Sir Christopher Chope
MP for Christchurch · Conservative · United Kingdom
“When was the last time that an allotted Opposition day was withdrawn in the way that the Leader of the House is withdrawing this one? I was looking at my calendar of business, otherwise known as the Order Paper, and it says that “The selection of the matters to be debated will be made by the Leader of the Opposition (Standing Order No.”
“The Climate Change Committee has condemned the Government for failing and falling short of adapting to climate change and accepting the reality as it is, which is that by the end of this century, global temperatures will have increased to between 3.5° and 4.5° above pre-industrial levels.”
“The Minister has referred to the grooming gangs inquiry carried out by our friend, the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe), and early-day motion 380 makes a number of recommendations. Will the Minister engage with the hon.”
“The landmark 250th anniversary of the declaration of independence by the United States takes place in the week commencing 29 June. I have applied for an Adjournment debate, but will the Leader of the House enable more Members to be able to participate in marking that historic event?”
“That is exactly what I did on behalf of my constituent Paul Kenchington: I wrote to the Secretary of State about the specialist steel that he uses, and I have not had a reply.”
“Next week, can the Leader of the House produce a Government statement in response to the Hallett review on covid-19 vaccines? Lady Hallett recommended major reform of the vaccine damage payment scheme.”
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“That led to various discussions, and earlier this year all nine Dorset council leaders decided to work towards a public consultation on possibly reorganising local government within Dorset, but without any preconditions. In parallel, Christchurch and East Dorset Councils, along with the other seven councils, went out to consultation on proposals for a combined authority to take effect from 1 April 2017, which will bring together representatives from all nine Dorset councils plus the Dorset local enterprise partnership to deliver on transport infrastructure and economic regeneration. The consultation document states: “A Dorset combined authority would demonstrate our partnership approach and be a strong basis for us to request more responsibilities and powers from the Government”.”
“That created such hostility among East Dorset District Councillors, who were fearful that they were going to be bounced into losing their sovereignty and independence, and control over their own green belt, that their leader resigned because he was so out of touch and had not engaged with his own councillors. The plan was never debated in Christchurch Council, because the Christchurch Council leader denied that he wanted such a super-council but wished only to be in the mix for the purposes of any discussion about it. Not surprisingly, Dorset County Council did not take kindly to the idea that two of the councils in its area were going to secede and join a rival grouping.”
“They campaigned to provide good-quality services at an affordable price by maximising economic efficiencies through partnership working. To their immense credit, they continue to do that successfully with approximately 100 fewer council officers than before, delivering ongoing annual savings of more than £1 million. In autumn 2015, the leaders of Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch Councils, and the then leader of East Dorset District Council, were pictured together on a beach to launch their plan to create a single council to replace those four councils.”
“As a result of that process, in Dorset separate unitaries were created in Poole and Bournemouth, but, following a robust defence by campaigners, particularly in Christchurch but also in East Dorset, the Government decided to retain a two-tier structure for the rest of Dorset, and in so doing recognised the importance of local community ties, identity and history—Christchurch can trace its mayoralty back to the 13th century. The current Government have learned the lesson of the past and are not seeking to impose any structural change. I am grateful to them for that. Eighteen months ago, there were all-out elections for councillors in Christchurch and East Dorset—24 in Christchurch and 29 in East Dorset, of whom 11 are in my constituency. None of the candidates stood on a manifesto to abolish their council—quite the reverse.”
“It is a pleasure to introduce this short end-of-day Adjournment debate on proposals to abolish Christchurch and East Dorset Councils. When a colleague saw the title of the debate, he wondered who was proposing such an outcome and why. I was able to assure him that it is not the Government, unlike 20 years ago when the Local Government Commission for England, under its then chairman Sir John Banham, was tasked by the Conservative Government at the time with abolishing the two-tier system and imposing unitary solutions. The commission, to its credit—I was a member of it—insisted that before any change to structures, there should be the fullest local consultation, including a survey sent to every household. A preliminary consultation on options for change was followed by a second consultation on a preferred option.”
