In Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons, David Cameron repeatedly dodged Harriet Harman’s question on the maximum 14-day wait for patients with suspected cancer.

The question she asked was quite simple:

“This week the Government published their White Paper on the national health service. They say that they will get rid of targets. Can the Prime Minister tell us whether patients will keep their guaranteed right to see a cancer specialist within two weeks of seeing their GP?”

His answer was less than clear:

“As for the NHS, what we have decided is that we will keep targets only when they actually contribute to clinical outcomes. We all want to see a higher cancer survival rate. I am afraid that, after 13 years of Labour government, we have not the best cancer outcomes in Europe, and we want the best cancer outcomes. That means rapid treatment, yes, but it also means rapid follow-up, and it means people getting the radiotherapy, chemotherapy and drugs that they need. Those are all essential. The one thing that we on this side of the House will do is continue to put real-terms increases into the NHS, whereas I understand that it is now Labour policy to cut the NHS.”

Harriet Harman tried again:

“Quite apart from the anxiety of having to wait, results are best if treatment starts as soon as possible. That is why it is important to be diagnosed and to see a specialist quickly.

The Prime Minister has not answered the question. The whole House will have seen that. He has dodged the question, just as his Health Secretary did. This is what the Health Secretary said in the House when he, too, was dodging the question:

“I have not said that we are abandoning any of the cancer waiting-time targets at the moment”.

I ask the Prime Minister to give us a straight answer. Will cancer patients keep their guarantee to see a specialist within two weeks—yes or no?”

David Cameron fudged again:

“For some people, two weeks is too long. That is the whole point. If a target contributes to good clinical outcomes, it stays; if it does not, it goes.”

As Harriet Harman pointed out:

“…. the Prime Minister has still not answered. He is obviously ditching the guarantee for cancer patients, but he has not the guts to admit it to the House.”

However, a different response was given in the Lords, when Labour’s Lord Alf Dubs pressed the Parliamentary Under Secretary for Health, Earl Howe, on the same point.  This was the exchange:

“Lord Dubs: My Lords, I wonder whether the Minister can do better than the Prime Minister did in Prime Minister’s Questions earlier today, when he declined to give a guarantee that the 14-day period, within which cancer patients should receive hospital treatment, would be upheld. Can he confirm that the Government will stick to the 14-day period?

Earl Howe: My Lords, that target of a 14-day referral period has a definite clinical underpinning. There are certainly no plans to abolish it.”

That was as clear an answer as you could get.

However, the bad news for cancer patients (and also probably for the good Earl Howe’s job security), when the Lords’ answer was put to the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesperson later in the day, he stuck with the Prime Minister’s fudge and refused to give a clear answer.

Earlier this evening I heard Sir Paul Stephenson, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, deliver the Police Foundation Annual Lecture (given each year in memory of Lord John Harris – no relation).

Sir Paul’s lecture, entitled “Fighting Organised Crime in an Era of Financial Austerity”, was insightful and thought-provoking.

And the thought it provoked in me was how does tackling serious crime fit into the Coalition Government’s agenda?

The answer, if you listen to Sir Paul (although he was much too polite to say it so explicitly), was that it doesn’t.

The lecture spelt out the impact that serious organised crime has directly and indirectly on communities and its financial and economic cost to the country.  And Sir Paul then pointed out that, despite the significant improvements in recent years:

“The specialist resources devoted by the police service to addressing the threat from organised crime remains uncoordinated.  ….  the  service has no organised crime strategy, no established national tasking process and no meaningful performance measures.”

He didn’t say – although he could have done – that the Coalition’s Programme for Government doesn’t mention serious organised crime in the chapter on “Crime and Policing” and the closest it gets to a mention anywhere in the document is in the chapter on “Immigration” which promises to:

“create a dedicated Border Police Force, as part of a refocused Serious Organised Crime Agency, to enhance national security, improve immigration controls and crack down on the trafficking of people, weapons and drugs. We will work with police forces to strengthen arrangements to deal with serious crime and other cross-boundary policing challenges, and extend collaboration between forces to deliver better value for money.”

Refocussing SOCA on immigration hardly solves the problem Sir Paul was describing.

He did, however, reveal that the Government is now drafting a paper on organised crime – so I suppose that must be progress.  However, before we get our expectations too high, he warns that this:

“must not be a collection of fine words and generic statements.”

…. perhaps he’s seen the draft.

And he concluded with a stark warning:

“I wonder how many Chief Constables across the country are going to be able and willing to balance the very proper desire and requirement for local community policing, with the challenge of maintaining at least existing capability to deal with the high end but often less obvious demands of serious organised crime.  And is the situation about to get even more complex?  Will the new accountability and governance model for police forces, incorporating directly elected local individuals, lead to the unintended consequence of further eroding existing limited organised crime capability?”

