Article for North Devon Journal

On Monday, Parliament returned from its summer break, and with a busy schedule ahead of it. This week, we debated a referendum on changing our voting system; next week, we will be scrutinising proposals to fix a five year period between elections, and after that, the most radical shakeup in Education for a generation will be passing through the Commons.

This legislation is part of the most ambitious programmes of reform we have seen from Government in recent decades. All of these topics are very important and deserve a column in themselves. But the proposals that I believe will have the largest- and most beneficial- impact on our part of Devon are the sweeping plans set forward in the Decentralisation and Localism Bill, which will come before Parliament in a month or so.

The Bill is a mammoth piece of legislation; amongst other things it will finally abolish the already-suspended Home Information Pack, require councils to publish the expenses of their officials, and get rid of the Standards Board for England, which has opened the floodgates to all sorts of petty complaints made against councillors which could just as easily be investigated by the councils themselves.

However, the most fundamental proposals are based upon the principle of returning power to local communities. Planning decisions will no longer be taken in Bristol and Whitehall and imposed on our towns and villages regardless of the views of residents; instead, the Bill will introduce, for example, a Community Right to Build, which will let local residents come together to approve plans for new homes, shops and facilities in an effort to protect and preserve rural life.

One of the cruellest blows to our area under the previous Government were the Post Office closures of 2008. We can make sure that this never happens again. Under the new plans, local people will be given powers to help save local facilities and services threatened with closure, and give communities the right to bid to take them over. If residents feel particularly strongly on an issue- a large council tax rise, for example- they will have the power to hold a referendum to decide whether to go ahead.

For too long, unaccountable bureaucracies, whether in central or regional government, have made decisions on behalf of the people of Torridge and expected them to ‘like it or lump it’. The intention of the Localism Bill is to change all this, breathe life into our local communities and allow residents to make the decisions that matter to them. It cannot come soon enough.