Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, for their responses to this statutory instrument. I will try to respond to the questions. There are no plans to change council retention policies for paperwork, and they are not affected by this SI, so that is not included in this piece of legislation. I will answer the general points that the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, made first on local government reorganisation and the management of it. He asked me, first, what other unforeseen consequences we can expect. Well, they are unforeseen, so I am afraid I cannot identify them. If I could, I would have a crystal ball. The timetable for local government reorganisation has not changed. I take the noble Lord’s point about the elections, but that was due to changing legal advice. I spoke to the Local Government Minister this morning and, as far as we are concerned, we are proceeding with the timetable as we had originally set out. We will work through the process for the other 14 areas that have not yet had their local government reorganisation announcements, with a view to making an announcement on them before the Recess. That work is still going on and going ahead. On the noble Lord’s question about mayoral elections, we decided for very good reasons that it was important that we had established the foundation authorities and that they were working properly before the mayoral elections went ahead. That was the rationale for that decision. But the work is being done to the timetable that we set originally. I hope that is reassuring. The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, asked me about the thresholds and why we are not changing them. They are not changing: it is £100,000 for land disposals and certain non-capital contracts and, as he said, £1 million for capital contracts. The thresholds and timing are established features of the Section 24 framework. Those thresholds are intended to capture decisions that could have a material impact on successor authorities, while allowing routine activity to continue without unnecessary delay. The safeguards apply once a shadow authority exists, because that is the point at which there is a clear and accountable body able to give consent on behalf of the future successor council. The instrument does not change the thresholds or the point at which the safeguards apply; it ensures that they operate as intended in practice. They are intended as broad indicators of material financial decisions, rather than precise limits. The key issue raised by the councils that we spoke to was not the thresholds but how they operate in practice with the existing aggregation period start date, which was onerous on councils. The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, asked me why the amendments are needed, which relates to the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. The issue was identified during implementation planning, including in Surrey, and it has been tested with the wider sector. Under the current framework, authorities have to look over an extended historic period when assessing whether thresholds are met, and that is not proportionate. Without the update, councils would be required to review that over the long period, and that could result in inconsistent application across areas and create an unnecessary administrative burden for councils. It may further cause a risk to the effective management of public assets and finances during reorganisation. There is also a potential risk that historic land disposals could be rendered void and historic contracts could become unenforceable. It would also make safeguards much more difficult to apply in practice. Under Section 28, land disposals made in contravention of a direction are void, and contracts entered into in contravention of a direction are unenforceable, so we must avoid that happening. The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, asked me to expand further on the consultation that was done as part of this process. I set out in my introduction that we tested this through engagement with councils and the wider sector; we have a sector advisory group, which contains experts in these types of areas, including the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, so that we make sure that what we are doing is practical and sustainable. I hope that that responds to the questions.