stake. The way in which this clause is being put forward shows again that the Government are forcing change on a number of organisations and predecessor authorities that currently exist and serve their local people—so the mask has slipped. We have been saying all day that this is a proposal and local government reform that is not in the manifesto and is being forced on local authority leaders who do not want it.
The Minister said last week that she had had lots of enthusiastic conversations about people who want to go forward with devolution. I put it to her again that many local authority members do not, and the only reason they are going forward with it is because she is going to force them to do it anyway. Now that those local authorities might want to refuse to give consent to the creation of strategic authorities—something that should be within their gift anyway—she is disapplying their right to say that they do not want them. The Government are invoking a top-down reorganisation and not listening to the views of local leaders or of the people they are elected to serve.
I say to the Minister once again on this clause: throughout the Bill, she has advocated for it being a bottom-up reorganisation, but this is the sledgehammer of central Government refusing local people the voice that they should have. The mask has slipped and the Minister has just admitted that it is a centrally imposed thing, which many people do not want. The clause should be removed from the legislation, and we will oppose it.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
Forgive me, Ms Vaz; as the Committee can see, I got rather carried away and I forgot to speak to new clause 24 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner. Briefly, the new clause should be included in the legislation, because all in the House believe in transparency. In the process, subsection (1) of the new clause would require an impact assessment of the local government reorganisation to be published. Each report would be required to include things such as the cost of a reorganisation, something that the Minister has advocated will deliver more efficient services and will not be onerous.
A report will allow us to see not only whether that is true post the creation of the authority, but the impact on service delivery and development, as well as the number of homes delivered—we have seen mayors who are not able to deliver the number of homes required of them—and an assessment of the performance of individual commissioners. It would provide a clear link for the people who live in those areas where the reorganisation is to go ahead. We believe that would not be onerous on the new authorities and that new clause 24 would bring the right balance between transparency and accountability, so we ask the Minister to accept it.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
I genuinely hate to detain the Committee—I do not just say that out of politeness—but I believe that we should press new clause 24 to a Division, when we come to that point.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
I will speak briefly to clause 57. The Opposition recognise why the Government are bringing in this system. As I have said before, I was a councillor in a unitary with a leader and cabinet system, and I think that that delivers the fastest decisions, and the most accountable decisions when there is a full council. In fact, we were able to constitute an overview and scrutiny committee, the chairmanship of which we gave to the opposition.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
I do agree. I am sure the main reason his group’s motions were accepted is that they were very well written. I know how he behaves in here—I do not agree with his speeches most of the time—and he comes from a decent place. I know that any motion would have been beneficial to the residents of wherever he served at the time.
Councils will have the power to internally constitute themselves to give opposition councillors the best way to scrutinise them. As I said, in Southampton city council, we gave the Labour group leader, or an allocated person, the chairmanship of a genuine overview and scrutiny committee, whose power the administration used to fear. Particularly at a time when the first-past-the-post system delivered what might have been a hung council or a minority administration, that committee, consisting of opposition councillors, had huge power. So I do not have a huge amount of agreement with the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion on that point.
However, we have just had a debate about referendums, and an amendment asking for referendums to allow people to say whether they want local government reorganisation, so I want to say something about paragraphs 3 and 4 of schedule 25. Paragraph 3 would prevent any local authority from deciding to establish a directly elected mayoralty, which is absolutely fine. Paragraph 4 would amend the Local Government Act 2000 to allow an authority with a mayoralty to change to a leader and cabinet system. However, it leaves in place provisions governing how that change could take place, and a mayoralty established after a referendum could be abolished only if that is approved in another referendum, which can be triggered by the local authority, a petition or the Secretary of State.
In the schedule, the Government want to hold referendums to try to get what they want, so they approve of them. But they somehow do not approve of referendums to ask people in the first place whether they want to go into this local government reform. If the Minister could explain how that is not having her cake and eating it, and being completely inconsistent in the Bill, I would be grateful. Here, she is saying, “Well, we want you to change to a leader and cabinet system, but you need a referendum to do that, because you have already had a referendum.” That is tacit approval from the Government; when it comes to local government reform and changing how a local authority is set up, they want the consent of the people, but on the overarching view of local government reform, they somehow do not. After the last debate, I would ask the Minister to clarify again: do this Government believe in the right of local people, by referendum, to change the way in which they approve their local structures and live their lives? Yes or no? If it is good enough for this clause, she should go back to the schedule we have just discussed and put in the amendment we discussed to approve a referendum there.