And, if the Coalition omits tackling serious organised crime from its programme for crime and policing, what will happen with directly elected police chiefs?

I hope we don’t have to wait for a Sicilian-style breakdown of civic authority before tackling organised crime reappears on the Coalition’s priority list.

There were a series of exchanges this afternoon in House of Lords Question Time on the sequence of events in Northumberland following the release from prison of Raoul Moat on 1st July.

Baroness Patricia Scotland, the Shadow Attorney General, had tabled the follwoing “topical” question:

“To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps were taken by Northumbria Police when the recent warning from HM Prison Durham was received; and whether a multi-agency risk assessment conference was called to assess the risk faced by Samantha Stobbart.”

This elicited the following answer from Baroness Neville-Jones, the Home Office Minister of State:

“My Lords, Northumbria Police received information on Friday 2 July from Durham prison that Mr Moat had threatened to cause Ms Stobbart serious harm. The chief constable referred the handling of the information to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which will conduct an independent investigation to determine whether Northumbria Police responded adequately. I also understand that Northumbria Police did not conduct a multi-agency risk assessment conference to assess the risk faced by Ms Stobbart.”

Baroness Patricia Scotland tried again (and widened the question into the wider issue of whether the Coalition Government will continue to give the same priority as the previous Labour Government to protecting women at risk of serious domestic violence):

“My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer, but can I ask her why they did not? Bearing in mind that these events demonstrate clearly the need for a risk assessment in such circumstances, what steps will be put in place to make sure that multi-agency risk assessments are made? Can she give us an assurance that the Government will maintain the commitment made by the previous Government to hold the 80 remaining multi-agency risk assessment conferences, which are necessary to cover the whole of the country? They are the best way of saving lives and money.”

The Minister responded but was clearly vague on the wider issues:

“My Lords, we certainly agree that the multi-agency risk assessment process is valuable. I have not heard anything from my colleagues that would suggest that we have any intention of doing away with them. There are clearly a number of actions that the police could have taken. One of the reasons why the chief constable referred the actions of her force to the IPCC was to discover what appropriate action could have been taken.”

Former Metropolitan Police Commissioner and former Northumberland Chief Constable reminded the House that there was an active police operation currently under way, which quite properly should not be underminded, and this produced the following exchanges:

“Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington: My Lords, I declare an interest as a former chief constable of Northumbria. Would the Minister not agree that this is a time for supporting Northumbria Police in a most dangerous and difficult situation? This is not a time for apportioning blame in any way, shape or form. Would she also not agree that this will be fully investigated by an independent authority? Let us support the police in their difficult task.

Baroness Neville-Jones: I am sure the whole House, including me, share the sentiments that have just been expressed.

Lord Elystan-Morgan: Was the threat that was made of such a nature that it could have been interpreted as a threat to kill? Does the noble Baroness appreciate that, under the Criminal Law Act 1977, the threat to kill is a very serious offence that is punishable by 10 years’ imprisonment? Was any thought given to arresting this man before he left prison and with a view to prosecution, thus avoiding the possibility of further offences?

Baroness Neville-Jones: My Lords, it is absolutely right to say that such a threat would be very serious. My understanding is that the police force was not informed that there was such a threat to life.”

Labour’s Baroness Liz Symons then reverted to the failure to carry out a risk assessment and again the Minister couldn’t really answer:

“Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, will the Minister address the very specific Question put by my noble and learned friend Lady Scotland—why was a multi-agency risk assessment not held?

Baroness Neville-Jones: Let me give the House the timelines. The prisoner was released on 1 July, the information about this man’s statements was given to the force on 2 July and the chief constable learnt of that information only on 4 July. She referred the matter to the IPCC the following morning; clearly she felt there was a need to do so. I cannot go beyond that at the moment because this matter is under investigation, so I cannot help the House further.”

Lord Brian Mackenzie and I then widened the issues by probing the impact of the Coalition’s policies on opposing police force mergers, on cuts in the policing and prison budgets and on the plans not to proceed with prison sentences of less than six months:

“Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate: My Lords, does the noble Baroness think that there is now a powerful case for looking at the size and number of police forces?

Baroness Neville-Jones: My Lords, the Northumbria Police are receiving mutual aid. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has been in touch with the force. If it needs any further assistance, it will certainly be given it. As for the noble Lord’s basic question of whether it is a good idea for forces to help each other, we as a party are in favour of forces joining together, or indeed merging if they wish, provided there is local support for such a move.

Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, while I am mindful of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, given that there has been newspaper criticism of the efficiency of the Prison Service in issuing a warning and whatever response there may have been by Northumbria Police, what safety guarantees can the noble Baroness give on behalf of the coalition Government that in a few years’ time, with 25 per cent fewer prison officers and a 25 per cent reduction in police grant, which will no doubt impact disproportionately on specialist resources, this sort of event will not recur, or is the answer that Raoul Moat would not have been in prison at all because his sentence was only 18 weeks and, as far as the coalition is concerned, people like him should roam the country freely?

Baroness Neville-Jones: This individual was in for a short custodial sentence. Under the regime that prevails at the moment, half that sentence was served. As things stand, under legislation that was not passed by this Government, the governor has no discretion to do anything other than release the individual. He performed a duty in warning the police.”

This prompted a Tory backbencher to intervene – clearly unhappy with Coalition policy on not imprisoning people for less than six months:

“Lord Elton: My Lords, does the Minister understand the concern in this House about the release of potentially dangerous prisoners? Will she use this opportunity to revise, review, and preferably improve the method of screening prisoners before they are released in order to protect the public?

Baroness Neville-Jones: My Lords, my noble friend raises a very important issue. I understand that the IPCC will follow the investigation trail, so I think that we will get help in the form of its view about what happened immediately before the release. However, the issue that is raised is important and no doubt we will have to follow it.”

Not really surprising that the Minister looked so relieved that Question Time had finished.

I neveronly very rarely have a good word to say for LibDem MPs.  However, when I do come across one talking sense, I feel I should make an effort to mark the occurrence.

So step forward Julian Huppert, MP for Cambridge, and take a bow.

He has written an article for ePolitix.com applauding the BMA for calling for a ban on NHS funding of homeopathy.   He describes himself as “a strong proponent of evidence-based policies” (I won’t ask how he squares that with his support for some of the less-than-soundly based policies of the Coalition Government) and points out that:

“There is no scientific basis for why an extremely diluted solution completely devoid of any active ingredient should be an effective treatment.”

As he says (twice in consecutive paragraphs):

“Homeopathy has been shown to be ineffective beyond placebo.”

He goes on to argue:

“The use of homeopathy by NHS doctors also raises ethical questions. Because the placebo effect ultimately depends on deception, it removes patient choice and undermines the trust inherent in the doctor-patient relationship.

It is unethical to prescribe patients homeopathic remedies while giving them the mistaken impression that they are valid medical treatments.

In these tough economic times where we must look for savings, spending on homeopathy cannot be justified. Disgracefully, our government has no idea how much it spends on homeopathy, but estimates reported by the Guardian place NHS spending on homeopathy at £12 million from 2005 to 2008.

These are millions of pounds that could be spent on treatments that have been proven to be effective at treating patients.”

It was a scandal that the last Government allowed this to continue.  I will watch with interest to see what impact Julian Huppert will have on his Coalition colleagues.

I am not looking for any recognition, as you know these things don’t matter to me at all and I am profoundly disinterested in where this blog comes in the annual Total Politics ranking of political blogs, so I really am not asking for you to vote for me or my blog ……..

but ……..

should you be so inclined (and I repeat I really, really don’t mind one way or the other), this is what you have to do:

The rules are:
1. You must vote for your ten favourite blogs and rank them from 1 (your favourite) to 10 (your tenth favourite).
2. Your votes must be ranked from 1 to 10. Any votes which do not have rankings will not be counted.
3. You MUST include at least FIVE blogs in your list, but please list ten if you can. If you include fewer than five, your vote will not count.
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7. Anonymous votes left in the comments will not count. You must give a name.
8. All votes must be received by midnight on 31 July 2010. Any votes received after that date will not count.

So I’m not asking you to do it, but I really won’t mind if you do……

“It’s the economy, stupid” was famously the theme of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign against the incumbent, George Bush Sr.

George Osborne is now trying to use the same message to pretend that the scale of the planned public expenditure cuts are justified by the state of the British economy and the scale of the deficit that the Coalition Government inherited.

However, an article by the estimable Bill Keegan in today’s Observer demonstrates yet again that what is driving the Coalition Government’s stance on public spending is ideology not economics – a desire to finish the Thatcherite evisceration of the public sector.  It is rather as though Thatcher’s children – aka Cameron, Osborne and Clegg – have a psychological drive not only to obtain parental approval, but a desire to achieve more than that parent – just as George W Bush seemed to feel he had to emulate his father’s invasion of Iraq and then take that invasion one stage further to regime-change and beyond.

Bill Keegan describes the Coalition Government’s economic policies as “fiscal masochism” and “Born Again Thatcherism” arguing that:

“The pretext for Thatcherism Mark One was the threat of accelerating inflation in 1979/80. The acceleration in inflation was assisted in no small way by some injudicious decisions taken by the Thatcherites, decisions that served to embed an inflationary shock emanating from the second oil crisis. This time the pretext is the fiscal deficit, the significance of which our new government has been grossly, and irresponsibly, exaggerating.

