Local Government Bill
8:55 am
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
I, too, wish to express my pleasure at having the
opportunity to serve in Committee under the joint chairmanship of you, Mr. Griffiths, and Mr. Conway, and my pleasure at once again facing the Minister. It is one of the peculiarities of this place that, whereas the previous Committee on which we both served was small but conducted its business in the cavernous expanses of Committee Room 14, the powers that be have decreed that this large Committee of 29 Members should be squeezed into one of the smaller Committee Rooms. I am sure that, 20 years down the line, I will still be trying to work out how such things are decided.
I am delighted that the Minister is in his place with his customary expression of happiness and enjoyment in his work—especially as he has at least two Bills and a fire strike to deal with, which I imagine is quite a management exercise. I hope that there will be a measure of consensus in our consideration of this Bill. However, if the Minister thinks that Opposition Members will accept that the Government's timetable allows adequate time to consider a large and complex Bill, I shall have to disappoint him.
Parts of the Bill are welcome—welcome on this side of the House and welcome in local government. However, as the Minister has acknowledged, other parts of the Bill are extremely controversial, and they are most unwelcome in local government.
The Bill is long—it contains 122 clauses and several long schedules—and we know that it will get longer. New clauses have already been tabled. One of them has Government support although, curiously, it is not in the Government's name. I refer to new clause 1, which will be very controversial and will warrant considerable debate in Committee. The Opposition will also be tabling a new clause that deals with the same area, suggesting ways in which other parts of legislation may be strengthened to ensure that the Government's intention in supporting the repeal of section 2A of the Local Government Act 1986 is achieved in practice. The issues raised will add to the time that will be required for deliberations on this Bill.
A new clause, which has yet to be tabled by the Government, will repeal section 19 of the Fire Services Act 1947. That may not be terribly controversial, but it will no doubt provoke a discussion on some of the wider issues that surround the future organisation of the fire service. Those matters will be dealt with in sittings 12, 13 and 14.
Before I move on, I want to ask the Minister about another possible new clause that I have been considering, which is not in any sense party political. I have considered tabling a new clause that would extend to local authorities outside London the powers that are enjoyed by local authorities in London to control establishments that offer cosmetic body piercing. Many hon. Members will be concerned by this issue and will be aware of the recent tragic death of a young man in Sheffield as a result of septicaemia contracted following a body piercing in an unlicensed establishment.
When the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) was a Health Minister, in reply to a written question she said:
''The Government believe there should be primary legislation introduced to give local authorities outside London powers to regulate the hygiene and cleanliness of cosmetic body piercing businesses, when parliamentary time allows.''—[Official Report, 10 January 2000; Vol. 342, c. 53W.]
The Bill gives us an opportunity to do that. I have had a stab at drafting a new clause but the relevant section of the London Local Authorities Act 1991 runs to nine pages, so the issue is complex.
Would the Minister be predisposed to cross-party work to draft a new clause that could be moved in Committee or on Report to achieve something that the Government have said should be done when the opportunity presents itself? In view of the recent tragedy in Sheffield, I suspect that hon. Members of all parties would feel that the issue is ripe to be addressed. If the Minister can help us with that, it will represent yet another new clause, and I believe that further new clauses relating to registered social landlords are yet to be tabled by the Government.
The net result is that we will have just 11 sittings—27 and a half hours—before we reach clause 116. In the previous Committee on which the Minister and I served, we discussed the use of grammar and the English language, subsequent to which I wrote to the Minister for School Standards to see whether he agrees with the Minister for Local Government and the Regions about certain aspects of grammar and how they should be taught in our schools. Perhaps we can now move on to mathematics. If my mathematics serves me well, we have a fraction over 14 minutes to scrutinise, debate and decide on each of the first 116 clauses. The Minister is wrong if he thinks that those who will be affected by the Bill will consider that to be adequate time for parliamentary scrutiny of such an important and complex Bill.
In fact, the situation is worse than that because, according to the knives that have been inserted, we must reach clause 73 by 5 pm next Thursday, which, by my calculations, gives us just over 12 minutes to consider each of the first 73 clauses. That does not allow for these introductory discussions and any Divisions that might interrupt our deliberations. That is frankly a scandal.
The Government's only defence, which the Minister predictably gave, is that the Bill was published in draft and has been considered by a Select Committee. The Minister is right; the draft Bill was considered by a Select Committee. The Committee said:
''The Government promised to redress the imbalance between central and local government. This Bill fails to achieve that. It makes some small steps in the right direction but at the same time increases the power of the Secretary of State. Central Government seems to be terrified of trusting local authorities and allowing them their independence.''
It continued:
''The draft Bill is far too reliant on regulations. The Government should set out its intent on the face of the Bill, not through secondary legislation.''
The Committee concluded:
''The White Paper on which this Bill is based, raised considerable expectation about a change in the relations between central and local government. On the whole the draft Bill appears to be far from a radical overhaul and in many cases gives more powers to the Secretary of State. The way in which it is drafted could enmesh local
authorities in more regulation. We are furthermore concerned that aspects of the Bill centralise powers unnecessarily. We strongly believe that if local government is going to regain the public respect and authority it once enjoyed, the Government must be prepared to trust it much more''.
In other words, although the fact that a Select Committee has deliberated on the draft Bill is used as a reason why we have less time for scrutiny, the Committee's conclusions create a strong imperative for more time being given to scrutinise what it identified as a weak and inappropriate Bill.