A Spectator's Notebook
Common politicians such as myself always prick up our ears whenever our lordly neighbours attempt to exercise their powers, as they will this week, in the case of the Policyholders' Protection Bill. Everyone is in favour of protecting private policyholders from such collapses as those of Vehicle and General or Nation Life but hardly anyone (except the Government) wishes to rescue insurance companies — especially any financially dubious ones — which fall by the wayside. Therefore the Government's new Bill is so far opposed by the British Insurance Association, most Conservatives and Labour Members ranging from left-wing members of the party's NEC to officers of the right-wing Manifesto group. With such an array of enemies there is little hope for the Bill and had it been introduced into the Commons it would simply have been strangled at birth.
Life is not, however, so simple in their Lordships House, which is where the Bill has actually been introduced. Of course, their Lordships can in theory vote a Bill down on Second Reading as the Commons can and they may yet decide to do so. In practice, however, it is years since the Lords destroyed a government Bill in such a crude way and some peers have spotted the trap carefully baited by the Government. If the Lords defeat the Bill, my Commons colleagues will silently breathe a• sigh of relief that it has disappeared and then shout raucously that those nasty peers are preventing the Government from protecting millions of poor policyholders.
The dread words 'constitutional crisis' may even be heard in the land, words the nowadays politically weak House of Lords never wishes to encourage.
The trouble is that the way out of the Government's trap is not obvious. If the Lords restrain their natural feelings and let the Bill go through on Second Reading, it will almost certainly be destroyed in Committee and then the trap is sprung again. The Lords' problem would only have been deferred. Crafty proceduralist peers — including Labour ones (it is remarkable how few Labour peers wish to endanger their status) now think they have found a solution. "Let the Bill pass on Second Reading," they are saying to their colleagues, "but it is really too unsatisfactory even to be dealt with in a normal Committee stage." They therefore want it referred to a Select Committee where fifteen months or, for that matter, fifteen years later it will no doubt still be. Oh, for the simple life of the Commons. We never do such things there, of course, or did hear anyone mention the Abortion Bill Select Committee?
Local misgovernment
British local authorities have a very gloomy future. The last reorganisation of local government was simply conducted on the basis that "bigger is better" and not surprisingly has only made local government worse. In Nottinghamshire, for example, where we used to have two Planning Departments (for city and county) we now have, in addition to these, one in every county district as well, all to do just the same job as before. The trouble is that no one really seems to want local government. Instead of areas proudly competing with each other to have, say, better education than their neighbours, teachers regard it as an almost personal attack upon them if one points out that children are better educated in some areas than in others. Parents are just as bad and assume an impossibility, that all schools are equally good. Local government finance further confuses almost everyone. Most people believe that their rates pay for local authority services whereas in fact more than two thirds of their cost comes from national taxation. Our counties and their districts are allowed so few resources of their own that they are perpetually borrowing on a vast scale, which is fine for the City and those who lend the money, but costs us as taxpayers vastly more than the true worth of the projects upon which the money is spent.
Without entirely understanding this confusion, the public has come effectively to ignore it as irrelevant. Only about a quarter of those who vote in parliamentary elections now bother to vote in local ones. Those who do vote totally ignore local issues, as was illustrated yet again in the metropolitan district elections last week.
The common pattern, repeated once more, is to vote on national issues with which local councils have nothing to do. Under Conservative Governments electors vote for Labour councils and now, under a Labour Government, they voted for Conservative councils. In solid Labour or Conservative areas — solid in national terms that is — there is hardly any change whatever in local councils, however good or bad councillors may be.
Disguised truths
What chance is there, under such a system, of effective democratic control of local authorities? I remember some years ago an authority in the north of England which ran out of water one summer. Drought was the cause, they said, conveniently not remarking upon the fact that the same 'drought' had affected every other authority in the land, all of which were still supplying water to their citizens. The true cause, of course, was that this singular authority had built no new reservoirs for decades, pointing proudly the while to their extremely low water rate. Any fool can save money by simply failing to provide a service and fools those councillors were. But their electors deserved them. At the next local elections every member of the Water Committee of the borough concerned was re-elected. No one dreamt of voting against their inefficient councillors.
Much the same has just happened in Liverpool. The Liberal majority on the city's council proudly reduced their rate by a penny in the pound and hoped that this unique event would sweep them back to power. They should have realised that in these days of inflation no one would believe their efforts to be anything but a piece of sleight of hand. The electors of Liverpool — the usual few, of course — trotted to the polls, ignored the Liberals' supposed benevolence and chopped a few seats off their majority. Now they lead Labour by one vote and must rely on Conservative support to control the council.
This cock-eyed system must go. The Government must make up its mind either to abolish local government entirely (which I should regret) or give it enough money of its own for its actions to be really obvious to local taxpayers. Then people could vote knowing that their votes affected their pockets and the services they receive.
Michael English MP
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