Worries about bylaw moves

This week, the coalition has announced that it intends to allow local authorities to sweep away "antiquated" by-laws on carpet-beating and moving animal carcasses, which have been on the town hall list since the 1800s.

At the same time, however, they want to make it easier for local councillors to pass fresh bylaws on modern problems, such as street-drinking and low-cost alcohol, without reference to central government.

A crowd-pleaser? Certainly. A step in the right direction? Highly debatable. Local democracy is bandied about as a "good thing", on the basis that local decision-making suits the people. But experience shows that this is not necessarily so.

Back in the 20th century, we were always moaning about town hall bureaucracy and the imposition of petty restrictions for dubious benefit. Allowing councillors free rein to make up more bylaws, without the necessary checks and balances from central government, is a recipe for a Sharia-style local court, creating criminal offences for which the perpetrators can be prosecuted because of a rousing speech or localised campaign getting the vote.

The reason for having the legislative process that we do — much abused in recent years, it must be said — is that there is due consideration given to each paragraph of the measure by not one, but two elements of government — the Commons and the Lords — who are advised by experienced lawyers and civil servants.

The same level of scrutiny and expertise is not always available or used in local councils, some of whom shoot from the hip when it comes to a local issue making the headlines.

One only has to look at the wide variation in interpretations of the Licensing Act itself to know that the concept of a universal, uniformly-enforced law is simply a pipe dream. True, the Act sets parameters, but the much-vaunted idea that it removes inconsistency and local interpretation is simply not true.

The easier bylaw procedure would see us going down the same route. Minimum pricing is a case in point. For the alcohol campaigners it has a nice ring to it, suggesting that the simple remedy to juvenile binge-drinking is to outlaw "pocket-money prices", as the Middlesbrough policy statement so graphically states.

But setting a minimum price will have an adverse effect on cash-strapped adults. and will not in itself prevent youngsters clubbing together to buy alcohol if they really want to. It clearly is not the answer to the Friday and Saturday night flashpoints, because these young people are paying high street pub and club prices anyway, whether or not they have "front-loaded" at the supermarket.

Regression​

But this is a universal issue, and as such should be dealt with by central government, if at all. There is a real danger in allowing law-making on social-policy matters to be handled by the Town Hall in a piecemeal way, so that what is illegal in Halifax is perfectly acceptable in Hastings. Such flexibility creates confusion in the minds of locals and visitors alike.

But it is, in some ways, a regression to the old Victorian ideas of society — a million miles from Thatcherism — that encouraged local people to run their own patches (as if, in reality, local people generally were interested or involved in politics at a grassroots level), so that their decisions would reflect the views of the community.

There has never been that much cohesion between local bureaucrats and the people they "serve", and it seems to me that this will be no different. A motivated minority will set the laws they want to, and the devil take the hindmost!