Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]

Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2009.

Eric Illsley (Labour, Barnsley Central)

Before we begin, I would like to make a few preliminary announcements. Members may, if they wish—given that we are in the midst of a wonderful summer—remove their jackets during Committee meetings. Members should ensure that all mobile phones and pagers are turned off or switched to silent mode during these meetings. I remind the Committee that there is a money resolution in connection with this Bill, and copies are available in the room.

I also remind Members that adequate notice should be given of amendments. To be eligible for selection at a Tuesday sitting, amendments must be tabled by the rise of the House on the previous Thursday. For a Thursday sitting, amendments must be tabled by the previous Monday. As a general rule, I and my fellow Chairman do not intend to call starred amendments.

It might help if I now briefly explain how we will proceed over the next few minutes. The Committee will first be asked to consider the programme motion, which is on the amendment paper. The debate on the programme motion is limited to half an hour. We will then proceed to a motion to report written evidence, which I hope we can take formally. Again, that motion is on the amendment paper. If the Committee agrees to the programme motion, we will then commence clause by clause scrutiny of the Bill.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

I beg to move,

That—

(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 10.30 am on Tuesday 9 June) meet—

(a) at 4.30 pm on Tuesday 9 June;

(b) at 9.30 am and 1.00 pm on Thursday 11 June;

(c) at 10.30 am and 4.30 pm on Tuesday 16 June;

(d) at 9.00 am and 1.00 pm on Thursday 18 June;

(2) the proceedings shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 52; Schedule 1; Clause 53; Schedule 2; Clauses 54 to 61; Schedule 3; Clauses 62 to 64; Schedule 4; Clauses 65 to 82; Schedule 5; Clauses 83 to 116; Schedule 6; Clauses 117 to 142; Schedule 7; Clauses 143 to 146; new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the Bill;

(3) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.00 pm on Thursday 18 June.

I am sure I speak on behalf of all Members when I say how pleased we are to be sitting under your expert chairmanship, Mr. Illsley. I believe that the programme motion will give us sufficient time for a full and thorough consideration of the Bill in Committee. It is a wide-ranging Bill that includes important reforms to strengthen local democracy and communities by giving local people new rights to shape local services, and giving local authorities more power and responsibility to promote economic development. The Bill also implements a raft of reforms to support regions and local areas in taking action at every level to boost jobs and skills and to support businesses. All these measures were set out in the review of sub-national economic development and regeneration.

This Bill was subjected to extensive scrutiny in the other place, and as a result arrives here in strong shape. We made some important amendments that clarified our intentions on the duty to promote democracy, reduced the number of clauses on petitions, removed certain powers of the Secretary of State relating to regional strategies and local economic assessments, and emphasised the voluntary nature of sub-regional arrangements.

I am sure you recognise, Mr. Illsley, that I am a new Minister to this portfolio, but I am very pleased that, as one of my first duties, I am taking this Bill through Committee. Given the Second Reading speeches that I have read from all parts of the House, I am sure we will have a lively debate. We are very fortunate to have such a range of experience and expertise on the Committee.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr. Illsley. I have sat under your chairmanship twice before, and my memory of the occasions is as dim as it is pleasant. I am looking forward to seeing much more of you, and your fellow Chairman, in the period ahead of us.

I also welcome the Minister. I do so, I confess, in a state of some bemusement, because since Second Reading only last week, we have lost the former Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, who said:

“The role of a progressive Government should be to pass power to the people”.

She also said:

“I am returning...to political activism, to the cut and thrust of political debate.”

Goodness knows where she thought she had been for the last few years—including when she introduced the Bill last Monday. I wish her well; I was an admirer of her work on extremism.

I also wish well the right hon. Member for Wentworth (John Healey), who is now the Minister for Housing. I have sat opposite him many times on the Finance Bill Committee. He is a competent Minister and I shall miss him—I think. What I am about to say will do him no good, but I feel that he has been somewhat under-promoted. I welcome the right hon. Member for Doncaster, Central to the Committee. I hope she is not too disturbed by the Bill that she finds before her, but I know she will do her best to get it through Committee.

I also welcome the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North. I am sorry that I am a bit confused; they come and go so fast and it is hard to keep track. I also send my best wishes to the hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Khan), who was a knowledgeable and expert cohesion Minister. I wish him well in his new duties. I also welcome the hon. Members for Falmouth and Camborne and for North Cornwall. The hon. Lady, at least, is a survivor of previous Finance Bills who has not fled the Committee.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

So far.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

So far. I know from the hon. Lady’s speech on Second Reading that she followed this Bill closely in the Lords. She and her colleague, the hon. Member for North Cornwall, will have a lot say as we go through the Bill. We also welcome the Government Back Benchers. We know how much they want to be here—how many times they will be on their feet, endlessly intervening and making speeches. In the case of the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, that may even be true. He is here at the same time as my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon, and I am beginning to believe that they do not exist separately from each other. I look forward to the right hon. Gentleman’s interventions and to my right hon. Friend’s speeches, as they exchange their views like great mastodons bellowing at each other across a primeval swamp.

I also welcome the rest of my hon. Friends on the Committee, including my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow, our Whip, who is almost the most important person in the Committee. That burden falls on the Government Whip, whose duty it is, in the chaos engulfing the Government, to apply a little order to the Committee.

