Clause
50
Time
limit for holding further
referendum
Andrew
Stunell:
I beg to move amendment No. 102, in
clause 50, page 36, line 11, leave
out ‘ten’ and insert
‘four’.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss
amendment No. 103, in clause 50, page 36, line 13, leave out
‘five’ and insert
‘four’.
7.15
pm
Andrew
Stunell:
The clause deals with the time limit within which
a further referendum can be held to change governance arrangements. The
Bill specifies a period of 10 years in England and five in Wales. Why
there is a difference is an interesting question, and I am sure that
the Minister has a suitable explanation. The period seems to us to
restrict the choices open to a community for changing its governance
arrangements if it discovers that it has made a mistake.
The amendments propose that no
referendum could be held within four years, rather than the 10 or five
specified. I am interested to hear the Minister’s reasoning
because, given all the emphasis he has placed on getting the model
right and providing local choice and diversity, I would have thought
that he would want to facilitate rather than obstruct an opportunity to
correct an error—learning from the Stoke-on-Trent example, let
us
say.
Mr.
Woolas:
I repeat my earlier point about the Stoke-on-Trent
experience: Stoke-on-Trent that chose that model and now wants to move
away from it. It was not imposed upon Stoke by the Government, nor is
it being taken away against the will of the people of Stoke-on-Trent.
That is the consequence of devolution, and one must live with
it.
As
the hon. Gentleman said, the clause extends the period within which no
more than one referendum can be held from five to 10 years for
authorities in England. That change will provide increased stability
for executive arrangements and prevent see-sawing between different
leadership models. He referred to situations in some councils around the
country. There is a
difference between the provisions for England and Wales is because of
powers that are given to Wales in clauses that we shall debate later. I
expect that, as a consequence of those powers being given, the Welsh
limit will change to 10 years, but it would be premature on the one
hand to devolve powers to Wales and on the other to dictate what the
period should be. This is another champagne moment, although the hon.
Gentleman looks as though he is more interested in a red wine
moment.
It is right
that people should have the opportunity to express their views on and
influence their council’s leadership. As I said earlier,
communities will still be able to petition for a referendum for an
elected mayor, and we are extending that provision to directly elected
executives. Local people will also have an opportunity to make their
views known whenever a council proposes to change its executive
arrangements.
Andrew
Stunell:
I have understood the Minister to be saying that
in the meantime, before the 10 years are up, a petition could be
launched by local residents. Is he saying that, in that case, the
provision would not have effect or would be superseded, or is he saying
that the petition would lie on the Table until the 10 years
were
up?
Mr.
Woolas:
Let me finish my point, because the situation will
become clear and it will save the Committee
time.
After
earlier debates, Opposition Members should be in no doubt that in order
to plan for and deliver the strategies that we all want, the Government
believe that leadership needs to be strong and accountable. It is the
latter of those criteria that the amendment would affect. It would mean
that a council’s executive arrangements could be changed by
referendum every four years, which would mean that every four-year term
of office could be subject to a referendum on executive arrangements.
If a referendum supported change, the executive would of course be
undermined. The amendment would make that a possibility in every
consecutive term of office. The turbulence caused by that situation
would not be conducive to enabling councillors to improve their
communities. In fact, it would be highly disruptive. That is why we
propose to revise the provision under the Local Government Act 2000 to
extend the minimum period between referendums from five to 10 years in
England to give new executive arrangements the time they need to bed
down and then to provide the stronger leadership that will benefit
their area. To repeat my point on Wales, we propose no change to the
five-year moratorium, as the Welsh Assembly has expressed no desire as
yet to change it. Of course, the decisions of the Assembly anticipate
our deliberations on the enabling powers contained in the
Bill.
I understand
the intention behind the amendments. The hon. Member for Hazel Grove
wants further to increase people’s abilities to change their
council’s executive arrangements. However, there is a balance to
be struck between providing opportunities for communities to express
their views and the stability that provides the foundations for that
better and
stronger leadership. I believe that we have struck the right balance.
The petitions that are held now would, of course, lead to a referendum.
Until the Bill is enacted, the five-year moratorium applies. After the
enactment, the 10-year moratorium will apply to provide the stability
that I have talked about. I repeat the policy that I
expressed before: the route by which an executive arrangement is
created is the route that must be used to unpick it. In other words,
the decision of a council can never overturn a decision of the people
in a referendum. I hope that that answers the hon. Gentleman’s
points.
Andrew
Stunell:
I must say that I found that another
disappointing answer from the Minister. The Bill would double the
length of time that it would take for a local community to unpick
arrangements that it believed were flawed and needed to be changed. The
Minister—or his successor—will come to regret that,
because he will find that there will be occasions where it would be
expedient for the Government to allow local communities to exercise
that choice and not to be inhibited by primary legislation that puts
that barrier in place. Nevertheless, I have made my point, I have heard
the Minister and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment, by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause 50 ordered to stand
part of the Bill.
