There is such a thing as society -
it’s just not the same as the state.

Last week, the Localism Bill was passed into law. I was glad to support its passage.  Through 13 years of New Labour, we witnessed continual moves towards centralised planning and micro-managing of our everyday lives. This new law will see central government interference cut and give power back to citizens, community groups and local councils.

To accompany the Act, the Government have helpfully updated the ‘plain English guide’ that was produced to accompany the Bill. You can read it here.

For councils this will mean: 

• Clarification of the rules on predetermination in order to free up councillors to express their opinions on issues of local importance without the fear of legal challenge;
• Abolition of Labour’s discredited Standards Board regime;
• Greater control over business rates.  Councils will have the power to offer local business rate discounts, which could help attract firms, investment and jobs;
• Cancellation of Labour’s unfair ‘ports tax’, which threatened to cripple key businesses, it simplifies the process for claiming small business rate relief to help small shops and small firms; and
• New planning enforcement rules, giving councils the ability to take action against people who deliberately conceal unauthorised development.

For local communities it will grant:

• The Right to Bid to run local services;
• The Right to Challenge by putting forward ideas to help their community;
• The Right to Veto excess council tax rises;
• The opportunity to draw up Neighbourhood plans;

However, there are caveats. I am an advocate of local referenda so I was disappointed to see that the Lords removed the flagship ‘local referendum’ provision from the Bill. That would have allowed voters to launch local referenda on local issues. Referenda do remain for council tax, right-to-build and neighborhood planning, but I know this will be a disappointment to some people in Wycombe.

Neighbourhood plans must, understandably, work inside some limits. If major infrastructure is decided upon at a national level, such as this benighted high-speed rail line, or if a strategic local plan calls for a certain number of homes to be built, then the Localism Act has safeguards to ensure neighbourhood plans do not override these wider ranging policies. Again, this will be a disappointment.

Nevertheless, I hope that the Localism Act will live up to its initial goal of radically decentralising power and fostering an environment where communities will have a greater say in their local area. We will see…

NB: The author is Tim Hewish, who I am glad to welcome as a local contributor. — Steve

Next week, the Conservatives will announce their new policy document on raising public participation in politics. It is true that we live in a representative democracy whereby MPs are elected with the responsibility of acting in peoples’ interests, however declaring our vote every 5 years and walking away from the political process often causes a disconnect between voter and representative.

This perception is something that we want to alter. With regard to the notion a ‘safe seat’, Conservatives will empower local people to cast a vote of no confidence in their elected representative if any MP fails to deliver on issues close to the constituency’s heart. This proposal will make MPs directly answerable to their constituents over the whole of a Parliament – not just every five years.

This sentiment is echoed by our local candidate, Steve Baker:

I am delighted that the concept of the ‘safe seat’ would come to an end under a Conservative government. People deserve better than Parliament has given them over recent years and this measure is an essential component of restoring trust in democracy. I welcome it.

Building on this theme of political breakdown between the People and Parliament – new forms of media as well as old have a distinct role to play. Take for example, the gladiatorial confrontations with Jeremy Paxman and John Humphrys, they are often too indigestible for all but the political obsessive. There are valiant attempts to appeal to a wider audience such as The Daily Politics and This Week, however it is acknowledge that pressure to appear jokey and fast moving can discourage exploring subjects in length.

The Conservatives are proposing a new type of service that would offer ‘Radio Three Politics’, allowing ministers a good ten minutes to explain their proposals, followed by ample responses from opponents, professionals, and members of the public. There is nothing unbearably highbrow about such an approach. It is, after all, the staple fare in any decent conference or seminar.

At present, the case for Parliamentary debate is being marginalised by the media as they are terrified of being thought boring. In fact intense and prolonged discussion can be much more absorbing than the routine trading of sound-bites.

From the Conservative Democracy Task Force:

The cheapest and easiest solution would be to establish a full-scale on-line presence for Parliament: interspersing clips from speeches in the Chamber or from Select Committees with round-table discussion and a suitably monitored chat room. For instance, The Daily Politics often becomes more entertaining when a sheaf of emails from viewers are read out whose instant responses often vary quite markedly from those of his studio guests.

Another key sea-change should be the returning value of the public petition. The public petition is an ancient tradition of Parliament but one which has fallen into disuse. Scotland and other northern European nations are using public petitions as a way of remedying their perceived remoteness and inaccessibility of their respective political culture. This isn’t a call for mob mentality to enter politics, but rather that channelling public clamour towards its proper destination: a debate in the nation’s forum.

Currently, we have Downing Street petitions which many millions will sign, but will often get an arms length response from Government spokesmen and nothing in reality gets done. A satisfactory procedure needs to be devised for the collection and assessment of petitions on subjects worthy of debate, with a view to finding time to debate them in Westminster Hall.

These ideas laid out above are just a small selection of what can be achieved with real dedication and drive to re-calibrate politics towards the public and away from political centralisation. In light of this, I urge voters to take time to read our People Power manifesto document next week for more details.

The latest publication from the Centre for Policy Studies arrived today: “Freedom for Public Services” by William Mason and Jonathan McMahon. Better services at lower cost, and more fulfilling jobs for public servants, are quite possible.

As ever, this CPS report is intelligent, brief, clear and insightful. The sheer scale of central regulation is shocking even as one who has begun to study the situation. Consider for example the list of regulators for the NHS:

• The Healthcare Commission
• Strategic Health Authorities
• Monitor
• The General Dental Council
• Payment by Results (The Audit Commission)
• The National Patient Safety Agency
• The National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme
• The Commission for Social Care Inspection
• The Mental Health Act Commission
• The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence
• The Health and Safety Executive
• The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency
• The Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts, part of the NHS Litigation Authority
• The National Commissioning Group
• and the Department of Health itself

Furthermore, healthcare professionals are individually regulated by, variously, medical schools, Royal Colleges, the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board, the General Medical Council and other professional organisations.

As you would expect, the paper makes a number of practical recommendations for simplification, efficiency and greater accountability in health and in the other public services, including the police, local government, schools and higher education. One summary point is particularly telling:

Central control is not working. Leading politicians of both main parties recognise that public services in the UK today are too large and complex for effective central management. In particular, David Cameron’s advocacy of the post-bureaucratic age is based on the premise that freedom of information can “make possible a new world of responsibility, citizenship, choice and local control.”

I recommend the report.