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Baroness Scott of Needham Market: My Lords, being summoned to the office of the new party leader is always a rather nerve-racking experience, even when the leader is as benign as my noble friend Lord McNally, so I was rather relieved when I discovered that the purpose of the call was to ask me if I would become the party spokesman on issues relating to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. I must say that my first thought was to wonder how on earth I would ever manage to follow the commitment and calm professionalism of my noble friend Lady Hamwee. I should like to place on record today the debt of gratitude owed to her by the whole House.
My second thought concerned the scope of the job that had just been offered me. Had I been given the task of shadowing Mr Prescott in 1997, my writ would have run large across the environment, transport, local government, regional government, planning, housing, rural issues and urban regeneration. By 2001, I would have lost rural issues and the environment and, only 14 months later, I would have seen transport disappear to the Department for Transport and electoral law to the Lord Chancellor's Department. So I rather feel that I have been asked to be a shadow to a shadow. I hope that noble Lords will forgive my speaking today in the debate on the gracious Speech, despite there being no ODPM legislation, but I am afraid that if I do not speak today, there may be no responsibilities left for me to speak about later.
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The programme for what is left of this Parliament contains a huge hole where the regional assemblies Bill should have been. As the House is due to debate that topic on Wednesday, I shall not detain your Lordships on the issue, but I wish to place on record the strong feeling on these Benches that the current regional settlement is not satisfactory and that the Government must give some thought to how they resolve the mess that now exists, which is entirely of their making.
We now have a significant element of administrative regional devolution. That was initiated by the previous Conservative government but has now been overlaid by regional development agencies and a raft of regional quangos that spend billions of taxpayers' money but are only very indirectly accountable to national government. The current regional assemblies are at least some effort to create a kind of democratic framework and I have no quarrel with any of the individuals who serve on them, but those bodies have no real authority to hold either government or quangos to account. Their main function is to create strategies over which they have little or no power of delivery.
The Government's timidity in offering an elected assembly with no powers or money to the people of the north-east, along with enforced local government reorganisation, was doomed to fail from the start. We always said so from these Benches and sought to persuade the Government to pursue a more convincing regional programme. Their refusal to do so has led to the loss of the referendum in the north-east and the whole cause of regional devolution being left in limbo.
The second omission from the government programme for this term is a Bill to deal with the increasingly unfair and unsustainable council tax. Since 1997, council tax increases in some counties have soared by almost 100 per cent. That is regardless of their political control. It is no wonder that pensioners in Devon are protesting when their council tax has risen by 95.5 per cent in eight years. We will know later this week whether the rumours of a pre-election giveaway by the Chancellor to keep this year's increase to an acceptable level are true, but that does not alter the basic fact that council tax is unfair, regressive and expensive to collect.
If that were not bad enough, the Government are about to embark on a complete revaluation exercise. That will begin in the late spring, we are told. Initial estimates from the Local Government Association suggest that about 90 per cent of all properties will go up by at least one band. What sort of system is it in which people who were already struggling to find affordable homes are further punished by swingeing council tax rises? The sooner that we change to the sort of local income tax that is used in Sweden, the better it will be.
In powerful maiden speeches today, we have heard both the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, and the noble Lord, Lord Gould, talk about their background and localities. That demonstrates how important locality
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is, even in the Starbucks era. All local parties are now talking about localism. Although I am sure that they all mean it, we are not clear what they mean by it. Three quarters of local council expenditure comes from government grant. While that is the case, we will always have a system that is largely local administration, not local government. That stifles local diversity and diminishes public esteem for local government. It gives rise to central government interference at every level through a regime of target setting, ring-fencing and performance indicators.
The sort of aspirations contained within the Government's clean neighbourhoods Bill, although probably reasonable in themselves, do not need grand national frameworks. They need to ensure that councils have the funding that they need and are then left alone to get on with the job.
On the subject of that Bill, I should like to make a passing reference to the idea that parish councillors should be able to issue fixed penalty notices for anti-social behaviour. I have been a county councillor in a rural area for the past 12 years. Not once have I ever heard a parish councillor, or anyone else, for that matter, say that that would be a useful power to have. There are all sorts of reasons why people become parish councillors, but, in my experience, it is never to become community police. It is hard enough to get people to serve as parish councillors as it is. Not one of my parishes has held an election in the 12 years during which I have been involved. Expecting councillors to fulfil that role could drive many more away.
