Clause 2
Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]
12:15 pm
Julia Goldsworthy (Falmouth and Camborne, Liberal Democrat)
Turnout should not be the only measurement we use to decide whether information is effectively available or whether people are engaged, not least because so many of the organisations have no direct democratic mandate. An issue that my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall raised in oral questions earlier was the fact that there is not direct democratic accountability for a national park, for example.
The Government have not gone back to the first-level question: do people not want to participate? If that is the case, is it because they do not understand, which is what the assumption seems to be, or is it because they feel that their participation will make no impact on the outcome? No amount of information will persuade people to take part if they can say, “I have found lots of ways to make my complaint to the strategic health authority, but it still told me to get lost and that it was going to give out resources in the way in which it had already said. What is the point?” It is that whole issue that the Government seem not to get. It is the elephant in the room, and it is not addressed in any part of the Bill.
Like the hon. Member for Wycombe, I am puzzled as to why only the local authority has responsibility for promoting understanding of the functions and democratic arrangements of authorities, and how members of the public can take part. Actually, I would like the Homes and Communities Agency to stand up and explain how it is accountable. I would like the strategic health authority to make itself more publicly visible and accountable, and to explain how its complaints process and decision-making structure work. Are local authorities to produce written information even on that? They will have to produce hefty tomes to explain exactly how all the different authorities work and what the accountability structure is.
An organisation that is not on the list of authorities but absolutely should be is the regional development agency. Why are RDAs not included on the list? The explanatory notes state that connected authorities are
“public bodies or persons that have a strong local presence, making decisions that are directly relevant to local people in the principal local authority’s area”.
I cannot think of any organisation that has as great a role. In the south-west, in Cornwall in particular, the RDA has a massive influence at local level. Not only does it control economic regeneration budgets; it also runs the convergence programme, which involves European funding and has the potential to have a massive impact on Cornwall’s economy.
Just yesterday, the RDA announced that it would withdraw funding for a key project that would deliver huge amounts of employment in a part of my constituency. It made that announcement without consulting any elected representative, as far as I am aware. Cornwall MPs have been seeking a meeting with the RDA for more than a month to raise concerns about pressures on budgets, but it refused to meet us. It said that it was in purdah, but the day after it came out of purdah, it announced that it was making massive cuts.
I, for one, would be keen to have the RDA stand up and explain to local people how its accountability process works, because it is not clear to me. I cannot see why RDAs are not included on the list.