Last week, I pointed out how minor the public debt “crisis” of today appears when compared with the situation that faced chancellor Neville Chamberlain when he introduced his deflationary budget of 1932. Chamberlain, and the “Treasury View” that lay behind his budget strategy, have rightly been castigated by economic historians for that deflationary approach. Yet the debt problem facing our strange coalition is hardly on the same scale.”

He then takes the Coalition’s arguments neatly to pieces:

“The figures are worth repeating: the latest budget red book puts UK debt at 61.9% of gross domestic product in 2010/11 (against 177% in 1932) and debt interest at 6.3% of total public expenditure in 2010/11 (against 40% in 1932).

And the invaluable annual report of the Bank for International Settlements (the “central bankers’ bank”, based in Basle) contains some impressive charts and tables that suggest our new prime minister and chancellor, along with their Lib Dem collaborators, should be prosecuted under the Trade Descriptions Act for distorting the scale of our fiscal problems.

I give you chapter and verse: on page 68 (Part V) you will find that Britain is top of the league when it comes to the length of time before its debt has to be refinanced. The “average maturity” of the UK’s debt is 14 years; by comparison, other leading industrial countries, including the US and Germany, have maturities of under 9 years. This is not to say there is anything wrong with the US or German position – few can gainsay the fiscal rectitude of the Germans; and the US, whatever its fiscal problems, remains the pre-eminent reserve currency. But it shows how hysterical the debate in Britain has become.

Again, on the same page, the BIS report contains a graph comparing different countries’ dependence on overseas finance. “Non-residents” hold approximately 70% of Greek government debt, just under 50% of US government debt, and below 30% of UK government debt.”

So the debt is not as bad as suggested, the scale of the debt interest needing to be paid each year is not as serious as we have been told, and the UK’s vulnerability in terms of refinancing and of overseas debt holdings is far less than the Coalition Government would have us believe. 

So it’s not the economy, but ideology.  And Tory ideology at that.

I’ve mentioned before being told by a (slightly tipsy) Conservative MP before the election that the Tories’ political strategy, if they won, would be to declare that the state of the economy was much worse than had been expected and then embark on a programme of “Ridley-ite” cuts that would make Margaret Thatcher proud.  And that was before the full scale of the global recession had kicked in.

And now as Bill Keegan reminds us even the markets are getting jumpy:

“While Osborne has been fomenting fears of how the markets might react to insufficient austerity, the theme of the market reports last week – following the commitment to fiscal masochism that emerged from the G20 meeting at the weekend – was that those financial markets that brought us the crisis and then called for austerity are now concerned about the effect this might have on economic growth – and hence on those budget deficits they seek to reduce!”

Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office Minister, has criticised Assistant Commissioner John Yates (who heads the Counter-Terrorist network) for a PRIVATE briefing he gave to Police Chiefs yesterday.  However, the criticism comes across as a Minister shooting from the hip rather than anything else.

Francis Maude has apparently told the BBC 

“I’d like to avoid public servants doing this kind of shroud waving in public.  There is a special responsibility on all public servants to be really careful what we say and what we do.”

But the briefing concerned was not in public.  It was in private.

The event was a CLOSED session at the conference of the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities.

The Times newspaper (behind its pay-wall, so no link) reported the speech on the basis of a conversation one of their reporters had with one of the those present and, according to this source, John Yates talked about the implications of the postulated 25% cut in police funding for counter-terrorism and security work. 

He is reported to have explained that the implications for the counter-terrorism budget were likely to mean that “the Metropolitan Police (Met) would see £87m wiped from its anti-terror budget, while units across the country would lose £62m.”

Is this shroud-waving?

Well, actually, it isn’t.

I remember the debates when police forces outside London were asked to host Counter-Terrorist Units and Counter-Terrorist Intelligence Units.  The forces concerned were naturally worried that they would be employing a substantial number of extra specialist officers and wanted to know what would happen if the funding was reduced or cut altogether.  Those extra officers could not be readily transferred to other duties (particularly if the force concerned already had a restricted budget) and there is no simple way of making police officers redundant. 

Quite properly, ACPO acknowledges - as I understand did John Yates – that police forces have to face cuts in the same way as other areas of public spending and their spokesperson said:

“The home secretary has made clear that alongside other areas of public spending, policing must deliver its share of savings to meet the fiscal deficit.”

And went on:

“No area of policing is immune.”

So, if the Treasury is pressing ahead with the Comprehensive Spending Review, so that the results can be announced in October, which it is, and, if the Home Office is to produce its figures for the Treasury by the end of July, which it does, that has certain consequences.  

Not surprisingly, the Home Office has asked the budget-holders who deliver the component parts of the Home Office budget to provide their figures to the Home Office very soon.  And that will include those parts of the police service that are responsible for counter-terrorism and security.