I have no other comments on the programme motion, other than to say that, ideally, we would like longer. We always tend to believe in these Committees that we do not have enough time to scrutinise the Bill, but we shall let it have plain sailing.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

It is again a pleasure to serve under you, Mr. Illsley. I think this is the first Bill Committee I have been on since the Finance Bill. While some of the faces will be familiar, the issues are very different and I know that some of the procedures can also be slightly different. I was disappointed that in considering this Bill, we did not have the opportunity for evidence sessions, which I was looking forward to taking part in.

I, too, would like to pay tribute to the right hon. Members for Salford (Hazel Blears) and for Wentworth (John Healey), and the hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Khan). It will be interesting to see how rigorously this agenda is pursued. We are in Committee now, but the Bill is clearly the former Secretary of State’s baby, and it will be interesting to see what commitment is demonstrated by the new Secretary of State and Ministers.

I welcome the right hon. Member for Doncaster, Central and the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North. The right hon. Lady is right to say that the Bill has been scrutinised in the other place, and I find it ironic that a Bill that is meant to promote public involvement and democratic accountability should receive its primary scrutiny in a Chamber that has no democratic accountability. That is a real shame. Members would have loved to have the time to go through the proposals in similar detail to the Lords. While the intention behind some of the proposals is entirely honourable, we Liberal Democrats still believe that such matters should not be dealt with in primary legislation. At the very most, this should be a best-practice manual. If we are serious about empowering people, we have to empower councils, too. That means providing the freedom for them to be held accountable to the people they represent, rather than continually looking further up the line to Whitehall, which seems to be imposing ever greater burdens on them and dictating what they need to do. Our fear is that the Bill will achieve the opposite of what the Government say they want to achieve. That will become clear as we go through the proposals one by one, and see the ludicrous level of detail set out in primary legislation.

David Curry (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon)

Mr. Illsley, it is always a pleasure to serve under you and I am glad to see that there is a strong Yorkshire element represented on the Committee.

I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe has announced that he is not going to stand at the next election. That is regrettable because he has given us an entertaining introduction, and these Committees can often be extremely tedious.

The Government side of the Committee has been amputated and really, one is terribly, emotionally torn. I can barely put up with the sheer emotional strain of having expected to see the right hon. Member for Wentworth (John Healey) sat there. He has been so faithful in ploughing in the Lords’ vineyard—without the promotion which he of course deserved. A series of people who were nowhere near as good as him have been promoted over his head. However, there is the sheer pleasure of seeing the right hon. Member for Doncaster, Central taking his place. I am tempted to suggest that we adjourn for a month or so, so that she can read herself into the brief, because there is so much daftness in it. Being a sensible lady, she will take some time to separate the wheat from the chaff. There is not a huge amount of wheat, it has to be said. Adjourning would be a charity to her, because the No. 2 Minister has also been removed from the Bill. I know that in a few years’ time, we will see the whole country waving bloody stumps on the issue of public expenditure, whoever wins the election. However, I did not expect to see so many bloody necks at the moment, as demonstrated in this Committee.

It is a great pleasure to see the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich here. We do not concert in advance, but that might be a good idea if it introduced some cross-party common sense into this flaccid measure.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

Will the right hon. Gentleman express a view about the suggestion of the hon. Member for Wycombe that the two of us might exchange views like ancient mastodons bellowing at each other across a primeval swamp? As the hon. Member for Wycombe is the person directly between us, I wonder whether he believes that he is the representative of the primeval swamp.

David Curry (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon)

If we go back 100 or 150 years, in Budget debates the Chancellor of the Exchequer would speak for four hours, largely in Latin or Greek. The present Chancellor speaks for four minutes—it just feels like four hours. It is interesting that Ministers also commend the scrutiny of the Bill in the House; it is a sad irony that the democracy of the United Kingdom now depends on the House of Lords more than the House of Commons, because we are not permitted to give it the scrutiny it deserves. The Minister says it is a very important Bill with all sorts of things in it—but that we do not need to scrutinise it for more than a fortnight. That is a contradiction in terms.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

I am deeply hurt by the swamp business; if the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich is correct, the swamp also includes the Government Whip, who is sitting right in the middle of it.

Eric Illsley (Labour, Barnsley Central)

Order. We will move away from the primeval swamp and the mastodons and get back to the programme motion.

David Curry (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon)

Humanity moved away from it, Mr. Illsley, and most of us originated in it if we go back far enough—to the dinosaurs that your grandchildren, I am sure, study almost to the exclusion of anything else, as children in primary schools do these days.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe said that he can live with the primeval swamp and the programme motion, so, being an obedient Back Bencher, I will bow to his demands. However, I hope we can move on to the interesting bits of the Bill quickly and not faff around with all the frippery that adorns large parts of it.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. We Conservatives received yesterday—I assume this applies also to the Liberal Democrats—an absolute mass of paper from the right hon. Member for Wentworth. During consideration of the Bill, the Minister might answer to our questions, “Well, it was in the documents that were sent.” I simply want to put on the record that in dealing with the Bill alongside other commitments we have, it is very difficult to read through these piles of paper in less than 24 hours to find the answers to our questions. I hope the Minister can give a commitment that any further written material will be sent expeditiously.

