Clause 16 - Capital expenditure
Local Government Bill
11:00 am
Mr John Pugh (Southport, Liberal Democrat)
I am rapidly forming the view that the Local Government Bill should be renamed the Local Government (Hackney) Bill, because there seems to be a sort of pattern running through it, in which the apparent granting of freedoms is followed by a process of gradual retraction during consideration of the detail of the Bill. Several times, the Secretary of State seems to have reserved powers that he has given away at an earlier stage.
In this case, the Secretary of State has absolute discretion, and amendment No. 78 seeks to fetter that discretion. The amendment asks him to ask CIPFA to provide guidelines, so that he is not free to define black as white or white as black.
I am forming a view about the genesis of the Bill. I think that what happened was that the Minister met someone like Sir Jeremy Beecham at a conference and that they agreed a new concordat for local government that would end the decades of friction and factions that have existed between local and central Government. While the Minister was going through the details of the new piece of legislation that he had in mind, there was some Sir Humphrey character who, the moment any clause came forward, shouted, ''What about Hackney?'' and suggested a solution which, while apparently dealing with an exceptional case, none the less took away all freedom that existed for local authorities in the legislation.
If that is the case, that will mean the Minister having to go back to local government and the guileless Sir Jeremy Beecham to explain how things will run. That conversation will require trust, and I am sure that it will not draw attention to the letter of the law but to the spirit in which it is moved and presented. We are all prepared to trust the Minister to some extent, but this regulation appears to put into the hands of any successor an enormous power to take away most of the freedom initially granted. Therefore, I suggest that he fetters that power a little in the letter of law by accepting amendment No. 78.