Clause 1
Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]
10:45 am

Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall, Liberal Democrat)

I beg to move amendment 37, in clause 1, page 1, line 10, at end insert—

‘( ) the duty of members of the authority as democratically elected representatives;’.

Eric Illsley (Barnsley Central, Labour)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Clause stand part.

New clause 3—Penalties—

‘(1) A principal local authority commits an offence by failing to comply with a duty imposed on it by virtue of Chapter 1 or 2 of Part 1.

(2) A principal local authority found guilty of an offence under subsection (1) is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £100,000.’

Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall, Liberal Democrat)

This is my first opportunity to echo comments made by other Members welcoming you to the Chair, Mr. Illsley. However brief our deliberations might be, I am sure they will be all the more focused because of you, so it is a delight to serve under your chairmanship again.

As the Minister will anticipate, I will not press the amendment to a vote. I simply seek to discuss the roles and duties that the Bill places on local authorities. There was some debate in the other place about the need to clarify that the democracy that we have the honour of defending and functioning within is a representative one, and it is important that the roles of elected members are set out clearly.

On Second Reading, the hon. Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) said that there is still a lack of understanding in much of our electorate about what different people do within the democratically elected structures of our country—just what councillors are responsible for and the role of Members of Parliament. In the recent European election the turnout was not incredibly high, and there was, perhaps, a lack of understanding about just what Members of the European Parliament are able to achieve and how they interact with the other tiers of Government.

To that end, clause 1 sets out clearly the duties placed upon local authorities. However, I share the concerns of other Members about imposing unnecessary duties on local authorities. Clearly, these are things that good local authorities are dealing with anyway and could therefore be covered by best practice. As my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne said in her introductory remarks, a great deal in the Bill could be achieved by best practice guidance, encouraging local authorities rather than imposing duties upon them through legislation. Subsection (2) talks about how the local authority has

“a duty to promote understanding of the following among local people...how to become a member...what members of the principal local authority do”.

That is very good, but it refers to the body corporate, and we need to recognise the tremendous role played by local authority councillors, many of whom are now newly elected and some of whom are on entirely new authorities. They have a huge amount of work to do in familiarising themselves with just what they have let themselves in for, working with new colleagues to set out visions for their authorities.

I cannot emphasise enough how important it is for us to support local authority members in their roles within local communities, giving them the tools they need and helping them to start rebuilding trust in the electoral system, which, sadly, has been undermined by recent events, or rather, recent revelations of events in this part of the democratic system and perhaps elsewhere too.

Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich, Labour)

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but I am not persuaded that there is any need for his amendment. The Bill refers to the duty on the authority to promote understanding of the functions of the authority and the democratic arrangements of the authority. Why does that not cover precisely the point he is making?

Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall, Liberal Democrat)

The right hon. Gentleman is right to point out that there is much that is superfluous in the Bill. As I said earlier, the duties being imposed on local  authorities should not necessarily be achieved through legislation. I simply seek to underline the principle that democratically elected members themselves have an important part to play in the body corporate—the local authority—and we need to empower them and help them to do that. Rather than it being the job of the chief executive to tell people what local authority members are doing, we should be helping local authority members to do that themselves in their local communities. Many of them do that. They build up strong relationships with people in their local communities, organisations and so on in performing that representative function. I merely want to raise the principle that it is not so much a matter of giving duties to the councils—the corporate body—but of how we can help local councillors develop their role and to convince people once again that they are electing people who have their community’s best interests at heart and who can be an articulate voice for those concerns.

The amendment is merely an opportunity for us to raise certain issues around the distinction between the role of the local authority as a whole and those of individual members of that authority, particularly in a system where some are in opposition and some are in control of those local authorities. Opposition Members therefore have a crucial role to play in scrutiny as well.

In response to issues raised on Second Reading, new clause 3 seeks to set out more clearly the penalties for any local authority that fails to act upon the duties imposed on it, giving us a chance to debate what the appropriate penalties might be. This goes to the heart of something that I and others hon. Members have already mentioned, which is that we do not think these are the sorts of things which ought to be set out as duties under legislation, so the penalties are unnecessary.

Members of this House and the Government should be working with local authorities to develop the principles around which this sort of work can take place, to offer advice and to promote networking. Organisations such as the Local Government Association and the Improvement and Development Agency already do excellent work in helping to support local authorities and local members to do that. That is the route we ought to be taking. The new clause seeks to promote debate by considering at what level a penalty should be, but we do not need either a penalty or the duties. Rather we need to encourage local authorities to be as proactive as possible in their local communities, rebuilding that trust in democracy and hopefully heading off any further possibilities of protest votes going where members of this Committee would rather not see them go, as sadly happened last week in the European elections.

I will not press the amendment to a vote, but will seek the Committee’s leave to withdraw it later. New clause 3 is a useful point for debate, but not a serious consideration at this point.

Paul Goodman (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Wycombe, Conservative)

In addressing the amendment, it is obviously impossible not to refer to the clause as a whole, so I will try to do that as I address the amendment.