It would be a rather strange way of managing ANY public service for the person responsible NOT to take the opportunity of briefing those who might be left with a substantial contingent liability as a result of decisions that are in the process of being taken.

So John Yates was not shroud-waving, he was making sure – as any good manager would – that those likely to be directly affected by a decision – and who will have to implement it – were kept fully informed.

Let no-one be under any illusions, there will be consequences of a 25% cut in police expenditure on counter-terrorism and security, just as there will be for a similar cut in other forms of policing and just as there will be for other areas of public spending that are cut. 

No doubt we will all want to debate the implications when those decisions are finalised, but in the meantime Francis Maude should let senior managers get on with the job – and that includes briefing those affected.

Ten years ago today the Metropolitan Police Authority assumed its functions taking over from the Home Secretary the role of police authority for London.

I have found a speech I made at the time and it is interesting to see what my vision was then as the Authority’s first Chair and also to note how much some things have changed since then (although some remain the same).

Ten years ago I said:

“For the first time since Sir Robert Peel, the then Home Secretary, founded the Metropolitan Police over 170 years ago, a new Metropolitan Police Authority has taken over the responsibility for overseeing the Metropolitan Police Service from his successor, the present Home Secretary.

This Authority, working with the Commissioner, is dedicated to ensuring that the Metropolitan Police Service delivers its present mission, to make London safe for all its people and in doing so treat everyone fairly, by being open and honest, and by continually seeking to improve the service provided to the public.

There are enormous challenges facing the Metropolitan Police. Whilst burglary rates are falling, street crime is rising. Clear up rates are perceived as too low, police priorities are not always what local communities feel they should be in their respective areas and too often we will still hear people saying that the police are nowhere to be seen when they are needed.

When the report of the inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence was published, it seemed to confirm what many people then felt: the Police were seen too often as being incompetent, insensitive and unintentionally racist.

The respect that too many Londoners had for the Police was probably then at an all-time low. I believe it has improved since then, given the enormous effort by the Police Service at all levels to respond positively to the criticisms levelled at them. And it is, of course, the case that the Police are more highly regarded by and large than say politicians or local councils!

In recent times, police numbers have fallen and the Metropolitan Police’s recruitment drive has not even been keeping pace with the number of officers who are leaving the Service.  A substantial shortfall has been anticipated and there have been fears that the Police Service will be below the strength required to police London effectively by the end of this year. This is a reflection of pay that was unattractive, given the high cost of living in London.  According to the Met’s follow up of people interested in a career in the Service they were being put off by the high cost of housing and transport.

That, of course, is the bad news. But let us be clear, every Londoner wants the Metropolitan Police Service to be successful and effective – everyone that is except the criminals, the vandals and those who enjoy causing disorder.

The new Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) has a heavy responsibility.  The over-riding task of the new Authority, together with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, must be to make sure that London gets the Police Service that it deserves – a Service that is effective in tackling crime and disorder and winning the confidence and the support of all those who live and work in this wonderful, diverse, vibrant city of ours.

This will mean, in particular, cutting street crime drastically and reducing drug-related incidents significantly.  It will mean making our streets safer and making all of us feel more secure in our homes. Indeed, I believe that this Authority’s success or failure will be judged on whether crime in London is reduced and the Metropolitan Police achieves its stated objective of making London the safest major city in the world.”

I also said – and this was long before neighbourhood policing or the Policing Pledge (now abandoned by the Coalition Government):

“The public have got to have confidence in their Police Service and the way to achieve that is through mutual respect and partnership. The public have got to feel that the Police, like any other public service, is there to help them and ready to respond appropriately. And that means individually, every police officer has got to show respect to individual members of the public, regardless of race, gender, colour, creed or sexuality.

But in turn, tackling crime has got to be seen as a partnership – a partnership between the police and the public and between the police and other agencies, such as local councils. Local communities know where local crime hot spots are and have a fund of information. The public need to tell the police when they see something suspicious and need to have the confidence that what they say will be acted on seriously, sensitively and effectively. They need to know who their local beat officers are and how to contact them. I believe these beat officers must be at the centre of London’s policing – men and women who understand the local area, are seen as part of the community, and who are accessible and can stop trouble before it gets started.”

 

 

Speeches in the House of Lords are often extremely good: usually knowledgeable and well-informed; frequently incisive; and often very witty.  However, they are rarely passionate.

Today – for once – there was passion in abundance, when Baroness Patricia Hollis rose to demolish the “spiteful” Government Bill that would deny Norwich (and Exeter) the status of being unitary authorities.