“Indeed, I have been informed by the councils’ chief finance officers that all “authorities within Dorset are in a solvent position and have sufficient balances to remain this way for the foreseeable future”.”
“Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) has been taken in by this, because the consultation was designed to mislead respondents into believing that no change in structures was not an option. The consultation questionnaire gave the impression that there was no alternative to abolishing the existing structure of nine councils, and stated that if the nine councils were retained, “major savings would need to be found and it is likely that many council services could not be provided in future”. The only argument it put forward in the consultation for retaining the nine existing councils was “familiarity”—nothing about control over one’s own destiny and all the rest of it. No evidence is produced in support of the scaremongering in the document.”
“Nothing my hon. Friend says is incorrect, but the situation is that the leaders of councils should—as the leader of East Dorset Council has said—enter into those discussions and negotiations having sought a mandate from their own councillors. That is not what is being proposed in Christchurch. For good measure, the Christchurch Council leader has also criticised the combined authority, despite being a party to submitting it to the Government. He said: “We don’t think it would deal with the massive expectation”. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the public consultation has been so criticised as inadequate, biased and, indeed, untruthful. I am sorry that my hon.”
“No, I will not give way again. The consultation period was only eight weeks, during which time I attended five public meetings and had numerous meetings and discussions with constituents, voluntary organisations, councillors and former councillors, parish councillors and community groups.”
“I am most disappointed in my hon. Friend. I gave way to him and now he has taken up a minute or more of my precious time with a spurious point of order. This indicates his embarrassment at not being on top of the facts of this issue. I was talking about the different organisations to which I had spoken. The Daily Echo was highly critical of the consultation, and its lead letter on 21 October was headlined “We are being manipulated”, which reflected the widespread opposition to council abolition among my constituents. The documentation and financial evaluation of options in the consultation were based on the presumption that a new town council would be created in Christchurch to replace the borough council following abolition. Even elected councillors were unaware of that.”
“No, I will not. Nor did they realise that the funding for the town council would come from an extra £150 a year extra band D council tax. My constituents would forever, therefore, be paying higher council tax than residents in Bournemouth and Poole for the same level of service, despite the contrary having been asserted in the consultation document. The creation of a new town council replicating the borough council would also undermine the avowed objective of reorganisation of reducing administrative costs, cutting out duplication and simplifying local government.”
“Some council leaders argue, however, that because the shortfall across Dorset as a whole would be £30 million, reorganisation is justified. Now, £30 million over six years might sound like a lot of money, but when put into the context that Dorset councils are currently spending £920 million a year—£5.52 billion over the six years—it means we are talking about just 0.5% of total turnover. When set against the costs of reorganisation, estimated at £25 million, and the assumptions behind the figures of continuing to increase local government spending by 4% per annum—I think it extraordinary, but that is the assumption—the case for abolition looks incredibly weak.”
“It is now clear, however, that on the basis of the consultation, council tax rates and bills for citizens in Christchurch will always be higher than for those in Poole and Bournemouth under two of the unitary options, and would always be higher than for those in East Dorset, North Dorset—in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset—Purbeck and West Dorset under the third unitary option. Not only is this fact not disclosed in the consultation; it is actively covered up. The only justification put forward for abolishing Christchurch and East Dorset Councils is financial. The consultation paper states that option 1 would result in East Dorset having a cumulative shortfall of £0.3 million between 2019 and 2025, and Christchurch a surplus of £0.1 million. Such figures would certainly not justify abolition.”
“With 21,332 properties paying band D, as an average this amounts to over £3.8 million a year from Christchurch, subsidising this proposition. The guile exhibited in the consultation is such that it is hard to regard it as merely accidental. If it had been, one would have expected an immediate admission that the prospectus was false. Page 4 of the consultation states: “Councils would need to make sure that, within an agreed period of time, all residents of one council area pay the same—a process called council tax harmonisation.” Page 9 explains further: “This assumes an approach in which over a twenty year period…all the council tax rates in all areas within a new unitary council eventually become the same”.”
