Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between Baroness Browning and Lord Greaves

Monday 16th July 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I would not agree that being a local councillor is a horrible job, but it is quite often more difficult than people imagine. I have two fundamental questions that I want to raise arising from the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis.

In relation to what my noble friend Lady Rumbold said—

[Baroness Browning]

I am alive and well.

[Lord Greaves]

My noble friend Lady Browning, I am sorry. The noble Baroness is being mixed up with everybody today. I have been mixing them up for many years. I am coming to the view that perhaps we should close down this Grand Committee and go home, but we shall struggle on.

On the points that my noble friend Lady Browning made about local councillors, I believe that they will be able to make a good fist of this, but the problem is, as the amendment says, they will be making it on the basis of different criteria and views in different places. The question is whether that is a legitimate argument in favour of localism so well put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, or whether it is a step too far.

The noble Lord attacked the postcode lottery, and I, too, cringe when I hear that phrase. It is an attack on localism and local decision-making by centralists everywhere, whether they are in the Daily Mail, the Labour Party or anywhere else. It is not a phrase that I would ever use, and it is something that I attack all the time. However, we do not want everything done at parish council level. I can imagine a situation in which the next time this country decides to go to war and invade a country such as Iraq the Army will be raised in a traditional manner by people going round and rounding people up whom they find in the fields and streets. Each parish council will be allowed to decide whether people should be rounded up from its parish, or not. That may be the way in which the Army is going with its cuts—that is the future—but I doubt it.

I am making a very important point, which the noble Lord, Lord Deben, made, that there are levels of government. I am a passionate localist and believer in subsidiarity, but I am also a federalist in the sense that there are different layers of government. The important thing is that each layer of government and democratic control should be responsible for those things appropriate to that layer. The noble Lord mentioned the European Union and Westminster, local authorities and parishes. The principle should be to push things down to the relevant levels. That is what I believe in. The argument is not whether everything should be done at parish level or even district council level—although I would be delighted with that, as long as we had the funding. The argument is what the appropriate level is to push things down to. The argument we have here is whether the council tax reduction—the council tax benefit, as it is now—should be a national benefit under which people in the country are all treated the same or whether that itself is appropriate to localism. On balance, I come to the view that it should be a national benefit decided at national level, precisely for the reasons that noble Lords have put forward. I do not think that that makes me any less of a localist.

The problem with the amendment was raised by the equally passionate speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, in moving it. She was speaking to the question of the level of the council tax reduction which will take place, whereas the amendment is about something more fundamental. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, explained the difference: it is about eligibility, not the level of the benefit. None of us have any hope of persuading the Government on the level of the benefit. I think that they are absolutely determined that it will go ahead on the basis that local authorities will make their own decisions. However, it ought to be possible to persuade them that the amendment has merit, particularly if the guidance was made on the basis not that it was government guidance of the traditional sort, which is actually an instruction which you disobey at your peril, but genuine guidance, where local authorities could improve the protection for disabled people—in other words, if the government’s guidance was an accepted minimum. Discussion might take place around that idea.

My second point was to go back to the 1930s. I am conscious that when I picked up the point made by the noble Baroness about the 1930s last week, Hansard thought that I had said the 1830s. Let me make it clear that I am talking about the 1930s, but the system was very much the same in the 1830s. The reason why the system of benefits was nationalised and the old localised Poor Law was abolished is that too many places were being too mean. The local position with the workhouses, and so on, was in some places unacceptable and therefore had to be raised to a standard level for everyone. The danger is that if you allow local authorities to decide on the level of benefit or, as we are now discussing, eligibility, some will behave in an appalling manner. That results in the wheel turning and rules and regulations having to be set out to prevent them doing that.

However, that was not always the case. There was at least one instance in the London Borough of Poplar in the 1920s, when it was run by a man called George Lansbury, when the local authority started to behave in a very generous manner and, in particular, started giving out relief—in other words, benefits in cash and kind that meant that people did not have to go into the workhouse but could continue to live in the community. The local authority was taken to court and to judicial review and was prevented from being too generous.

I say to the Government: be careful what you wish for, because the time will come, when economic growth resumes in this country, when it is easier for local authorities and other bodies to develop new schemes. Local authorities will have been given a power of general competence and at some time—who knows when?—there may be resources for local authorities to do things that central government think are outrageous because they are being too generous, not too mean. As I said, be careful what you wish for.