HC Deb 26 April 1978 vol 948 cc1480-514

  1. "(1) In designated districts and in districts as respects which arrangements have been entered into under section 4 of this Act, the district council shall involve voluntary organisation community groups, and neighbourhood bodies actively involved in the designated areas.
  2. (2) Notwithstanding subsection (1) above the district council shall co-opt representatives of non-statutory organisations to any committee or working party concerned with the implementation of the Act."—[Mr. Steen.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Steen

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

This Bill is marked by the fact that it tends to concentrate on the mechanics of government and local authorities—administration and bureaucracy—and not to concern itself with the needs of people. The Bill is about improving the quality of life of people living in the inner parts of our great towns and cities.

The subject of people has hardly been mentioned by the Government. It is as if people were unimportant, and did not exist. The importance of the thrust in the Bill is that it should involve itself with the plight of the disadvantaged in our principal cities.

We have heard about plans, districts, buildings and grants—everything but the human being. If the Minister is intent on defeating the new clause it may illustrate to the country and thousands of voluntary organisations and community groups the sincerity of the Government about the rights of the individual and those living in inner cities and the many neighbourhood community organisations and groups that have grown up to represent interests, feelings and aspirations in our major towns and cities.

I hope that the Minister will reflect on the impact that this may have on the thousands of people engaged in voluntary work and community activities who have a lurking suspicion that the Government, although they talk about their concern for the individual, have, by their performance, particularly in the Bill, demonstrated that they have no regard for the problems of people and are more concerned with macro-economics. That process is less important to the Government than these grandiose schemes and plans.

I remind the Minister of the importance in this country—in this respect it is different from many of its European neighbours—of the voluntary spirit and voluntary work which is the touchstone of our way of life. Yet, even though there have been many attempts by my hon. Friends to improve it, the Bill still makes no mention of the part that voluntary work will play in the rejuvenation of our inner cities. It is as though the Minister feels that it is not necessary to mention it because he regards it as insignificant and unimportant.

The Government have talked about partnership, and it is important to ask them to realise that to many people this may be no more than another weasel word. The Government have been particularly good at putting forward weasel-worded projects that imply that they are doing something but which, at the grass roots, show them to be doing nothing. There are grandiose words, such as "partnership" —a word that immediately conjures up the idea of sharing and a feeling of togetherness.

However, when we look at the partnership, we see that it is a cruel joke, an empty and hollow laugh. The Government pretend that they care about the community and are sharing and going into the problems of the inner cities with the whole community, but in reality it is clear that they have no such intention.

It is particularly curious, because the Government's White Paper, which had so much meat and sense in it, has been translated into hard legislation that misses all the finer nuances and profundities of the White Paper. We are presented with a shallow and empty Bill.

The White Paper said: The regeneration of the inner areas is not, however, a job for central or local government alone. A new and closer form of collaboration is required between government and the private sector, between government and the community including the various representative organisations in the cities and bigger towns, with the voluntary bodies, and above all with the people living in the inner areas. It is their welfare, immediate and longer term, which must be the ultimate touchstone for success. That was put most movingly and profoundly, and it is a cruel joke that the Bill has not one touch of humility. It will not involve the people living in the inner cities, let alone the voluntary bodies, community groups, residents' and ratepayers' associations. It gives them no part in the taking of policy decisions. At the crunch point, they are nowhere to be seen.

Not surprisingly, Liverpool, which is one of the partnership cities, has tried, without much success, to rectify the situation. Hon. Members should realise that when we talk about the partnership cities we are considering only seven cities—and not the whole of those cities but small areas and pockets in those cities. In some places we are concerned with perhaps only one-eighth of the total land area.

The word "partnership" is a misconception and a contradiction in terms. These are not partnerships, but small pockets in the major conurbations which the Government have singled out for what they call special treatment. It is worth mentioning the sick joke about special treatment, because without the involvement of the private sector and voluntary organisations the Bill is unlikely to bite.

8.30 p.m.

I return to the question of the small areas. In Committee the Minister was unconvincing about the way in which the partnership areas were chosen. He has been equally unconvincing today. In Liverpool it appears that the "inner city" includes an area five miles from the inner city. The outer city is included in the term "inner city". In Liverpool it seems that the areas that have been selected are the hard-core Socialist areas. It appears that the large soulless council estates on the edges of the city are not selected. They contain one in eight of our population and, according to the report "One in Eight" produced by a local voluntary organisation, the real problems exist in those areas.

Large parts of the inner city have been demolished and the population has moved out. That population is now found in the large council estates which form an are round the city. That is true of many of the large cities involved in the partnership arrangements. The populations have been displaced from the inner areas to the outer areas. When the Minister talks about the inner city he is really talking about the outer city, because that is where the population now is. By concentrating on something that has reduced in terms of population and effectiveness the Minister is making provision for the wrong place. Having done that in Liverpool, he has tried to have the best of both worlds. As a result of pressure from some of his hon. Friends who represent the other Liverpool seats, the Minister, after announcing the inner city partnership, declared another area five miles from the inner area as part of the inner area partnership.

I know the area well and I cannot see why he has included that area and not the vast, soulless and impersonal council estates where all the social problems are to be found. If the Minister has read about this subject he will realise that experience in American cities shows that the demolition of the inner city does one thing only; it transfers the problems and the people to wherever they are moved. Knocking down houses does not knock down the problems. Having knocked down the houses, instead of following the people and concentrating the help on them in the areas to which they have moved—the green field arcs around the cities—the Minister is putting the money, 10 years too late, in the wrong place. We have a Bill which has missed the boat. It is concentrated in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Government are as committed as I am to involving the community. They committed themselves, in paragraph 103 of the White Paper, to a new and closer form of collaboration.

May we now explore what happened in Liverpool? First, when the partnership was declared over a year ago much activity occurred. The Secretary of State was photographed in the main High Street and he was seen waving to the crowds. He said that he was going to rejuvenate the inner area. He attempted to establish a partnership committee. Naturally, more people wanted to sit on the committee, more committees were set up and more bureaucrats were created. One would have thought that the individual in the community and the voluntary organisations would have been included somewhere in the proliferation of committees which were being set up.

The fact was that the Minister thought it unwise to involve the voluntary organisations and the people. Perhaps he thought that they might have too much to say, or was it that as they might be the very people who would be affected by the decisions of the partnership arrangement they were the last people one would want to involve?