Eric Illsley (Labour, Barnsley Central)

I am sure the Minister has taken on board that request.

Copies of the memorandums that the Committee receives will be made available in the Committee room.

Clause 1

Dan Rogerson (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

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 (Labour, Barnsley Central)

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 (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

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 (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

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 (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

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 (Conservative, Wycombe)

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 (Labour, Barnsley Central)

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

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

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 (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

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 (Conservative, Wycombe)

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 (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

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 (Conservative, Wycombe)

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 (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon)

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 (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

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 (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon)

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 (Conservative, Wycombe)

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 (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon)

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 (Conservative, Peterborough)

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 (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon)

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 (Labour, Doncaster Central)

Oh!

David Curry (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon)

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 (Conservative, Wycombe)

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 (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon)

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 (Conservative, Hitchin and Harpenden)

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 (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon)

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 (Conservative, Hitchin and Harpenden)

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 (Conservative, Wycombe)

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 (Conservative, Hitchin and Harpenden)

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 (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

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 (Conservative, Hitchin and Harpenden)

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 (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

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 (Conservative, Hitchin and Harpenden)

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 (Labour, Doncaster Central)

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 (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon)

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 (Labour, Doncaster Central)

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 (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

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 (Labour, Doncaster Central)

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 (Conservative, Wycombe)

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 (Labour, Doncaster Central)

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

David Curry (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon)

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 (Labour, Doncaster Central)

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 (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

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 (Labour, Doncaster Central)

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 (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon)

Formerly.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

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 (Conservative, Hitchin and Harpenden)

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 (Labour, Doncaster Central)

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 (Conservative, Hitchin and Harpenden)

Will expensive surveys be carried out in local government areas?

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

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 (Conservative, Hitchin and Harpenden)

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 (Labour, Barnsley Central)

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 (Labour, Doncaster Central)

To return to clause 1—

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

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 (Labour, Doncaster Central)

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 (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

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 (Labour, Doncaster Central)

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 (Conservative, Wycombe)

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 (Labour, Doncaster Central)

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 (Conservative, Peterborough)

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 (Labour, Doncaster Central)

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

David Curry (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon)

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 (Labour, Doncaster Central)

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 (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

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 (Conservative, Peterborough)

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 (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

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 (Labour, Doncaster Central)

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 (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

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.

Clause 2

David Curry (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon)

I want to ask for clarity on one or two points. Subsection (1) talks about a duty “to promote understanding”. I should like to know how local authorities can do that. Is it the same as raising awareness, which is one of the favourite things that lobby groups talk about? I have spent most of my political career trying to dampen down awareness, which is by far the most sensible thing to do in our profession.

Then we come to paragraphs (a), (b) and (c). Should the little word “and” appear after each paragraph so that it reads, “the functions of authorities” and “the democratic arrangements” and

“how members of the public can take part.”?

Or are they choices, because when we come to the explanation of the authorities concerned, some have absolutely no democratic credentials. My primary care trust is not elected in any shape or form. Nobody is elected to a primary care trust, so how can we promote the democratic credentials of a body that has none?

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

The Minister muttered from a sedentary position that those bodies have councillors on them, but I am not sure whether that makes them democratic. How can this possibly apply to a strategic health authority, the most remote kind of public body I have encountered in my eight years in this place?

David Curry (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon)

That is precisely the case and there is a very serious point behind this. Quite rightly, the Government wish social services departments and health bodies to act more closely together because the links between them are close and they depend to a significant extent on one another. Social services are subject to local authority control because they have elected councillors, but health authorities are not. I know that health trusts have elections, but turnout is so low that it must mean that the electorate is very small. I suspect that the only smaller electorate in the world is that which re-elects hereditary peers from among the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords. That is the world’s most micro electorate. The turnout for people electing health trusts is around 2 per cent.

My question is very simple and my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal raised it in the Chamber. How can one promote democratic arrangements for bodies that have no democracy in them? What do you say about them when trying to fulfil this clause? I would be fascinated to know and to find out quite what “promoting understanding” means and how one does it.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon who has, as ever, put his finger on some of the problematic aspects of the clause.

I presume that this clause will also give rise to a performance indicator that a local authority may or may not choose to accept. It is likely that most of them will not and it is very hard to see why this is in the Bill at all. If the Minister’s answer had been other than it was, I concede that it would have been heavy-handed on the part of central Government. Like so many of these clauses, it veers between heavy-handedness and being completely unnecessary. On that theme, let me turn to the clause itself.