“I will not give way. My hon. Friend has already taken up my time in raising a spurious point of order, and I will not give way to him again. When after seven weeks of asking questions I received the admission that the financial figures were based upon the creation of a new town council, I inquired as to why Christchurch would choose to create a new town council when the consultation document at page 3 assured its readers: “The two unitary councils would deliver the services currently provided by the six District and Borough Councils”. No clear answer has been given to my question about what extra services beyond those already being provided in Christchurch would be funded with an extra £150 per year band D council tax.”
“As a result of that debate, councillors were lobbied very strongly by people living in the town, and the beach huts proposal was abandoned. I hope that as I have this evening drawn the attention of my constituents to the gravity of the current proposal, they will again lobby their councillors successfully to reject it.”
“Having been so cruelly misled by the documents—and, incidentally, at roadshows and focus groups—my constituents cannot have any confidence in the objectivity of the consultation process. Any purported outcome will be invalidated by the inadequacy of the process, and the inherent prejudice and bias in it. If Dorset councils remain keen to progress the idea of creating new unitaries in place of existing structures, they should launch a fresh consultation based on objective data and with assumptions that are transparent. The process should also enable every household to express its opinion, which happened when the Local Government Commission for England undertook a similar exercise in 1995. About four months ago, I led an Adjournment debate on the issue of beach huts in Christchurch.”
“A document from Local Partnerships headed “Overall Summary without Town Councils” seems to have been suppressed. What it shows, however, is that over the six-year period from 2019-20, the difference between the amounts of council tax forgone in the unitary option for a medium conurbation is £8 million higher on the assumption that there is no town council than it would be with new town councils. That is the extent to which the people of Christchurch are subsidising this proposed project. The financial merit of no change is that each council continues to have the freedom to maximise its increases in council tax in line with Government rules, should it so wish.”
“There are many other elements of the proposals for change that have not yet been sufficiently revealed. The first is that no savings are assumed across adult social care, children’s services and education—the three upper-tier responsibilities that consume the most money. Nor has the motivation of those seeking a unitary solution been highlighted as wishing to squeeze out local discretionary services provided by district councils so that that income is available to supplement statutory services such as adult social care. Most crucially, the consultation document does not make it clear that option 1 is the most financially beneficial option—unless Christchurch and Weymouth and Portland pay extra for town councils for no additional service.”
“It is insulting to my constituents that Poole and Bournemouth should now expect Christchurch residents to subsidise their councils—currently in the case of Poole £196 lower than in Christchurch and £161 lower in Bournemouth. Council taxes in Christchurch and East Dorset are very similar to the national average, which was £1,484 in 2015-16, while the average tax in East Dorset over the same period was £1,720, the second highest in England, and £1,756—the highest—in Weymouth and Portland. Although only tangential to tonight’s debate, I am not sure how many people living in the Weymouth borough realise that under the proposals in the consultation paper they would continue to have to pay at least £150 extra each year compared with other parts of rural Dorset.”
“Exactly. I had a very civilised conversation yesterday with the deputy leader and chief executive of Purbeck Council. My hon. Friend is quite right that there will be plenty of opportunities, but what I am keen to do in this debate is to make sure that we have a discussion on the basis of the facts. The shortcomings of the consultation so far have meant that the facts have been covered up from the people. As with all such possible changes, the beneficiaries are keen to shout loudest. Both Bournemouth and Poole Councils have chosen over recent years to freeze their council taxes, while Christchurch and East Dorset have been more realistic in their approach.”
“Will the Minister emphasise the importance of trying to achieve consensus, because there has been a lot of workplace bullying in Christchurch Council and we have seen, perhaps, elements of it in the Chamber this evening? Surely it is wrong that what may be a minority should be oppressed; surely it is important that minority views can be heard?”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, and I am sorry that I was not in the Chamber for the beginning of his speech. Is it not right that the 2007 legislation has not been used by any local authority other than the City of London and that the cemetery in Newham is on consecrated land, where special rules apply? As I understand it, this Bill will not apply to consecrated land.”
