Orders of the Day — Traffic Management Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 3:32 pm on 15 July 2004.

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Photo of Damian Green Damian Green Shadow Secretary of State for Transport 3:32, 15 July 2004

That was a short-lived consensus. The Minister is alone, because not only Conservative Members but Liberal Democrat Members oppose the Government's position—the Liberal Democrats spoke out in the House of Lords. The Minister is also opposed by the Local Government Association, which he quoted in his introduction as though it supports him. He said that it is co-operating in the preparation of guidance, but one would expect it to do so, because that is prudent and responsible.

The LGA is currently being particularly prudent and responsible because it is under Conservative control again, with the extremely welcome election as its leader of Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart, which is extremely good news for it and for local government generally. I expect it to act responsibly, but, as the Minister is fully aware, it is flatly against the Government's position on this set of amendments, about which it has made many cogent arguments.

The Government's position genuinely puzzles me, since one of the new intellectual strands that thoughtful people around the Government promote is new localism—I am not sure whether the Minister avidly attends Institute for Public Policy Research seminars, where the bright young things of new Labour still gather. The attempt to reverse the Lords amendments, which are designed to protect the interests of local government in this country, shows that the new localism in new Labour simply equalises the old centralism. When push comes to shove, the Government want to control all details and all aspects of every policy.

In another place, both Government and Opposition Members forcefully made the point that when they tried to find ways to amend the Bill, they found that the issue is a straightforward matter of principle about whether one believes in and supports local democracy. Both sides agree that there is no way to amend what the Government seek to do, so either one favours the Government's centralising control tendency or one is against it.

The LGA puts it very well: the Government's attempt to reinstate the original clause

"undermines local freedoms and accountability".

I agree with its assessment, and it would be better for the Government if they did too, rather than attempting to reinstate the original clauses.

The Government's position is objectionable for a number of reasons. First, their decision to overrule the local authority traffic director and simply impose one of their own is arbitrary, and arbitrary government is almost always bad government.