Measuring Local Quality Of Life

The BBC reports that "English regions are to get 'quality of life' reports on health, education, social care, housing and policing." Replacing the present Comprehensive Performance Assessment — which, annoyingly for the Government, has on average awarded Conservative councils a higher overall service score and a better performance rating than non-Conservative councils — the Audit Commission claims that the new Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) will provide:

"the first independent assessment of the prospects for local areas and the quality of life for people living there. It will put the experience of citizens, people who use services and local taxpayers at the centre of a new local assessment framework, with a particular focus on those whose circumstances make them vulnerable. This focus on outcomes for local people requires CAA to look across councils, health bodies, police forces, fire and rescue authorities and others responsible for local public services, which are increasingly expected to work in partnership to tackle the challenges facing their communities."

The recurrent emphasis is clearly on our "local" communities. And yet the whole shift in focus away from individual county councils towards regions sounds like a move in the wrong direction — indeed, a move towards the European-determined regions and unelected regional assemblies to which local councils have already lost so many of their previous powers and which, where our opinion has been sought, have been rejected by voters.

If the CAA were really to evaluate our quality of life, it would take the localism agenda far more seriously and use it, in the words of the Conservatives' recent Quality of Life Policy Group report, "to empower the very lowest of levels of government, nearest to the people whose lives they affect." For, without considering how distant the relationship has become between us, as citizens, and those in authority whose decisions (and given the current state of the government, one might add, mistakes) have such an impact on our well-being, there is no prospect that this will achieve its stated aim of acting "as a catalyst for improvement in the quality of life for citizens, the experience of people who use services and value for money for taxpayers."

From Rhetoric To Democracy

"To counter public cynicism about political institutions and low levels of turnout in elections, we have to find new ways to engage citizens in the political process. More devolution of power and the active involvement of local communities in decision-making are essential if we are to rebuild confidence in our democracy locally and nationally."

So says former Labour local government minister Nick Raynsford following the publication of a report by an informal grouping of peers and MPs known as the Chamberlain Group calling for central government to give local authorities more freedom to respond to local needs.

Coming a day after the Local Government Association demanded an extra £250m a year for councils to deal with the impact of migration on public services, the cross-party report says local councils should be given more freedom to run their budgets, perhaps including the ability to issue their own bonds (just as Mayor Ken Livingstone has been allowed to do in London to help fund investment in the city's transport network) or to take a share of national taxes such as income tax or vehicle excise duty.

Given that all three major political parties claim to believe in more localism, as one of the most centralised states in Europe, perhaps it is not unreasonable to hope that some of their rhetoric will now be translated into a genuine restoration of local democracy.

Rifkind's East Lothian Compromise

Today's constitutional debate has its roots in the unfinished business of Scottish devolution and picks up on a proposal presented at the start of the month by Sir Malcolm Rifkind to a conference fringe meeting in Blackpool.

Since Labour first started creating havoc with the country's historic institutions, there has been an unresolved issue of why Scottish MPs can vote on issues that only affect England but that English MPs cannot vote on issues that only affect Scotland. The former lord chancellor, Derry Irving, maintained that the best answer to this so-called "West Lothian Question" (it was first raised by Tam Dalyell, the former West Lothian MP) was not to ask it, for fear of damaging the Union. Such a position is, of course, untenable.

Sir Malcolm's suggestion, dubbed the "East Lothian Compromise" as the MP for Kensington and Chelsea still regards his house at Inveresk in East Lothian as his main residence, is to create an English Grand Committee, similar to the long-established Scottish Grand Committee, which would allow English MPs exclusively to consider English domestic legislation. Less simplistic than an "English votes on English issues" policy, such a committee would not have the executive powers of a full English Parliament and whatever it decided would theoretically be subject to the will of the entire Commons. However, there could be a convention whereby Parliament would agree never to overrule the committee's decisions, in the same way that Westminster is precluded from exercising its power to overturn decisions by the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh or Northern Ireland assemblies.

Rifkind is to be applauded for his creative plan and, when Kenneth Clarke's democracy task force reports to the Conservative Party, it can only be hoped that it finds such workable solutions to all areas of Labour's constitutional vandalism, such as its unfinished reform of the House of Lords.

