Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)

It may be worth having a canter round the powers and duties of parish councils. The Bill seems very much in line with Conservative policy in that the Government envisage a much bigger role for parish and community councils. It would be interesting to probe what the Under-Secretary envisages.

The clause gives parish councils very big powers, but that has been the case with all the clauses that we have debated. Clause 2(3) relates to control of borrowing. Clause 6 deals with protection of lenders. Clause 9 relates to capital receipts. Security for money borrowed is dealt with under clause 13. Guidance, inevitably, is dealt with under clause 15. Clause 17 is about external funds.

Clause 19 gives parish councils pretty significant powers. If we combine that with the powers and duties under clause 36, which relates to best value and parishes, we see that those bodies will perform a significant role. With all the increased borrowing powers, the Under-Secretary must envisage their performing significantly greater functions than they do at present. If they do perform greater functions, someone else, one hopes, is performing lesser functions. It would be interesting to know who is performing those.

One assumes that, all the way down the line, powers are being devolved. If we must have the regional bodies that we disapprove of, one hopes that they will delegate as many functions as possible down the line to subordinate councils—district, unitary and county councils. In turn, the Government are encouraging those councils—we approve of this—to devolve as many functions as possible to parish councils. One hopes that that is what is in the mind of the Under-Secretary, but also that the parish councils will be subject to as light a touch as possible.

We will debate best value and other issues, but the Government have loaded a number of requirements on to parish councils in respect of auditing, disclosure and so on. I do not know whether other members of the Committee have had this experience, but we are finding that parish councillors are standing down because of those onerous requirements. Surely we want to encourage as many people as possible to take up their civic duties and become councillors. The tradition was that parish councils were not a particularly burdensome office and that everyone from the spectrum of the community was encouraged to stand for them. If we make the post too burdensome we will simply turn parish councils into mini district councils, and then what will be the point of having this extra tier of local government? This is a circular argument and I simply probe the Minister on the matter.

Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight, Conservative)

I am pleased to support my hon. Friend with regard to the burdens on parish councils. Like him I support the devolution of more responsibilities to parish councils, but it has to be done on a fair and honest basis. One of the criticisms that I have received is that parish councils are given additional responsibilities by their district or county councils for matters for which the county or district councils may have equal responsibility—for example, grass-cutting in churchyards and along the sides of roads is a responsibility that can be exercised by county or district councils and also by parish councils—but some local authorities do not give parish councils sufficient warning of their intention to pull out of this activity.

My parish council provides such an example. Before the beginning of the current financial year, parish and town councils set their precepts and budgets. My parish council did not require any money for grass-cutting because until that point the Isle of Wight county council had undertaken it. But the county council later in its own budget-making process provided insufficient resources—that is the term they always use—for grass-cutting in parished areas, although it continued to cut the grass in unparished areas. So a very small parish council with a small budget found itself having to pick up responsibility for keeping its verges and churchyards tidy.

Greater involvement and a more effective process of consultation are required between county or district councils and parish or town councils. I am not suggesting that the Government should legislate on or regulate these factors because any well-intentioned and well-run county or district council should pursue them as a matter of course. As hon. Members have suggested on other clauses, if we are not satisfied with the way in which our county or district councils behave—this applies also to parish councils—we have the opportunity to chuck the blighters out.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold referred also to the snoopers charter created by the Government through the standards board. It requires parish councillors to provide a huge amount of information about their activities, possessions, friends and shareholdings, despite the fact that such information has no bearing whatever on their performance as parish councillors.

I give an example from the Daily Telegraph on 13 January this year. Chris Garner of Kings Langley in Hertfordshire is one of a huge number of parish councillors who have chosen to resign or retire or, in his case, not to sign the snoopers charter, and who have been disciplined by the standards board for England as a result of the charter set up by the Government under the Local Government Act 2000.

Mr Derek Conway (Old Bexley & Sidcup, Conservative)

Order. The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, but it would be helpful to the Chairman if he could relate the snoopers charter to the clause. We have to stick to the legislation before us, however interesting or challenging that might be. I am sure that he will do so.

Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight, Conservative)

I am grateful for that guidance, Mr. Conway. I was going to say that in applying the legislation to town and parish councils we must ensure that it is reasonable, having regard to their size and responsibilities. The snoopers charter has been applied to tiny parish councils with populations in the hundreds, rather thousands, and with a precept in pence, rather in tens of pence—tiny budgets—and yet is has led to the resignation and retirement, or in this case the disciplining, of parish councillors. There has, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold said, been a great reduction in the resources that are available to the community through the democratic local structures.

I will pause at this point, Mr. Conway, because I was going to say some things about parish partnerships and, because those are not mentioned in the clause, you may have ruled me out of order if I went in that direction. Perhaps I will have the opportunity to talk about them later.

Mr Desmond Swayne (New Forest West, Conservative)

My hon. Friend began with grass-cutting and then made an appeal for a light regulatory touch. Is he aware that there are performance standards for grass-cutting? That is nonsense, because that any fool can see whether it needs cutting.

Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight, Conservative)

Indeed, that is so, although my own local authority did not consider that the grass needed cutting, or, if it did need cutting, the authority decided that someone else should take responsibility for that.

The light regulatory framework is the most important issue of all in the context of local government law, especially in respect of small town and parish councils. Those do not need a burdensome and confusing regulatory framework, but I regret to say that that is precisely what many are taking on, and they have taken that on since the passage of the 2000 Act.

Mr Robert Syms (Poole, Conservative)

In my experience, most parish councils do not need vast amounts of capital. The only authorities that need capital are parish councils with 10,000, 20,000 or 30,000 electors which turn themselves into town councils. They might, perhaps, have an income from the council tax of £200,000 to £300,000 and they could wish to renovate the town hall or do something in the centre of a town. I know that in the past many slightly larger parish councils had to wait in a queue for funding before being able to do what they wanted in their towns. Perhaps the Minister will tell us whether the provision would substantially change the regime, or whether things would continue along the same lines, with occasional capital grants being given to small and very small local authorities to provide for their own particular needs.

Mr Christopher Leslie (Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office; Shipley, Labour)

It would be a great pleasure to debate all the provisions that surround parish council activities, but sadly, the scope of the clause allows us to talk only about the application of capital controls and rules and borrowing arrangements in respect of parish or community councils. While I would love to talk about the quality of the parish council scheme that we are developing in order to enhance and support the important work that parish, town and community

councils undertake, to which the hon. Member for Cotswold referred, I would, unfortunately, be restrained from doing so by you, Mr. Conway.

Hon. Members referred to the standards regarding the requirements for the proper disclosure of interests by all elected representatives with responsibility at parish or local level. Far from being a snoopers charter, this is a perfectly reasonable prospect and not an onerous burden on the 70,000 or so parish councillors in this country. Once again, I am afraid that to talk about that at any length would lead to my being ruled out of order.

The hon. Member for Cotswold has probably got the wrong end of the stick on the clause, but that is understandable, since it is complexly worded. The broad arrangements that exist at present will be tidied up, but they will remain mostly unchanged. We seek a simpler and more efficient statement of the rules on borrowing and capital for parish and community councils. Applications for borrowing consent will be appraised case by case and the old provisions will be continued under the proposed system. There will be no system of queueing for borrowing, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Poole, but we have introduced a new administrative regime with mechanisms to make parish borrowing quicker and easier to process. I hope that many local town and parish councils will benefit.

The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) talked a lot about grass cutting. In respect of capital spending, I cannot imagine that the grass cutting functions would be particularly affected unless the parish council wanted to buy a new lawn mower. It would have to be quite a large lawn mower to incur significant capital expenditure.