Clauses 51 to 54 ordered to
stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
55
Appointed
councillors
Andrew
Stunell:
I beg to move amendment No. 121, in
clause 55, page 41, line 15, leave
out subsection
(4).
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments:
No. 122, in
clause 55, page 41, line 17, at
end add—
‘(2) No person
appointed by virtue of this section may vote in any matter coming
before the council to which that person has been
appointed.’.
No.
123, in clause 55, page 41, leave out lines
26 and
27.
No. 115, in
clause 55, page 41, line 30, at
end insert—
‘(g) the degree
of representation of the wider
community’.
Andrew
Stunell:
The purpose of the first three amendments, all
tabled by me and my hon. Friends, is to get rid of the proposed
appointed parish councillors. There are many proposals in the Bill
relating to parish councils that we strongly agree with and welcome.
Bearing in mind some of the harsher things that I have had to say
earlier today, let me say straight away that I believe the Government
are approaching the parishes issue appropriately and we shall support
them, on the whole. However, we believe that in respect of the
provision of appointed councillors they have stepped off the
path.
It should be
remembered that parish councils already have the capacity to co-opt.
They may co-opt to fill
vacancies, and they frequently do. Indeed, the people they co-opt to
vacancies would, in many cases, conform to the intentions here.
However, they are co-opted if there are not enough candidates to
contest an election, never mind to have one, and if vacancies remain
afterwards. We think that parish councils ought to retain that
democratic element and that those who serve on them should do so as a
result of an electoral process, and not following an entirely separate
appointment. Amendment No. 121 simply reads: “leave out
subsection (4)”, which relates to appointed councillors, because
we believe that the intention is mistaken. Amendment No. 122 would
provide that any such appointed person could not vote on any matter
before the council. In other words, they would be non-voting members of
the parish
council.
Patrick
Hall:
Will the hon. Gentleman clarify the distinction
between a co-opted councillor and an appointed
one?
Andrew
Stunell:
Co-option is a power that parish councillors have
already, provided that there is an unfilled vacancy on the council. It
is a second-best situation, so to speak, in order to make up the
numbers to the total of the council’s representation. The
Government’s proposal is perhaps for the Minister to explain,
but I understand from the clause and explanatory notes that they
believe a wider range of people might serve on parish councils as a
result. But, that might be said of Parliament and of principal
councils. I wonder whether the Government think that in order to get a
wider range of people into Parliament it would be a good idea just to
appoint them. Actually, I suspect they do think that that is rather a
good idea. If parish councils are to be, say, residents associations or
some sort of sounding boards, that is fine as we need all sorts of
representatives. However, if they are to be democratic institutions,
they should comprise those who have stood for election and been voted
in, regardless of whether or not they are community leaders.
On a separate and rather
important practical point, the selection of appointees will be in the
hands of parish councillors whose views on whom should be selected
might vary quite a lot from those of the Minister. We therefore believe
we should retain parish councils as democratic institutions and
not—as was suggested in a sedentary comment—turn them
into a version of the House of Lords where the great and the good are
added to those who can be bothered to get elected. In very many parish
communities, if people know that they have two means of getting on to
the parish council—going through the hassle of standing and
getting elected or sitting back, waiting and getting
appointed—the number of people offering themselves for election
will not increase. The process proposed by the Government will
undermine the democratic nature of parish councils and I hope very much
that the Minister will accept the
amendments.
7.30
pm
Dr.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab): Amendment
No. 115 is essentially a probing amendment to tease out the
circumstances in which councillors can be appointed. I would like some
reassurance from the Minister that the clause will not
simply provide a mechanism for those with the largest and most organised
voices in a community to get undue representation on parish councils,
which in the future might have considerably greater powers than they do
now. The Minister will be aware that some people who work with the most
vulnerable, excluded and disadvantaged groups can easily be overlooked
because they do not seek credit for themselves. They are exactly the
sort of people who would make excellent
appointees.
Given the
hour, I shall not labour the point, but I simply ask the Minister
whether regulations would ensure that a balance of community
representation is maintained and encouraged when appointments are
made.
The
Chairman:
I call Phil
Woolas.
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local
Government (Angela E. Smith):
That may be a champagne
moment.
The clause
that hon. Members seek to amend will allow parish councils to appoint
councillors in addition to the normal quota of elected councillors as
supplemental councillors co-opted to fill vacancies in the office of
elected parish councillor. My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford asked
what the difference is. I shall come to that in a moment, but there
will be no difference in the council’s
role.
I want first to
draw a sharp distinction between the official process of co-option and
appointment as in the clause. All of us want parish councils to be the
focal point of the communities that they serve, and to be as vital and
effective in their role as they possibly can be. Some councils embrace
that philosophy. If they could appoint people by virtue of their role
in the community—for example, local teachers—they would
be able to add to their
effectiveness.
