Out with the old...

What will the first session of the new Parliament bring for local authorities? Samantha Aikenhead looks at the legislation that the Coalition Government has planned for the next 18 months – and assesses its ability to deliver it.

Those sceptical of the sincerity of the ‘new politics’ and its heralded greater respect for the institution of Parliament were given some ammunition with the weekend leak of what appeared to be a near final draft of the Queen’s Speech, two days before Her Majesty was due to address Parliament.

Both Coalition partners had previously spent much time criticising the previous Labour Government for its leaky tendencies so it was slightly embarrassing to return to ‘old’ politics so early on in the new regime.

That said, there was little that was unexpected in the leaked version, with the broad direction of the legislative programme already having been sketched out in The Coalition: our programme for government document the previous week.

Consequently there were fewer surprises still in the Speech itself – the biggest surprise remains how rapidly the Coalition has moved from formation and initial agreement one week, to more detailed programme the following week, and then on to the Queen’s Speech the next, whilst still having enough time for it to be leaked two days in advance.

Also notable is the admirable coolness and confidence with which the agenda has been presented – one might almost assume that David Cameron and Nick Clegg, and George Osborne and, formerly, David Laws were all from the same party and had been planning their tactics in the months and years leading up to the General Election. However the real test now is whether the legislative programme set out in the Queen’s Speech can be delivered.

The Coalition Agreement setting out the agenda for government was not as ‘fluffy’ as many thought it likely to be, as it managed to hammer out some genuinely consensual policies. Notably the Coalition came together around a joint desire to curb ‘Labour’s encroachment on individual civil liberties’ and a preference for ‘smaller’ government – a clear theme of this Queen’s Speech and one that was, of course, physically manifested in the cuts that were announced the day before.

The Queen’s Speech gives the impression of a Government keen to get started although in reality some of the Bills announced in the Speech will take time to draw up. This will probably suit Parliament anyway, not least because there is the small matter of maiden speeches from 232 new MPs and not a great deal of time before the summer recess.

Commitment to a few policy areas has been glossed over in a ‘we’ll come to this when we get to it’ fashion. Prominent policy differences include nuclear power and the best way to deliver voting reform. Various opt-outs and exemptions from the convention of collective ministerial responsibility have been arranged on these issues, allowing the Liberal Democrats to abstain from the vote on nuclear, despite one of their number being Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and the two parties to fight opposing corners on any electoral reform referendum without these situations being taken as an issue of confidence for the Government.

The pertinent question is whether the core of the parties around the leaders can take their fringes with them as they seek to deliver on the legislative agenda. The Conservative leader has already come in for criticism from his backbench MPs, first for their exclusion from the coalition negotiations – a stark contrast to the process the Liberal Democrats went through with both their parliamentary party and the wider membership - and then the unusual attempt at interference from David Cameron in the Conservatives’ backbench forum, the 1922 Committee.

Cameron has now retracted his ill-advised plans to allow the Prime Minister and Cabinet Ministers to help choose the Committee’s chairman, but some may argue that a degree of damage has been done to the leader’s relationship with his party.

Supporters of Cameron had argued that the delicately balanced Coalition could not afford such a forum for dissent – historically the ’22 has been prolific in deposing Conservative Prime Ministers. Those against the decision allegedly warned Cameron the forum was an important safety valve for backbench discontent. Interestingly, the 1922 Committee was set up after a failed coalition with the Liberals and Lloyd George as a way to assert the views of the parliamentary party – perhaps a clue that Cameron should have stayed out of it.

The Queen announced 22 Bills in her speech to Parliament in a programme of government designed to fill the next eighteen months. Effort will be concentrated on a handful of priority Bills addressing issues which loomed large in the election campaign and the coalition negotiations, such as the Office of Budget Responsibility Bill, the Freedom (Great Repeal) Bill and the much discussed Education and Children’s and Academies Bills. Potential bumps in the road (or road blocks, critics might suggest) will likely be put off until a later point in the session when it is clearer how the Coalition is holding together in Parliament.

The new politics

In an effort to invoke the not entirely comparable themes of the Great Reform Act of 1832, which increased the level of suffrage, the Coalition will introduce the somewhat pompously titled Freedom (Great Repeal) Bill. According to Clegg this will go some way to revoke Labour’s ‘obsessive law-making’ and is aimed at rolling back the state and introducing safeguards to prevent future legislation which encroaches upon civil liberties.

The Coalition is looking at the Bill as a way of curbing the use of surveillance and CCTV, the use of DNA profiles, the storage of internet and email records, ‘rebalancing’ anti-terrorism legislation and restoring the right to peaceful protest.  In a similar quest to defend civil liberties, the Identity Documents Bill will scrap ID cards and any data related to the National Identity Register.

A Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill will put more powers in the hands of citizens by introducing directly elected police chiefs to oversee local police operations, making them democratically accountable for the first time. Police will get stronger powers to deal with alcohol-fuelled crime and disorder. Reform of the Licensing Act will mean that the selling of alcohol below cost price can be banned, licences can be removed from those who ‘cause problems’ and additional policing can be paid for through higher charges for late-night licences.

Bringing the police and the communities they serve closer together is part of the localism theme that runs across the Queen’s Speech. Communities will no doubt also welcome the promise to amend health and safety laws that ‘stand in the way of ‘common sense’ policing’. Another popular move will be the effort to deal with national security through the establishment of a dedicated Border Police Force, which could draw on the resources and powers of the existing UK Border Agency.