She was in magnificent form:

“My Lords, I declare an interest as former leader of Norwich City Council, and also a former Norfolk county councillor. Perhaps I may add that nothing I will say in any way casts aspersions on the integrity of my fellow Norfolk Peers or indeed on the Minister herself, whom I hold in high regard.

I fully accept that the judicial review has cut across this Bill, which means that we did not pursue the issue of hybridity and we did not argue the case before the Examiners. Not surprisingly, therefore, the examination was exceedingly short. We also accept that, together with the Minister, we need to clarify the electoral situation of councillors. However, the Bill is before us and that is what we are debating, so I want to say something about local government reorganisation more generally, and then analyse the reasons for what I regard as a spiteful little Bill.

In 1974, Norwich and Exeter had been unitary councils for more than 600 years. They had ratepayer democracy half a century before county councils were even invented. By the 1930s, Norwich County Borough not only exercised all of today’s district and county council functions, including the police but ran the massive non-voluntary hospitals and public health chunk of the future NHS, all of today’s Anglia water authority and the major utilities, as well as a large part of the social security system. Norwich’s budget would have been between £1.5 billion and £2 billion, I calculate in today’s prices, compared with our current non-housing budget of £50 million.

With that record, it is insulting when Eric Pickles of unitary Bradford, a mere village when Norwich was the second city of England, or the Minister, from the unitary London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, invented only in the 1960s, tell us that unitary status is fine for them but not for us. From 1888, when Norfolk County Council was invented, until 1974, almost every initiative of note in the county was pioneered by the city. That is what cities do.

We are the largest non-unitary authority in the country. We are already considerably larger than many existing unitary authorities. Our population will be 160,000 in eight years’ time. We have two cathedrals, two universities, a major FE college, an international airport, a thriving theatre and the greatest collection of medieval churches in western Europe. What are we lacking—apart, obviously, from the fact that Mr Pickles is not our MP? We have recently been shortlisted alongside Birmingham, Sheffield and Derry/Londonderry for the title of City of Culture. Disinterested observers might think that Norwich was up there with the major cities rather than down there with the rural district councils.

Into that respectful and complementary partnership between county borough and county council—at the time, I was a city councillor—came 1974. Peter Walker wanted unitary counties. I was a member of the AMA. We fought for, but failed to save, most of the county boroughs. The history of local government reorganisation since then has been that of remedying the folly of Peter Walker’s policies by both parties. In the early 1980s, the Conservatives got rid of the met counties and made Mr Pickles’ Bradford unitary. Whoopee! In the mid-1990s, as my noble friend said, the Conservatives, under David Curry and John Gummer, to whom I pay tribute, made a whole swathe of cities unitary: Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, York—all former county boroughs, like Norwich and Exeter—Milton Keynes, Peterborough and Basildon, which do not have such a history or track record. Norwich and Exeter were on that list. Norfolk should have come under the wire then, as the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, has agreed and admitted, but the county Tories in Norfolk fought it off.

That drive to unitary status as the most effective local government structure for cities continued under the Labour Government. My noble friend made this point very well: do your Lordships know of any counties that would now wish to turn the clock back to district councils for their cities? Does Derbyshire want to do that to Derby, Nottinghamshire to Nottingham, Leicestershire to Leicester, Buckinghamshire to Milton Keynes? No, they value and support their cities, recognising how much they bring to their county’s economy and growth. Why, by contrast, is Norfolk so bellicose and so fearful? I will come back to that.

Following the 2006 White Paper, 26 cities and large towns made their bid. The Boundary Committee was requested to consider Norwich’s and Exeter’s proposals, and twice, with unerring instinct, produced the only solution that none of the local authorities, including the county council in Norfolk, wanted: a return to a Peter Walker unitary county. However, the Boundary Committee would not listen, so JRs followed. As Paul Rowsell, the senior civil servant responsible, said in his court witness statement of 22 March this year, had the Boundary Committee reported on time, not nine months late, implementation would have already happened and this spiteful little Bill would not have seen the light of day. Had the Boundary Committee reported on time, the Secretary of State could, as the judge suggested, have consulted on the additional criteria, the JR would not have succeeded and, again, this spiteful little Bill would not have seen the light of day. Max Caller and his Boundary Committee team have wasted a lot time and money and have served local government very badly indeed.

So what are the professed reasons for this spiteful little Bill? Page 7 of the impact assessment—I had to request extra copies, but the Minister was good enough to put them into the Printed Paper Office—is headed “Rationale for Change” and is personally signed by the Minister as a fair and reasonable view of costs, benefits and impact. It gives four reasons for the rationale for the Bill. First, she says, it is in the coalition programme. So what? That programme was negotiated after the election by two minority parties and has no electoral mandate. In any case, as the noble Lord, Lord Low, pointed out in the Queen’s Speech debate, it is utterly at odds with the rest of the localism programme in the coalition programme.

