Localism Bill
Debate between Baroness Keeley and Lord Stunell
Andrew Stunell
I look forward to hearing my hon. Friend’s case deployed in the debate.
I am pleased to report that there is a very broad measure of agreement, both inside and outside the House, on the Bill’s principles and, indeed, on many of its specific provisions.
Local authorities will need to ensure the delivery of more responsive services in a more transparent way, so that their citizens can see what is going on. To do so, local councils will need to innovate, to work across traditional boundaries and to ensure clear lines of accountability to their residents. That will be characterised, above all, by the way in which local democracy is renewed.
Within this very large group of proposed changes, there are a number of new clauses and amendments that hon. Members from all parts of the House have tabled, including the one to which my hon. Friend just referred. We shall debate them, I will consider carefully the points that hon. Members raise and I hope to have the opportunity to respond to them before the close of this debate.
We had a consensual time on the whole in Committee, and I hope that we can carry that forward in our discussion on this group of proposed changes.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
Not wanting to become non-consensual at this early stage, I note that the Minister talks about limits on power, and we are still concerned about the Bill’s 142 extra powers for the Secretary of State. I am puzzled why new clause 12 specifies only the powers in clause 5(1), because they are exactly the same as those in clause 5(2). If there is a concern about limiting the powers of the Secretary of State, it should apply to both subsections. I wonder whether the Minister might cover that point.
Andrew Stunell
I hope to have satisfied the hon. Lady by the time I have completed my remarks. If not, I am sure that she will let me know.
All the Government amendments and new clauses, one way or another, are designed to improve the effectiveness of the Bill, given the range of issues that were raised in Committee, as the Minister of State said, and given outside events, including in particular the passage of the Welsh referendum, which means that some of the provisions that were in prospect earlier on can now be made a reality. To that extent, I hope I can reassure the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) that we are not inserting a whole lot of totally new provisions; we are simply making available to the Welsh Executive the same powers that are being made available in England. I hope he finds that somewhat reassuring.
We have, where appropriate, taken into account feedback from the consultations that have been carried out on elements of the Bill and representations that we have received from a wide range of organisations that have been interested in—and, in some cases, very excited about—the prospect of the Bill coming into force.
Andrew Stunell
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware that the Bill is not applicable in Northern Ireland. Currently, every local authority in England has to have a statutory code of conduct, so we are not for want of an example. We are saying that there should be flexibility about the shape and nature of the code, and that that flexibility should be exercised by the local authority.
On EU fines and infractions, I assure the House and the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South that we will ensure that any process to pass on an EU fine is fair, reasonable and proportionate, and we will consult on that. We will pass on a fine only if an authority has clearly caused or contributed to causing it, and has the power to remedy the situation and can afford to pay. That is set out in new clauses 13 and 14 and in Government amendments 132 to 143. The measure is not about Ministers reclaiming every penny; it is about giving a strong encouragement not to incur fines in the first place. Local authorities must not be able to assume that if they make a mistake and are in the wrong, the UK taxpayer will pay their bill for them.
It is perhaps worth rehearsing what the process is. EU grants are given with conditions attached. At present, the monitoring, and therefore the risk, falls to central Government and their agencies. In the new, devolved world, that will not always be the case, and with the transfer of control has to come a transfer of risk. The Government do not seek to offload risks that are beyond a local authority’s control—mention has been made of air pollution targets and so on.
That will all be set out in a policy statement, and I can say today that we are making good progress on that. I am placing in the Library a paper from the Greater London authority that has emerged from some of our earlier discussions, and I would very much welcome comments on it. We do not necessarily agree with every single part of it, but it will provide a strong basis for discussion over the next few weeks and we are committed to taking that discussion forward. We have also engaged with the Local Government Association and will continue to do so.