As my right hon. Friend said, the clause sets out a duty to promote understanding and names a number of bodies. The inclusion of the bodies concerned and the exclusion of others was heavily debated in the Lords. Then, near the end in subsection (6), we are told that this list which we are now debating properly—as we should be able to—can be amended without any democratic consideration whatever. This is a point to which I will return. My right hon. Friend raised the point about the promotion of understanding so I will not go over that again, but the Committee will be curious, as was the Lords, to hear the justification for the list of these bodies before us today.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

In studying this particular part of the clause is my hon. Friend, like me, slightly philosophical about what should and should not be included? Many of these bodies have an interface with their localities and local constituents and deliver key public services. Given that, why does he think, for instance, that the Child Support Agency—or whatever it is now called—or the Borders and Immigration Agency, where we are forced to wait twelve months or more for an answer to questions, are not included in this list? Hon. Members will know that we have a significant case load of local people in our constituencies concerned about those departments.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I will come to it in a moment because, by rising, he happily jogged my memory about a key issue in relation to this clause. It is one I think we should raise at the start of many of these clauses and which was raised at the start of clause 1. It returns to the simple question of why on earth we need any of this set out on the statute book in the first place. There is a long list of bodies and a duty to promote understanding. |Of course a local authority should do that; we have no quarrel with the idea. It is a good one, and we can see why Ministers and the Government support it, but the moment one begins to set all that out in statute, it gives rise to questions such as the one that my hon. Friend just asked, to which I shall return in a moment.

The hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne asked why duties should not be placed on other bodies to promote an understanding of local authorities. It is a question that applies in the clause. Here is a long list of bodies—chief officer of police, the broads authority, a national park authority and so on—and the Government believe it essential to write into statute that local authorities should promote understanding of what they do.

David Curry (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon)

If my hon. Friend goes further, he will notice that the Government must promote understanding of Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all. Will not local authorities spend the entirety of their time and use their whole staff promoting understanding of functions that they no longer have the time to carry out?

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

Of course, and with all the costs and complications that follow. My right hon. Friend raises an interesting avenue of exploration. If the Government are determined to foist all these obligations on local authorities to promote understanding of bodies that the Government claim are democratic, such as primary care trusts—although the Minister intervened to say, sotto voce, that they include elected councillors—will the Government, by their own logic, propose another measure placing on all those bodies a duty to promote the understanding of local authorities? If not, why not? We look forward to the Minister telling us.

Turning to the matter of who is on the list, my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough raised the question of the Child Support Agency. He asked, in effect, “If a strategic health authority, why not the Child Support Agency?” It is hard to see why not. As my right hon. Friend reminded us, if the Bill could usefully be called the Thurrock Bill, the clause could usefully be called the Suffolk, Coastal clause, because late in the day on Second Reading, my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) rose to his feet and made a blistering speech pointing out that it was hard to see how some of the bodies grouped together—for example, in subsection 3—could be considered democratic bodies.

I take the Minister’s point about primary care trusts, but I find it hard to understand how a strategic health authority can remotely be considered democratic. I do not know what it is like down in the south-west, but most of us in the south-east have no idea where our strategic health authority is or what it does. I cannot remember when we last met with it, although the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for North Cornwall might be more fortunate. Those bodies are so remote from local people as to prompt the question what on earth they are doing in the clause.

Dan Rogerson (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. I bumped into the chief executive of our strategic health authority on the way up to Westminster this week, but most of our constituents would not have the opportunity for that sort of chance meeting. They would not recognise him if they saw him, and would have no idea what influence he has over future health spending. The Appointments Commission is advertising for a new chair for that authority, and I wonder how many of my constituents know what role that important position will have in their lives.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

I agree. There is a certain amount of muttering on the Labour Benches. If one went right through those Benches, I wonder how many Labour Members one would find who have had a meeting in the past six months with their strategic health authority. I wonder how many of them, if one stopped them in the corridor for a vox pop—assuming they did not think that it was about other topical themes of the moment—would be able to name the people who lead it.

That is just one example of the bodies listed in the clause, and there are some curious omissions. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon said, why not the Learning and Skills Council? Again, one could argue that it operates somewhere in the world between bureaucratic appointment and democratic action. Why is it not on the list? It is significant that although local authorities will have a duty under the clause to promote the understanding of an authority that includes the Secretary of State, they will not have a duty to promote understanding of national Government. Again, one might ask why not. There are serious questions to be asked about why these authorities exist, what the rationale is for them, and what the rationale is for the possible exclusion of other bodies on the basis of their inclusion.

Towards the end of the clause, subsection (6) states:

“The appropriate national authority may by order amend this section so as to—

add any person who has functions of a public nature to the authorities”.

In other words, if anyone in Government has forgotten to put something in his clauses and has forgotten to add any amendment—in addition to the 170 amendments already tabled—he can come along by order and bung them in under the clause, correcting his own mistakes without any democratic consideration in a Committee like this.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

My hon. Friend refers to the bizarre omissions from the clause. He should also, perhaps, consider the bizarre inclusions. The nemesis of the nanny state is that this primary legislation seeks to tell us about the democratic arrangements of a parish meeting—that seems to be reaching into the nooks and crannies of life—and also the democratic arrangements of a chief police officer. That is bizarre in the extreme given that it has been a convention not to interfere in the operational matters of the police. Finally, does my hon. Friend agree that it is also bizarre that, as we include a national park authority, we do not include an area of outstanding national beauty in the Bill?

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s justification for the omissions and inclusions. I must confess that on the Conservative side of the Committee—and probably on the Labour side, although they are too tactful and loyal to say so—there will be complete confusion about the basis for including such things. It is hard to see how a chief officer of police can have the democratic label attached to him in the same way as a police authority can.

