Pickles responds

Here are Eric Pickles’s answers to the questions posed by Coffee Housers:

 Victoria Street

“Devolving power downwards from Westminster doesn’t mean that the blame can always be devolved downwards. Are you prepared for the inevitable slew of critical media that is an inevitable result of letting go the reins? Can you resist the temptation to intervene? Can you take the pressure of Labour and Liberal Democrat authorities demanding central government action to pay for their local mistakes?”

If we are truly to be the Party of real localism, we must trust local councillors to determine what is right for local communities and be confident that those communities will hold them to account. David Cameron has already given strong indications of some the ways we would hand powers back to councils and through them to the wider communities. For example instead of Ministers imposing “crude universal capping” of Council Tax residents would determine council tax increases through referendums.