We debated fire and rescue authorities in Committee, and our amendments 92 and 93 are a response to the concerns that the Opposition raised and feedback that we have received from industry partners. They relate to authorities’ powers to charge for attending persistently malfunctioning or wrongly installed automatic fire alarms. It is not in dispute that there should be such a provision for non-domestic premises, but the point was made that domestic premises would also be caught by that power, and probably wrongly so. The amendments simply remove that option from fire and rescue authorities.
We also discussed pay accountability in Committee, and we undertook to return to the House on the matter of greater accountability on low pay in light of Will Hutton’s report on fair pay in the public sector. His report made some clear recommendations, particularly about the benefit of setting decisions on senior pay in the context of the pay of the rest of a body’s work force. Some of the Opposition’s amendments are in the same tone. We are sympathetic to that idea, particularly the potential for linking lower pay with senior pay, and we will consider the best way to take that forward. If necessary, we will return to it in the other place. As we do so, we will remain mindful of the level of burden placed on authorities and ensure that pay decisions remain ones for the appropriate local employer to take and are not dictated by us.
On the other hand, we do not think it would be helpful to use the Bill to address the pay of contracting bodies. Councils, the voluntary sector and businesses, especially small firms, have called on the Government to remove unnecessary burdens and break down barriers in local authority contracting, not increase them. That does not prevent a local authority from developing a local policy to ensure that bodies with which it contracts are open about their rates of pay as a matter of contract. That should remain an issue for local decision making, not central determination.
We have a very large group of amendments, and you no doubt have a large group of Members wishing to speak, Mr Deputy Speaker. I apologise to the House on the one hand for taking so long and on the other for dealing with some very important topics only in skeleton form. I am pleased to move new clause 12, and in due time I will wish to move the other Government new clauses and amendments in the group. I undertake to listen carefully to Members’ contributions as the debate proceeds.
Barbara Keeley
I am glad that Ministers are still so interested in my website—it makes it worth all the effort of keeping it up to date.
I shall speak first to amendments 36 and 37, which are related to new clause 12. They are intended to protect a list of the most important duties of local councils from the powers that the Secretary of State wants to take in clause 5(1) and (2). I should remind the Minister that he did not answer my question about new clause 12 not applying to clause 5(2). I see that Ministers are looking at the Box and seeing if they can find some inspiration over there.
As I said on Second Reading, the Secretary of State’s power under clause 5(1) and (2) is chilling, because it would allow him to
“amend, repeal, revoke or disapply”
any statutory provision. The Government can keep calling that barrier-busting, but it will still end up being the same swingeing power. The difficulty for those who are opposed to it is that it would leave local councils and the people who use their services at the mercy of the ideology of the current Government and Secretary of State. I know from the debates that we had in Committee that some of the Ministers were opposed to giving Secretaries of State such a level of power in previous local government Bills, and spoke against it. Perhaps they would like to think about why they have had such a change of heart.
Since our debates on the Bill started, the Department has launched its review of the statutory duties of local councils. That means that the nature of the power in question, and how it will be used to sweep away what councils are starting to see as burdens, is now much more under the spotlight. The Government’s focus on duties as “burdens” has caused alarm and great concern to people who rely on the services of their local council. Their concern about the extent of the Secretary of State’s powers to sweep away councils’ duties is greater because of the language that the Government are using to describe the vital duties on which people depend. In the review, councils and the public were asked to specify the bureaucratic burdens that they wished to throw away. In fact, Ministers have allowed all the duties of councils to be listed, and voted on, as “burdens”, “red tape” or “bureaucratic barriers”. In using that language, they do not appear to have considered the importance of many of the statutory duties of local councils.
Strangely, we now find ourselves bartering to try to find out which particular duties might be safe and protected from the Secretary of State. The Department’s website states that the only duties that might be protected are those on libraries and child protection, but the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), ventured in a recent letter to The Guardian that allotments were also safe. It is not reasonable to have only vague reassurances on three out of all the duties of local councils. We have therefore tabled amendments 36 and 37, and I say to Ministers that they must be clearer about protecting the vital duties of local councils—duties that legislation has created, which provide important protections and services on which people rely—from the power that the Secretary of State wants to
“amend, repeal, revoke or disapply”
any statutory provision.