Of course it is a good thing for local authorities to promote understanding in that way, but to put it in statute with a performance indicator attached, which local authorities will not have to sign up to in any case, can only mean that Downing street has gone around the Departments and said, “You must put up your quota of Bills for this year.” The Government could not, then, think of anything better than this Bill and this wretched clause.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

The name of the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) is being invoked fairly frequently and we are only debating clause 2. Although some of the language he used on Second Reading was unparliamentary, perhaps it is best described as “a load of Thurrocks.”

The clause is bizarre because the basic assumption behind it is that there is no problem with the structures that are in place for all the quangos and democratically accountable bodies listed in the subsections. It presumes that all those structures are fine, and that the problem is that people do not understand how they work. That is the fundamental point that the Government have got wrong. Do people not understand what the Homes and Communities Agency does because the local council has not been telling them, or is it because it is opaque and difficult to define? I sat at a meeting where the Homes and Communities Agency and the regional development agency had a debate about who was responsible for place shaping in the south-west. It is likely that their roles and accountability structures are not clearly defined—not that people are so stupid that they cannot understand them.

David Curry (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon)

If the hon. Lady thinks that is difficult, wait until we get the new super planning quango in operation and see how that is going to relate to local people.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. If we want a genuine debate about engaging people, I do not see how that can be done purely by saying that the problem is a lack of information and the way it has been spread around. Surely there must be a much more fundamental look at how the information is provided and the underlying structures. That is the fundamental problem that the Bill, particularly this clause, fails to address.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

Is the hon. Lady as puzzled as I am that the Government seem to use turnout as a measurement of disengagement from local government, yet in our modern age we are deluged with information, particularly from Government Departments and organisations, on websites, in the local library and so on? In fact, the turnout is no worse now than it was in the early 1970s, when much of that information was distributed to local people.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

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.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

The hon. Lady touches on an important point about RDAs. She might also wish to consider Government offices for the regions, and in particular their giving a green light or otherwise to residential developments. They usually give a green light to large-scale residential developments on, for instance, allotment land. Such permission given by a Government office completely undermines and circumscribes the planning decisions taken by the local authority. Does she think that needs an element of local input in a democracy?

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

Absolutely, and that leads me to a further question. The Minister may be aware that when I was first elected, I invested a huge amount of time in promoting the Sustainable Communities Bill, which was a private Member’s Bill and was enacted a year or two ago. A key proviso of that Act was a requirement for local spending reports to be produced detailing the extent of all public spending on a principal authority basis. If the Government believe that the functions of authorities connected to the principal local authority, the democratic arrangements and how members of the public may take part in those democratic arrangements are important for local people and will encourage engagement, surely local spending reports are also important. People will then understand not only what decisions are made, but their impact on resources. I am disappointed that the Government are trying to kick the matter into the long grass, and are providing only limited information, which is already in the public domain, when lower spending by, for example, RDAs will not be provided. I would appreciate hearing the Minister’s response on why that was not included, because if providing details of public spending at principal authority level and understanding at local level are important, surely information must also be provided about public spending.

The Minister clearly wants people to understand how all the agencies interrelate and what the accountability and democratic arrangements are. Will she provide a brief, plain English summary of that in relation to the authorities? It will create a massive amount of work for councils to do that, and we will probably end up with a document that is incomprehensible because there is no clarity or consistency in the democratic structures. People will not understand because the matter is so complicated and confusing, and that fundamental problem is not being addressed.

Peter Lilley (Conservative, Hitchin and Harpenden)

I am a simple-minded soul, and when I look at a Bill, I try to see how it will affect my constituents. The problems that they most frequently bring to me, when there is evidence of lack of understanding of who is responsible for what and what democratic accountability is, concern housing. I do not know about other Members, but for me the biggest range of issues by far concerns housing, so I looked to see whether there is any responsibility for promoting understanding and where democratic responsibility lies for housing providers. I cannot find that.

Will North Hertfordshire district council have a duty to promote understanding of democratic accountability and means of participating, and influencing North Hertfordshire Homes, which is an independent provider of what were formerly council homes? That is a relevant matter, which the Minister has clearly not thought about. It shows how little thought has gone into the Bill when the biggest single issue—[Interruption.]Sorry; I do not blame the Minister, who has had almost as little time to think about the matter as I have. It was the first thing to occur to me, but she cannot be blamed for the Bill.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

The right hon. Gentleman has had rather more time to understand the structures of local authorities and their housing responsibilities. The day-to-day running of housing in his part of Hertfordshire might have been passed to the arm’s length management organisation or housing association to which he refers, but the local authority remains a housing authority, so it is democratically responsible. In the course of explaining the duties in clause 1, which we have just approved, the authority will clearly explain its role and the relationship to it of the various providers of housing in the area. I hope that that answers the right hon. Gentleman’s question.

Peter Lilley (Conservative, Hitchin and Harpenden)

Earlier, the right hon. Gentleman accused the Opposition of complacency. Now he is assuming that the electorate understand the fine points of constitutional practice relating to housing boards that he understands and believes that I understand, but some of my constituents were not aware of the points that he made, and might have thought that a duty would be placed on local authorities. If they are to explain the workings of the Broads Authority, the primary care trust or the strategic health authority, the issue that concerns them most, which they most frequently bring to my surgeries, would be featured in the Bill. I can neither see nor find it, and I require an explanation as to why it is not there.

