“(1) The Secretary of State has a duty to ensure that relevant authorities are provided with the resources and support necessary in order to carry out any functions conferred on, or required of, them by virtue of this Act.

(2) Any resources and support provided by the Secretary of State must be sufficient to ensure that there is no delay to the holding of any future local elections resulting from the implementation of, or delay to the implementation of, this Act.”

This new clause would ensure local authorities are provided with the resources and support they need to deliver the content of this legislation with specific regard to preventing any further delays to future local elections.

Brought up, and read the First time.

I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to discuss new Clause 43—Duty to provide professional planning support—

“(1) The Secretary of State has a duty to provide appropriate professional planning support to town and parish councils in accordance with this section.

(2) Support provided under subsection (1) is for the purposes of enabling a town or parish council to—

(a) involve communities within the authority area with development of a neighbourhood plan, and

(b) engage communities with the content and delivery of the plan following its development.

(3) For the purposes of this section ‘communities’ means—

(a) any person or group of persons who live in the town or parish council area;

(b) any group who in the opinion of the town or parish council can reasonably demonstrate a connection to the area.”

This new clause requires the Secretary of State to provide professional planning support to town and parish councils for the purposes of developing, and involving communities in, neighbourhood plans.

New Clause 5 is designed to ensure that local authorities are provided with the resources and support they need to deliver the content of the legislation, with specific regard to preventing any further delays in future local elections. New clause 43 is about the duty to provide professional planning support for neighbourhood plans in areas that do not yet have them or where they are due for re-establishment.

We are desperately concerned about local elections being delayed. In fact, one of my colleagues asked about that in Prime Minister’s questions last week and did not get a direct answer. There remains a real concern that the whole process has the potential to create more delays. As we say, an election delayed is democracy denied, so it is hugely important.

I hope that the hon. Lady will take a reasonable and responsible tone on this new Clause. Will she tell her colleagues around the country, including those from Hampshire, to stop standing outside Parliament for mock photographs saying that the Conservatives want local elections delayed? Will she take my word and the Shadow Minister’s word that, as I said last week and he will no doubt say this afternoon, the Conservatives are not calling for the delay of local elections? Will she stop putting out misleading leaflets across the country saying that we are?

I would like to thank the hon. Member for his Intervention, but I am not sure I should—I did not expect that coming from the Opposition Benches. I am glad that the Conservatives do not want to see elections delayed either. I hope that the Government will not delay any further elections, particularly in places that experienced a delay this year. The purpose of this new Clause is to guarantee that elections are not delayed because councils are overstretched and under-resourced while trying to do neighbourhood plans at the same time. We do not believe that elections should be postponed because the Government have not given councils the means to do their job.

On new clause 43, I am sure that every member of this Committee has heard from their town and parish councils—because they have not yet been mentioned this afternoon—and from communities that do not have town or parish councils yet but may wish to, that the ability to fund a neighbourhood plan relies heavily on grant money. One of the first neighbourhood plans was set up in my Constituency—in fact, in my ward of Broadstone—where we set up a neighbourhood forum that allowed us to create a neighbourhood plan. I believe there was £10,000. We would not have been able to secure a neighbourhood plan in any other way because we did not have a town council at the time, although we will have one by next year.

Without a town council, where does the money come from to do that? Even with a town or parish council, £10,000 would be a significant proportion of a precept, particularly for some of the small councils. It does not seem like a very fair thing to do to local authorities.

Will the hon. Lady give way briefly?

Gladly.

I thank the hon. Lady; we can now resume our laughs together. We entirely agree with her on this issue. Will she comment on our debates during the Planning and Infrastructure Bill where it was clear that the Government were resisting allocating funding for drawing up neighbourhood plans? Does she agree that the protections of many of our rural village communities that are adequately and perfectly served by their parish councils will be reduced just because they want to put forward a sustainable plan about how they build in their area, meaning that fewer houses will be delivered in the long run if this funding is not reinstated?

There is a village in my Constituency called Shapwick, which, for some reason I cannot quite understand, did not take the opportunity to do a neighbourhood plan a couple of years ago, and now has lost that opportunity. It is surrounded by green fields. There are four or five sites within this small National Trust village where there are gaps, cottages either having fallen down or burnt down over the years. We could recreate a beautiful chocolate box village that would really boost our local tourism and enable local services such as the nursery and the pub to maintain themselves in the long term by having a slightly increased population.