Not surprisingly, in about November of last year the voluntary bodies—by which I mean all non-statutory organisations—decided to form their own conference, so we have not only all the Government committees but a new conference of the voluntary bodies. A total of 177 people attended a meeting on 17th December last year. One hundred and fifty-three of them were from voluntary organisations, including community centres, settlements, community groups, youth organisations, social welfare organisations, community arts projects, community health councils, advice centres, voluntary housing associations and the rural preservation societies. None of those organisations had been involved at any time, in any way, in the partnership committees that had already been established to help just such people.

The regional director of the Department of the Environment said at the conference: The Government has made a commitment in its inner cities policies and we have now reached the stage for putting this into practice. In Liverpool those of us concerned with the partnership agreement do want now to establish arrangements for drawing in the voluntary and community sector. He continued by quoting the Government White Paper, which said: It is impossible for the Government to succeed without the involvement of the community. I emphasise those words. He added: Although much thought was given in the drafting of the White Paper to community involvement and the role of voluntary organisations, the White Paper itself gives no guidance as to how the involvement should be formalised. One would expect that by the time a White Paper was prepared the Government would have worked out how they would involve the community in the running of the project.

The regional director went on: The Government has no intention of dictating either to local authorities or voluntary groups the job of establishing where the greatest need arises, and working out the best ways of deploying resources is primarily for local authorities to decide, working in close harmony with Government and the statutory agencies. The conference concluded that that was the position at that date.

What has happened in the Liverpool partnership? It is as well to explain the committee structure. The committee is something like the Tower of Babel. There are more people than one can imagine all falling over one another down the main high street to attend partnership meetings. First, we have the chairman, who is the Secretary of State for the Environment himself. Then we have the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer), who is the Under-Secretary of State for Industry. We have the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding), representing the Department of Employment. We have the Minister of State, Department of Education and Science, the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes). There are officials from the Department of Health and Social Security and from the Department of Education and Science.

Those are not all we have on the partnership committee. We have the leader of the city council and the deputy leader. We have the leader of the Conservatives and the leader of the Liberals. Then, of course, there is the county council representation, with the leaders of the Conservative and Labour groups. There are also area health authority representatives. That is just one of the partnership committees.

Of course, all these people are very high-powered and they turn up only occasionally. Not surprisingly, the real partnership committee has met only twice in one year. Nothing much has happened, except for those two meetings, and many people think that there have been two meetings too many. The partnership committee having been set up without representatives of voluntary organisations or people living in the inner city area or community workers, an officer steering group was then appointed. This group consists of the chief executive from the Liverpool City Council, together with the city solicitor, the city treasurer, and the city planning officer. At county level there is the chief executive, the county treasurer, the county planning officer, and the county solicitor. There are also the regional director of the inner cities directorate from the Department of the Environment and a whole bevy of officials from various Government Departments, as well as the area health authority representatives.

That is why correspondence to these peoples is so seriously delayed. They are all too busy attending these meetings, and they have not got time to attend to the pressing business of rejuvenating Liverpool. They are all tied up with these committees.

The officer steering group decided that it could not really work out what needed to be done, or how to cut the non-existent cake, which I shall come to later. It then set up working groups, and these groups included groups on the economy, housing, the physical environment, leisure, community and recreational facilities, the social environment and transportation. On each of these working groups not one voluntary organisation was represented or one local individual involved.

On the economy group, the city treasurer is chairman, and there are other members. On housing, there is the deputy city solicitor. On physical environment, the city planning officer is chairman. On leisure, community and recreational facilities, there is the officer responsible for recreation and open spaces. On social environment, there is the director of social services and on transportation, the county planning officer.

All these working groups have to meet, and when they meet they do so entirely with officials. They talk with officials and prepare papers which they do not circulate. Then they report back to the officer steering group, which has more meetings in camera and which then refers back to the partnership committee. But that is not all. There are other committees—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern)

Order. The only one who seems to be missing at the moment is Santa Claus. I do not see that giving all the details of the existing committees is strictly relevant to the new clause that the hon. Member is proposing.

Mr. Steen

May I explain, Mr. Deputy Speaker, how this falls on all fours with the new clause? The new clause is an attempt to involve the people in the existing committees. In Standing Committee the Minister said that if we involve more people it means more committees. I do not think that we need more committees—there are too many already. The Minister can change the constitution of the committees by involving the community.

I suggest that there is no need for the officer steering group. If we do need some sort of steering group, why is it not possible to involve the people who run the settlement houses, the community associations, and the residents' groups in the inner cities? If we cannot do that and we must have a steering group, why do we need working groups of all the chief officers? Why can we not have working groups of the organisations that are playing a part in the partnership areas? If we cannot do that, why can we not at least involve them in the determination of the decisions in the partnership area?

I recognise that this is primarily seen as a partnership between central and local government and I recognise that the Liverpool City Council has agreed not only to the setting up of all those committees but to an inner area sub-committee of about 18 councillors. There is also a policy and finance committee and the Liverpool City Council meeting, all these committees determining and discussing the partnership arrangements.

My first plea is that with all that myriad of members of the committees—as Mr. Deputy Speaker said, Santa Claus; that is what it looks like and how it appears to local people—it looks like complete cloud-cuckoo-land.

8.45 p.m.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. For the accuracy of the record, I said that the only one missing was Santa Claus.

Mr. Steen

I am much obliged, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

I think that the Minister must get the message right away how cynical the Liverpudlians are about whether that partnership committee will have any relevance to anything going on in the inner city, and whether the people on partnership committees have really got the local grass-roots feelings about what is actually happening. By the very nature of the jobs of the people serving, they are so far removed from the day-to-day realities of the city's life that it is highly likely that when they produce their findings it will be seen that they are totally out of touch with what needs doing.

However, I must move on, because really what is in issue is not only the nature of the committees and the role that they have to play but what they are actually doing with what finance. That has regularly cropped up and it is important now to clear that out of the way.

As I understand it—perhaps the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—for these partnership committees, which are dealing with the whole gamut of the Bill as it affects the partnership area, the first sum of £11 million was for construction work, and that was for the period 1977–79. That was primarily loan sanction, so that really the local authority was asked to borrow about 66 per cent., and it would have to pay it back. So here we have a poorish local authority, the City of Liverpool, being actually told that it can borrow more money, to become poorer.

Then we have £30 million given to the inner city partnership programme over three years. That is £10 million a year, as I understand it. But that, again, is not a gift. It is 75 per cent. Government grant, but that is only towards interest charges, so, again, the local authority is being told "If you want to take up this £30 million you will have to borrow, and you will have to borrow the lion's share of it."

Then we have only £2.5 million under the urban aid programme for next year, and £1.8 million for derelict land—the Minister knows my views on the amount of derelict land that there is on Merseyside—and there is some money for the construction industry, again.