“The Bill does not specify the means by which old graves may be reused. My hon. Friend referred to a process called lift and deepen; is that the specific and only process that the promoters of the Bill have in mind?”
“My hon. Friend may have addressed this at the beginning of his remarks. The predecessors in title of the present company that owns the cemetery sold off vast areas of land that were attached to the original Victorian cemetery. If all that land had not been sold off, the issue would not have arisen. Is this not a case of a commercial organisation, having sold off a lot of its surplus land for housing, trying to use the land it has in a different way, arguing that it has not got enough space?”
“In 1976, the Great Northern transferred the ownership and management of the remaining parts of the cemetery to New Southgate. Since then, part of the cemetery has been sold off and part has been transferred to the Baha’is.”
“Perhaps the Minister on the Front Bench today will seize the moment to tell the House what the Government’s plans are in respect of the cemetery. The issue is much bigger than is reflected in the terms of the Bill. I do not intend to divide the House on it, but in such a debate it is important to be able to ask a few questions. When my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) comes to sum up, I hope he will be able to respond to them. The cemetery has a long and interesting history. It was originally some 200 acres. Over a period of time—this is the ninth Bill relating to this land to come before the House, and there have been eight Acts of Parliament since 1855 covering New Southgate cemetery—more and more of the cemetery has been sold off.”
“It is great that we are having a debate about the Bill. If I had not tabled a blocking motion, it would have gone through Second Reading on the nod. It is undesirable that issues such as this are not open to debate and discussion in this House. The Bill touches on an area that successive Governments have long avoided. In 2004, the Labour Government held a consultation on the possible re-use of graves. The consultation lasted six months, and after about three years there was a response from the Government in which they said that they were definitely going to do something about it, and quickly. Nothing has happened since. A Minister in the coalition Government, the former Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, Simon Hughes, said that they were definitely going to do something about it, but, again, nothing has happened.”
“More land has been sold than is needed now, but as soon as this organisation seeks to purchase a bit more land, all sorts of problems are apparently put in its way by the local authority—the very local authority that, I suspect, developed the houses on the land that was sold to it originally.”
“As I said, I am not opposing the Bill. What is unreasonable is that land retained to bury the dead was disposed of, and now the owners of that land, who profited from the sale of it, are saying, “We have not got enough space. We need special powers to reuse graves.” There is a difference between reusing graves in a municipal burial ground, where a local authority is accountable to local people, and reusing graves in a private burial ground, where there is no such accountability. What worries me is that the local authority has apparently been unhelpful in allowing an extension to this area so that there is more space for the burial of the dead.”
“I take very much the point my hon. Friend makes, and it is symptomatic of the change in the character of large parts of our country and particularly, for the purposes of this debate, of London. There is now a much increased number of members of the Muslim faith, for example, living in the United Kingdom. However, that is surely an argument for the local authority to facilitate the making available of more land to meet the religious needs of this very important part of the community, rather than an argument for saying, “We are so short of land that we are going to reuse the graves of those who were previously buried in the New Southgate cemetery.” I can understand why the Bill is being promoted, but I cannot understand why a sensitive local authority would not help to provide more land.”
“I expect that members of the Freedom Association, which was founded by his twin brother, with whom he established the “Guinness Book of Records”, will still be going there for a lot longer than 25 years. It may well be that the grave of Ross McWhirter becomes a place to which people would wish to conduct pilgrimages, in the same way as, I think, many years ago, Ross McWhirter discovered in deepest France the burial site of the person who made the first rugby ball, and following that discovery, that grave itself is now visited by rugby enthusiasts. We must not deal with these things lightly—I am not suggesting that my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate is doing that—but there is a potential solution to this if there was more co-operation from the local authority.”