As Shapwick does not have a neighbourhood plan, however, it is reliant on Dorset council, which, through the Government’s desire to build 1.5 million new homes, is now expected to find 55,000 homes in the county of Dorset—not the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole element, just the Dorset council element. That will ruin small villages with 50 or 60 homes, as they now run the risk of having 300 or 400 homes that will change their nature forever. A neighbourhood plan would allow those villages to go, “Do you know what? We could probably get to 75 or 80 houses and still maintain everything that we love about our village.” That cannot happen now, because there is no capacity with such a small village to raise the funding required to produce a meaningful neighbourhood plan.

New Clause 43 simply says that if neighbourhood plan funding is not directly restored, local authorities should be able to provide professional planning support to councils for the purposes of developing their neighbourhood plans. My preference is for the Minister to commit to restoring the independent funding, so that our town and parish councils and communities do not have to go to the local authority, but failing that, our only option is to push this approach and say, “If we can’t have our money back directly, let’s do it through this method.”

I will try to deal with the two main issues raised by the new clauses, in reverse order.

We all recognise that last year’s Budget was a disaster for local government. The rise in national insurance alone was a £1.5 billion net cut, but the loss of funding to support neighbourhood plans, although small in the grand scheme of things, was one of the most challenging elements. As we heard from the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole, it is at that neighbourhood level—in the locality—that the buy-in of our constituents for new homes is often first secured.

The inability to support that work any longer is particularly challenging for very small local authorities. Although they do not employ many people, so they were not as hit by the national insurance rise as the big local authorities that do social care, the town and parish councils that support those neighbourhood plans—and the district councils that support such work in the local areas—have been particularly hit by the loss of funding. Ensuring that funding is there to deliver the vision that we set out when we were in government for neighbourhood planning is really important.

New Clause 5 is about the ability to deliver local elections. The Government are in a bit of a mess on this issue: the messaging on devolution is that there is no point in having elections to councils that are about to be abolished, which I think we would all agree with, but the legislation simply defers the elections for one year. That is what the Laws that we have passed actually do, so as far as the law stands, all the councils set to be abolished are due to have elections on their current footprint next year unless the Government return with further legislation to cancel elections under different provisions or to defer them again. The risk highlighted by the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole remains a live one.

Multiple Ministers and two different Secretaries of State have assured us at the Dispatch Box that there will be elections, but without giving any specific commitments. In many places, in the normal cycle of events, there will be district elections. If the new mayoral authorities come into being, there may be mayoral elections. If there are not, under the current legislation, those existing counties will go to the polls next year. It would be helpful if the Minister could provide a clear assurance that the existing provisions that guarantee an additional separate grant to fund elections to take place will continue to apply, as has been established practice for a long time.

Will the Minister also tell us—or at least give us a steer—whether the Government intend to introduce further legislation to defer elections again, so they will not take place as scheduled next May in councils that are set to be abolished, or do the Government have a different intention? That may well affect how we vote on these new clauses; we oppose the deferral, delay or cancellation of elections, but we need to know the Government’s intentions so that we understand what we are voting for or against.

Let me address the question directly, and then I will turn to new Clause 5, on the cost of local elections, and new clause 43, on support for neighbourhood planning.

We like elections, and we think it is absolutely right that voters have the opportunity to exercise their democratic mandate. We have therefore proceeded with elections. It is important to clarify that we opted to delay them where there were specific requests from the local authorities involved, because they were going through the process not only of local government reorganisation but of creating mayoral strategic authorities. The concern was that the capacity, resource and transitional arrangements would be jeopardised by early elections. All reasonable Members will understand that it is right that the Government listen to constituent authorities that are going through what we all acknowledge is a difficult reform and transition process, and that we get that balance right.

Our principle will always remain that we want elections to go ahead, because it is critical that voters have the chance to exercise their democratic rights. We are balancing that with being fair minded, rational and reasonable. When constituent authorities, including authorities of both parties, tell us that there is a genuine transitional and delivery risk that we need to take into account, we are sensible and reasonable, and take that into account. That is the balance that we will continue to hold to.

On a point of clarification, when the process of reorganisation was embarked on, local authorities were told quite clearly, in accordance with long-established practice, “If you are due to have elections but we are going to abolish your council as a result of this process, we will not hold elections to that council again, because it is not going to exist.” However, the legislation introduced to Parliament simply delayed the elections for 12 months. All those authorities, including Surrey, which was today announced as the pathfinder, are, as a matter of law, expecting to have elections next May, but on the undertaking of Government they are not expecting to have any further elections to the existing authority again. Are the elections to the county councils that are about to be abolished going to proceed next year, or are the Government going to introduce legislation to delay them again?

I think I have been very clear. The legislation is very clear, and Members of the House were all involved in agreeing it. We are proceeding with elections. The principle that has guided what we have done is that the preference is always to have elections, but if there is a reasonable, justified case that there is a risk to delivering our reforms, or that the risk to the transitional arrangements is a genuine, material consideration for those authorities, it is right, rational and sensible for the Government to listen to them.