Members should make no mistake about it: there are real concerns about that power. Professor Luke Clements is a leading expert on community care law, and in an article about the statutory provisions that could be swept away by the new power, he stated:
“The list includes large swathes of the Mental Health Act 1983, the Children Act 1989 as well as virtually every community care and carers statute. The suggestion that protecting children or frail elderly people from abuse could be…‘burdensome’ is further evidence of the coalition government’s disdain for the very notion of a welfare state.”
He said of the Government’s approach:
“It is a contempt that has already created a largely lawless regime where fundamental rights, such as the right to a face-to-face assessment”
and
“the right to have assessed needs met regardless of resources…are openly flouted. It is a regime that fuels the daily news stories of disabled, elderly and ill people being failed by public bodies, and experiencing neglect and extreme indignity. In the face of this, the response of the coalition government is not to strengthen the law, but to suggest that it be trashed.”
Andrew Stunell
I have really been disappointed by the hon. Lady’s remarks, which are a travesty of what is in prospect. I spent perhaps a little too long in my speech explaining precisely what new clause 12 will do and making it absolutely clear what it will not do. I am sorry to say that she is making it up, which is not good.
Incidentally, I can answer the hon. Lady’s question about clause 5(2)—as she suggested, inspiration has arrived. It relates only to overlapping powers, so by definition it will not change local authority powers or duties because it will take away only one of the overlapping powers.
Coalfield Communities (Regeneration)
Debate between Baroness Keeley and Lord Stunell(14 years, 3 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Stunell)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin, as it was to serve under Mr Bone before you. It is good to have a debate that is so well supported by Members who have passion for, and knowledge about, a subject. Twenty Members were present, and the vast majority of them contributed. I know that it is not the form to say such things, but I was delighted that Michael Clapham was able to be present throughout to listen to the debate. I want to say how much the Government appreciate the work that he did on his report, which was commissioned by the former Government and which we have been happy to receive.
I also want to thank the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) for giving the House the opportunity to discuss the matter, and for her reasoned presentation of the case. She is a new Member, but I am sure that she will quickly become established as a champion of Wigan, the miners and the mining community that she represents.
The hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) asked me to undertake to give an oral statement. Such matters are not at all at my pay grade, but I shall ensure that the point is passed on. We do not in any way underestimate the importance of ensuring that the House is well informed about progress on the subject.
I want as far as possible not to get drawn into the broader macro-economic issues, because that would not be a good use of our time at this point, but I would not want the case to go by default. As a result of the spending pattern that this Government inherited from the previous Government, we have, during this debate, borrowed another £24 million, and will borrow an extra £150 billion by the end of the year. That is the background to the position in which we find ourselves, and which, of course, underpins the more local concerns of many who have spoken in the debate.
On 19 July, I was happy to respond to an Adjournment debate on precisely this topic. I say to the hon. Member for Wigan, whom I do not think was able to attend July’s debate, that the Government, now as then, remain supportive of the continuing need for land-based remediation, strongly support the important community-led regeneration projects, and remain committed to helping people and communities to work together to tackle local problems and support local enterprise, particularly in the former coalfields.
That previous debate centred around, or at least took very much into consideration, the report of the Public Accounts Committee. I say this very gently, because I am extremely supportive of the points that hon. Members have made, but there have been problems delivering the programme. It is a little bit like the young man at the casino who sends a text message saying, “System working well. Send more money.” We have heard that the output has not been the jobs that are needed, and we need to look hard at that. From that point of view, the review of coalfields regeneration by Michael Clapham is an outstandingly useful contribution to forming our view about what should happen next.
I have met Michael Clapham and other members of the all-party coalfield communities group since July’s debate. We agreed to meet again in January next year, because then, knowing the outcome of the comprehensive spending review, we would be in a position to consider Michael Clapham’s report and the allocation of departmental funding. I hope that we can proceed on that timetable.
