 House of Commons |
Session 2006 - 07 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Local Government and Public Involvement in Health |
Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:John
Benger, Committee
Clerk
†
attended the Committee
Public Bill CommitteeTuesday 6 February 2007(Afternoon)[Mr. Joe Benton in the Chair]Local Government and Public Involvement in Health BillClause 4Procedure
on receipt of
proposals
Question
proposed [this day], That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
4.30
pm
Question
again
proposed.
The
Minister for Local Government (Mr. Phil
Woolas):
Thank you, Mr. Benton. At the end of
this morning’s sitting, I was referring to the timetable for
consultation with the public and saying how the Government’s
position under the Bill is that it is up to local councils to determine
how they will ascertain the broad support from the public that is one
of the criteria asked for in the invitation to
bid.
Alistair
Burt (North-East Bedfordshire) (Con): The Minister has
made much of the fact that some authorities may have been thinking
about the process for up to two years, and thus have had plenty of time
to consult the public and give a sense of broad-based consent and so
on. What about the situation that is not uncommon in some authorities
that have submitted bids? Their bids have been brought forward at a
late stage because of a bid made by another authority.
A borough that is thinking of
going unitary may have done a lot of work and spoken to people within
its area, but one of the knock-on consequences of the Bedford borough
bid, for example, put a question mark over what would happen to the
rest of the area. That prompted a response from Mid Beds and South
Bedfordshire district councils that they could not reasonably have been
expected to plan or pay for by way of preparation until they knew what
Bedford borough would do. What about the time for public consultation
in districts that have been placed in such a
position?
Mr.
Woolas:
For the benefit of the Committee, it may be worth
noting that the bids or the proposals that have been made are all
public documents. It is incumbent on us to put all the material on the
website and publish it for the
House.
The point of the
hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire was well made. An authority has
to show that there is broad public support for its proposal. He asked
whether there was enough time for an affected district or authority to
respond and show that it has public support. The Government will judge
such proposals across the whole of the affected area, not
only within the area that is proposed. It will be
incumbent on the proposing authority, as well as the responding
authority, to show the size of public support. That is a fair point
because it reflects the top-down
approach.
There is a
balance between having a window of opportunity that is adequate for due
consideration and a period that would be destabilising in the extreme
for local authorities. I reassure the hon. Gentleman that public
support for the proposal—both from the authority that is putting
it in and the affected authorities—is a criterion that we shall
use.
Patrick
Hall (Bedford) (Lab): As for the pre-invitation to bid
process or the period to which the hon. Member for North-East
Bedfordshire alluded, Bedford borough asked its citizens panel.
However, I do not regard that as constituting a sufficient measure of
public interest, although it has demonstratedpublic support
for the idea of a Bedford unitary. Surely the most important
opportunity to go to town on demonstrating widespread public support
from residents, businesses and voluntary organisations would occur
after a bid has passed the initial hurdle, if indeed it does. I would
expect councils to take such action in April, May and June, whether or
not they were preparing beforehand, as the hon. Gentleman said. That is
when the work needs to be done and when the real demonstration of
public support will have to be
obtained.
Mr.
Woolas:
To emphasise the criteria, I must explain that the
period until 25 January past was, of course, the deadline for the
submission of proposals. We intend that, by the end of March, those
proposals will be subject to judgment against the criteria established.
Then the wider interests will be consulted, including affected
authorities. That period of consultation will include local elections
in those
areas.
Alistair
Burt:
We are at a difficult point, and I return to the
difficulty of the time scale. The hon. Member for Bedford made his
point well, but surely the period in which a bidding authority had to
show some degree of public support was the period up to the submission
of the bid. That is one of the criteria. My point is that some bidding
authorities had very little time to put their bid together. They will
have spent serious money on getting the bid together at a late stage,
because it would have been prompted by a proposal by a neighbouring
authority. That means that trying to gauge public consent or support
will be practically impossible.
Councils have had to go on a
wing and a prayer. They have spent money and put in their bids because
they think that that is the best defence mechanism against the other
proposals on the table. I do not think that the time scale has been
adequate to demonstrate any serious public consultation,
notwithstanding that the process will consider that from now on. If the
Minister finds that there is no public support or backing, authorities
will have spent money putting together a bid
unnecessarily.
Mr.
Woolas:
The hon. Gentleman makes his point fairly, but the
second period of consultation does not exclude the authorities from
putting in their point of view, developing on proposals that might have
been made or—
Mr.