In my calculations, all that adds up to is less money than the Government have already taken away in the shape of reduced grants to the local authority over the last four years, so that at the most the Government are replacing that which they have taken away, by letting the local authority borrow money that it has not got and so make itself poorer, in one of the very areas which is already poor. By doing that, they are excluding any of the people living in the area, so there is no chance that they will get any idea of what the Government are up to.

This was realised by the voluntary bodies. In February this year they held their second partnership conference. They were already alive to what was going on. They took the view that they should take some initiative. That is the strength and importance of the new clause. The voluntary sector, in the shape of Dr. Boaden, who is the lecturer in social administration at Liverpool University, then said that the partnership arrangements were fundamentally between local government and central Government. Between December and February the voluntary bodies began to become aware that the Inner Urban Areas Bill would not be amended and that the Government had no intention of involving the voluntary organisations. Dr. Boaden said: Therefore, the voluntary sector will have to earn their entitlement to participation in order to have their say in how partnership works. What a confession to be made at a conference that was attended by 147 people, with 123 representing voluntary organisations—namely, that the Government were not prepared to communicate with them and were not prepared to involve those on the partnership committees, and that they would have to become pressure groups. Is that what the Minister wants from the Bill? Does he want to create conflict? Is his aim to create strife among the community by excluding them from the whole participatory process? That is how the whole matter is beginning to shape. The voluntary organisations feel that they have been taken for a ride.

I use the term "voluntary organisations" in the widest sense to mean all those in the community who feel that they are not part of the statutory sector but have something to offer. I am amazed to find that the Press releases that the Department of the Environment has issued from time to time—I refer to the one that was issued on 15th December, especially—are geared towards what the Government will do and how many meetings the Ministers will chair. We are told that the Secretary of State, for instance, will chair the Minister-Member level partnership committees in London Dockland and Liverpool, and that the Minister for Housing and Construction will chair the partnership committees for the partnerships in Birmingham, Manchester and Salford. There is not a word about voluntary organisations.

We are told that the Under-Secretary of State will chair partnership committees in Islington and Hackney and that the Minister for Housing and Construction will be responsible for the oversight of the other cities that have been invited to prepare inner area programmes.

The whole structure is Government-based and full of bureaucracy. Not a mention is made of those who are involved in the areas.

Mr. Alison

My hon. Friend is making an extremely important and valuable contribution. Is he able to tell me how many members of the Liverpool voluntary group would be represented by the local council of social services. Would they all fit within that umbrella? Could they be represented by one National Council of Social Service officer, or would they fall rather more outside the umbrella of the council?

Mr. Steen

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, as his intervention shows that we are thinking in the right direction. It is too easy to try to umbrella all voluntary effort and to say that someone from the local council of social services will be able to represent all the organisations. That is rather like suggesting that to have somebody from the unions means that all the unions will be represented.

The National Council of Social Service will be a step in the right direction but in the minds of many in the various organisations the council is the establishment. If we are to have a representative from the establishment organisation, it would be as useful and constructive to have one or two other members from different facets, especially those to do with young people and settlements. To have three people representing the non-statutory sector would be a vast improvement on the exclusion of all people from outside the statutory sector.

I am not seeking to push the private sector on the Minister; I want to have more people on the committees. I firmly believe that those in the private sector have a great contribution to make within the structure, and that if they are not represented we shall miss out. The Minister will miss out and the Government will miss out if it is put outside the structure. That will create conflict and hostility between them and us.

That is the point that I was making 10 years ago when dealing with the first urban aid programme circular, and with all the successive urban aid programme circulars when I was directing a national voluntary body. Until the eighth circular the voluntary sector was not given its due, and its importance and relevance appeared not to be recognised. Naturally, local authorities tended to give their money, especially under capital grants, to the local authority schemes first. Only over six years or seven years has the balance been corrected. It seems that we are making exactly the same mistake as with the urban aid programme in 1968. If the Minister wants to learn from mistakes, he should put matters right after the second meeting and not wait until the scheme has been going for very much longer.

We need a change of heart by the Minister which will not consist merely of empty phrases but will have some reality. In Committee the Minister poured scorn on my suggestion that we should have voluntary organisations on the committees. He paid tribute to their great work but would not put them on any of the committees. He said that we have enough already. I do not understand his thinking. If those living in the localities are not involved, on what authority do the Government seek to impose upon them?

If the Government are not sensitive to the people who are living in an area, by what right do they believe that they know what is needed? I believe that the new clause is desperately needed because, if the elaborate committee structure continues to exclude those who are living and working in an area, clearly there will be an increasing gap between what is needed and what takes place.

That is why, on 13th March, some six weeks ago, I asked the Secretary of State, in a Written Question, about the conclusions and the priorities that had been drawn up at the second Liverpool inner city partnership meeting. He replied: I chaired the second meeting of the Liverpool Partnership Committee on Friday 10th March. The Committee discussed key issues and priorities. It agreed that to improve the quality of life for those who live and work in the inner city, so as to minimise the outflow of population, must be the overall objective. How can it be the overall objective of the Government to stop the outflow of population, which they say is the principal objective of this partnership committee, if the very people who are living there are told that their views are of no interest?

Mr. Loyden

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that, for instance, in the Garston constituency not only has the community council been very much involved in the partnership, but that, at the level of the community council, there has been an exchange of ideas. Therefore, the views of those people are certainly being expressed regarding the inner area partnership. Therefore, there is a direct involvement in that sense—it may not be much as the hon. Gentleman and I would like—with the community in the Garston area. I am sure that that obtains in the city centre as well.

Mr. Steen

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman missed what I was saying. Before he came in I covered the range of the problems. Earlier I was talking about the National Council of Social Service and whether it would help if it was represented on these committees. The community council is another body. That is a step in the right direction. The community council and the National Council of Social Service are very much established bodies in the vein of local authorities, and the people serving on them, I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree, do not necessarily truly represent the kind of grass roots interests which he knows exist in Garston and which have a very different approach to matters from that of the professionals who are employed by many of these established and well tried voluntary bodies. But this is certainly a step in the right direction.

In answer to my Written Question the Minister sought to minimise the outflow of population as one of his prime aims. Yet, curiously enough, he is doing nothing to stop it. By refusing to redirect the regional grants to the inner areas and by refusing to find some incentive to get the skills back from the outer to the inner areas, there is no chance of stopping the flow outwards. The outflow is caused primarily by lack of jobs and homes.

