Why Britain is such a centralised society
Going straight from being a senior councillor to being a parliamentary candidate has given me one insight into why this country has such a centralised political system - the attitude of national pressure groups, lobbies, and charities.
To be fair to them, they behave in the way they do partly because we have developed such a centralised political culture. But while everyone talks the language of localism, far too many people are practicising the politics of centralism - perhaps without even realising it.
Between 2001 and 2004 I was the Portfolio holder for Planning and Conservation in the cabinet of a council dealing with a very heavy load of planning applications. And one of my motivations for standing for election to the House of Commons is to try to get central government off the backs of local government, because over those three years I become fed up to the back teeth with blinkered, incompetent micromanagement and interference from London.
So it was an eye-opener on standing down from the council cabinet and almost simultaneously becoming a PPC to find out how much mail I received from national campaigns - and what a high proportion of it would have been more relevant to the job I had just vacated.
For example, as a councillor I had been leading my authority's work on developing our local plan - or local development framework as it is now called. As a prospective MP I receive literally dozens of mailings and emails from well meaning charitable organisations, and many of them asked me to ensure that councils include particular things in their local development frameworks. I don't think any of those organisations had contacted me while I was actually writing one.
As a councillor I pushed through, in the teeth of opposition from the Housebuilders Federation, supplementary planning guidance on affordable housing designed to dramatically increase the number of affordable homes provided in the district. As a prospective MP I get requests to increase the number of affordable houses - something I over which I had far more direct control in my previous position than I will have if I become a backbench MP, though admittedly ministers have a great deal of influence over what councils can do. Unfortunately, if my experience as a councillor is anything to go by, it is much easier for ministers to hamper the efforts of councils to deal with a problem than it is to help.
It is somewhere between surprising and alarming the number of "pledges" and "Manifestos" I have been asked to support and cannot agree to, not because I disagree with the aims of the bodies concerned but because I believe in local democracy.
If we decide that a given service should be provided by national government, then it should be provided to the same standard in every part of the country, and complaints about "postcode lotteries" in such services are entirely reasonable if the service in some areas is better than others. Tha is the view which most of us would take about the NHS.
But if we are going to have local councils at all, then it must be because we think there are some services and issues which can be run more appropriately at a local level with the benefit of local knowledge and local choice. If we decide that a service should be provided by elected local authorities, then those councils, and not central government, should be given authority to run them, to make the decisions, and take the flak if people don't like those decisions. And those who don't like those decisions can and should campaign at a local level to change them.
To be fair to them, they behave in the way they do partly because we have developed such a centralised political culture. But while everyone talks the language of localism, far too many people are practicising the politics of centralism - perhaps without even realising it.
Between 2001 and 2004 I was the Portfolio holder for Planning and Conservation in the cabinet of a council dealing with a very heavy load of planning applications. And one of my motivations for standing for election to the House of Commons is to try to get central government off the backs of local government, because over those three years I become fed up to the back teeth with blinkered, incompetent micromanagement and interference from London.
So it was an eye-opener on standing down from the council cabinet and almost simultaneously becoming a PPC to find out how much mail I received from national campaigns - and what a high proportion of it would have been more relevant to the job I had just vacated.
For example, as a councillor I had been leading my authority's work on developing our local plan - or local development framework as it is now called. As a prospective MP I receive literally dozens of mailings and emails from well meaning charitable organisations, and many of them asked me to ensure that councils include particular things in their local development frameworks. I don't think any of those organisations had contacted me while I was actually writing one.
As a councillor I pushed through, in the teeth of opposition from the Housebuilders Federation, supplementary planning guidance on affordable housing designed to dramatically increase the number of affordable homes provided in the district. As a prospective MP I get requests to increase the number of affordable houses - something I over which I had far more direct control in my previous position than I will have if I become a backbench MP, though admittedly ministers have a great deal of influence over what councils can do. Unfortunately, if my experience as a councillor is anything to go by, it is much easier for ministers to hamper the efforts of councils to deal with a problem than it is to help.
It is somewhere between surprising and alarming the number of "pledges" and "Manifestos" I have been asked to support and cannot agree to, not because I disagree with the aims of the bodies concerned but because I believe in local democracy.
If we decide that a given service should be provided by national government, then it should be provided to the same standard in every part of the country, and complaints about "postcode lotteries" in such services are entirely reasonable if the service in some areas is better than others. Tha is the view which most of us would take about the NHS.
But if we are going to have local councils at all, then it must be because we think there are some services and issues which can be run more appropriately at a local level with the benefit of local knowledge and local choice. If we decide that a service should be provided by elected local authorities, then those councils, and not central government, should be given authority to run them, to make the decisions, and take the flak if people don't like those decisions. And those who don't like those decisions can and should campaign at a local level to change them.
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