Eric Illsley (Barnsley Central, Labour)

Order. When I introduced the amendment, I said we would consider new clause 3 and clause stand part.

Paul Goodman (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Wycombe, Conservative)

I am extremely grateful, Mr. Illsley. I will turn at once to the clause.

It should almost go without saying that promoting democracy and the democratic arrangements of local authorities is a noble aim, whoever does it and whichever body does it, whether it is central Government, local authorities themselves, other national bodies, voluntary bodies, members of the public and so on. The simple question we want to put at the start—it is a question the Minister will hear again and again as we go through the Bill and which was asked from the Liberal Democrat Benches a moment ago—is: why on earth do we need this on the statute book in the first place? Why do we need clause 1 and the clauses that follow to bind local authorities in doing this?

The former Secretary of State said last week at Second Reading that this Bill was a decentralising measure. We read this morning that she is campaigning for further decentralisation, which does not show much confidence in the Bill, but there we are. It is very hard to see—I put it as diplomatically as I can—how real decentralisation and localisation is compatible with a clause like this that seeks to lay a new duty on local authorities with the accompanying penalties, to which the Liberal Democrat spokesman has just referred. In saying something about our approach to this clause, I am also making observations about the Bill in general.

When it went to another place, this clause was carefully considered along with other clauses. The other place sought to improve the legislation—that is the way it works. In relation to this and other clauses, the world has moved on since the Bill was debated in another place. I will not give the long, sad and dreary description of the ways in which the world has moved on. I would say in relation to this clause, however, what I would say in relation to the Bill, that given the events related to expenses in the last few weeks, and the challenge to the whole of our democracy—to national Government, to local government, to the way in which democracy is fashioned and exercised in this country—the genteel process that was undertaken in relation to this clause in another place is no longer appropriate. That is why we have tabled an amendment to delete it, as we have tabled many. We appreciate that it will not be called but it is a signal of our intentions. We think that tabling it before recent events was, to put it mildly, unwise. After recent events, it looks extraneous.

I will not echo in detail the sensible comments about penalties made by the hon. Member for North Cornwall, but we are curious to know what penalties will apply once this is on the statute book. Suppose an ordinary voter in High Wycombe or in Falmouth and Camborne is dissatisfied with the performance of their local authority in performing these duties. What will that person do or, more appositely and relevantly, in how many cases do the Government anticipate voters or others going to the courts or elsewhere to charge councils with failing to observe this duty? What do they think the costs of this clause will be to local government? Have they made any calculations as to what extra staff or what extra hours local councillors will need to work to undertake it? As I say, this is—

Julia Goldsworthy (Falmouth and Camborne, Liberal Democrat)

My sense, from talking to my constituents, is that their key frustration is that participating has no impact on the outcome. What we see here is a requirement that, if the council does not fulfil its part of the bargain, it still has no impact on the outcome, and  even if it does consider the petition, it still might have no impact on the outcome. So how does the Bill address that fundamental problem?

Paul Goodman (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Wycombe, Conservative)

Petitions are dealt with in a later clause, but the point that the hon. Lady makes is perfectly apposite to this one. I am sure she anticipates, as I do, that we will be making the same simple, good point again and again to the Government, and we will almost certainly not receive a satisfactory reply.

Why do we need all this in the first place? The comments made on Second Reading by the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay)—we ought to call this the Thurrock Bill—apply perfectly well to the clause. The Minister might not have had the opportunity to hear them, but I think she should, because he spoke for much of the House. I will skip the part about economic prosperity, because that would be out of order. In his usual understated way, he said:

“Most people have had enough of all this. Why can we not cut away this plethora of bodies and focus on democratically elected local authorities?”

I am not using his words, but we would be free of all these burdens from the centre. He continued:

“That is why I say to her that this is complete nonsense, and we have had enough...all these buzzwords. I say take it back.” —[Official Report, 1 June 2009; Vol. 493, c. 35.]

If I had said that, I would have been accused quite rightly of going over the top, but it applies to the clause. [Interruption.]As if I have ever been accused of going over the top by my hon. Friends or anybody else. It applies as much to the clause as to so many other clauses, other than some harmless clauses that we will come to later and let pass.

We are having the clause stand part debate, and we are also debating amendment 37 and new clause 3. Our view in general is that we have not sought to table amendments to the parts of the Bill that we believe to be otiose. We will consider amendments from the Liberal Democrats and others on their merits. They have made it plain that amendment 3—I do not think that they are planning to press it a vote—is a way of exploring why we need the clause in the first place. So we look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

Finally, subsection (2) shows the nonsense that we get into when all this is written on the statute book. It states:

“The duty...to promote understanding of the following among local people...what members of the principal local authority do”.

Why not officers? Once we start writing members into the statute book, why not write officers into the statute book, too? This is the crazy logic that one gets into when trying to codify all this in statute—an approach that the Government have taken far too often and for far too long.