The second most frequent issue that comes up in my surgery is planning matters. There is concern among constituents about the democratic accountability of planning inspectors. Again, I cannot find reference in the Bill to that issue. We have the extraordinary situation whereby, although the Bill intends to lay on local authorities a duty to promote understanding and clarify misunderstandings, the two most important issues—the two that arise most frequently in my constituency of Hitchin and Harpenden—are not mentioned in the Bill. I suspect that that is the case in most constituencies, unless mine is extraordinarily different from the rest of the country. Will the Minister explain why that is so? Is there some intricate clause that I have not yet located and understood, which reveals the answer?

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

Does the right hon. Gentleman think that it is a lack of understanding of how the planning process works that drives so many constituents to his surgery, or is it frustration at how the current planning system works—for example, the fact that there is no third-party right of appeal? Is the problem with the way the decisions are made, rather than a lack of understanding of how they are made?

Peter Lilley (Conservative, Hitchin and Harpenden)

The hon. Lady makes a good point. It is always frustration that brings people to my surgery. They do not come for abstract seminars on where power lies. [Interruption.] Apparently, they do in the constituency of one of my hon. Friends. When something has gone wrong, when they have met a brick wall, or when they think that something is unfair or does not seem right, they come to me. Sometimes, that reveals that they do not understand where the responsibilities lie, particularly in planning matters.

To return to my constant theme, which will be repeated on a number of occasions, my constituents come to me when they are told that Luton council is planning to build houses in north Hertfordshire. “How can that be right?”, they say. “How can that be possible? We vote for North Hertfordshire district council and for Hertfordshire county council. We know that they have housing targets that they have to meet in their areas, yet Luton seems to be able to meet its target by building in our area.” Is there any duty on the local authority to explain how that is so, how it can be possible and under what law it arises? That is the biggest single issue in my constituency and it does not seem to be covered by the Bill, yet it seems that it ought to cover it.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

Has anyone come to my right hon. Friend in one of his surgeries in Hitchin and Harpenden and said, “Can you direct us to a community meeting that is an authority?” If he replied, “Please do not talk nonsense”, did they respond with, “Well, Member of Parliament, if you look at subsections (4) and (5)(b) of clause 2, you will find that a community meeting is an authority in Wales, but apparently not in England or anywhere else”?

Peter Lilley (Conservative, Hitchin and Harpenden)

Although the range of issues raised at my surgeries is breathtakingly wide, so far it has not included the issue raised by my hon. Friend. I have never held a surgery that did not raise a new issue that I had not previously discovered in 25 years. So, in a future surgery, that issue will quite possibly come up, and I will be better equipped to respond to it as a result of having served on this Committee.

I ask the Minister three concrete questions. Why are responsibilities in relation to housing providers not covered by the Bill? Why are responsibilities on planning issues, particularly planning inspectors, not covered? Why do local authorities not have to explain why one council can build in another council’s area?

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

Once again, this has been a lively debate. I shall cover as many of the issues that were raised as I can.

Local authorities’ role as strategic landlords is covered in clause 1. Planning is the responsibility of local authorities and is therefore covered by clause 1. The Homes and Communities Agency is referred to in clause 2(2)(b).

Peter Lilley (Conservative, Hitchin and Harpenden)

Clause 1 will impose a duty only on the principal local authority to explain its responsibilities. It will not, say in the case of North Hertfordshire district council, impose a duty to explain how Luton’s responsibilities affect my constituents.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

As I have said, where the local authority is a strategic landlord, it will be covered by clause 1.

On the point raised by the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne about regional development agencies, as she will know, the House has agreed to set up Select Committees to examine regional matters, which would clearly be covered by regional development agencies. I should be happy to give way to her to enable her to say whether she intends to raise, through the auspices of the Regional Select Committees, the issue of regional development agencies and whether they have been meeting her and others; or is her party not participating in those Committees?

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

My understanding is that regional development agencies are delivering services in the community and should be accountable to the people they affect. Yet we see the creation, unfortunately, of yet another indirectly accountable organisation. Does the Minister not support the idea that such organisations should be directly accountable to the people they serve, rather than indirectly accountable to an even more remote and unaccountable organisation via Parliament?

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

Personally, I was a supporter of regional government. I am not sure whether the hon. Lady was.

Dan Rogerson (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

Elected.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

Yes, I was a supporter of elected regional Government, and I am sorry that it could not go forward. [Interruption.] No; the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne will also know that clauses 67 to 69 set out how the leaders’ boards will operate. The leaders themselves are clearly directly elected. I would have liked elected regional government, but that was not to be. I am sure—and I hope—that she was very supportive of that. She will see that those clauses deal with the responsible regional authorities setting out how they intend to involve local people in consultation. Leaders’ boards, through sub-national reviews, draw up integrated strategies with the regional development agencies.

I ask the hon. Lady again whether she intends to participate in the Regional Select Committees, which exist to ensure that she, as an elected representative, can hold the regional development agencies to account, in addition to the other ways in which they are held to account locally. Will she be participating?