Secondly, the Minister states that these two cities becoming unitary would be expensive and poor value for money, a point hammered home by the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor. For the first six years of transition, the total net non-discounted cost of Norwich and Exeter going unitary comes to around £300,000 per authority, or £50,000 per year per authority. The impact assessment allows, grudgingly, that there should be savings thereafter but, oddly, it does not estimate them. Funny, that. Your Lordships might just think it relevant that over the following six years those savings would equate to at least £20 million or upwards and would grow each year thereafter. These figures are certified by Deloitte and, for what it is worth, they have been crawled over by me. Will the Minister tell me how an expenditure of £300,000 in the first six years to generate savings of £20 million or more the next six years is expensive and poor value for money? For the impact assessment to give costs, but not savings over time, means these statistics are not worth while.

Thirdly, the Minister buttresses her case, which was much quoted by the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, by quoting the Permanent Secretary as saying that a unitary Norwich and a unitary Exeter represent poor value for money, and that “therefore” stopping these unitaries is good value for money, but compared with what? What the Minister does not say, and did not say in her impact analysis or in her speech today, what the impact assessment should have said and what the House is entitled to know is that the Permanent Secretary, when arguing that city unitaries were poor value for money, was comparing them not with the status quo of the Bill, as you might expect, given that it is supposed to be an impact analysis, but with unitary counties, which are not introduced by the Bill, which were indeed the cheapest option, but which nobody but the Boundary Committee and the Permanent Secretary appear to want.

The Permanent Secretary’s comparison is completely invalid. Indeed, it is worse than that because what the Minister does not tell us, which again the House should surely know, is that her solution—the status quo—is the most expensive of the three options. It is far more expensive than unitary Norwich and Exeter, as I have shown. On costs versus benefits, it is far more expensive than the Permanent Secretary’s unitary Norfolk. Her version of value for money is to save £300,000 for each authority over six years and forego savings of £20 million over the next six years. That is not mentioned—funny, that.

As Ministers, many of us have signed impact analyses. We know what we are talking about, so I say with the utmost seriousness that this impact analysis is greatly misleading, makes false comparisons and suppresses relevant information. I am sad that the Minister, whom I respect most profoundly, could put her name to it. It really will not do.

The fourth of the Minister’s arguments is in the rationale on page 7 of the impact statement. She argues that the 2006 non-statutory criteria were not followed. As we argued at that time, additional criteria were added: that is, a sensible response to the recession. The High Court judge, Mr Justice Ouseley, has nullified the orders because the DCLG failed to indicate in December 2009 that “compelling reasons” such as the recession might lead to a proposal being accepted that did not meet all the 2006 proposals. The Boundary Committee’s tardiness has meant there was no time for further consultation.

We, the city of Norwich, have been urged to appeal on constitutional grounds that such action—striking down not just the actions of the Secretary of the State, which can happen, although infrequently, but the will of Parliament itself—has not been taken. I may be wrong, but I have been told that such action has not been taken by any judge hitherto below the level of the Law Lords and now the Supreme Court. At £200,000 or so, Norwich cannot afford the risks of challenge. Of course, the JR reviews the decisions of a Minister, but one High Court judge striking down the express will of Parliament over seven hours of debate is somewhat unsettling.

In consequence, we did not pursue the issue of hybridity: that Norwich and Exeter were being singled out for unfavourable treatment compared with the other authorities that had gone through. That argument has also gone by default. Why, then, are the Government so determined that Norwich and Exeter in particular should not be unitary? Clearly, the four arguments in the impact analysis are a work of constructive fiction.

Some years ago, when I fought a Norfolk seat with a large rural hinterland, a farm worker rang me from a public phone box. I said that I would drive over, but he said, “No, no. I will come on my bike”. I said, “But it’s eight miles”. He said, “It’s more than my job or my cottage is worth to be seen speaking to you”. That was the Norfolk I experienced as a county councillor. People were decent and public spirited but with an unshakeable belief in a right to rule over pheasants, farm workers and Norwich. The city was gifted to them in 1974 and what they have they hold.

Over and beyond property rights, money is the second reason why Norfolk county councillors—two-thirds of whom are also rural district councillors—have fought us. Urban Norwich subsidises the rural county at a severe cost to its own services. Even the Boundary Committee acknowledges that Norwich has been poorly served. In 1974, we handed over six comprehensives, from four of which you could go to good universities, as did my two sons who went through the state system. On Norfolk’s watch, one comprehensive has been closed and four of the remaining five have been taken into special measures. Why? Rather than raise the rates to keep open small rural schools, which I support, Norwich schools have been run down instead. Poorer Norwich council tenants see their services run down to ensure that the rates on affluent Broadland homes are kept low.