Woolas:
The hon. Gentleman says that it is possible that
an authority might have got wind of a neighbouring authority’s
bid and then had a short period in which to prepare its proposals. I
acknowledge that point, but it would be a strong point only if that
authority were then excluded from further
consultation. For the record, it might be worth referring the Committee
to paragraph 5.10 of the invitation to councils in England to bid. It
says:
“At stage
2, the Government will consult widely with partners/stakeholders in the
areas affected by the proposals. Partners/stakeholders will thus have
an opportunity to make representations about proposals that potentially
will affect them. For these purposes, partners/stakeholders include all
local authorities, the wider public sector...business community,
voluntary and community sector. It is intended that this consultation
would be launched at the end of March with a 12-week consultation
period.”
Those interested
groups include the affected councils. He has pressed his point quite
well, and I acknowledge
that.
Alistair
Burt:
On a final point, if that wider consultation in
March shows that there was in fact no public support for a proposal,
what the council has done, in extremis, is to spend a lot of council
tax payers’ money to put together an unnecessary bid. The
criterion that the proposals should be
“supported by a broad cross section
of partners and
stakeholders”
could not
have been tested in the time required. Provided that the Minister is
prepared to concede that money may well have been wasted in the process
because of the urgency of the timetable, I take his
point.
Mr.
Woolas:
The hon. Gentleman is tempting me to say that
devolution might mean spending money. I argue that inviting councils to
put forward proposals for improving their local services and financial
efficiency could be money well spent, but I am determined to remain
neutral.
Patrick
Hall:
Let me point out that the complaint of the hon.
Member for North-East Bedfordshire is that some councils might not have
had time to spend enough money consulting a vast number of people, so
they will have spent
less.
Mr.
Woolas:
My hon. Friend’s logic is normally
impeccable. I was going to say “always”, but he might put
amendments down, and then I would be in a difficulty. I am not sure
what the local paper in Bedford and Bedfordshire is called, although I
am sure that I will find out at some point in the next 12 weeks. I will
resist the temptation to rename the Bill, “The Local Government
and Public Involvement in Health in Bedfordshire Bill”, but his
point was well made.
Clause 4 is much narrower in
scope than people reading a report of the debate might believe. It sets
out the procedure that the Secretary of State is to followon
receipt of a proposal, and I commend it to the
Committee.
Mr.
Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con): I apologise to you,
Mr. Benton, and to the Committee because this is the first
sitting that I have attended—I had other commitments to
fulfil.
I wish to ask
the Minister a couple of questions for clarification, particularly on
clause 4(2)(b), and to press him a little further on the issue of the
extent of public consultation. Authorities that cover an area in which
a proposal was made before 25 January, and which anticipated for some
months in advance of the publication of the White Paper that such a
proposal might be forthcoming, have had an opportunity to organise
widespread public consultation. That is true in the case of Shropshire,
as the Minister knows well, where three out of five districts have done
so. The consultations took the form of a public ballot, which was well
responded to, with a turnout of more than41 per cent. More
than 60,000 people took the trouble to respond to a postal ballot. That
response will, I hope, be taken into due consideration by the
Minister.
The thrust
of my question is that clause 4(2) states that
“the Secretary of State must
consult the following about the
proposal...
(b)
any other person he believes to have an
interest.”
Will the
Minister confirm that the definition contained in clause 4(2)(b) would
mean that the Secretary of State will be obliged to take into due
consideration the results of a public
ballot?
Mr.
Woolas:
The hon. Gentleman makes a point about the extent
of consultation. Clause 4(2)(b) says that “any other
person” the Secretary of State believes to have an interest must
be consulted. Government policy is that it is up to councils to
determine how they consult on, or show a broad range of support for, a
proposal. Clearly, members of the public are included within the
definition of clause 4(2)(b). The Secretary of State would then have to
balance the various competing claims, and it would be up to the
councils affected to demonstrate what public support for proposals
there was. As is laid out in the invitation, that criterion is to be
given due regard in the consideration.
Mr.
Dunne:
May I take it from that helpful response that the
Minister will not only rely on partners and stakeholders that have a
particular understanding within local authorities, but other persons,
such as members of the public and the electorate that the authorities
are there to
serve?
Mr.
Woolas:
That is a fair point. One has to judge on the
criteria. Given those, public support will be an important part of the
considerations.
Question put and agreed
to.
Clause 4
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
|
| |
| ©Parliamentary copyright 2007 | Prepared 7 February 2007 |