Julia Goldsworthy (Falmouth and Camborne, Liberal Democrat)

Why not take it even further? If officers should explain what they do, why not extend it to other bodies that are not democratically accountable, and perhaps seek an explanation of why that is the case and how they could be held to account?

Paul Goodman (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Wycombe, Conservative)

I will come to that later, when we get to some of the later clauses. I will not get into that now, but she is absolutely right, and if one looks around local authorities carefully enough, there are probably other individuals who are not officers or members on whom such an obligation could be placed. So I look forward to the Minister providing the Committee with some rational explanation of why, having included members of the local authority in subsection (2)(b), there is any good reason for not including officers as well.

David Curry (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)

I have just two moans, which I have been making for the past 22 years. First, the explanatory notes are just about the most unhelpful notes one could ever imagine. On every Bill, they are unhelpful; the Bill itself is often more easy to understand than the explanatory notes. They are written in a desperate, bureaucratic dense way, and either they have to be written in a simple journalistic way that summarises the Bill’s key elements, or just forget it.

Secondly, it would be helpful if we could marshal the amendments in relation to the clauses to which they apply; otherwise most members of the Committee—with the best will in the world—spend half their time trying to find out where they are. Even those who are hugely experience spend a great deal of time just trying to find where the hell we are in the Bill. Any candidate for Speaker who will promise either to get rid of explanatory notes or make them simple or to marshal amendments in relation to the clauses will get my vote like a shot, even if I shall not be here to see the benefit of it.

As for clause 1(3)(d), I am puzzled by the very last words:

“‘local people’”, in relation to a principal local authority, means people who live, work or study in the authority’s area.”

Let us say that somebody lives in Pendle and comes to Skipton to work: large numbers of people do that—they come to work at Johnson and Johnson. Will they receive information from Pendle district council, Lancashire county council, Craven district council and North Yorkshire county council? That is, literally, what the clause states; if it means live and work, four local authorities must give people that information. More people who live in Skipton will have to commute to Leeds or Bradford, as the Government have closed the tax office in Skipton. Will they be in receipt of that wonderful information from Craven council and from Bradford or Leeds metropolitan authorities—which of course have a hugely different function?

Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich, Labour)

The right hon. Gentleman seems almost to be moving towards an argument in favour of unitary local government, to cut out some of the potential confusion between different tiers of government. Will he not at least accept that while we still have a plethora of different authorities, imposing a duty on them to explain what they do to a mystified public—who are often utterly confused about the different responsibilities of county, district and precept authorities—is not perhaps a bad idea?

David Curry (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)

It is not a bad idea if the poor recipient of all that information is able to understand what he receives. Let us return to my eponymous Lancastrian: he lives in Pendle, so, presumably, Pendle district council  and Lancashire county council will send him stuff through the door—or perhaps on the internet, although one should be cautious about assuming that the entire rural population has internet access or an inclination to use it.

Paul Goodman (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Wycombe, Conservative)

After Second Reading, the information might be sent by text, but perhaps I am taking my right hon. Friend too far by making that suggestion.

David Curry (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)

I depend entirely on my grandchildren for my technological information, and I will continue to do that. What happens, though, for people who work? Should Craven district council have people at Skipton station handing out leaflets? What should happen at the frontier between Lancashire and Craven? Will they have people stopping cars to give out the leaflets that say, “This is what Craven council—and North Yorkshire council—does”? Obviously, it sounds like a good idea, but will the Minister state very precisely what will happen in practice? Huge numbers of people do not live, work and study in the same place.

Stewart Jackson (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Peterborough, Conservative)

I thank my right hon. Friend, who makes a strong case, for giving way. He has brought to the Committee’s attention the iron curtain between Lancashire and Yorkshire that we know has existed for hundreds of years. Does he agree that, essentially, the clause will incrementally cause gradations of authority among voters, because the council tax payers of an area will be effectively put on the same level as people who might visit a municipality for half a day? Surely, that cannot be the purpose of the Bill and it cannot be right.

David Curry (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)

If people visit a municipality for half a day, they use their old persons’ pass to get back on the bus and bankrupt the local authority in any case.

Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Pensions Reform; Minister for Yorkshire and Humber), Department for Work and Pensions; Doncaster Central, Labour)

Oh!

David Curry (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)

The right hon. Lady says that, but Harrogate district council budget is in huge difficulty because the Government have failed adequately to compensate for passenger use, using that bus pass. That is a very serious issue, which the late and unlamented departed Secretary of State for Transport failed to address. So the Minister should not make fun of it.

I return to the substance of the clause. Would it be sufficient for the local authority to say, “All this information is on our website.”? Could people plug into www.—whatever it is—North Yorkshire or Lancashire county council? Some of these things seem to make sense until we stop and think about them. It is not clear how they will work in practice. I insist that the Minister tells us what will happen in practice. Would she take my example of somebody commuting from Pendle to Skipton and tell us how many councils would give that person information and what form that information will take?