ON SECOND THOUGHTS: And yet ... do we really need another committee when the simple alternative would be to devolve to county councils those powers that have been devolved to Scotland, thereby negating the whole West Lothian question and re-empowering local democracy in one swoop?

Blueprint for a Green Economy

"If we are to create a way of living that we can sustain, then water, waste, transport and energy, as well as farming, food, fishing and the built environment, have to be thought of as a whole."

Launching the Conservatives' Quality of Life Policy Group report, a day after the price of crude oil reached a record $80, former Environment Secretary John Gummer is surely right to place the emphasis on sustainability.

At the end of the day, for all the uncertain predictions about an imminent big freeze or, conversely, a global heatwave and for all the questions about the extent to which man has exacerbated the planet's natural cycles of climate change, one thing is certain: the world's reserves of fossil fuels will one day run out. Whether we make them last 50 years or 100 years, or even 200 years, won't ultimately affect mankind's carbon footprint. What our rate of fossil fuel use will affect is the timeframe available in which we can invest in the research and development of renewable sources of energy — during which we can answer the really big question: How can we sustain life and civilisation as we know it? Or, as the report puts it, given that there are plenty of other symptoms of the damage wrought by humans' modern lifestyles — such as desertification, soil erosion, and the destruction of forests — can we continue to be an economically successful nation and, at the same time, an environmentally and socially healthy one?

Does the report provide a satisfactory answer that is "entirely consistent with long-standing Conservative principles"? The introduction notes that "Instead of wanting the State to intervene and control, Conservatives seek only to ensure that the market framework is capable of delivering the nation’s requirements and that people, communities, and organisations, whether for profit or not, are empowered and trusted to play their proper and fullest role." Yet, about aviation, it complains:

"Growth in demand is heavily concentrated in short-haul leisure flights taken by UK residents. Between 1994 and 2004, 70% of the additional international trips that occurred were UK residents going abroad for leisure. From the perspective of the UK economy, this is arguably the wrong sort of growth. Shorthaul leisure flights exacerbate the country’s tourism deficit – the difference between what overseas visitors spend in the UK and what British citizens spend abroad – which already stands at around £15 billion. Today, over half of all air trips arriving or departing UK airports are UK residents travelling for leisure, and this proportion is set to increase." (p.355)

Thus, some of what are already its most criticised recommendations, such as no further airport expansions, rethinking Heathrow's proposed runway, and no new runways at Gatwick or Stansted, seem to burst with big state interventionism. The authors argue that "Scaling back airport expansion plans would lead to more efficient use of existing capacity, and accelerate the allocation of flight slots to parts of the market that value them most" and that this "does not mean that there would be a diminution in the cheap flights already available," but it is hard to see how such an approach could not but damage Britain's economy and international competitiveness.

I am happy to accept the premise that no government can be neutral in matters of wellbeing and we should therefore shift taxation policy towards the taxation of pollution — from 'pay as you earn' to 'pay as you burn.' However, if the shift is to be managed in an orderly manner, the Government will need to ensure that the alternatives that it wishes us to embrace are adequate. There is no point trying to tax us from flying if the rail network doesn't have the capacity to cope with the additional passenger loads. I would probably even be willing to accept that the best way of retuning growth to take account of environmental health is "by pricing carbon into the equation as the most effective surrogate for environmental cost" — so long as this genuinely is not used as a means to increase the total tax burden.

I agree that "It is time to debunk the myth that we must choose between the environment and the economy. In truth there is no either/or between environmental protection, social stability and sustainable economic growth." So, its discussions about energy efficiency — for instance in the context of the household sector discussed earlier in the week by Zac Goldsmith, which include the rejection of the Home Information Packs (HIPs) regime — are to be welcomed. In the related context of planning and also of rural life and Defra, its recommendation that "the localism agenda be used to empower the very lowest of levels of government, nearest to the people whose lives they affect" is also strongly welcome. This also applies to the subsequent discussions about reform of Europe's infamous Common Agricultural Policy and Common Fisheries Policy, "to shift the CAP across Europe from production-related subsidies (Pillar 1) to a system of paying farmers for the public goods and services they provide (Pillar 2)." As it says, "The more complex the world gets, the more globalisation seems to remove power from people, politicians, and even nations, and the more it is important that individuals feel they have a real say about the future of their own community." It is high time that this process should be reversed.