The
hon. Member for Hazel Grove was quite cynical about the great and the
good. I believe that parish councils want to embrace a wider group of
people than just the great and the
good.
Robert
Neill:
The little and the
bad.
Angela
E. Smith:
The little and the
bad.
There
may be doctors, business people, faith and community leaders, local
youth workers; someone suggested the local carnival organiser. They are
people who contribute to the life of the community, but perhaps by
virtue of the work that they do are not eligible to stand for the
council. The appointment of such people could greatly enhance the work
of councils, and we want to give power to the councils to appoint them
if they wish to. We do not want to require councils to do it, and we
will not put any pressure on them to do so. The intention of the clause
is simply to enable them to appoint if they believe that people in
their area—in their community—can contribute to making
the council more
effective.
As
long as there are tight limits on the scale of such appointments, we
are somewhat less concerned about the notional dilution of the
council’s democratic credentials. As we heard, co-option is
already commonplace in councils. In some areas, contested elections are
relatively
rare, particularly in smaller parishes. Co-option may be used to fill a
vacancy; if there is no vacancy but somebody has a contribution to make
to the life of the parish and to making the parish council more
effective, the option is open to the
council. My hon.
Friend the Member for City of Durham asked about limits being imposed
and the guidance that would be available. Although I cannot go as far
as she would like, I can say that I recognise that limits are
important. That is why we are seeking a regulation-making power. We
want to ensure that the great majority of councillors are elected and
that the council as a whole is democratically
accountable.
Alistair
Burt:
I am not unsympathetic to the general point that the
Minister is making about having the right people on parish councils,
but I am a little concerned that the clause is somewhat bureaucratic.
If parish councillors want to consult the right people in the parish to
help them achieve something, they can easily ask. The clause creates a
new procedure.
Will
appointed councillors with no vote and no say also be subject to the
Standards Board’s provisions and so on? Will we encourage people
to get involved in this way? Surely an informal procedure to ensure
that the right people are involved in the council would be better than
what is
proposed.
Angela
E. Smith:
The hon. Gentleman pre-empts some comments that
I was about to make. I shall deal with his points now. First, appointed
councillors will be covered by the same standards and requirements in
respect of behaviour of councillors as any other councillors, because
they will be full councillors. That is the difference. He says that the
clause is too bureaucratic because councillors can just ask people for
advice. We do not need legislation to ask anybody in the community for
advice. If the council wishes to get advice, it can do so. What we are
proposing is something different. People will be full councillors and
able to vote on all issues other than the co-option or appointment of
new members to the council. One of the differences is that the decision
on the appointment of new additional councillors will be taken only by
elected councillors, not co-optee councillors. I assure the Committee
that the regulations proposed will deal with that imperative.
We will also work closely with
the National Association of Local Councils and other key stakeholders
as we develop the details of the regulations and guidance. As part of
that work we need to consider the maximum ratio of appointed
councillors to elected councillors that will be permitted. At this
stage, a maximum ratio of 1:4 or 1:3 would be a sensible rule.
We also need to consider how long councillors’ appointments
should last.
The hon.
Gentleman implicitly asked why people would not stand for election in
the normal way. As I said at the beginning, there may be good reasons
why people cannot stand for election. For example, it may be in
someone’s conditions of employment that they cannot stand for
election when, nevertheless, they may have a contribution to make. It
may not be appropriate to someone’s profession that they stand
for election: for example, a local doctor may feel that it is
inappropriate
for him or her do so. Whatever the reason, such people may have the
expertise, experience or commitment to their area and feel that they
would be an asset to the council and be willing to serve. Amendments Nos. 48 and 121
proposed by the hon. Member for Hazel Grove would wreck the measure. I
understand that is where he is coming from, but we oppose those
amendments. Amendment No. 122 would allow councils to appoint members
but would then prevent those appointees from taking part in decisions
that require a vote. I am worried about the hon. Gentleman because
several times during proceedings he has described himself as being
disappointed and I feel that I may be disappointing him again. As I
said to the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire, we do not want
appointed councillors simply to be advisers to the council: they are
not observers to councils; they are there for councillors. Someone who
cannot vote on any matter coming before the parish council cannot be
said to be a councillor. As I have already pointed out, councils do not
need legislation to allow them to take advice from people in the
communities; they can do that already. We want the councillors who are
brought in to have the same voting rights as elected councillors, with
the exceptions that I have
mentioned.
Andrew
Stunell:
I draw the Under-Secretary’s attention to
new section 16A(3)(d). which says that the regulations will deal, among other
things, with
“the right
of persons appointed to participate in decision-making by the council
(including voting)”.
In
other words, the Minister’s own Bill envisages circumstances in
which that right to vote might be circumscribed by the regulations.