Paul Goodman (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Wycombe, Conservative)

My right hon. Friend uses the word “commuting”—I think that that implies commuting regularly. What about people who are working irregularly in those areas? How on earth will the Government make the information available in any meaningful way?

David Curry (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)

That is a question I put to the Minister. She says that this is a great idea, but what will actually happen in practice? The poor citizens will think that they have had that information before. How many bits of paper will they have to digest and how much will it cost? District councils essentially have the same functions as county councils in constitutional terms. Why cannot a simple source not necessarily differentiate between the councils but refer people to any specific things that they might be doing? How will it work in detail? Take my commuter—who will not be commuting by train, Mr. Illsley, because, as I am sure you will know, trans-Pennine routes between Yorkshire and Lancashire no longer exist at that point. They are more likely to travel in a private vehicle than a bus. Who does what, how many times, to whom and when?

Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden, Conservative)

May I add my welcome, Mr. Illsley, and express my gratitude that we are serving under your chairmanship. I am only sorry that it relates to such an absurd Bill.

The clause—the nature of which is highlighted by the amendment—is simply superfluous. It is unnecessary, defining in law something that happens anyway. I am reminded of a point made by Enoch Powell about the superfluity of something, the lack of necessity for it—unfortunately, he made it in a distasteful way, although far more eloquently than I could. It reminded him, as the clause reminds me, of the famous Punch cartoon entitled “Seasickness”, which depicts a bilious-looking lady leaning over the rails of a ship in high seas. The lady asks to the purser, “What do I do next?”, to which he replies, “Nothing, ma’am, it does itself.” Democracy does itself; democracy promotes itself—we by our democratic activities and councillors by their democratic activities reveal to local citizens how democracy works.

A lot of things happen by human action rather than human design; they do not need to be enshrined in law. We should let local authorities get on with their business. If we fail to do our duty as Members of Parliament, our opponents will point it out under the democratic process. They will say, “So and so does not have a surgery; they should have one.” It is our democratic exchange and adversarial system that we have built into our politics that demonstrate to the public how the democratic process works. We do not need to send out leaflets, put up posters or appoint democratic information officers.

David Curry (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)

Looking at how people work, there might be consultants dedicated to a particular task who work in 25 local authorities in a year. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that falls under the scope of the Bill? That would produce a confetti of paper being hurled at people if local authorities could manage to implement it. Would they be at fault if they could not?

Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden, Conservative)

My right hon. Friend makes a good point. Not only would the provision lead to something that is unnecessary, but the proliferation of unnecessary things would create confusion.

Paul Goodman (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Wycombe, Conservative)

My right hon. Friend is leading the Committee to consider that, once one places such duties in statute, others will necessarily follow. In such Bills, that is often done by amendment. We already have  about 170 proposed amendments to the Bill. Would he like publicly to place a bet on how many other amendments the Government will introduce by the time that the Bill is concluded?

Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden, Conservative)

I certainly would. Had I the skill of a bookmaker, I would lay odds on different numbers. I lack those skills and am not yet aware what the racing form is on the numbers that we will be presented with, but I suspect they will be large.

The Bill is unnecessary. If it was unnecessary but costless and harmless, we could allow the Government to get away with it. But it is unnecessary and costly. The costs are probably not huge, but they are almost certainly greater than the costs laid out in the impact assessment, which are already in tens of millions of pounds. We know that every council will have to devote officers’ and members’ time to ensuring that they have conformed to complex legislation, which takes many thousands of words, many tens of pages and a multitude of clauses. They will have to demonstrate when they come up for their annual ratings—or however frequently these ratings are made—that they have done so. They will have to publish part of their reports to prove and demonstrate that they have done so. All that takes time and money and diverts resources from other more necessary activities of local authorities.

Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich, Labour)

Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the Committee whether he is satisfied that citizens living within his county of Hertfordshire and in the specific districts are really fully conversant with the actual responsibilities of the county council, the district council and of the other bodies who work in partnership with the local authority to deliver services? If he is not satisfied that all the electorate are fully conversant with current arrangements, will he explain why his is opposed to measures designed to improve public awareness?

Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden, Conservative)

Of course the public are not fully conversant; I am not always fully conversant about where powers and duties lie between different tiers of government, but the idea that the public are sitting there waiting to participate in seminars, to read documents issued by local government, expressing where all these things are, and then to commit them to memory is simply absurd. By and large, they find out by observing what is going on, and when they need something done, they go to a councillor. It may be the wrong councillor at the wrong level, or they may come to their Member of Parliament who will divert them to the right person. That is how they find out. That is how life operates. I do not know all there is to know about motor cars, but when I want to buy one, I start finding out a bit.

Julia Goldsworthy (Falmouth and Camborne, Liberal Democrat)

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the primary concern of individuals living in a council area is likely to be how they access services effectively? Flowing from that, whether or not they are satisfied with those services, is whether they will then wish to participate in a democratic process and how they understand it. We should not think that simply addressing this issue will address all the other issues.

Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden, Conservative)

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I want to move on as there is no point flogging a dead horse, which the clause probably is. In general, what councils and councillors do helps educate the public. Sometimes, however, it has a perverse effect. I spoke on Second Reading and sought to serve on the Committee because I wanted to highlight and possibly eliminate that perverse effect in Committee.

Normally, councils do things for which they are democratically responsible. Sometimes, they can do things without any democratic responsibility flowing from it. Thus councils have discovered that there is a loophole in the law that they can meet their housing targets by seeking permission to build, not in their own areas affecting their own citizens to whom they are responsible, but in other local authority areas affecting the interests of other local authority residents to whom they are not democratically accountable. It seems to me that that practice, which has grown up by accident, simply by the exploitation of a loophole, has a perverse effect and absolutely conflicts with the intentions—benign intentions, I admit—of the clause.

I would like advice from the Minister about at what stage in the Bill’s consideration I can introduce a clause to remedy that defect, so that councils will be accountable to their own local residents for their actions in matters of planning and meeting their housing targets, because they must meet those targets within their own areas. I would be most grateful to her for that.

I was only told that I was going to serve on this Committee yesterday, and I have not had the time to table such amendments. With the Minister’s advice I will do so, and I am sure that I will have her support subsequently. They would help fulfil the intention of the clause by making sure that people understood the democratic nature of local government. They can only do that if democracy goes with responsibility.

Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Pensions Reform; Minister for Yorkshire and Humber), Department for Work and Pensions; Doncaster Central, Labour)

The intention behind clauses 1 and 2 is at the heart of the Bill. Our fascinating debate has showed an extraordinary level of complacency among Opposition Members about the importance of ensuring that people understand the responsibilities of councils and councillors, as well as the influence that they can have over shaping the services that they receive directly from their council, as well as from police and health authorities, education bodies, schools and colleges. If Opposition Members do not recognise that we need to make sure people that feel empowered to influence decisions, I believe that we will continue to see low turnouts in local elections—we will see a downward spiral. This Bill is about putting things right.

All members of the Committee will have met people in their surgeries who have asked them to deal with a problem that is actually the responsibility of the local council, or the health or police authority. Sometimes I have said, “Have you been to see your local councillor?”, and they reply, “Yes, I have written to Mr. So-and-so,” but that person is an officer, not a councillor. We absolutely have to address that and the Bill is a way of doing so.

David Curry (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)

The right hon. Lady must not be allowed to get away with the idea that Conservative Members are indifferent to the problem of people not knowing what their council does or the differentiation between  councils. We all subscribe to dealing with that, and we have all often had cases in our surgeries of people not knowing who their councillor is, let alone anything else. The problem is not the Bill’s intentions—we agree with them. Our job, however, is to scrutinise how those intentions are delivered in practice. We are concerned that the mechanism chosen by the Government will not work effectively and will place demands on councils that cannot be fulfilled. This might be a highly improbable thesis, but if I were to go and spend five days somewhere—Macclesfield or Doncaster—as an IT consultant, the Bill would require the local authority to inform me of its duties. It is the mechanisms that we would like the Minister to explain, not the intentions, about which there is no dispute.

Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Pensions Reform; Minister for Yorkshire and Humber), Department for Work and Pensions; Doncaster Central, Labour)

Once again, I listened very carefully to the right hon. Gentleman. He was talking about dictating from here how every single local authority should fulfil a duty to every single person who comes into contact with it. I do not think that is what we ought to be doing. Again, I feel that there is a certain amount of trivialisation and ridicule from Opposition Members about a genuine attempt to address a problem that we all know is real.

When drawing up the Bill, we took note of the recommendation of the Councillors Commission that we have a duty to ensure that local citizens are aware of the different responsibilities and services of local authorities, councillors and so on. However, we have also made it very clear that it will for local councils to decide how best to fulfil that duty and then, obviously, through the usual ways in which we monitor local councils—through comprehensive area assessments and organisations like the Audit Commission—we will be able to get an idea of how that is being fulfilled. We will give out guidance with suggestions as to how that can be done, but we do have to trust our local councillors—[Interruption.] I am sorry if Opposition Members think that it is hilarious to trust local councillors. Having taken councillors’ recommendations on how to improve the situation, we then have to say that this is about a partnership between central and local government. Yes, we have taken the councillors’ recommendations about how to ensure that we can give out guidance and monitor how people fulfil this duty, but at the same time, as always, it will be local circumstances and responses that dictate how that happens.

Julia Goldsworthy (Falmouth and Camborne, Liberal Democrat)

If I understand the Minister correctly, she is saying that a central duty will be imposed on local authorities, but we will have to rely on trust regarding delivery. That seems to be a complete contradiction, which is why Opposition Members were laughing.

If these duties are going to be a requirement for local authorities, why will not the exact same duty be imposed on central Government Departments, because individuals find it just as difficult to understand exactly how they access entitlements relating to them? I cannot understand why principal authorities are being singled out for all these responsibilities because the delivery of public services is clearly about more than just one organisation.

Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Pensions Reform; Minister for Yorkshire and Humber), Department for Work and Pensions; Doncaster Central, Labour)

While central Government can put forward the duty through legislation and make recommendations in guidance, the hon. Lady knows that measurement is about saying what is most appropriate to local circumstances. There will be different ways of  ensuring that people in different areas have the information. I was saying that we need to trust local authorities to look at the best ways to get that information out locally, because different circumstances will need to be considered.

Paul Goodman (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Wycombe, Conservative)

I do not envy the Minister for having to take this Bill through, but I am going to try to approach this in a different way from my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon. He gave a perfectly sensible example, which we all accept, of a constituent who comes into the Member of Parliament’s office and does not know what their local authority does. There will be a certain number of them each year. The simple question is: how many of those constituents are going to get an appreciation of their local authority’s democratic arrangements as a result of this Bill?

Mr. Curryrose—

Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Pensions Reform; Minister for Yorkshire and Humber), Department for Work and Pensions; Doncaster Central, Labour)

I shall give way to the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon.

David Curry (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)

Does the Minister accept that the Bill would require Craven district council and North Yorkshire county council to inform somebody who commutes from Pendle to work in Johnson and Johnson in Gargrave, which is just outside Skipton? That is a very concrete example because a significant proportion of the work force comes from Lancashire. What information should be communicated? Equally, what information should the Leeds metropolitan authority give to someone who commutes from Skipton to work in Leeds?

Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Pensions Reform; Minister for Yorkshire and Humber), Department for Work and Pensions; Doncaster Central, Labour)

It is extremely important that commuters have good information about decisions on the running of particular bus services, for example. The right hon. Gentleman has talked a lot about commuters and I draw his attention to the fact that the Local Transport Act 2008 tried to give greater powers to local authorities to introduce quality contracts, when appropriate, to improve the experience for commuters. Despite the opposition of Conservative councillors, Conservative Front Benchers have said that they will repeal the ability of local authorities to introduce quality contracts, which is directly against what local people wanted and directly against what Conservative councillors were asking for. I raise that because I think that this is part of the Opposition Front Benchers saying, “We know best; we want to know every single detail of how local authorities are going to implement this duty.” I do not think we should be dictating that from here.

I would like the individual whom the right hon. Gentleman talked about to feel that they have proper information about the responsibility of the council for emptying their dustbins and providing social services. They should know about the decisions and responsibilities of councillors. They should know whether the social services department is working in conjunction with the health authorities, and they should be clear about the different responsibilities and how they can influence them, for example through the new local involvement networks that are asking for greater accountability on the delivery of those services.

When that person gets on the bus or local train and travels to their place of work, I would like them to have information about whether the transport authority is subsidising their particular bus route or whether it has reached proper agreement with the bus company as to what charges should be made if they are someone over 60 with a bus pass. When they get to their place of work, I would like them to know what the local council is doing to support their business or place of work, whether it is introducing measures that help or hinder the way the company operates, and whether it is providing good training locally. I would seek to ensure that that person felt that they could access information about services and have an input into shaping those services.

There is no doubt that this is a challenge. It is a challenge for us in central Government to ensure that we are able to follow the recommendations of the Councillors Commission through the Bill. It is a challenge for us to be able to provide the right framework for local authorities to fulfil the duty that has been laid down. It is also a challenge for us to work with colleagues in local government to make sure that we continue dialogue on how we can increase participation in our democracy.

Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich, Labour)

My right hon. Friend has made a persuasive case for the importance of extending information to the public, which I fully support. Opposition Members have highlighted transport as an issue. As a London Member, I am conscious that, today, London citizens again face disruption to their transport services and that the information provided by the Mayor of London to help citizens in that position is wholly inadequate. When snow caused transport chaos earlier this year, citizens were again badly informed. I am troubled that the Bill does not include the Greater London authority as a principal authority. Will my right hon. Friend consider what might be done to ensure that the maverick Mayor of London, who enjoys making cameo appearances in the media, does more to inform his citizens about the services for which he is responsible?

Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Pensions Reform; Minister for Yorkshire and Humber), Department for Work and Pensions; Doncaster Central, Labour)

My right hon. Friend makes a forceful point and I am sure that we will continue to discuss issues concerning the Mayor of London.

Opposition Front Benchers often do not take heed of what their own councillors and the Local Government Association are saying. To quote Sir Simon Milton of the Local Government Association—

David Curry (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)

Formerly.

Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Pensions Reform; Minister for Yorkshire and Humber), Department for Work and Pensions; Doncaster Central, Labour)

He is ex-Local Government Association. He said:

“Ensuring that people participate in local democracy is healthy, legitimate and must be encouraged. Greater participation brings more diversity and encourages a much fuller local debate about issues that affect all our lives.

It is councillors that know their local areas and the people who live there, so it is good news that proposed legislation allows the necessary flexibility that will allow them to respond to local circumstance and residents’ wishes and concerns. Any guidance on this provided to councils in the future must avoid prescription.”

