Clause 20
Child Poverty Bill
11:45 am
Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work and Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)
The amendments are about giving responsible local authorities the flexibility to achieve their statutory duties in the way that they believe is best for them. I put it to the Minister that clause 20(1)(b) is too prescriptive and smacks in part of a Government who do not trust local people to exercise accountability on their local authority through the ballot box.
I offer an analogy to explain my rationale. It would be fair enough if the task demanded by Government of a local authority or any organisation was to shift a load of bricks from one side of a building site to another. It would not be right, however, for central Government to dictate exactly how that task should be done in over-prescriptive detail. The Minister referred in earlier debates to the importance of clause 20(1)(c), which gives local authorities some flexibility, which we welcome. It is important to have the ability to include bodies that are not in the list in clause 19. My worry about subsection (1)(b) is that it might force people to waste time—to come to meetings where they might not have anything to contribute. We believe in giving more responsibility and trusting local authorities more, rather than trying to pin them down and telling them whom to work with, without any choice.