Standing Committee E
Tuesday 3 February 1998
(Morning)
[Dr. Michael Clark in the Chair]
10.30 am
The Chairman: Before we resume debate, I have an announcement for the Committee's convenience. Two groups of amendments are listed in the wrong order on the selection list. The group led by amendment No. 39 should precede the group led by amendment No. 54.
Clause 2
Constitution
Amendment proposed [29 January]: No. 29, in page 1, line 17, at the end to insert the words
`(1C) At least one member appointed under subsection (i) shall have direct experience in rural matters.'--[Mrs. Ballard.]
Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
The Chairman: I remind the Committee that with this we are taking amendment No. 9, in page 2, line 4, after `area,' insert
`(ca) such persons as appear to him to represent rural interests in the agency's area,'.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Angela Eagle): Thank you, Dr. Clark. I was not sure whether the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) had finished speaking to the amendment at our last sitting, so I am sorry for hesitating slightly just now.
Hon. Members made several points when we debated the amendments last Thursday. We are all agreed that getting the board membership of the Regional Development Agencies right will be crucial to their success. We will chose people who are committed to the values of public service and who have experience relevant to the work of the RDAs. I can reassure the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon that all board appointments will be made on merit and will be of high calibre.
The White Paper stated our intention to avoid a fixed compensation of sectoral interests. We will look for candidates who can bring a range of experience to a board, especially those who combine experience across a number of sectoral interests within a region. We do not intend that board members should be seen as delegates of individual organisations. With 12 members on a board--or 15 as a maximum--that would be impossible.
However, the White Paper made it clear that RDAs would have a specific remit to serve the rural areas of their regions. Outside London, each RDA board will include at least one member who can contribute a strong rural perspective and there will be more in regions with larger rural areas.
Amendment No. 29 would place the Secretary of State under a statutory obligation to appoint one member with direct experience in rural matters. I do not think it appropriate to place that requirement in the text of the Bill, not least because it would require the London RDA to have a board member with a strong rural perspective, which is not our intention.
We should avoid giving the impression that individual board members represent specific sectoral interests. The right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon commented on how that would have the effect of marginalising those interests. Our White Paper makes it clear that members should not consider themselves to be the delegates of a particular group or body, but should take into account the interests of the whole region.
The Government's aim is to reflect an appropriate balance of regional interests in the composition of the boards. Many members may have experience in more than one field. Assigning members to particular sectors may shift attention from getting the overall composition of the board right to merely ensuring that the statutory requirements are met. That could result in a lack of experience in areas not provided for in the Bill or the provision of token candidates for particular groups. We do not believe that including a list in the Bill of who ought to be on the board would work well or give the necessary flexibility to make decisions from region to region and across regions.
I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that we will consider the need for experience in rural matters when we make appointments. I can also assure him that RDA board members will represent the whole of the RDA area, as we have made clear in the White Paper and in debates in the Committee. That will be made clear to candidates and to those appointed. Clause 4(2) specifies that the RDA's purposes apply equally to rural and non-rural areas.
I asssure the hon. Members for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) and for Cheadle (Mr. Day), who tabled amendment No. 9, that we will consult those representing rural interests about nominations for board membership.
Subsection (3) offers a general guide to the type of organisations to be consulted. I do not think that it would improve the Bill to attempt to list each and every sector that had an interest in the work of the RDA in order that it be consulted. The only thing that that would ensure is that some sector would be left out. If things are listed in legislation, inevitably some people are left out who believe that they should be included. Ensuring that there is a general duty to consult is a much more flexible way to operate. I hope that hon. Members accept my assurance that we intend to consult as widely as possible before appointments are made.
During the debate, hon. Members have raised more general anxieties about the protection of rural interests, an issue to which we shall return. We said in our White Paper that local regeneration initiatives of the kind promoted by the Rural Development Commission would be an equally high priority for RDAs and that the Government's strong commitment to rural regeneration would continue to be reflected in the RDAs' funding for rural areas. We intend to make a separate allocation of funds to RDAs for the purposes of rural regeneration. The Bill provides the Government with sufficient powers of direction and control to ensure that RDAs do not neglect rural areas, even though I do not believe that there is any real danger of that.
Mr. David Curry (Skipton and Ripon): The Under-Secretary said that the Government would make a separate allocation of funds to RDAs for rural regeneration. A significant part of the Rural Development Commission's function will go to the new RDAs. The regeneration programme that is currently under review will be the responsibility of the RDAs. Will she at some stage explain how that regeneration funding will operate? Who will have responsibility for which budgets? How will those people be expected to discharge it? It would be helpful if the Government spelt that out.
Angela Eagle: I hope that in the debates on a more appropriate clause we shall be able to deal with that. The right hon. Gentleman must remember that, within broad guidelines from national Government, we expect the RDAs to take decisions that are appropriate to their areas. We do not want to be over-prescriptive about how they do their job. We must get the balance right. I hope that we shall return to the matter and have a good debate about it at an appropriate time in our proceedings.
I hope that Opposition Members will accept my assurances that, outside London, at least one RDA board member will have experience in rural matters and that before making appointments, we will consult those who represent rural interests in the area of the RDA.
I therefore urge the hon. Member for Taunton (Mrs. Ballard) to withdraw amendment No. 29. The hon. Member for South Suffolk has already signalled his intention to press amendment No. 9.
Mr. Colin Breed (South-East Cornwall): My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton told me that she intended to seek leave to withdraw the amendment. Unfortunately, she cannot be with us this morning. I understand that that means that the amendment cannot be withdrawn. However, that was her intention.
Mrs. Caroline Spelman (Meriden): I have read the Hansard report on the Committee's previous sitting, which, unfortunately, I missed. I hope that I do not duplicate any points that have already been made.
I should like to return to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon about rural representation, which illustrates how difficult it is to provide an assurance on the acute question of rural representation in the future West Midlands RDA. Although the Under-Secretary assured the Committee that one of the board members would have special knowledge of rural interests, I am worried that through statistical representation of 1 in 12, it will be difficult adequately to defend rural interests.
There is a practical, logistical problem. If the Government tried, through appointments, to reflect democratically rural and urban populations in a board of 12, it is likely that there would be only one member--or one and a half members--to represent the rural population. That would not be the case if the representation were calculated on geographical distribution. The rural population covered by the future West Midlands RDA are worried that their voice will be lost if they are represented by only 1 of 12 members.
A deprived area in the Solihull borough is currently in receipt of substantial funding from the single regeneration budget. If that area were absorbed by the wider west midlands region--which contains the deprived inner-city areas of Birmingham, Coventry and the surrounding conglomeration--and the single regeneration budget were allocated on a needs basis, a small pocket of deprivation within an otherwise rural area might lose out when it came to voting at board level on where such funds should be allocated. I am worried about how rural interests can be reassured that they will be adequately represented by only 1/12th of the board.
Each RDA has a different composition in terms of the blend of urban and rural interests. The London region is different again. A rural voice on the London region's board would not be insignificant because, although the countryside is at a further remove, London as a region has an impact on the surrounding rural areas.
It is important to assure the electorate that the protection of rural interests is being given careful thought. As soon as we take decisions at a regional level, a serious danger exists that small pockets of need and deprivation will be overlooked and subsumed in decision-making by the concerns of the majority of the RDA board's members.
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