That is the point that I was making in response to the right hon. Gentleman. This Committee must not be prescriptive about how councils should carry out that duty. We need to ensure that we give helpful guidance, which we will draw up in conjunction with relevant organisations, and that we consult properly. It would be wrong for us to try to dictate where that should be carried out.

Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden, Conservative)

Earlier, the right hon. Lady spelled out the basic problem that she sees: many people cannot accurately say at which level in local government the responsibility lies for different services. She is therefore placing a duty on local authorities to educate them about that. She also referred to measuring and monitoring their success in overcoming that problem. Are we to take it that the impact will be measured early in the performance assessments of councils? Would councils be assessed on an improvement in the proportion of people who, before and after the process, can accurately say where the responsibility lies for delivering services? If they are not going to do something like that, the whole thing is nonsense. If they are, it will be a costly and unnecessary burden on local government.

Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Pensions Reform; Minister for Yorkshire and Humber), Department for Work and Pensions; Doncaster Central, Labour)

The right hon. Gentleman cannot have it all ways. He is well aware of how organisations that monitor local councils carry out their duties. I suspect that it will be a range of methods to look at whether local people feel that they are receiving information adequately and know where to go to get information about citizens’ responsibility.

Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden, Conservative)

Will expensive surveys be carried out in local government areas?

Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Pensions Reform; Minister for Yorkshire and Humber), Department for Work and Pensions; Doncaster Central, Labour)

It is important that we take advice from the bodies that monitor local authorities on how they feel they can best ensure that they are assessing how information is disseminated.

Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden, Conservative)

On a point of order, Mr. Illsley. The Minister said that she would take evidence from bodies representing local authorities on how the measures will be monitored, but should not this Committee take such evidence before we pass the Bill? Will there be time and an opportunity to do so?

Eric Illsley (Barnsley Central, Labour)

That is not really a matter for the Chair. A Bill that comes to the Commons from the House of Lords does not usually take evidence at this stage in proceedings. The right hon. Gentleman is making a point of debate, and therefore one that the Committee can pursue as it progresses through the Bill.

Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Pensions Reform; Minister for Yorkshire and Humber), Department for Work and Pensions; Doncaster Central, Labour)

To return to clause 1—

Paul Goodman (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Wycombe, Conservative)

I want to probe further the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden, because it was not really answered. If local authorities are to be monitored on how they carry out the duties set out in the Bill, will the Government impose penalties if local authorities fail to carry them out? That is a perfectly fair question, because it often happens in many other contexts.

Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Pensions Reform; Minister for Yorkshire and Humber), Department for Work and Pensions; Doncaster Central, Labour)

The measurement of whether local authorities are carrying out their duties will be done in the usual way. Financial penalties are addressed in one of the amendments. This is about bringing within the system this question that people ask: “How is my local authority performing?” That will become part of the assessment. It is then up to the local electorate to judge whether they believe their local authority is doing well in delivering its duty. That is when local people can make their judgment. That is not about financial penalties, which one of the amendments proposes, but about giving local people the ability to judge how their local authority has fared in the inspection system so that they can make a decision in elections. That is how the system operates in many other ways, and it is absolutely fair that it should operate as such in this aspect as well. I am sure that Opposition Members are not suggesting that we simply replace the electorate’s ability to make that decision with a tokenistic financial penalty. I hope that they understand that.

Amendment 37 suggests that we strengthen clause 1 by also asking local authorities to provide local people with information about the duties of their elected representatives. We certainly welcome the sentiment behind that but suggest that it is unnecessary because clause 1(2)(b) already covers that by asking local authorities to promote understanding of what councillors do. I can assure the hon. Members for Falmouth and Camborne and for North Cornwall that the intention is for that to cover their duties. We shall make that clear in the statutory guidance.

Julia Goldsworthy (Falmouth and Camborne, Liberal Democrat)

Surely that paragraph means that the requirement is for the local authority to inform the public of what members of the local authority do, not for the members to make the public aware of what they do and what their local authority does.

Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Pensions Reform; Minister for Yorkshire and Humber), Department for Work and Pensions; Doncaster Central, Labour)

Of course, it is about ensuring that the local authority does that. I am sure that local councillors, who, after all, run the local authorities, will want to ensure that the duty is fulfilled. With regard to new clause 3, as I said, we want to make sure that the usual process is followed in monitoring the duty. We do not suggest that financial penalties are the right approach in this case. I hope that I have been able to set out the thinking behind the principles in clause 1.

Paul Goodman (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Wycombe, Conservative)

The Minister has not answered some of our questions, such as how many court cases she expects as a result of the legislation.

Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Pensions Reform; Minister for Yorkshire and Humber), Department for Work and Pensions; Doncaster Central, Labour)

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has not understood what I said about not having criminal prosecutions and financial penalties. There is always the possibility of judicial review, but I was talking about an approach by which to ensure that the comprehensive area assessments and the other mechanisms for monitoring local authorities are used to make sure that the duty is fulfilled. That is not an unusual approach in how we work with local government, but one that I am sure Opposition Members, with all their experience of local government, know to be an effective way of proceeding.