Localism

The push for more local control has been a key part of the argument against the over-centralised state which both sides of the Coalition agreed upon. Delivery of this agenda comes through reform of regional structures and changes to the planning system, both of which will be used to ‘return power to the people’.

Most straightforward of all will be the Local Government Bill which meets the Conservative commitment to reverse the previous government’s go-ahead to single tier local authorities for Norwich and Exeter and prevents the implementation of plans for a unitary authority in Suffolk, a move which Communities Secretary Eric Pickles claims will save at least £40m, albeit in the short-term.

More difficult, and not likely to come forward until after the summer recess, will be the Decentralisation and Localism Bill to give local communities control over planning and housing.

This Bill will also deliver on the changes promised in the Coalition programme which included the abolition of Regional Spatial Strategies (which have technically been moved into the Regional Strategy anyway), abolition of the Infrastructure Planning Commission and its replacement with a more ‘democratically accountable system’, abolition of the Standards Board, and giving councils a general power of competence, much of which was included in the Conservatives’ pre-election Planning Green Papers.

Residents will be given the power to instigate referendums and the power to veto council tax increases. Greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups is promised which will be linked to the forthcoming review of local government finance as set out in the Coalition Agreement.

The future of Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), a subject which has received extensive debate, is still not 100 percent clear but their replacement by Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEP) is suggested. It is not clear whether all the RDAs will go or whether some popular or successful ones could be rebranded, and how different a LEP would look from a RDA in reality.

The power of the state

Many of the Bills are concerned with reducing the power of the centralised state.

Michael Gove’s Department for Education will, through the Academies Bill, enable more schools to become academies giving them more power to have the ‘flexibilities and freedoms’ needed to drive up standards. This Bill also looks set to pave the way for ‘free schools’ to be set up more easily by parents independently of government.

However, his flagship bill is the Education and Children’s Bill. This will give more powers to teachers over what they teach and how they deal with improper behaviour and bullying. The much touted ‘pupil premium’ will also be introduced so that ‘money follows the poorest pupils’ although this may be brought forward through a third education bill. Ofsted, and other accountability frameworks, will be reformed ‘to ensure that head teachers are held properly accountable for the core educational goals of attainment and closing the gap between rich and poor’, the latter being a somewhat daunting task.

Health, usually a mainstay of Queen’s Speeches, has only a single Bill. The Health Bill looks to strengthen the role of patients and doctors in the system and will see the end of a number of health quangos, although none are mentioned by name.

Driving down the budget deficit was mentioned at the outset of the Queen’s Speech and is a continuing theme of the Health Bill. The reduction in quangos will take place alongside a drive to eliminate waste in order to cut the cost of NHS administration by a third. GPs will be allowed to commission services on behalf of their patients and an independent NHS Board will be established to allocate resources and provide commissioning guidance. The quality of frontline services will not be affected by any cuts made as part of the first round of £6 billion from the budget deficit and money saved in health will be reinvested in front line services.

Overarching all the measures on the public sector is the Public Bodies (Reform) Bill. This gives Ministers the powers to abolish, merge or transfer functions from quangos with the aim of cutting the number of public bodies and saving £1 billion year-on-year. Far from falling on their swords, many may be successful in robustly defending their positions and engage in a ‘hearts and minds’ operation with politicians and the media to prove their worth.

It will be interesting to see if, as part of its efforts to empower citizens, the Coalition allows citizens to suggest quangos and legislation that should be abolished, as previously proposed by the Conservatives. If so, then any legislation would need to put safeguards in place to prevent populist campaigns from springing up which try to abolish otherwise sound and sensible activities in which
the state is involved, for instance equalities law and health and safety legislation.

A non-legislative proposal put forward by the Government is the desire for an increased role in public service provision by social enterprise, charities and co-operatives. This reform is set to begin immediately, overseen by the Cabinet Office, with ‘early’ measures in place by Autumn.

Other proposals

The Energy Bill will be seen as the Liberal Democrats making an impact on sustainable development and delivering on energy efficiency both for homes and businesses. However, the Bill may also regulate emissions from coal-fired power stations, reform energy markets to deliver security of supply with fair competition, and put a framework in place for a smart grid.

There is very little on transport in the Speech with only the Airport Economic Regulation Bill, which commits the Government to developing a new vision for the industry whilst reforming its economic regulation, and the promise of a hybrid High Speed Rail Bill ‘in due course’. Whilst supporting high speed rail, the Government suggests that any new network should link to HS1 and to the Channel Tunnel, although this is not something that the previous HS2 report found a case to support.

The Coalition has also followed the trend of producing Bills in draft form with the
Draft Parliamentary Privilege Bill. This aims to clarify the extent and application of this long established principle following its invoking by those MPs who are being prosecuted over their expenses claims.

In recognition of the reform needed in the social care system the Government will establish an independent commission to consider responsible and sustainable funding for long-term care. A report is expected within a year.

Another key measure as far as the Coalition is concerned is the introduction of an annual limit on non-EU economic migrants. This will be secured through secondary, as opposed to primary, legislation. The level will be set only after discussions with business ‘and other interested sectors’. The Government is also committed to ending the detention of children for immigration purposes.

Samantha Aikenhead is a public affairs adviser at Bircham Dyson Bell

This briefing is not meant as a substitute for advice on particular issues and is written in general terms. You should seek specific advice before taking any action based on the information that this briefing contains.

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