The third reason for the Tory county opposition is because cities, especially unitaries as my noble friend argued, generate jobs and growth. Half of Norfolk’s jobs are in Norwich, but, as I was told on the county council by one Norfolk county councillor who was also a farmer, no local employer wanted the competition from more new jobs because that would push up wages.

The final reason is of course politics. Norwich is a left-of-centre city. It celebrated the French Revolution with a maypole in the market square. It has been the home of dissenters, Chartists, Liberals—at least until now—and now Greens. A unitary Norwich would be stronger not only economically but politically, and I am not sure which is the greater offence.

My dismay is particularly with the Lib Dems. Norman Lamb is the MP for North Norfolk. With no formal connection to Norwich, he and the national party of the Lib Dems have overruled the local Lib Dems on the city council, who initiated the move to unitary status and who have fought heroically for unitary status. They view the actions of their London party with utter fury. Norman Lamb’s position is also at odds with the position of the new Lib Dem MP for Norwich South, Simon Wright, who is also committed to a unitary Norwich. On 9 March, Norman Lamb told the other place that he wants progressive city councillors to remain on the county council—that is why he does not want Norwich to be a unitary—so that, in his words, one party, a Tory party, does not,

“rule for the rest of Norfolk for ever and a day”.

That, he said, would be,

“an outrage”.—[Official Report, Commons,9/3/10; col. 252.]

For Norman Lamb, a Tory county would be an outrage—before he joined the Tory coalition, of course—so he supports the Tories nationally to block Norwich’s unitary status in order to better fight the Tories locally. How twisted, and how cynical, is that?

This remains unfinished business. Be in absolutely no doubt that Norwich will become a unitary authority, although it may take us several years longer than we had hoped. In the mean time, the people who will pay the real bill are the people of Norwich and the county of Norfolk. They will be denied a strong, focused, unitary city that could bring them the jobs and growth they so desperately need.”

There is an interminable debate going on in the House of Lords chamber at the moment on the motion that “that this House takes note of the case for reform of the House of Lords.”  Sixty-seven peers have put down to speak and at the present rate of progress the debate will finish about 1am tomorrow.  Proof, if it be needed, that there is no subject that the House will wish to debate in more detail than its own future.

In an insouciant speech, the Leader of the House, Thomas Galloway Dunlop du Roy de Blicquy Galbraith, 2nd Baron Strathclyde (for it is he), set out the Government’s policy.  His smirk – that would have made the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland jealous – grew wider every time he hinted that the process of Lords reform might take a long time and be subject to much debate, discussion and argument.

He also exposed the Conservative element of the Coalition Government’s attitude to that hallowed document, the Coalition Agreement.

First, he acknowledged that Lords’ Reform would not have been a Tory priority:

“Before the election, we knew that if Labour had won we would now be faced with a Bill based on Jack Straw’s committee paper, seeking to legislate on an elected senate in Labour’s historic fourth term—but that was not to be. Equally, we believed that, with a Conservative victory, reform would not be such an urgent priority and we could continue to seek a consensus for a long-term reform. Under the coalition Government … the issue has now been given greater priority.”

Then he introduced a note of weariness:

“We seem to have been living with propositions for reform of your Lordships’ House for years, indeed decades. It is neither the most important question facing the country nor the least important; this is one House in a sovereign Parliament. It is a House that has often been proved right in recent years, but its voice needs to be better heard.”

Followed by what for him was clearly a moment of regret:

“There have been years of debate since the 1999 Act changed this House for ever by ending the right to sit by virtue of hereditary peerage alone.”

And the mask almost slipped with:

“We have seen umpteen schemes and watched them drift down umpteen backwaters, often with many here cheering loudly as they ran aground in the mud. We have seen umpteen propositions for change within the House.  …..  Many have hoped that it would all go away, but it has not.”

Was he one of the many perhaps?

Then a hint that maybe the whipping on the Conservative side of the Coalition may not be quite as rigorous as one would expect when the time comes for the House to consider a reform Bill:

“My Lords, I have consistently taken the view over a long period—I am not saying that I will retain that consistency—that whipping a Bill on reform of the House of Lords is a particularly fatuous exercise as I suspect that Peers will make up their own minds, almost whatever the Whips tell them. However, we are a long way from having legislation on which we need to take a view on whether it will need to be whipped.”

And finally a direct indication that the Coalition Agreement is hardly worth the paper it is written on:

“The coalition agreement, which noble Lords will have seen, envisaged a wholly or mainly elected House with elections on the basis of proportional representation. ….. it also anticipated the transitional arrangement that a “grandfathering” system would be put in place for current Members of the House. I know that noble Lords will be anxious to know what both these things mean. They mean that we as a Government have yet to take a view—”

So there we have it:

…. the Cheshire Cat is grinning.