Localism Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Taylor of Goss Moor

Thursday 7th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My question on Clause 83 has turned into a short supplementary to the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. The Minister has told us that the order-making power in Clause 83(7) will be used to deal with matters of inheritance and partnership. Can she give the Committee an assurance—I am sure she can—that the order-making power will not be used to alter the principal definitions of relevant disposal, which are already contained in the Bill? As subsection (7) is set out, it could, on the face of it, actually change the 25-year term or the definition of disposal in Clause 83(2). Those are quite fundamental points.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor]

My Lords, I welcome much that the noble Baroness said about the Government’s willingness to look at the particular circumstances that may arise, for example, in the sale of going concerns and where the community asset is a small part of a larger concern. These issues have certainly raised great concerns, and I would like to add another.

I am not sure that I need to declare an interest but I shall do so just in case. I chair the eco-town strategic partnership in the St Austell area, a wide area of mining land which was mined formerly by English China Clays and more recently by Imerys. Over many years the policy of past and present mining companies in the china clay area has been to open large areas of land to community access, but always with the proviso that it might be worked in future. That is not a bad example of the concern that I want to put to the Minister about the deterrent effect that this policy—a policy which, broadly, I very much support—could have on landowners of that sort in opening up land to community use, whether for walking, riding, cycling and so on, if it were severely to limit their ability to sell and dispose of the land as part of the operation of their business. My fear is that, as things stand, it will simply freeze in aspic the current position on community access as people would be able to argue that access already exists and to list it. Equally, in terms of new community access, it is in the nature of mining land that the areas which may be accessed by the public will change over time depending on where the workings are and where land restoration has taken place following tipping. I can see this creating a substantial block to opening up land for future community use. The same may well apply to the farmer who very willingly allowed a corner of his land to be used by the cricket club. That usage now exists and a listing could be applied for. It could also create a substantial deterrent to any landowner opening up land for such use in future.

I am very much in favour of the idea that we should register assets of community value—which clearly applies to things like village shops, community halls and so on—but I am concerned about how to ensure that the creation of new community resources is not blocked by the fear that these elements will be applied.

I have one more question; I should already know the answer to it, and no doubt there is an answer. What is the position when the sale of land options—which are usually bought because planning permissions might be granted—in practice trumps these proposals to register community assets? I wonder whether the purchase of an option in any sense triggers this process.

Localism Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Taylor of Goss Moor

Monday 20th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment, because it goes to the heart of the fundamental issue of how our body politic and administrative systems work. The amendment essentially sets out what we want to do in a Bill called the Localism Bill, before we discuss how to do it. That is an important reminder of what we should put in front of those who draft these things, because in this country, unlike many others, when we talk about empowering people, the assumption is that somehow Whitehall has to define every element of it, in particular because it may otherwise be subject to legal challenge. Other countries give a power of competency at a local level and look to those who exercise those powers to defend the manner in which they have done so rather than rely on the crutch of how the national tier has defined what they should do.

By definition, having a Bill of this size that calls itself the Localism Bill illustrates the flaw inherent in our body politic: we do not understand the principle of devolving decision-taking to others or that that decision-taking has to involve devolution of responsibility for the “how”, not just the principle of the “what”. One does not have to have spent much time talking with the Local Government Association or others to realise the many reservations of powers to Ministers that are inherent in the Bill, which is an inch-and-a-half thick. It cannot be right that a Bill that is about empowering local communities has to be defined in that kind of detail, although I suspect that that is not so much a flaw of the Bill but of the system—let us not forget that the Bill amends many other Acts and, if they were all here, I do not think that I could hold the Bill in my hand.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I take issue with my noble friend Lord Taylor only to the extent that we should start with not just the “how” but the “why”. It does not matter what you call something, provided you do not then use your term as an excuse for sloppy thinking. That is a danger. It would be easy during our debates on the Bill to say that such-and-such is local or localist, without analysing what that means and what it should mean in each context.

The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, referred to Pepper v Hart. I must say that it worries me when people who have not been closely involved with our proceedings say, “Parliament clearly must have thought such-and-such”, and one wonders whether Parliament has thought at all about a particular issue.

Representative democracy is so valuable for lots of reasons, but I have written down four: balance, priorities, nuance, and wide objectives. When the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, spoke about community groups being self-selecting, I thought that she was going to say that they were self-serving—just occasionally, they are and I, too, recognise the examples she gave. The issue of bail hostels precluded my party from taking control of our local authority in 1978. My noble friend Lady Tonge was elected in a by-election shortly afterwards, having failed to be elected at that earlier point. However, the issue was of concern in a community that one should have thought was most sympathetic to the problem that the establishment of the bail hostel was addressing. The centre has a role, but its role is not to protect local people against their own local authority.

The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, asked what the clause would achieve. It sets criteria against which the detail of the Bill can be tested. Something that is superficially local or localist is not sufficient.