I do not want to use up my time by rehearsing the report’s contents, but it clearly identifies problems on the ground and issues to do with delivery and contains some recommendations for the way ahead. Hon. Members have mentioned different parts of the report.
Barbara Keeley
A great deal has been said in this debate, including by me, about the difficulties with funding from local authorities, and about the possible loss of voluntary organisations. We heard about the impact in Makerfield of the work of the citizens advice bureaux. Given the timetable that the Minister mentioned, will he say whether a watching brief can be kept to ensure that we do not, in the period till January, lose any of the vital voluntary and community organisations that underpin and hold together the work in coalfield communities?
Andrew Stunell
I would not want the January meeting to be regarded as the earliest time at which it is possible for us to make an announcement. I take account of what the hon. Lady says. I would share her concerns if delay in making an announcement led to problems that could otherwise be avoided. I hope that I may, in my last 30 seconds, add something that will help her in at least one respect.
The Government welcome the Clapham report and agree that, often, local authorities working with local people know best what the particular needs are in their area. This Government’s strong, consistent message is that it is the people in a locality or neighbourhood who most often appreciate what the problems are and what the potential solutions might be, rather than people located more remotely, particularly in Whitehall.
The Government are keen to drive forward coalfields regeneration. We believe that a bottom-up, community-focused approach should be central to the next phase of coalfields regeneration. We are carefully considering the recommendations and hope to respond formally in November. As agreed, the full published report is already on the Department for Communities and Local Government website. For some reason, there was serious concern in July that we would keep it secret. We have no intention of doing that.
Hon. Members know that the spending review has been challenging. Over the next four years, DCLG’s overall resource will reduce by 33%, with capital spending reduced by 74%. Alongside this, we are devolving more than £7.6 billion directly to local government to set its own priorities. We are giving more flexibility to local government. We are delivering 150,000 new affordable homes and protecting the Supporting People programme, importing an extra £1 billion into it from the NHS. We are investing £1.7 billion in regeneration and local economic development over the next four years.
One or two hon. Members mentioned young people’s capacity and ambition, and opportunities for them. The introduction of the pupil premium will be a significant step forward that will help young people in communities such as the ones that we are talking about.
Andrew Stunell
I shall correct one detail: the pupil premium is intended to support disadvantaged children, whatever community they live in, rather than disadvantaged communities. In her main point, the hon. Lady describes exactly what the Government are doing. We are working hard to have community-based budgeting that draws together funding from all the different public sources and allows priorities to be set locally to deliver what is needed, without the necessity for everybody to operate in silos. I hope that the hon. Lady will see the benefits of that. We have established 16 pilot areas for this year and will be rolling that process forward rapidly over the next couple of years.
We have increased the regional growth fund from the original £1 billion that was announced to £1.4 billion, and have extended the life of the fund from two years to three years. I hope that that gives some comfort to those who are concerned about the issue.
On the regional development agencies, two bids have been presented to the Government for local enterprise partnerships for the north-east. Announcements will be made in due course. There could have been only one local enterprise partnership covering the whole north-east, had those involved wished to do that. On the future of coalfields regeneration, I provided assurances during the debate in July that we had no plans to dismantle the programme. The Minister for Housing and Local Government has already said, in response to the report on the review of coalfields regeneration, that it is crucial that former mining areas continue to get the support that they need.
Barbara Keeley
Will the Minister say whether that support includes additional funding? That goes back to the question that I asked about whether areas will retain funding.
Andrew Stunell
We intend to provide the support needed to enable the contractually committed, physical regeneration projects in the Homes and Communities Agency national coalfields programme to come to fruition. However, the settlement has been challenging. Difficult choices still need to be made about the way ahead. We will consider the case for the continuation of dedicated funding for coalfield areas in light of the Clapham report, and we intend to make an announcement on that in the next month.