Clause 31
Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill
10:00 am
Andrew Stunell (Shadow Secretary of State for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Communities and Local Government), Department for Communities and Local Government; Hazel Grove, Liberal Democrat)
It is important that we make progress today, so I shall try not to detain the Committee for long.
The group comprises a coherent set of amendments designed to give local councils the opportunity not only to switch from one-third or one-half elections to all-out elections, but to switch back the other way. Although that is rather intricate, because the proposals are wound so much into this part of the Bill, hopefully our amendments would allow that.
The Minister has talked a great deal about how he is freeing local government and giving it lots of choices, and about devolutionary government and amazing love and motherhood government. It is wonderful to hear him talk about that, but we are trying to coax him a little bit further so that he does not just give local government the freedom to move in the direction that the Government would prefer as far as elections go, but allows them the freedom to go in the other direction if they choose—to have a reversible process, or one that gives them equal freedom to go in each direction.
The evidence from the Local Government Association representatives was that although as individuals they considered that all-out elections were probably the way ahead, local government as a whole should have the option to go in the opposite direction. I have been a member of different authorities that have had both systems of election; we could rehearsethe advantages and disadvantages at some length. However, it is not for the Government to decide for local authorities which of the pros and cons ought to take precedence in their decision making. We heard from Unlock Democracy, which made exactly that point, and, although it might serve to weaken my case, the Conservative leader of the district councils made the same point, too.