Clause 39
Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill
11:30 am
Alistair Burt (Shadow Minister (Communities and Local Government), Communities and Local Government; North East Bedfordshire, Conservative)
We now come to an interesting part of the Bill. The Minister has indicated that he will respond, so we hope that he has been refreshed by his break and we look forward to hearing what he has to say. If we are to believe contributions that the Committee has already heard from witnesses and Back Benchers, as well as from Back Benchers on Second Reading, there is plenty of scope for amendment and reconsideration by the Government of this part of the Bill.
A couple of amendments to the clause have been tabled. I will not steal the thunder of hon. Gentlemen representing the Liberal Democrats, who have more fundamental objections than we do to the concept of an elected executive, but I will be interested to join the debate on the next set of clauses. There is plenty of generic interest in the measures.
Perhaps the most difficult thing that the Minister will have to deal with is the sense that this is a top-down reform. For all the Government’s talk about devolving power and giving people more responsibility locally, the clause is another example that shows that the Bill is intended confine local government to a particular set of models at the Government’s insistence. From what we have already heard in relation to previous clauses from colleagues on both sides of the Committee, there is a feeling of concern that goes to the heart of what we talked about during the witness session, which is the sense outside of a degree of separation between the elected and those who elected them, and a concern that there is control from the top down. That sits uncomfortably in a mass participative democracy, in which people every day have more and more opportunity to express their views. The approach that the Minister is taking to the Bill on the back of the White Paper is not quite doing what he would like it to do. I think that we will have a number of discussions on a similar theme.
The limitations of participative democracy have been illustrated over the past few days, as we have seen the interest taken by the general public in the opportunity to petition No. 10. They have taken that opportunity in great numbers, only to have their desire for involvement slapped down by the very people who created the opportunity. There are people out there who are involved and interested, who want to say to the Government, “There are more ways of doing things than you are letting us believe, and your attempt to nanny us and corral us strikes us as an attitude of concern.”
The amendments are relatively small and I will not go into the larger issues affecting the concept of elected executives until we debate the next set of clauses. The amendments propose increasing from three to five the number of councillors who can be involved in the executive, so that the leader of a council would operate with four or more councillors, instead of the two or more councillors suggested in the Bill.
The spirit of the amendment is clear. It is recognition of the sense that things are more likely go wrong in a local authority when matters have been held by a small group of people and not disseminated to the rest of the council than when more people are involved. We maintain that a group of three people, invested with executive authority in a system that does not involve a directly elected mayor, is too small.
That should appeal to the Government’s general sense of control. In theory a group of one is by far the best number to make decisions—preferably the Secretary of State in a Labour Government. How easy decisions are in those circumstances. Great debates can be held. The issues can be examined fairly and objectively and weighed up and of course, the right decision will inevitably be reached. In the real world, however, more people have to be involved in decision making. I am reminded of the story about John F. Kennedy’s dinner for Nobel laureates at the White House. He stood up to address the dinner and said:
“I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White house, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
In theory, one can create a special model where a very small number of people may hold control, but unless those people are exceptional it is usually wiser to expand the group. Just two or more councillors, as under the Bill, are not sufficient. We have tabled our amendment, which would make it four or more councillors, to diffuse that executive control. There is a greater risk of cabals when there are only three councillors. When things go wrong in local councils, it is usually caused by a small number of people acting in a clique, often in one-party areas where over time corruption has got in. The smaller the number of people making the decision, the easier it is for such problems to arise.