Local Government Bill
8:55 am
Mr Nick Raynsford (Minister of State (Local and Regional Government), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Greenwich and Woolwich, Labour)
I beg to move,
That—
(1) during proceedings on the Local Government Bill, the Standing Committee do meet when the House is sitting on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8.55 am and 2.30 pm, except that the Committee shall not meet on Thursday 23rd January 2003;
(2) 14 sittings in all shall be allotted to the consideration of the Bill by the Committee;
(3) the Committee shall report the Bill to the House not later than Thursday 13th February 2003;
(4) the proceedings to be taken at a sitting shall be as shown in the second column of the Table below and shall be taken in the order so shown;
(5) the proceedings which under paragraph (4) are to be taken at any sitting shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the time specified in the third column of the Table;
(6) paragraph (4) does not prevent proceedings being taken (in the order shown in the second column of the Table) at any earlier sitting than that provided for under paragraph (4) if all previous proceedings have already been concluded.
TABLE
Sitting
Proceedings
Time for conclusion of proceedings
1st to 6th
Clauses 1 to 19, Schedule 1, Clauses 20 to 42, Schedule 2 and Clauses 43 to 73
5 pm at 6th sitting
7th to 11th
Clauses 74 to 100, Schedule 3, Clauses 101 to 105, Schedule 4, Clause 106, Schedule 5 and Clauses 107 to 116
11.25 am at 11th sitting
12th and 13th
Any new Clauses standing in the name of a Minister of the Crown and relating to functions of the Audit Commission in relation to registered social landlords; any new Clauses relating to the repeal of section 2A of the Local Government Act 1986
11.25 am at 13th sitting
14th
Remaining new Clauses standing in the name of a Minister of the Crown, remaining new Clauses, new Schedules, Clauses 117 to 121, Schedules 6 and 7, Clauses 122 and 123 and remaining proceedings on the Bill
5 pm
It is a pleasure for the Committee to meet under your chairmanship, Mr. Griffiths. I have not yet served on a Committee of which you were Chairman, and look forward to the experience of the next few weeks with a great deal of enthusiasm and anticipation. You will be pleased to know that the Bill has a Welsh dimension. That is why the Under-Secretary of State for Wales is with me, as well as the Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie). We will
be touching on matters of interest to Wales throughout our discussions on the Bill.
This is a Bill of considerable importance. It incorporates key elements of the Government's proposals for implementing the White Paper that we published just over a year ago. It gives new freedoms and opportunities to local government and is wide-ranging. It includes a large number of measures that will be of interest to people concerned with local government and good governance generally. The Bill's spectrum spans some relatively arcane matters, which I suspect we will get on to quickly this morning, and some issues relating to local government finance. The Bill also ranges over a number of exciting and innovative new arrangements such as business improvement districts, which will encourage new partnerships and economic development opportunities.
Inevitably, some aspects of the Bill have aroused controversy, and we will undoubtedly have robust debates at various stages during our consideration of the Bill. However, I suspect that there will be broad agreement on some of the measures that will, I hope, achieve a better framework for local government finance, removing some of the extremely obscure and complex provisions that have bedevilled local government for many years and extending freedoms and opportunities to local authorities.
The Bill has already been scrutinised; it was published before its introduction in the summer, and the then Select Committee on Transport, Local Government and the regions was able to consider it. We have been able to respond to a number of the Select Committee's suggestions, and have made one major change: we removed provisions relating to our previous intention of combining the national non-domestic rate with the proceeds of council tax. That was largely welcomed. I believe that sufficient time is available to us under the programme motion. The 14 sittings will give us plenty of opportunity to consider the full range of issues, which, as I have said, have already been subject to detailed pre-legislative scrutiny.
The Bill will make important changes to local government, and it is important that it reaches the statute book in time to allow implementation of the new prudential system by 1 April 2004, if possible. That is what local government anticipates, so I hope that we will not have too many synthetic expressions of unhappiness from the Opposition about the lack of time. That would, essentially, be a cover for delaying tactics to try to prevent the Bill reaching the statute book—a Bill that is eagerly awaited by local government, which will extend important new freedoms to it.
The number of knives has been limited to ensure that the Committee can devote as much time as possible to the areas that it considers most important, while allowing reasonable flexibility to organise our proceedings in the most efficient way. The motion is sensible and I commend it to the Committee.