I am slightly teasing the Minister, but she must understand that there is inconsistency in the Government’s approach—although I am not surprised about that. Overall, that is not enough for me to say that the clause is not worth being in the Bill. I think it does deliver a streamlined and accountable process for a leader and cabinet system, but she really does need to tell her officials, whom she leads and gives political direction to, to be consistent about when the Government believe the public should and should not be asked.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
I am delighted to speak to amendments 250 and 251, and to new clause 55 and amendments 405 to 407, which stand in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner. I am sure that pleases everybody— I remind the hon. Member for Banbury that I have been seated for quite a while now, and I do not want him to miss out on my dulcet tones.
This is slightly complicated, but I will not spend too long on it. New clause 55 will require a consultation on the publication of local authority resolutions and referendum proposals. Amendments 405 to 407 would essentially act as a block to the regulations set out in the Bill until the proposal is consulted on and an assessment undertaken of the consultation responses on
“the economic viability of local newspapers…access to information for local authority residents, and…local democracy and accountability…. The consultation must be opened within six months of the passage of this Act.”
We believe that it is crucial to consult on the different aspects and different geographical situations of our local newspapers. Local newspapers are essentially the beating heart of various sections of our society who are not online and who rely on or may be interested in such information. It is not a novel thing for people to be interested in what is going on in their local area. As we have seen, with the reduction in regional TV broadcast news and the restructuring of our national broadcaster and other local news providers on television and radio, local newspapers can be the only channel for local people to see what is going on in their local authority area.
I am sure that many people on this Committee have been lobbied by various trade bodies and organisations on behalf of local newspapers. With the advance of digital technology and the internet, the circulation of physical copies of local newspapers is declining. When I was a councillor in 2008, the amazing and historic Daily Echo, which covers Hampshire and Portsmouth news, had a circulation of around 200,000 hard copies sold; it has fallen to around 40,000 now. Local newspapers rely heavily on the income stream from statutory notices and local government notices; it is a lifeline for local newspapers.
Such notices allow people to read about what is going on with their planning applications and some of the changes that local authorities are putting forward. In my local authority, as in local authorities across the country, these statutory notices and planning notices sometimes act as a safeguard when—I hate to say this— a local authority does not act on its statutory duty to alert relevant people to a planning application or a statutory notice. I would hate to guess how many times we have had an email from a constituent that says, “I didn’t know that this planning application was going to go ahead, and I’ve missed the consultation and can’t do anything about it,” either because the postman did not deliver the letter, or the local authority did not deliver to everybody in a restricted cul-de-sac some information about a block of flats going up next door. If they miss that information, they lose their chance to be consulted.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
There is an argument for accepting that, but I would ask in return why the Government are giving local councils the opportunity not to use newspapers. Why put that in the Bill rather than allow the status quo to continue while enabling local authorities to do it in other ways? Why are we bringing forward legislative changes that will harm our independent newspaper sector? I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman about not making useless amendments or putting useless new clauses into legislation, so why is this measure in the Bill in the first place? That is why we feel that we have to amend the Bill to protect our local newspapers, the vulnerable people who use them and their engagement in the democratic process.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
As you would expect, Ms Vaz, I entirely endorse my hon. Friend’s words. I suspect that if we took the motivation of this part of the Bill and told Labour Members that they could not put out any of their “Labour in touch” communications, or whatever they call them, they would be shouting from the barriers that they could not communicate with residents who are digitally challenged or not engaged in digital communications.
It is important that there are varied and diverse ways for our punters, if I can call them that, and our voters to find information and to engage in the process. I do not understand why the Minister is proposing to actively harm our local independent newspaper sector in a Bill that has admirable intentions and will radically change the face of local government, in some cases for the better, but in the majority of cases for the worse when it comes to accountability. We all see that press is becoming much more large scale and a lot less local through TV and media restructuring. I do not understand why the Government would put in such a retrograde step for independent local newspapers.
We support the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon. When the Committee comes to new clause 55, we will push it to a vote. I am not sure whether we are voting on the consequential amendments to new clause 55 today, but if we are, we will push those to a vote too.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
I thank the Minister for begrudgingly giving way. She has just outlined that she believes a winning candidate should win a majority of the vote. We entirely agree with her, which is why we support first past the post. Why does she not seem to think that the supplementary vote should also be used to elect MPs, who are single executive politicians but do not necessarily always receive a majority of the vote?
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Tenth sitting)
The hon. Lady says that Oliver Coppard got 71% of the vote in the second round, but her quote leads me to believe that the number of people who voted was no different from what it would have been under first past the post. Is that correct?