“As I understand it, part of the cemetery was sold to the Baha’is because one of their religious leaders died while he was visiting London in 1957, and he was buried in the cemetery. That is why it is a place of particular pilgrimage and interest to people of the Baha’i faith. However, as my hon. Friend may have said earlier, it is not just Baha’is who are buried there. Our great hero Ross McWhirter is buried in the cemetery—it is some 40 years since he was cruelly murdered by the IRA. A lot of distinguished people have been buried in this cemetery. If Ross McWhirter has now been buried there for some 50 years, under the proposals in this Bill it will be only another 25 years before his remains can be disinterred. That puts these issues into perspective.”
“Perhaps they are content in their ignorance; I do not know whether that is a fair comment. We should cherish the opportunity to debate the matter. The Government have always said that there was no time available to discuss it more generally, but I hope that they will be inspired by this evening’s proceedings to think about the public interest in public policy making on the matter. In the meantime, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate for his great courtesy in dealing with the issue and for keeping me in touch with what has been going on. I hope that some of the concerns that I have expressed will be taken on board.”
“Quite rightly, the Bill also makes exceptions in relation to Commonwealth war memorials. It seems to me that a Bill such as this should be tightly drawn and subject to a lot of proper parliamentary scrutiny. My final point is that a commercial organisation is running the process, so how can we be sure that it will comply with all the requirements in the Bill to record the details of the graves that will be disturbed and the memorials that will be removed? Why has the company promoting the Bill not already recorded those details for posterity? Where will those records be kept, and who will maintain them? If this was a publicly owned activity, we might have a bit more control over it. That is why I have concerns about it. The fact that there have been no petitions against the Bill suggests that people in the locality are content.”
“This Bill is defective in that it does not specify the means by which the graves may be reused. As I said, lift and deepen is one method, but there are others that could be much less sensitive. Under lift and deepen, the remains are removed from the existing grave and put further down in the same grave; in other words, they remain in the same location. Less sensitive methods might be the cause of some offence. Once the decision has been made in a private cemetery, there is limited opportunity for public opinion or any individual to influence what happens. The problem does not arise with consecrated land, because such land is subject to control by the Church of England authorities. Clause 4(11) and (12) give particular recognition to the status of consecrated land.”
“They accepted that it was a very sensitive issue and there was a lot of public concern about it, but no conclusions were reached. It was said that about 30 years’ worth of land was available for burials, and more than 10 years have gone by since then, yet nothing is being done. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will put this in the wider context of what proposals there are to address this problem, particularly in the light of the very significant changes in the character of much of our population and the very significant increase in the number of Muslims, for whom burial is a religious requirement that cannot be substituted with cremation. Like all these things, when one starts to lift the stones and look at a bit more of the detail, one becomes aware of gaps in the proposed legislation.”
“My right hon. Friend makes a very important point. Not only in her constituency or in this area of London, but throughout the country where there is pressure on land, it is important that we have a properly worked-out policy for whether, and if so in what circumstances, graves can be reused. As my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate said, the London local authorities gave themselves powers in this respect that they have hardly used. With the exception of the cemetery in Newham, no local authority has started to use the powers given to them because of the sensitivity around them. That was indeed the conclusion that the Government reached when they went out to consultation on this issue more than 10 years ago.”
“Is the information to which my hon. Friend referred on the public record—is it part of the Bill—and if not, how will it be put on the public record, so that people can be held to account for what they have said?”
“Do the Government encourage the creation of more private cemeteries, and to what extent are they committed to what was said by the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) in a ministerial statement following the consultation? She said that it was the intention of the then Government to use powers under the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 to enable all parts of the country to have reused graves.”
“I am a lot more sympathetic than some of my colleagues to the hon. Lady’s Bill. How can she guarantee that the Boundary Commission will be able to implement its changes by October 2018, in time for the next general election? Is that practical?”
