Buckinghamshire (Structural Changes) Order 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-05-20
Topic: Government Operations
Robert Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, it is pleasure to contribute to this short debate on this statutory instrument. I thank the Minister for his introduction, which sketched out the framework very clearly. I think he perhaps oversold the consensus nature of the situation, which the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, highlighted in his contribution. There were court cases, a very anxious local MP and a good deal of controversy in many quarters about the alternative ways of changing the structure in the Buckinghamshire county area. Nevertheless, I think the Secretary of State has produced a sensible compromise between the views put forward by the district councils about how things should be organised in a unitary Buckinghamshire and the proposals that the county council put on the table I particularly welcome the choice of three members per ward and a body of 147 members, rather than two per ward as the county council preferred. That is a good decision and I welcome it. What does the Minister envisage will be the total number of councillors for the authority after 2025? He talked about re-warding the county structure as the 2025 elections approach. I have a general concern that every time we do local government reorganisation, one of the underlying consequences is that there are fewer elected representatives serving their community. Even accepting the number provided by the Minister—because of double-hatting, there are perhaps 200 individuals who currently serve on district and county councils at the moment—that will be reduced to 147, which is a 25% reduction in the number of elected representatives. I hope that he will be able to give your Lordships a steer that he is looking for that large council of 147 not to be dramatically shrunk in 2025 to make yet another step backwards in representation. By the way, it is a county whose population is already growing rapidly and, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, made very clear, is set to grow even more rapidly with infrastructure developments over the next decade or so. That brings me to my second point, which is the role of parish councils in all this. Parish councils in Buckinghamshire feel quite bruised by how things have gone. Seventy-one per cent of parish councillors are reported in the Government’s Explanatory Memorandum as opposing the single authority solution. Therefore, it is important that we have reassurance from the Minister that nothing in this statutory instrument will disadvantage town and parish councils when fulfilling their role as local community champions In respect of that, can he say something more about the 19 community boards that are to be set up? Paragraph 7.4 of the Explanatory Memorandum refers to, "the establishment of nineteen community boards, each with a community hub, enabling local councillors to take decisions on issues such as funding for community groups and local roads maintenance; and providing a single point of contact" That is an excellent concept. It is one that Liberal Democrats, when running local authorities, have always felt to be very important. However, it is internal devolution of the budgets and power of the local authority, and much will depend on how those community boards work with or relate to the parishes within their areas and how they develop their external relations with them. What reassurance can the Minister give to those who worry that community boards might be more of a barrier to communities exercising real power and that they will stand between the communities and the decision-makers, rather than turning out to be a conduit for making sure that powers and decisions go down to the local community level Notwithstanding the concerns about some of the detail, we will not oppose this statutory instrument this evening. However, we certainly believe that it is important to see that democratic accountability and links with the local community are not worsened by this proposal and that, in fact, the opportunity is taken to improve those links and communications in the future.