Despite the Secretary of State, at the Habitat Conference in Vancouver in 1976, saying that we have pensioned off the bulldozer in Britain, it is clear from what is going on in some of our major cities that it has not got round to the bulldozer itself. It is still demolishing buildings and, as it demolishes them, people move outwards. Therefore, until the Minister blocks the bulldozer from demolishing another house, the population will of necessity move outwards. So long as he allows derelict and vacant land to be hoarded by local authorities and nationalised industries, we shall not get new industries building on land which would attract people back from the outer areas to work in the inner city.

9.0 p.m.

I am puzzled by the view of the Secretary of State that his aim is to minimise the outflow of population, when all the things he has done—which are minimal—will do nothing to halt that outflow. The Secretary of State's Answer continued: Measures to improve employment prospects would make the most impact. Nobody would disagree with that. Other priorities in the physical and social fields were also discussed. Specific proposals will be developed for the committee to consider at its next meetings ". We do not know when its next meeting will be. The committee also agreed on arrangements for consulting voluntary organisations as the work proceeds, including the establishment of a central information point on the partnership and the production of a news-sheet."—[Official Report, 13th March 1978; Vol. 946, c. 27–8.] All the Government said in that parliamentary Answer six weeks ago about voluntary bodies was that they would be consulted as these partnership committees continued and that there would be a central information point, with a newssheet. In other words, that is all that the private non-statutory groups merit. I hope that the Minister, in his reply, will give us more information than we were given by the Government six weeks ago, because that earlier reply was not good enough.

The view of the voluntary bodies is that this Government, in common with all other Governments, make wonderful overtures and are full of friendly noises to those who are not part of the bureaucracy, but when it comes to giving up a little of their power and sharing it, they say "No."

The Minister cannot say that he is ignorant of what is needed to tackle urban deprivation. In the past 10 years successive Governments have spent about £100 million of taxpayers' and ratepayers' money in exploring a vast number of experimental projects with a view to identifying the problems and causes of urban deprivation and recommending how best they can be tackled.

It may be as well to remember what has taken place since 1968, because what has happened today is merely a repeat of all that we have had before. In 1968 we were told that the problem involved "pockets of poverty". That was the whole basis of the Government's approach. There was a "pockets of poverty" theory which started with the urban aid programme. That programme sought to divert money from the rural areas to the urban areas. What was needed to do that was some jiggery-pokery that would mean that the shire counties would be worse off and that the urban areas would be richer.

That was the start of the switch of the rate support grant which made so many rural areas squeal, but which the Government propose should continue. But the urban aid programme has continued and has flourished. The Government are now committed to increasing that programme to a sum of £125 million—and they will do that only by diverting more money from rural to urban areas. The White Paper makes clear that there will be no new finance.

In 1968 we had the "pockets of deprivation" theory, and we have returned in a full circle to that same situation, but in 1968 it very much involved the Government only. The Government said "We shall set this up with the Home Office and no voluntary bodies will be involved."

Perhaps I can remind the Minister what was said in 1968. The present Prime Minister, who was then Home Secretary, said that the purpose of the urban programme was to provide for the care of our citizens who live in the poorest or most overcrowded parts of our cities and towns. It is intended to arrest, in so far as it is possible by financial means, and reverse the downward spiral which afflicts so many of these areas. This is a deadly quagmire of need and apathy."—[Official Report. 2nd December 1968; Vol. 774, c. 1107.] The first urban aid programme circular went out to the local authorities and to deprived areas to make bids for the money which the Government intended to put up in the form of loans. It was said that The Government propose to initiate an urban programme of expenditure mainly on education, housing, health and welfare in areas of special social need. That is the same phrase that is used in the Bill. It was used 10 years ago and is still related to the same areas.

The circular continued: Those were localised districts which bear the marks of multiple deprivation", —that expression has now gone out of fashion— which may show itself, for example, by way of notable deficiencies in the physical environment, particularly housing; overcrowding of houses; family sizes above the average; persistent unemployment; a high proportion of children in trouble or in need of care; or a combination of these. A substantial degree of immigrant settlement would also be an important factor, though not the only factor in determining the existence of special social need. In 1968, therefore, there was exactly the same picture as we have today, except that things were not quite so bad then. One thing which can be said about poverty programmes is that they have accelerated the poverty. There was the view in 1968 that we could conquer the problems of urban deprivation by tackling the pockets of deprivation. It is rather like a spring cleaning exercise, in which one goes into a small area and cleans it up, expecting the problems to disappear over a much wider area.

It was not simply the urban aid programme which concentrated on the "pockets" theory. The community development project also concentrated on that theory. The Minister will remember the aim when that project was set up contemporaneously with the urban aid programme. The community development project was based on three assumptions. The first was that it was the deprived themselves who were the cause of urban deprivation—

Mr. Guy Barnett

The hon. Gentleman has an important new clause down for our discussion, but I have difficulty in understanding that what he is now saying has anything to do with voluntary organisations, which is the subject of the new clause.

Mr. Sheen

I am most grateful for the intervention. I had hoped that the Minister was following my speech. This is rather advanced social philosophy, and I hope that I can explain exactly where I am going. What I am saying is that—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. It may be a matter of history, but I was wondering whether we ought to be considering what happened 10 years ago. I have no desire to interrupt the hon. Memeber for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen) in his thoughts, because I am comforted by the knowledge that he has probably only another two minutes to go before completing his 45-minute speech.

Mr. Steen

I shall try to consolidate the history, because, as you rightly pointed out, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that has perhaps only some bearing on the new clause. But it has an important bearing, and the importance of it is this. The community development project, the urban aid programme and the educational priority areas experiments, all in the late 1960s, concentrated on the pockets of deprivation theory. This was that the Government, together with local government and a whole army of professionals on deprivation, could descend on pockets of poverty and solve all the problems alone. The one thing that was learned from those experiments was that those problems cannot be solved if the people who make up the problems are themselves excluded.

It will be recalled that there was a series of projects, of which the community development project and the educational priority area experiment were but two. There were many other projects which flowed from there. There were the neighbourhood projects, the quality of life schemes, the inner area studies, and the urban deprivation unit, together with a department dealing with community programmes. There were also the urban guideline studies, the transmitted deprivation theory, and the quality of life theory. Then there was the comprehensive community programme and the GLC deprived areas programme. Now the EEC has joined in with its own programmes to tackle cycles of deprivation.

What I am trying to give, in a very short summary form, is the global picture that we have in this country of urban deprivation getting worse, in spite of these multi-million pound projects which have taken place throughout the last decade, which have concentrated on various aspects of poverty, but which have all pointed to the same conclusion, namely, that it is not money alone that is needed but the process by which the community is involved in tackling its own problems. Some people have called it self-help, but it is the total involvement of society in tackling its own difficulties rather than bringing up by train from Whitehall troops of Government officials and Ministers to walk down the local high street, hold a meeting and then go back again.