“My hon. Friend has reminded us of that previous debate. Does he agree that one of the reasons that some of us could not support the Government on that occasion was that they would not answer the straight question as to whether there would be a pro rata reduction in the size of the Executive if there were a reduction in the number of MPs. The Government would not answer that, saying that it was premature to ask the question.”
“On the question of whether the Bill is implementable in the timescale set out by its proponents, does my right hon. Friend recall that the Boundary Commission gave evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the previous Parliament to the effect that it would not be possible to make the changes unless the commission started, as it did this time, in February 2016? That was the latest point at which it could start if it was to produce changes in time for October 2018.”
“It is a pleasure to be able to make a small contribution to this debate. In the last Parliament, I was a member of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. As the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) said, the Committee produced a report towards the end of the Parliament drawing attention to many of the issues reflected in the Bill before us today. Unfortunately, one aspect of the recommendations has not been incorporated: that a Bill or any proposals to this effect should be brought forward at the beginning of this Parliament because it is going to take time to implement them if they are to be brought into effect by the time of the next general election in 2020. The Bill of the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) comes, I fear, too late to enable those changes, many of which I support, to be implemented in time.”
“Office for National Statistics figures show that in 2010 only 254 out of 650 constituencies in the UK were within the 5% limit either side of the norm, and 187 were even outside the 10% parameters, which is what the hon. Lady proposes in her Bill. The evidence brought forward by the Boundary Commission for England is that in 2010 some 200 out of the 533 seats were within the 5% limit, but a large number were outside that. The latest figures, for 2013, are that 188 constituencies in England are more than 10% either side of the norm. That is thoroughly unreasonable and inequitable, and it needs to be rectified.”
“When he challenged the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, saying, “You don’t really have it in your heart to ensure we get these changes through by the time of the next general election in 2020,” the Opposition spokesman did not seem to demur from that. The most important thing is to establish equality of constituencies. In paragraph 31 of our report, the Committee said: “We believe that, all other things being equal, constituency electorates should be broadly equal.” What is the position at the moment? It was in the year 2000 that we had the basis for the current boundaries, and if this situation continues beyond 2020 we will still be using that basis.”
“The hon. Gentleman should address that question to his hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham, because her Bill proposes that all these proposals must be brought forward by the four boundary commissions before October 2018, which is a very tall order. We took evidence from the boundary commissions in our inquiry and it was clear they would not be able to make major changes in the light of changes to the terms of reference unless they had a sufficient lead-in period. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) made that point earlier, and it has not been contradicted.”
“I am trying to address that point. If we are to have proper democracy rather than mathematics, we need a reasonable period within which the boundary commissions in Wales and England can look at the evidence and work out where it will be best for the boundaries to be situated. They could then consult and hold public inquiries on that basis. We have already heard, however, that if the Bill were to be put on to the statute book with a requirement for the new arrangements to be implemented no later than October 2018, it would not be possible for the boundary commissions—certainly those in England—to do the necessary spadework to ensure an equitable outcome, rather than one that would be subject to judicial review as a result of having been rushed and not taking into account the representations that had been made.”
“Perhaps the Minister will be able to assure us that there will indeed be that pro rata reduction. In a sense, that would mitigate some of the problems we have been discussing today. I expect that the Bill will receive a Second Reading, because, unlike a lot of private Members’ legislation, it seems to have generated a lot of interest. It is great to see so many Members in the Chamber on a Friday. If the Bill does get a Second Reading, we need to look at its practicalities in Committee.”
“Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms) gave evidence, too—and only one other person was due to give evidence between then and 8 o’clock in the evening. That was the first day of the inquiry; I do not know what happened on the second day. There may well be means by which the prolonged procedure for examining these proposals can be foreshortened, but that is the kernel of the matter that the hon. Lady, in bringing forward this Bill, has to address if it is to progress and get on to the statute book. This issue is very important. I am disappointed that the Government have not been prepared to say, “If we reduce the number of MPs to 600, we will have a pro rata reduction in the size of the Executive.” They could have done that. It would have been the right approach, but they have ducked it up to now.”