"STREAMLINING THE CITIES": RESPONSE (Hansard, 9 April 1984)

§ The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Bellwin)

I have today placed in the Library of the House a brief report on the overall response to our invitation to comment on the White Paper. I will make available shortly a further report dealing with the views expressed on a number of more detailed aspects of the proposals, including those for certain specific services.

Over 2,300 responses were received by my department from local authorities, groups and individuals. Many of these and many submissions to other departments dealt with specific aspects of the proposals without commenting explicitly on the policy as a whole. Many responses argued for a directly elected ILEA and the Government have already announced our acceptance of this case.

Many bodies submitted extensive and constructive comments for which we are grateful; we are carefully considering the points made in the detailed development of our proposals. A substantial number of responses came from bodies dependent on grants from ratepayers via the Greater London Council or the metropolitan county councils, and we are taking full account of these in the work we are doing inter alia on the arts, the heritage and on voluntary bodies.

It is, however, evident that the concern expressed by many individuals owes more to the expensive and misleading propaganda put out by the GLC and the MCCs than to an objective view of the proposals. I hope that as the Government's case becomes better understood, this propaganda exercise, conducted entirely at the expense of ratepayers, will be seen to have been a disgraceful misuse of public money.

We have given careful consideration to the responses to the White Paper but this has not led us to change our view that the GLC and the MCCs are an unnecessary tier of government. We remain persuaded that our proposals for single-tier will lead to better and cheaper administration.