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

I am sure that Cornwall would love a representative on the Regional Select Committee. Unfortunately, despite the fact that Labour has no Members of the European Parliament for the south-west region and is not the largest party, it will have a majority—

David Curry (Conservative, Skipton and Ripon)

I think that it is sixth in Cornwall.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

Yes, in the latest election, it came sixth, behind the Cornish nationalists. [Interruption.] The Minister is speaking from a sedentary position, but perhaps she will listen. I know that she is new to the post and may not understand how it works, but Regional Select Committees will have a Government majority. The Liberal Democrats would have only one Member who could sit on the Committee. Therefore, either Cornwall or Somerset would be entirely unrepresented if the Liberal Democrats took part. It would be very difficult for Cornwall to be represented at all, even if the Liberal Democrats participated.

I hope that the Minister can answer a further question. We are talking about how local people understand how the authorities work and affect their area. Will the Regional Select Committees undertake an exercise to help constituents across the regions understand the decisions that the RDAs have made and how they will be accountable? That is not set out in the Bill, which gives responsibilities to local authorities only.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

The hon. Lady will know that Regional Select Committees were set up under House rules. By that logic, she would not want to participate in any Select Committee. Frankly, if she wished to attend the Select Committee, she would presumably have the nous to ask a question and to make suggestions about how it would operate. I am at a loss to know why she does not want to take the opportunity to represent people in her area on an important Committee, which could ask RDAs to come to the House to answer questions. She is obviously not interested in pursuing that route but prefers to stand on the sidelines quibbling about whether they have had meetings.

Several Opposition Members asked about how the different strategic health authorities are selected and the criteria for inclusion in the list. First, anybody with a strong local presence in the area has democratic arrangements as per the definition in the Bill. There are opportunities for the public to influence or take part in the making of decisions. That includes attending public meetings, contributing to consultation forums, making representations to elected representatives on the body, or standing for a role themselves.

I draw the Committee’s attention to the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, which includes a strengthened NHS duty to involve users in decisions about service planning and development. Secondly, there is a duty on PCTs and SHAs that commission health services to report back to communities about the action that they are taking in response to public feedback to consultation.

There are also local involvement networks. A woman came to my surgery on Friday from the local Alzheimer’s society asking how she could get involved in influencing decision making about services in the local area for people with Alzheimer’s. I told her that it would be a good idea to get involved with the LINk. She replied that she did not know about it and would be interested in joining. We have to grasp some of the principles here, because people can feel that they have no influence over some of these organisations. We in Parliament have set out ways for people to be involved, whether in shaping decisions about health care, social services, the police or other organisations. Some of the proposals have been made in response to Liberal Democrat amendments tabled in the Lords, particularly in relation to parish councils. If through legislation in this House we have given people the opportunity to participate in that decision-making process or to be consulted on the delivery of vital services, we should do what we can to encourage a wider understanding about how that operates. That is not something that we should resile from.

The hon. Member for Wycombe made the point about being able to add other agencies at a later date. I am sure that he understands that it would be foolish to not allow for other organisations to be added at a later date if it was felt appropriate. We would not want to have to come back to primary legislation to do that; we would want to do it by secondary legislation.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

The Minister cannot blame us for asking on what basis these organisations are listed and whether the Government have simply thought through their list. I illustrate that point with a simple question, which I put to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden: how on earth can it be that a community meeting in Wales—subsection (5)(b)—is an authority that is connected with a local authority in Wales? How, by the same logic, can it not be that a community meeting in England is not a similar authority? If the Minister does not have the answer in front of her, perhaps she can wait for the inspiration that traditionally arrives in Committee to answer a question. It is perfectly reasonable for Opposition Members to ask such questions about the detail of this sort of legislation.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

The community meeting that the hon. Gentleman refers to is the Welsh equivalent of a parish meeting. As I said earlier, the parish meeting was added as a result of a Liberal Democrat amendment in the House of Lords that the Government accepted following debate and discussion.

Dan Rogerson (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

I accept that the terminology for English Members might be slightly different. However, I represent a constituency with 70 parishes. Where the electorate is small, a parish council is not formed to represent the people of that parish, and a parish meeting is therefore held twice a year to discuss issues and set a precept. That is the model of a community meeting where a community council is sometimes equivalent to a parish council.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

As I said, we accepted the Liberal Democrat amendment. We brought forward a Government amendment in response to the obviously well-thought-out point that, if we did not include such a provision, we would be missing an important section of people. However, it relates to parish meetings in England and what are known as community meetings in Wales.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

I have been listening carefully to what the Minister said about the Government’s willingness to take on board other agencies and to consider them. An example of that might be the Child Support Agency, which might be a glaring example, but it is a clear case of where Government agencies impact on individuals and where a clearer understanding of how the processes work is needed.

However, I still do not understand why the Minister seems to rule regional development agencies out of hand. Surely, if an individual comes forward to the local council and says, “I don’t understand how the regional development agency works. Could you please help me understand how its accountability process works and how I might participate?” is the Minister honestly saying that it would say, “We have no responsibility to tell you about that, so I’m afraid that I am not going to say.” Will it then be left to them to understand that the agency will go through this arcane route of being accountable through some kind of Regional Minister and Government majority-led Regional Select Committee? It seems to make no sense that councils have a duty to promote the understanding of public bodies that impact locally, yet the Minister is implying that they would refuse to do so in this area.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

There are two points here. The hon. Lady might like to look at part 5, which talks about how there should be community involvement in decisions that are taken at regional level. Through the leaders’ boards that will be established following the sub-national review, the regional strategic plan will be drawn up. Within that, local authorities will be keen to say why they have supported different parts of that plan, which include planning, transport and which look at economic delivery. There is nothing in the legislation that would prevent local authorities from providing further information about regional development agencies, and nothing to prevent them from talking about the decisions made by the scrutiny bodies. All the regional development plans are covered by scrutiny boards—an extremely important part of how the RDAs operate.

The hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne mentioned the CSA. We have tried to encapsulate in the bodies listed here ones that have a participatory forum for local people, as do health and police authorities and many other organisations. It is true that the CSA has a powerful effect on local people’s lives. However, local people have consultation meetings and forums. There is a local presence whereby people go along and inform the policy. The policy for organisations such as the CSA is formulated in the House and is the responsibility of Government Departments. There is a key distinction between how the two operate. I am sure that if the hon. Lady ponders that, she will see the distinction between them. It is about, as my constituents would say, the responsibility for neighbourhood policing—the policing pledge.

Some Opposition Members have talked about the issue of the chief police officer. There is a very direct correlation between what people feel is happening on the streets in their neighbourhoods, what impacts on their families, and how the policies are put together to reflect those local circumstances. That is where I feel people make that connection, and where we are trying, through the list that has been drawn up, to say, “This is where people need to understand how some of the decisions are made and how to have an input into that.”

There are totally different structures for the CSA. It is about the assessment that an individual may receive from the CSA. Constituents whom we support may be going to the CSA to get help in supporting their families, but it is not about shaping how the CSA might operate differently in their local area, as opposed to the national criteria that we in the House have set down.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

I can understand the distinction that the Minister makes between the CSA and, for example, the strategic health authority. But if the health authority is a body delivering Government policy in the regions, I fail to see how that can be distinguished from the regional development agencies, which are also delivering Government policy in the regions. I do not understand how she is able to make a distinction between those two regional organisations.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

First, nothing prevents local authorities from including information about regional development agencies. As part of their duties in respect of scrutiny at regional level—through the use of leaders’ boards, for example—they will be accountable to their electorate for the policies they are advancing. So there is the ability to give further information about regional development agencies, but it is also important in respect of the Bill’s later clauses that the relevant regional authorities give information about how they are involving people when preparing their regional strategies, for example. Again, that is an important way to ensure accountability.

I have confessed that I would like to have seen elected regional government, which would have been the ideal way of ensuring complete regional accountability. That is not to be, but there we are.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

I understand the distinction that the Minister is drawing between bodies such as the CSA and regional development agencies. However, it is hard to see, on the basis of the argument that she is making, why Departments, Secretaries of State and some of the machinery of national Government are not covered by the clause if the Government want to go in that direction—unwisely, but there it is. There is a limited reference to the Secretary of State in subsection 2(c) in relation to the Offender Management Act 2007, but I cannot see in the clause a reference to Secretaries of State more broadly or to Departments. On the basis of the Minister’s logic, I am curious to know why that is so. Perhaps I am missing something.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

The Bill clearly applies to the delivery of local services. As the national Government, we want to be able to ensure that people understand how national Government works. There tends to be greater confusion about where local responsibility lies than in respect of where national Government have responsibility. That is important, because as we were discussing earlier many people come to our surgeries and think that we are delivering local housing and social services. We are trying to get at how local authorities—the Bill is about the delivery of local services—can promote a better understanding of how those services are delivered. It is important that we make it clear how people can get involved in some of the decision-making and policy-shaping services themselves.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

I cannot quite follow the logic of the Minister’s argument. She seems to be saying that there is a strict distinction between the discursive bodies mentioned in the Bill, which are effectively agencies of central Government, and “more important” decision-taking and policy-making bodies such as the strategic health authorities, which the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne mentioned. The SHAs are important in delivering crucial policies, such as clinical guidelines, throughout their area, as the Minister knows. If the Government are keen on holding to account those decision-taking and policy-making bodies, why in subsection (2)(e) has she included further education institutions, which are not really policy-making bodies, and not the Learning and Skills Council branches, which, as we have seen from the debacle over capital funding in FE, are the policy-making bodies? Why is that distinction made?

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

Because local people are involved on the governing bodies of further education colleges. My local FE college, for example, is part of the community. It delivers training in particular and works with local businesses, drawing up courses that will reflect local needs and being part of that discussion. In my area, there is heavy representation from further education colleges on the local skills board and the local authority. The skills board working in Barnsley is brilliant, Mr. Illsley. A key point that has emerged is the inclusion of further education representatives on the skills board, for example, because of the importance of the link with local businesses. The further education colleges have certainly welcomed their involvement in the process. I hope that I have helped clarify a number of the issues raised by Opposition Members.

Because of the structural changes made through the Further Education and Training Act 2007, the LSC no longer has a local non-executive council structure in place to which local people could be appointed. It would not seem appropriate to list the LSC for the purposes of the clause.

I hope that, having heard my explanations, Committee members will give unanimous support for the clause, given that it is obviously a crucial mechanism for delivering local understanding of and involvement in public and other services. Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.