Clause 58
Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill
9:30 am
Angela Smith (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Communities and Local Government; Basildon, Labour)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire for his comments on parish councils. We touched on some of the issues the other evening, and his comments go to the crux of community governance matters. I think that I shall be able to reassure him.
The clause deals with the means by which a principal council can initiate a community governance review. Either local electors in an area can petition for the principal council to conduct a review, or the council can decide to undertake a review at any time on its own initiative. That will enable local authorities to take decisions on the community governance arrangements in their area, following a review that they will be able to initiate.
A community governance review can apply to the whole of a local authority area, or to part of that area. Currently, local authorities conduct parish reviews, but the Secretary of State or the Electoral Commission take the decisions on implementation. Under the existing arrangements, petitions can be raised for the creation of parishes, but local authorities have to pass those petitions on to the Secretary of State. A crucial aspect of the Bill is that it devolves these decision-making powers to local authorities, so that the Secretary of State will no longer make the decision. Essentially, reviews will operate as they do already, but the final decision will be taken by local authorities rather than the Secretary of State. That is quite right, and it is truly devolutionary.
For the purposes of the provisions on community governance reviews, the local authorities that will be designated as principal councils will be district councils—both metropolitan and non-metropolitan, unitary county councils and, as a further step, London borough councils. The White Paper said that the Government were committed to giving communities in London the same rights to have a parish council as the rest of the country.
The question has been raised in our debate as to whether it will be more difficult to have parish councils in urban areas. There are already such parish councils, and there is no evidence that they are not as welcome or effective as others. The Government do not believe it right that London alone should be denied the opportunity to have parish councils, if areas of London so wish. The choice will remain with the area.
Is it more difficult to have parish councils in urban areas? The way to identify the community will be by way of the parish, the community or the neighbourhood, although the position might be different from that in rural areas. The general rule will be to decide matters on the basis of the smallest area that reflects community identity and community interests, but the area should also be viable as an administrative unit. If both those criteria are followed, the position will be the same as that for rural areas, though there might be a different shape from rural areas. For instance, the parish council area could be based on the boundaries of a housing estate rather than on those of the town in which the estate lies. It will be up to local people to make a case to the principal council that the area is an appropriate and viable one for a parish council. It will be a local decision.