What is her objection to putting that in the
Bill?
Angela
E. Smith:
The regulations that we are talking about apply
to very minor cases. The example I gave was that it would be completely
wrong for an appointed member of a council to take part in a vote to
appoint another member. That is very limited and the hon. Gentleman is
looking at a far wider picture than that envisaged in the regulations.
Why would people want to come forward—for example, a youth
worker or somebody working in the community—and spend time
engaging with and being part of a council if, as the hon. Gentleman
suggests, they were not allowed to vote and take part in proceedings? I
should confirm that people appointed would be subject to the Standards
Board code of conduct for councillors and would be expected to behave
in accordance with
that.
Amendment No.
123 would prevent the Secretary of State from regulating the right of
persons appointed to councils to participate in decision making. That
was the effect the hon. Gentleman was looking for, but I have given
reasons why that should be the case. We want to take the opportunity to
look at the proper limits that there should be on those
councillors.
Amendment No. 115 seeks to
empower the Secretary of State to regulate the appointment of
councillors and their subsequent holding of office by making provision
about the degree of representation in the wider community. This
amendment is rather different and I
have some sympathy with the objectives that have been set out. My hon.
Friend the Member for City of Durham said it was a probing amendment,
and unfortunately if it is put to the vote, I must ask the Committee to
vote against it. However, it makes a constructive suggestion and one
that I hope parishes will take on board. My hon. Friend gave clear
reasons why she has concerns, but one of the reasons I must ask the
Committee to reject the amendment is because it offers no definition of
the wider community. We take it to be a reference to the democratic
make-up of the parish in which the appointment was made, but it is
quite vague and could be a recipe for trouble later on. For that
reason, we have to resist the amendment.
There are,
however, more fundamental reasons why we have to resist, and I am sure
that my hon. Friend will understand. She wants to allow the Secretary
of State somehow to put the onus on parish councils to correct failures
of the democratic process by delivering a set of councillors that
better reflects the make-up of the community from which they are drawn.
For example, there might not be enough women councillors, or an older
council might need youth representation. The council’s make-up
might have a different balance from that of the community as a
whole.
The purpose of
the measures is to be fairly permissive to councils and to give parish
councils the flexibility that might be helpful to them, but we are
reluctant to set any expectation that the Secretary of State will
interfere by regulation to correct some perceived failure of the
democratic process. That is not our purpose, and we do not think that
it is achievable in practice. I accept my hon. Friend’s comments
about the loudest voice being heard. We want parish councils to be able
to look around their communities for expertise that could be of use.
Often, those voices are not heard or are not the loudest, but such
people have a role to play in the
community.
These are
modest measures intended to assist councils. We want to allow parish
councils to appoint additional members, but not on a scale that would
be seen by right-minded people seriously to undermine the democratic
process. We must ask whether allowing appointments of one or just a few
extra councillors is a suitable basis on which to adjust the make-up of
parish councils to reflect the communities they serve. We think that it
is very difficult and probably wrong to try to achieve that in such a
way. In our view, it would be better to trust the good judgment of
parish councils to ascertain which people will be an asset and serve
the community best. The measures will give them some room to manoeuvre,
and the intention is
clear.
The measures
will be a useful step forward. We think that they will not damage local
democracy but indeed enhance it, and I hope that hon. Members will
therefore not press their amendments. Otherwise, I shall ask the
Committee to join with me in rejecting
them.
Andrew
Stunell:
The Under-Secretary made a flying start this
morning, but as she predicted, it has ended in disappointment. She said
some interesting things. She seems to have a model of how parish
councils operate. I am pleased to see that the Department has such a
positive picture of them, but there are 26,000 parish councils, which
have highly variable performance, and
something like 90 per cent. of the Standards Board’s work
concerns disputes with or between parish councils. I was not reassured
by her comment that the appointed members would be exactly the same as
other councillors and subject, as they are, to the Standards Board.
That does not fill me with a positive feeling about the
proposal.
The
Under-Secretary says that she does not want to see any restriction on
appointments, except in the most minor way to prevent councillors from
appointing their friends, which is sensible. However, to rule out the
possibility that such appointees might have an agenda of their own that
goes beyond their role as, say, youth worker or doctor or vicar, and
might see their primary route to the parish council as being through
the electoral system seems to be a disappointing discounting of the
value of democracy in parishes. I shall not ask the Committee to vote
on the amendment, but I do make it clear that I believe the clause to
be completely misconceived. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
7.45
pm
Question
put, That the clause stand part of the
Bill:—
The
Committee divided: Ayes 9, Noes
1.
Division
No.
5
]
Blackman-Woods,
Dr.
Roberta
Smith,
Angela E.
(Basildon)
Question
accordingly agreed to.
Clause 55 ordered to stand
part of the
Bill.
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