Mr Mark Todd (South Derbyshire, Labour)

Although I agree that the issue of grass cutting is scarcely relevant, I draw the Minister's attention to the experience of a parish council in my area—Barrow-upon-Trent—which is a minor housing authority. Through a bequest, it has a large number of almshouses for a tiny village. It therefore has a substantial capital base that it needs to maintain, and it occasionally funds improvements from its revenue resources. I corresponded with the Minister's predecessor about the difficulties it has in fitting its extremely unusual circumstances into the constraints placed on parish councils. The Minister need not answer at this point, but I would welcome his reviewing that correspondence and seeing whether there are better ways of assisting Barrow-upon-Trent to continue to thrive as it has under the enlightened leadership of its chair, Chris Barker.

Mr Christopher Leslie (Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office; Shipley, Labour)

I will certainly look into the correspondence between my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) and my predecessor in this illustrious ministerial post. I cannot say that I have visited Barrow-upon-Trent. I am sure that that is my loss and that the villagers cut their grass to a high and consistent standard.

We want to make the regime easier for town and parish councils. We considered whether the prudential system should be applied to larger parishes, but we concluded that it should not for the time being, given

that it would require a fairly sophisticated level of financial expertise. It would not be right to expect a parish council to have such expertise, and it would be a heavy burden to impose. We are tidying up the regime and the rules and making them simpler for parish and community councils to operate. That is the purpose of clause 19.

Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)

The Minister slightly disingenuously said he thought I had got the wrong end of the stick. Clause 19(1) is pretty straightforward. It says that the following clauses will be applied to parish councils—clauses 2(3) and (4), 6, 9 to 13, 15, 16, 17(1)(a), (b) and (d) to (f) and (2) and 18. We are transferring significant financial controls to parish councils. Therefore, it seems quite reasonable to ask the Minister what powers and duties he expects the parish and community councils to take on.

It is sometimes difficult to discuss one clause without referring to subsequent clauses. The Minister will be perfectly aware that under clause 115, the maximum £3.50 per elector multiplier will be increased to £5. In a parliamentary written answer to me on 4 December 2002, the Minister told me that under the current system a maximum of approximately £45 million is granted to parish and community councils and that that would increase to £65 million under the new system.

Clearly, the Government are expecting parish and community councils to take on significantly more responsibility, which is why they are putting this financial regime in place under clause 19. The Minister did not properly explain what extra duties, functions and obligations parish and community councils will be expected to take.

Mr Christopher Leslie (Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office; Shipley, Labour)

I wanted to be helpful to the hon. Gentleman, and he will find that the provisions maintain the current roles and powers of parish councils. We are simplifying the rules, but they are broadly the same as those of the current system, because clause 1, which deals with the new prudential borrowing regime, will not apply to them. There will be a new power in relation to investment, which will give an additional freedom to parish councils. Most of the other clauses referred to in clause 19 relate to the controls on lender security, guidance capabilities and so forth, which do not change the roles of parish councils significantly.

Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)

I hear what the Minister says about simplifying and not changing the roles significantly, but as we will find when we come to clause 36, which is to do with best value, auditing and other requirements placed on parish and town councils are now so complicated that they are to be given a grant of £30,000 to help them pay for all the auditing and best value. The Minister says one thing, but the reality on the ground is totally different.

Mr. Leslie indicated dissent.

Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)

The Minister shakes his head, but my hon. Friend has given examples of cases in which, because of the complexity of parish councils—

Mr Christopher Leslie (Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office; Shipley, Labour)

Not on capital.

Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)

The Minister may say that, but I have read out the list of the clauses that, under clause 19(1), will refer to parish councils. They include clause 2 ''Control of borrowing'', clause 6 ''Protection of lenders'', clause 9 ''Capital receipt'', clause 13 ''Security for money borrowed etc'', and even clause 18 ''Local authority companies'', which we have just debated. Parish and community councils will need sophisticated management if they are to manage a subsidiary company, with all the management and auditing that that will entail.

The Government need to think carefully about the role that they are giving parish and town councils. The Minister has not totally answered my questions, but clearly there is a limit to how far we can go on the matter before you rule us out of order, Mr. Conway. We have had a good canter around, so I will not ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote against the clause.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 19 ordered to stand part of the Bill.