Given that I also believe we should "tilt the balance back from ‘economy-friendly families to family-friendly economies,’" I would also not oppose the suggestion for the planning system to "prioritise the protection and enhancement of ‘town centres’ and ‘local neighbourhood shopping centres’ over and above out of town/edge of town retail development." If we wish to strengthen our local communities, then it seems vital that we maintain the economic and social viability of our towns. I expect that some of you might disagree, but I think this is an area where Margaret Thatcher's "Never call me laissez-faire" quote is probably relevant: "Government must be strong to do those things which only government can do."

Lastly, back on transport, I was pleased to see the call for increased carriage of freight by inland waterways and, in relation to proposed national road user charging, the willingness to "seek simple and transparent ways to achieve our ends and avoid grandiose schemes that rely on unproven technology and huge investment."

In conclusion, does the report tell us how we can continue to be an economically successful nation and, at the same time, an environmentally and socially healthy one in a way "entirely consistent with long-standing Conservative principles"? Given that these are merely proposals that will all go into the melting pot containing the many recommendations from each of the other policy group reports, then I believe we have to conclude that it does as least help illuminate the way forwards. The next challenge will be for the Party to compile a coherent manifesto around a single Conservative vision for the twenty-first century...

Planning Disaster

First the Government took away powers for planning from our elected local councils and gave them to unelected regional assemblies. Then, last December, the Barker Review of Land Use Planning called for a new national planning body to have the final say on major infrastructure projects such as power stations, with the aim of speeding up planning decisions. Now that ministers have incorporated this proposal into the Government's Planning White Paper, a coalition of the country's main environmental, conservation, and civic organisations with a collective membership in excess of 5,000,000 has published a map of where all the potential major developments could be built without local communities being properly consulted.

Expecting to find bad news, I went to Planning Disaster — only to find that my nearest project is a local traffic bottleneck that would have been solved almost a decade ago had Labour not come to power in 1997, since when they have repeatedly and effectively indefinitely postponed the project. Sadly, even with a national planning body, I suspect we will still have to wait until we get a Conservative government again and/or regional assemblies are abolished and their powers returned to our elected local representatives before this development takes place.

Aim High: Aim Local

A couple of days ago the Government published Aiming High for Young People: a ten year strategy for positive activities — its strategy to transform leisure-time opportunities, activities and support services for young people in England.

Perhaps most interesting, in this new era in which Brown appears to be undoing as much of the Blair legacy as quickly and decisively as he can, is the early admission that "an unintended consequence of Government policies to tackle some serious problems" has been "a culture that has widespread negative perceptions of youth." Thus we had Children's Secretary Ed Balls telling the Daily Mirror that he wants to end the era of anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs), saying every one that is issued is a "failure".

But, why stop at young people? Why not go the whole hog and accept that the Government's misguided attempts to tackle a whole raft of serious problems have resulted in a devastating series of "unintended consequences" — from its policies on drug use and teenage pregnancies, through NHS and educational "reform", to military action in the Middle East?

If the Prime Minister wanted to make a truly radical break with the past — and give more than just lip-service to "devolving power away from central government" and "pushing power downwards" — then he should apply what the report says about empowerment to all of us, not just young people. After all, it is not just young people who, when given the opportunity to influence services, are more likely to find them attractive and to access and benefit from them. Having devolved to Scotland powers such as education, health, housing, and economic development, there is no reason why these powers couldn't also be devolved to county councils. In one deft stroke, people would have a reason to take local elections seriously again and the whole "West Lothian" question would be resolved. If Wyoming in the States, with a population of just half a million, can manage such powers, there is no reason that even the smallest of our county councils (Shropshire: 289,000) could not also cope — if only the Government could see its way to trusting the people.

Ah, but therein lies the crucial difference between Labour and Conservative. With Labour — both old and new — the state (or, better still, multinational body) always knows best.