That is the one thing that these experiments show. Perhaps the Minister will have the humility to realise that these £100-million schemes should have taught us something—that the Inner Urban Areas Bill repeats all the mistakes. It is something like a T. S. Eliot poem—we have been here before, there is nothing new in it, and it is doing nothing that is likely to solve the problem.

I move on from the history and concentrate on how the new clause will help. What it really aims to do is what the director of the National Council of Social Service so vividly pointed out in a pertinent letter which he wrote to members of the Committee. He said: I am writing to you about the progress of the Government's inner cities programme. Since the publication of the White Paper Policy for the Inner Cities', the NCSS has been monitoring the inner cities programme through a network of voluntary organisations in each of the seven partnership areas and the fifteen programme authority areas. Our current concern is the progress being made towards the involvement of local communities and voluntary organisations as a part of the inner cities programme; an involvement that the White Paper seeks to achieve. (Paragraphs 34, 35, 103). The initiative for revitalising the inner areas of cities lies with central and local government, yet the programme will make little long term impact unless it gains the support and commitment of the local community, voluntary organisations, trades unions and local bust ness communities. Although Ministers have called for this broader partnership in the planning and implementation of inner area programmes, in practice there are severe difficulties in gaining this involvement in most of the partnership and programme authorities. The major concerns expressed to us by local voluntary organisations can be summarised as follows:

  1. 1. There have been long delays in seeking the involvement of local organisations and community groups. It has not been sufficiently well understood that this needs to take place from the outset to be successful.
  2. 2. The timescale imposed on local authorities by the Department of the Environment for drawing up their inner area programmes for the next three years is so tight that firm proposals are being required by June or July of this year, leaving insufficient time for consultation and involvement.
  3. 3. Ministers have not pressed the local authorities to establish an adequate framework for the involvement of local communities and voluntary organisations. Apart from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Islington, Leicester and Sheffield, which have developed such a framework, in volvement has been piece-meal.
  4. 4. With few exceptions, the quality and quantity of information being made available by local authorities is inadequate for local organisations and local communities to identify opportunities for involvement and make a proper contribution to the planning I rocess.
  5. 5. In most of the areas, local councillors have not been adequately briefed on the background work being carried out, and cannot act as an effective link between local communities and the authority."
If that is not a damning criticism of the Government by a national, independent voluntary organisation—co-ordinating all the voluntary organisations in the country—I do not know what is. I hope that the Minister will take very seriously the comments of one of the largest and oldest co-ordinatory bodies in the country, because these five points encapsulate and symbolise the cry from the voluntary organisations over the last decade that Government do not involve them or consult them in the decision-making process which affects the cities.

It is strange that a Government who so closely identify with the shop floor should in this case be baulking at the involvement of the community. Here are a Government committed to helping the underprivileged and the deprived, yet this Bill, which is supposed to help them in the worst areas of deprivation, decides that they should be excluded from the way of helping them.

The Minister may reject this as poppycock, but I hope he realises that what I have been saying is reality. He may have been briefed by his bureaucracy to believe that what I am saying is not so, but I have got this information straight from the rock face and from the grass roots. What I am saying happens to be true.

I ask the Minister to explain why, after all these months, he has not attempted to incorporate a new clause into the Bill and whether, if he cannot accept this new clause, he will undertake to draft one to provide that the voluntary bodies have a much greater say in the running of partnership committees.

9.15 p.m.

By now the Government ought to have learnt that participation, which is at the root of most of their legislation and is the basis of many Government reports, in practice is not taking place. If the Government want participation, they must be prepared to trust people. We are beginning to find, however, that when we have a Government which do not trust the people, that Government do not do their best for the people. They do not hear or understand their cries of concern. Unless those cries are heard, however much money and however many officials the Government devote to any given cause they will not get it right.

The results of many urban experiments show that it is not the money which matters. What matters is the process by which conclusions are reached. It is for that reason that this clause is of such crucial importance. Without it, the Bill might as well never have come before us, because it is of no consequence. The Government must not think that merely setting up a bit of machinery, giving a few loans, geographically dotting a few spots round the country and having a debate in this House will have any consequence for the people living in those areas. People know that it is a sick joke. In this clause, I am trying to prevent its becoming too serious a sick joke. If that should happen, despite all my efforts, people will no longer trust any Government to help the most deprived areas.

The Minister can no longer hide behind his fine words. The public must be told the truth—that this Bill will have no impact on the lives of people living in inner city areas and most certainly will not rejuvenate those areas. If people are not allowed to play a part in the discussion and decision-making process, there is unlikely to be any improvement.

When the Minister rises to reply to this debate, let us remember that he is breaking faith with the people of our inner city areas if he does not give them an opportunity not merely to be heard but to be involved in all that is to happen there. If he rejects that wish, he will be turning his back on them and saying that they are of no consequence.

Mr. John Sever (Birmingham, Lady-wood)

I shall attempt to put to the House one or two observations on the situation which applies in Birmingham, and I hope that I shall be a little more expeditious in doing that than the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen) has been in representing the interests of his city.

I was fascinated to hear the hon. Member for Wavertree refer to the lack of co-ordination which seemingly exists in his city among Members of this House, the local authority and what he described as the grass roots community. I wish that before beguiling us with such a long speech he had spent a little time discussing this measure with the Conservative leader of the Birmingham City Council. I do not think that these two people agree with each other, and the speech of the hon. Member for Wavertree would perhaps have been more credible if he had argued the same case for two cities which are controlled by the same political party.

We must recognise that a considerable amount of authority must be given to local authorities in determining what should happen in the work done by the inner city partnership committees. In Birmingham, the Conservative-controlled city council decided that it would not take on its partnership committee representatives from the very areas that we are discussing.

Several members of the local authority have an interest in representing inner urban areas. I probably have a unique experience in representing an inner core area both here and on the Birmingham City Council, and I live in the middle of a partnership area. So perhaps I have some idea of local people's views.

Therefore, informally, I asked the head of the local authority to extend the membership of the partnership committee to include not only one representative of opposition parties but some who actually lived in the areas under discussion. He refused. I asked him publicly, because both I and my constituents were getting upset. Again he refused.

In some desperation, I asked the Minister of State, Department of the Environment, whether local authorities could be encouraged to extend the membership in the light of representations by local councillors or Members of Parliament. His reply, in effect, was that we should ensure that local authorities take the representation on these committees into their own hands. As one schooled in local government, I accepted the tenor of that argument, although the committees in local authorities controlled by the Conservative Party did not apply that practice.