The legislation is that legislation that we have. We are proceeding with elections, and certainly the Labour party is gearing up to speak to its voters and ensure they come out—no doubt parties across the piece are doing that. That is the mode in which most of local government is operating, and certainly we on the Government Benches are.

The cost of local elections is met locally. Again, I refer Members to the new burdens doctrine, which requires that any new responsibilities are assessed. That is how we will approach elections, which are locally funded. Broadly, we are not hearing about issues with constituent authorities that are undergoing this process at the moment, but we will continue to review the new burdens doctrine to ensure that critical elections are held with no detriment to the voters in those particular areas.

Finally, on new Clause 43, it is really important I put on record that neighbourhood plans continue to play an important role in the planning system. I welcome the support for such plans provided by the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole, who has championed them over a long period. Our issue with the new clause is that neighbourhood planning groups have received over £71 million in support since 2013, which was necessary to build infrastructure around neighbourhood planning, including the capacity and capability of planning consultants and others to support neighbourhoods in performing this function well.

Our judgment is that, after over a decade of funding, there is already sufficient infrastructure. We made the decision in the spending review that we would not commission new neighbourhood planning support services beyond 2025. We recognise that particular communities are concerned about whether they will have the resources to develop neighbourhood plans well, and we will continue to engage with local authorities and the sector to ensure that there is innovation so that support can be provided more efficiently and at lower cost for neighbourhoods that want to undertake this.

What does the Minister say to parishes such as my own, Hertford Heath, that do not have any more funding to support the delivery of their neighbourhood plan? They are all run by volunteers, they do not have very many houses to collect a precept from and they do not have very many staff. What does she say about that environment? They are trying to be proactive with a plan and choose where they want development, so that they are not at the mercy of developers who want to build all over the green fields. What does she say to parishes that are working really hard to do the right thing by the Government and by their local community, without any funding to go with that?

Both the last Government and this Government have invested huge amounts in building the infrastructure. In the end, Governments have to make a judgment about where we put our funding and finances. We know that is difficult for particular communities, but we think there is sufficient infrastructure and sufficient people with expertise in neighbourhood planning. We will continue to work with them on how they innovate to provide a service for particular parishes.

The hon. Member for Hamble Valley is forcing me to labour the point that, because of the absolute mess that the Conservatives left us with after years of austerity, we are having to make tough judgments about what we can fund and invest in. It is not where we want to be, but that is the reality we have to confront. We had to make choices in the spending review; we are investing more in affordable housing, and in supporting our communities with homelessness. We think that those choices were right, and ultimately we had to make a judgment about prioritisation. We are committed to working with the sector to ensure that it can innovate and continue supporting neighbourhoods.

Will the Minister give way on that point, as she referred to me?

I have finished, and I have sat down.

Sorry, Mr Holmes. I call Vikki Slade.

I will withdraw new Clause 5 as I think the Minister has made a fair comment about the way in which elections will go. However, I cannot accept her point about the capacity of planning consultants for communities that do not have a neighbourhood plan, and there are many.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. The hon. Lady makes a point about the importance of neighbourhood plans, and I have had parish councils contact me about this. As the Minister just said, it is about priorities. If the Liberal Democrats are serious about the Government funding local councils to continue with neighbourhood plans, should they not also put forward how that will be paid for, given that they have opposed all the tax measures that this Government have introduced in the last year?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for another fabulous contribution. I thought he was going to criticise my love of town and parish councils for a moment, but he did not. I have made it clear that I would rather see the Government bring this funding back, but the new Clause would introduce a duty to provide professional planning support, because we recognise the chances of it not coming back.

Before the Minister uncharacteristically turned her guns on me, after remaining largely silent on the Committee this afternoon, I was about to say this. I believe that the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole has tabled new Clause 43 not because of the funding that has been cut—even though I remember being a lead member during the previous Labour Government, when we experienced cuts—but because there are more town and parish councils being created through this reorganisation. Those new parish and town councils, which will have councillors who are unpaid volunteers, will have no infrastructure at all. The Government seek to expand and create town councils, but have taken away training and the ability to conduct their functions. What the Minister has outlined is not accurate, is it?

I completely agree with my hon. Friend—we have worked so hard together on this. I understand the situation with the finances, which is why new Clause 43 is designed to impose a duty on local authorities to provide support to smaller organisations, some of which are brand new and will not exist until everyone is on this rush to provide them. I would like to press new clause 43 to a vote later, but on new clause 5, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.