Real devolution, real localism, whether we are discussing regional or parish councils, must be clearly thought through. It needs to be part of an overall constitutional settlement. Some powers clearly need to be held at higher levels than others, but all powers need to be properly funded and, above all, matched by real democratic accountability.
Lord Craig of Radley: My Lords, I take the opportunity of today's debate on the gracious Speech to raise one issue arising from the concordat reached between the noble and learned Lords the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice. I am not a lawyer, but I was a member of the Select Committee of your Lordships' House that considered the Constitutional Reform Bill. That gave me an insight into the Bill that I should not otherwise have had. Noble Lords will recall that the concordat followed the original government announcement of constitutional changes last year and it has been largely incorporated into the Constitutional Reform Bill, which reaches Report shortly.
The Select Committee considering that Bill, so ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, considered many issues in a very tight timetable. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor tabled hundreds of amendments to his Bill. Many of those amendments were agreed without debate because they were said to be consequential and reflected a fundamental point of the concordat: that the Lord Chief Justice, not the
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Lord Chancellor (or Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs), was to be the professional head of the judiciary of England and Wales.
Many Acts of Parliament, stretching back over many decades and even centuries, contain phrases such as "the Lord Chancellor will approve", "the Lord Chancellor will appoint" or other words authorising an action that was in statute the sole responsibility of one individual, the Lord Chancellor. Those responsibilities mostly relate to the Lord Chancellor's position as both head of the judiciary and a Minister of the Crown, since both legal and executive considerations were relevant to the action. For example, the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 and the Justices of the Peace Act 1997 contain dozens of references to actions and responsibilities of the Lord Chancellor. Two Acts passed in the previous Session—the Civil Partnerships Act and the Armed Forces (Pension and Compensation) Act—also contain references to actions falling to the Lord Chancellor to discharge.
Under the rubric of the concordat, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor seeks to amend all those Acts by replacing the words "the Lord Chancellor", where appropriate, with such phrases as "the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs may if he thinks fit and if the Lord Chief Justice agrees" or "the Lord Chancellor, where appropriate, with the concurrence of the Lord Chief Justice". Following the first day of Committee on the Floor of the House last Session, such phrases may need further amendment to keep the words "Lord Chancellor".
Whatever the precise wording, the position henceforth, when the Constitutional Reform Bill reaches the statute book, will be that two individuals must be in agreement before some action, previously the sole responsibility of the present Lord Chancellor, can happen. My concern is that, should the new Minister and the Lord Chief Justice fail to agree on a necessary action, there could be stalemate. Some may think that it is so unlikely that it would never become an issue; but decisions are required on this large number of Acts—perhaps some quickly because of the nature of events.
At one stage the Government suggested that the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs need not be a lawyer. Regardless of whether the Minister is a lawyer, it is possible that the Lord Chief Justice and the Minister might not agree, for strongly held legal or political reasons or, conceivably, even reasons of personal antipathy. I question whether it is entirely sensible to adulterate the straightforward responsibility of the Lord Chancellor in so many statutes, leaving the possibility of future difficulty. The wise words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, about not overloading the legal system are also relevant. Some may argue that any difficulty would resolve itself by the pressure of events—maybe so, maybe not.
I suggested, but with limited support in the Select Committee, that a parallel might be drawn with the Chief of the Defence Staff, the professional head of the
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Armed Forces and the Secretary of State for Defence as the executive head. The argument against that is that the independence of the Lord Chief Justice from the executive should be absolute. Ultimately, the same cannot be true for the Chief of the Defence Staff and his Secretary of State.
Nevertheless, I fear that there is a potential serious weakness in the intended application of a part of the present concordat arrangement. It may never surface, but is it a lesser weakness than the perceived one of a Lord Chancellor wearing two hats, as a member of the executive and head of the judiciary? That model served the nation well over generations; it is tried and tested and has worked for all manners of government in the past. If, nevertheless, change must be made, it might still be possible to adopt the pattern of two heads—a professional and an executive head of the judiciary—so that either the Lord Chief Justice or the Minister, but not both, inherits the responsibilities and statutes at present discharged solely by the Lord Chancellor.
My service background and experience has taught me to value a clear chain of command. The proposed arrangements do not provide one. I am not optimistic that this plea will find much favour with the Government or even the Lord Chief Justice, so I shall follow with interest how their proposed new arrangements, if they are enacted, work out in practice.
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