Mr. Eyre

Has the hon. Gentleman thought of asking the Minister to invite an Opposition Member of Parliament to serve on the partnership committee?

Mr. Sever

I have no doubt that if that question were asked, the Minister would give a fair and reasoned answer. Presumably hon. Members have the right to ask such questions tonight. It seems as though someone might.

Mr. MacKay

I am trying to follow the argument. Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that in Birmingham the Conservative local authority should co-opt to serve on these schemes a member of the Labour opposition group? That is a reasonable suggestion, but is it not equally reasonable, when the Minister is having consultations, to invite Opposition Members of Parliament? The hon. Gentleman cannot have it one way only.

Mr. Sever

I was not discussing whether the Conservative-controlled local authority should invite Labour Members, but certainly it should invite representatives of the areas concerned. Because those in the areas recognise the value of Labour representatives, they happen to be the same individuals, but that is coincidence.

Mr. Steen

I agree entirely. That Conservative council should be asked to involve local people, just as the Labour council in my city should. The more people involved at the right levels, the better.

Mr. Sever

I was going to deal with that question in my next remarks. The hon. Member has suggested that thousands of voluntary organisations are anxious to play a part. How are we to sort out who represents the grass roots on those committees? I do not know whether it is a practical proposition. However, it would be reasonable to say that tenants' associations, community groups and so on could find a channel through local public representatives on the partnership committee.

Had there been a greater input of local authority representatives, remembering that they are elected by the people about whom we are talking, to express the views of housing associations, tenants' groups and so on, there might have been a much more balanced view from the community being put forward to the partnership committees. That is the only regret that I have about these measures.

Having spoken to a large number of the groups to which we have referred in my area, I have found that they are pleased that we have been able to secure the Minister for Housing and Construction as chairman of the committee to look after the affairs of Birmingham. I put on record the views expressed to me and I hope that the work done by the partnership committee in Birmingham will result in happy solutions for those with whom I am pleased to associate as a resident of one of the central areas of Birmingham.

Mr. Arthur Jones (Daventry)

I sympathise very much with what my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Waver-tree (Mr. Steen) has proposed in his new clause. To some extent he is pushing at an open door. I hope that that is a proper interpretation. When we were discussing this matter in Committee the Minister said: Clearly, the Opposition recognise, as we do, the vital importance of involving local industry and local voluntary organisations."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 14th March 1978; c. 346.] The problem is how local industry and local voluntary organisations should make their contribution to the solution of the inner area problems. I was critical in Committee of the vast bureaucracy that was being developed and of the fact that Ministers were involving themselves personally in the work. I thought that it should be left far more to the local authorities under the promotion which is being offered by central Government.

I like to make a cost-benefit analysis in this type of operation. I can imagine the cost and the time of Ministers that will be involved if there are to be the plethora of committees to which my hon. Friend the Member for Wavertree referred. It will cost, in community terms, a vast sum in public expenditure, both central and local. I plead for an approach which will give us a streamlined administration for the important contribution which I hope the Bill will make towards a solution of inner citiy area problems. My plea is for widespread representation, but a streamlined organisation so that we may be conscious of the cost of administration. I can envisage the cost of administration almost equalling the amount of Government subsidy that is to be put in. Vast sums will accumulate in terms of the time spent and the overhead costs, and only a very small sum is being allocated.

We are essentially concerned with the optimum use of resources. We have not had a positive response from the Government. I am sure that the matter must have been in their minds, although I am suspicious of bureaucracies. Initially, the scheme has to be got off the ground, but we must consider the administrative costs involved. I hope that the Government will look for ways of reducing these costs to a minimum, while meeting some of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wavertree.

9.30 p.m.

Mr. Loyden

I shall be brief, but I want to take up some of the points made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen) who raised a number of questions in relation to the history of Liverpool and the involvement of the community in the inner urban programme.

As I pointed out in an intervention during the hon. Gentleman's speech, the community council in Garston has a broad representation from the whole community and its members range from representatives of the Speke Tenants' Association to play-group leaders. It includes representatives of almost every activity that takes place in the community. The hon. Gentleman's argument does not stand against that evidence of very great involvement of the people in the community council.

In addition, the community council, in turn, has a very close relationship with the inner area committee. Officials discuss the problems of Garston with the community council and present the problems to the inner area committee for consideration.

If there were direct representation of all local groups on the inner area committee, we would have a plethora of meetings in the area, many of which would develop into mass meetings. Almost every organisation is run on the basis of representative democracy. People are elected through every tier of the organisation concerned right to the top. That is how the relationship between people on the ground and the inner area committee will develop.

When we formalised the tenants' liaison committee in Liverpool, it became bureaucratic. Members were elected from the grass roots, but when they became members of a statutory committee they ceased to be rational people and their bureaucratic tendencies were as bad as those of some of the bureaucrats referred to by the hon. Member for Wavertree.

People representing grass roots opinion who know the problems of an area should not become enmeshed in the bureaucratic machine but should use their knowledge and experience of activities in the area to see that the ideas of local people are projected in the proper way to various committees and, through local representatives and pressure groups, receive proper consideration.

Mr. Steen

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Loyden

No. The hon. Gentleman spoke for more than 50 minutes and I wish to make a brief speech. I am not being inconsiderate. Other hon. Members also wish to speak.

The experience in Liverpool has not been understood by the hon. Member for Wavertree. Contrary to rumour, the decline of Liverpool did not start when he came there, but things have got worse since then.

In the early post-war years the whole of Liverpool's housing slum clearance problem was thrust upon the local authority. At that time I was politically active in the city. The people who lived in these deplorable conditions demanded that action be taken. I readily admit that terrible mistakes in planning and rehousing were made. We virtually evacuated the city and for the sake of expediency we moved the people out of the slums. They had lived there since the turn of the century and some of them would still be there if it had not been for that massive housing programme.

Post-war rehousing in Liverpool led to monumental mistakes. It has been a major problem. The population decline which followed that programme created a major problem. The decline of industries such as docks and warehousing is another problem for Liverpool.

The community fully understands the problems. People have been taking a greater interest in their affairs. In every locality in Liverpool there are committees in which the community is deeply involved. The people are involved in housing, sporting activities, youth, festivals and carnivals. They are beginning to develop their own interests and a greater degree of community involvement. But none of this is meaningful without resources to overcome the deprivation.