Stewart Jackson (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Peterborough, Conservative)

What is the logical extension of the Minister’s point about non-compliance with the clause, if it stands part of the Bill and becomes part of the Act? Will local authorities have a key performance indicator for this part of the Act, will that be used and will it have a direct correlation with the financial settlement that central Government seeks to make to those local authorities?

Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Pensions Reform; Minister for Yorkshire and Humber), Department for Work and Pensions; Doncaster Central, Labour)

We shall certainly have a key performance indicator as a result of the Bill.

David Curry (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)

Will the Minister confirm that she has just added to the performance indicator scale? Her late-resigned predecessor kept telling us the extent to which the Government were taking away all the apparatus and gendarmerie of monitoring and supervision.

Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Pensions Reform; Minister for Yorkshire and Humber), Department for Work and Pensions; Doncaster Central, Labour)

As I understand it, the key performance indicator is available if authorities wish to choose it. I can of course write further clarification to hon. and right hon. Members, but that is the situation.

I hope that with those explanations of some of the principles that we are adopting, the Committee will recognise the importance of ensuring that we do something to address the problem adequately because the ability of local people to understand, influence and shape local services is vital. In the light of that, I hope that the Committee will accept clause 1 and reject the amendments.

Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall, Liberal Democrat)

We have had a debate that has been lively in parts, but also somewhat circular. The Opposition feel that the legislative need for the clause has yet to be demonstrated, but the Government feel that they are justified in legislating when the issue could happily be dealt with by offering support or by encouraging local authority representative bodies to work together to promote best practice.

I signalled that amendment 37 was a probing amendment intended to allow a debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne underlined the distinction between the support and encouragement given to individual local authority members to promote greater understanding of what authorities can and cannot do and the support and encouragement that are part of the relationship between the CLG and local authorities, where money is made available to authorities to promote such understanding on a corporate basis.

In the amendment, we are saying that if the Government see fit to impose a duty on local authorities, that will presumably be taken account of in the moneys made available to them. If so, we should recognise the fact that individual members of the authority might have a different view or a different way in which they want to proceed from that dictated by the council, which may have a particular complexion. There is a distinction between the role of a member and the role of the local authority, as the body corporate. Having said that, I do not intend to press the amendment.

We are debating clause stand part at the same time as the amendment. Although the Minister has valiantly jumped in to deal with this rather dodgy Bill and do the best she can to make the case for it, there is clearly a difference of opinion in the Committee about whether imposing a duty on local authorities is necessary or the right thing to do.

The Minister set out the means by which local authorities might be judged, which differ from those set out by one of her Back-Bench colleagues in a new clause that was not selected. We are telling local authorities that they have to do something, but we are not telling them how they will be judged. It is like telling a motorist that they must obey the speed limit, but that they can define it for themselves. That is an odd way to proceed.

Stewart Jackson (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Peterborough, Conservative)

Is the hon. Gentleman as confused as I am by the answer that the Minister gave just before he began his remarks? She said that a voluntary methodology would be used to assess whether the clause is being complied with. Local authorities listed in clause 1(3)(a) to (d) will, in effect, choose to be assessed on whether they comply with the clause. Is the clause not therefore completely specious? Is it not unnecessary to include it in the Bill?

Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall, Liberal Democrat)

The hon. Gentleman undersells his own contribution to the debate in implying that he is confused. In fact, it is the Government who are confused over how the provisions will operate.

Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Pensions Reform; Minister for Yorkshire and Humber), Department for Work and Pensions; Doncaster Central, Labour)

Local authorities choose, as part of their local area agreements, which key performance indicators they wish to be assessed against. The hon. Gentleman also mentioned finance. Obviously, a lot of the funding for the work in the clause can be embedded in existing work, but we made it clear that we will fund local authorities to respond to the duty.

Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall, Liberal Democrat)

I am grateful to the Minister for intervening. She is referring back to my earlier remarks. I was seeking to make the distinction between the ability of a local member to access money and support to do this as opposed to the council as a whole doing it. Although I may later seek the Committee’s leave to withdraw the amendment, my point still stands. We need clarification on how local members might be able to access that support and funding as opposed to how the governing party of an authority might choose to do so.

Let me return to the intervention of the hon. Member for Peterborough. If this clause becomes part of the Bill and the Bill goes on to the statute book, we are imposing a duty on all local authorities. However, if they react to it in the way in which they say, they will not seek to have this as one of their key targets. That underlines how unnecessary the measure is. As the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon said, the Government have made great play of how they have streamlined that whole process, and now they seek to add something extra to that whole menu of choices that local authorities have to negotiate with the CLG on how it will be assessed. That can be done perfectly adequately through best practice and through working with local authorities to encourage them to do it through the representative bodies that already exist. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.