Some people seem to be saying that nothing should be done and that the people should pull themselves up by their boots out of the quagmire. That is A-level sociology. We are fed up with that. We want to see practical steps to deal with the problems. The community is becoming involved in these problems.

I and other hon. Members will watch carefully to ensure not only that the people are heard but that action is taken. Any other attitude would miss the point. The communities do understand the problem, but they need help. Without administrative support, community organisations run into trouble. When that happens the whole concept is put in doubt.

As the hon. Member for Wavertree said, New Clause No. 9 kicks at an open door. I believe that the Government's intention is that there shall be community involvement. That involvement has already been established. It needs refining. I believe that that will happen and that we shall see the community involved in the decisions taken by the partnership committees.

Mr. Robin Hodgson (Walsall, North)

I hope that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden) was right when he said that we are kicking at an open door. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen) gave a detailed analysis of the problems and the importance of voluntary organisations becoming involved. I should like to underline what he said about the feeling of helplessness and hopelessness that still pervades many people who live in the areas that are to be covered by the provisions of the Bill. They live in poorer houses, they have poorer educational opportunities, poorer employment prospects and poorer environment. They get the feeling that the Government machine is a juggernaut which will roll on remorselessly. They feel that nothing that they can do or say will affect its progress.

It might be true that in certain areas voluntary organisations are involved in the way suggested by the hon. Member for Garston. But once civil servants have charge of a programme—with their extra power and resources and the fact that they are on the job 24 hours a day, that they have money, departmental desks and offices—voluntary people working in their spare time, who are often worn out after a day on the factory floor or at an office desk, feel that they will be left behind and that they cannot keep up with the remorseless grinding of the Civil Service machine, whether at national or local level.

Therefore, this evening we should see a way to make it clear that the voluntary movements have a statutory right to be involved, so that the process by which they are gradually pushed out and made less and less relevant can be prevented.

Above all, there is a lack of involvement of most people in their local communities. The representatives and chairmen of voluntary groups, community groups and neighbourhood bodies are the opinion formers who will get people involved. That will not necessarily happen if we leave it all to be a matter of by guess and by God, which was rather the approach advocated by the hon. Member for Garston.

I would draw the Minister's attention to five specific areas of voluntary association which I hope he will see underline the importance of the new clause. The first is characterisation by housing, by tenants' associations and residents' associations, all of which are an important means of contributing to the local scene and making sure that housing is kept up to scratch, that council housing estates remain in good condition and that people feel an interest and involvement in how their estate is run and managed.

The second area is characterisation by employment and trade. On the one hand, there should be involvement of the trade unions and on the other of the chambers of commerce, because they are in touch with local employment prospects. They know what is required. Perhaps even local pressure groups should be involved—perhaps the local garage proprietors' association or the licensed victuallers' association. People who keep pubs are often very much in touch with the grass roots.

Then there is characterisation by incapacity. The handicapped, the blind, those who suffer from a physical defect, also have a role to play in making sure that their community is planned in a way which will minimise their suffering resulting from their physical incapacity.

Next there is characterisation by physical services to the community—the WRVS, with its meals on wheels, the Red Cross, the St. John's Ambulance Brigade, and others who are making a physical contribution to the welfare and well being of the community.

Finally, there are those who provide psychological services to the community—marriage guidance counsellors, the Samaritans and similar people.

Those five categories are the people who are in touch with what is going on in the areas in which they do their work. It is easy to say that civil servants, particularly local government officers, can keep in touch, and no doubt they try, and to a certain extent succeed, to reflect what is going on locally. But they are always in a "them" and "us" situation. It is always "them" from City Hall and "us", the people on the ground.

The representatives of the voluntary bodies, the tenants' and residents' associations, trade unions and employers, are the people who really know what is going on and can make a positive contribution to making sure that the money that is being spent is spent in a way that is most effective and likely to have the maximum impact on improving the environment of the inner urban areas.

I hope that the Minister will bear these points in mind when he replies and will respond constructively to this important new clause.

Mr. Bruce George (Walsall, South)

I hope that the Conservative enthusiasm that we have heard in the past few hours for democracy in resolving the problems of inner urban areas will be transferred to the industrial sector. Certainly the eulogisation of democracy will be an encouragement to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment in deciding his attitude towards the Bullock Report.

All the Walsall Members are present for this debate. Our town cannot claim to lead the country in many things, but we can proudly boast of the non-partisan approach to the problems of inner urban areas exhibited there over the past two months. In Walsall we have begun to realise that considerable problems of urban areas will not be resolved by any partisan approach. While one can fight over some of the issues, clearly the vicissitudes of electoral fortunes mean that one party is in office locally and then two or three years later it is thrown out.

9.45 p.m.

Mr. Hodgson

I hope that the hon. Member will not forget in passing the very good relationship between our local authority and the various voluntary bodies that already exist, such as the local marriage guidance council.

Mr. George

I accept the point that has been made. In our area it is realised that some issues must transcend party political differences. We are seeing the beginnings of a movement in which the local authority, the three Members of Parliament, voluntary organisations, the trades council and the chamber of commerce are all pooling their collective resources and intelligence in order to resolve the underlying problems of Walsall.

I very much welcome this Bill which is seeking to devlop an approach to problem-solving which is very different from the solutions hitherto devised, where decision-making has been regarded as the monopoly of a small number of people, be they elected members or officers.

The talent available in any town is considerable and wish that officers and elected members in some local authorities would bridge the gap between themselves and their expertise, on the one hand, and the people in the community, on the other. One should not denigrate the talents and expertise of officers. If officers were here they would argue that if they were allowed to have their heads they could put their solutions into effect, and perhaps we would not be in the position in which we find ourselves today.

I can think of a number of areas in which highly qualified officers have been so constrained by people who profess to know that their solutions have, in fact, been shelved. I hope that when we extol the virtues of democracy we shall not denigrate highly competent officers who often find their solutions and their training being undercut by people who seek to impose half-baked solutions.

Mr. Ivan Lawrence (Burton)

I shall not detain the House for too long—

Mr. Speaker

Order. May I inquire whether the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) had finished?

Mr. George

No, I was giving way to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Waver-tree (Mr. Steen).

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen) took 55 minutes in proposing his motion. He has already interrupted twice. I am just reminding the House of that fact.

Mr. Steen

I will remember that, Mr. Speaker, in any future interventions that I may make. I just want to say that of course we must realise the way that officials feel, and recognise the fact that somebody, somewhere must make decisions. But the whole basis of democracy is to encourage people not to be apathetic and to be involved. That is the whole purpose of recording Parliament—to involve people in our deliberations.

Mr. George

My enthusiasm for democracy was almost dissipated by the length of time that it took the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree to expound his views. You, Mr. Speaker, have admonished me in the past for making speeches that were a quarter as long as his.

As I was saying, the bipartisan approach is important. I hope that some elected Members are prepared to admit that they do not have a monopoly of expertise in any area. If they seek advice from the community and do not shun it, we shall be well on the way to meeting and overcoming our problems.

I welcome the Bill and I hope that our area of Walsall will hear from the Minister that it has been included in the list of those designated for special powers under the Bill.

Mr. Lawrence

I am much obliged, Mr. Speaker, for being called to speak now. I am sorry for being too much on my toes a moment ago.

From listening to part of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen), I can well understand why it is so necessary for him to take such a long time dealing with the problems posed by the Bill, coming, as he does, from Liverpool. The Sub-Committee on Social Services and Employment of the Select Committee on Expenditure has just visited Liverpool. It is an area of the most astonishingly high level of unemployment. All the work done by my hon. Friend and other hon. Members who represent Liverpool ought to humble those of us who live in more fortunate parts of the country, where the unemployment level is not so high. By great effort and great determination those who live and work in Liverpool attempt to cure what is an extremely unsatisfactory social position there. Therefore, I, for one, would always excuse my hon. Friend for however long he takes in dealing with the problems, since he does so well on behalf of his constituents.

I shall detain the House for only a very brief period for Burton on Trent is not, alas, one of the areas that will benefit from the provisions of the Bill. However, I support the new clause, inelegant in wording as it may be, because I have learned two very impressive lessons in the short period of four years or so during which I have had the privilege to represent my town and area.

The first lesson is that we must do something more to reduce the ill-feeling that often exists between the ordinary citizens of an area and the bureaucracy that administers them. That is not to say that the bureaucrats are bad. In my particular area they are exceptionally good. However, the mere factor of geography, the fact that as regards social services and matters of that kind the people of Burton on Trent have sometimes to go 40 miles to Stafford—that is not something that the elderly can easily do—and the delays involved, have caused the conflict that has grown up between the local bureaucracy and the feelings of ordinary people, particularly the elderly. This is a matter that we must consider very seriously. It has impressed me no end since I have been the Member of Parliament for Burton.

The second lesson is that one of the most impressive things that I have noticed is the immense amount of dedication, wonderful work and contribution to local life that voluntary organisations have made. I therefore ask myself: can we not bring these two impressive features that I have noted during my time as a Member of Parliament into closer unity? Can we not use the latter more to help relieve the oppression of the former? Can we not say to voluntary organisa tions "Come in and help to remove some of the abrasiveness, some of the sharp edges that exist between local bureaucracy and the people"?

After all, it is the local voluntary associations that frequently have most to do daily with the real grass-roots needs of the people. It is a good thing for the Government to say in their White Paper that this is a significant feature that they want to introduce. After listening to my hon. Friend the Member for Wavertree, it seems to me to be a bad thing to hear how wishful was that thinking, and how little the Government have come to fulfil that proud thought in practice.

We must appreciate that a number of other benefits would flow from involving voluntary organisations—I shall not list them, but in Burton they are good, as the Under-Secretary would imagine—and bringing them into the decision-making processes in regard to improvement of the environment, employment opportunities and the general activities of local communities. First, it would help the local bureaucracy to have a more human face. It would help the decision-making process to be brought home more closely to ordinary people, who are suspicious of bureaucrats but are not suspicious of the local men and women who appear on their doorsteps in moments of need, far more immediately than other social services or other organisations can appear. Therefore, it would help in acceptance of the decisions that need to be taken in the administration of the community if prominent in the decision-making process are the voluntary organisations that the local people respect so highly.

Secondly, those who work in the voluntary organisations so often feel—it is true that they feel it at a later stage, but they none the less feel it—"Is it all worth while?". They feel that they are banging their heads against the wall of local bureaucracy. To give them the sense of involvement would help to keep them more enthusiastic, more determined, if that is possible, than they may be by realising that in the end the great monolithic organisation will be brought down upon them to stop their dearest wishes being fulfilled.

After all, participation is the feature that helps to give most enthusiasm to those who are participating. If we want to invigorate local voluntary organisations with an enthusiasm for the necessary decision that administrators have to take in the area, there can be no more effective way of doing so than to have the voluntary organisations involved in the decision-making process.

Thirdly, if a voluntary organisation is helping in the decision-making process, we may be saving some money. We may be putting some of the burden that otherwise has to be shouldered by paid servants—in some instances quite highly paid servants of the State—on to the shoulders of those who are quite happy to accept it for no recompense. In a way we would be spreading the decision-making process, but spreading the burden on to shoulders that are inexpensive for the taxpayer and ratepayer.

It is a benefit that we can rely upon the expertise, the local knowledege and the understanding of a local situation of voluntary organisations without having to pay them for it. All these advantages are so substantial that it alarms me that the Government have done so little to bring about the greater involvement of local authorities in the past four years. I realise that the Government have not in the past thought that their greater involvement was a good thing.

I support the clause. I do so because I think extremely highly of all those who work in voluntary organisations, especially from my experience in my part of the country. Those who undertake such work do so not expecting a reward, honours or benefits. After all, very few of them are given that sort of recognition. They do the work because they are human beings who are determined to serve other human being in the best way that they know how. It would be tragic if we ever allowed the administration of local government to move away from the influence and help of such people.

I commend the clause. I hope that it will be more elegantly worded, but I hope that the Government will accept it as a worthy addition to the Bill.

Mr. Tom Litterick (Birmingham, Selly Oak)

Having listened to one or two Opposition Members explain what they mean by representatives of non-statutory organisations, I feel that they have done the cause of the new clause no good. None of us is given the gift of seeing ourselves as others see us, but I can say that Conservative Members have painted an image of non-statutory bodies that is revolting, as the classic Tory activist patronising defenceless people. That was done especially by the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence).

Opposition Members have painted an image of the very people who are a menace to the residents of the broken-down, run-down, decadent working-class districts, who want nothing less than to be patronised by middle-class people from cushy middle-class areas who do not know what it is like to live in the worst areas of our cities. In Selly Oak we are bedevilled by such people. They are involved in a major industry. There are middle-class people going around patronising working-class people and telling them what they want. Their actions amount to that.

I suggest to Conservative Members that they should be careful about going over the top in pursuit of their traditional interest of keeping the Tory infrastructure strong. That is what the charity and voluntary organisations within the Tory Party are all about. If they do not believe me, they should read a book called "The Body Politic", whose author's name is—

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.