Local Audit and Accountability Bill [HL]
Debate between Baroness Hanham and Earl of Lytton(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Hanham
My Lords, we, too, are sympathetic to this amendment, and I am grateful to the noble Earl for having brought it to the attention of the House. We all recognise that parish polls are a way for local people to achieve something they want that is relevant and appropriate to the area over which they have authority. The noble Earl made it clear in Committee that sometimes that area extends to the European Union, which seems rather beyond the competence. We accept that there are concerns about the threshold for polls being called. I am very grateful to the noble Earl for coming to spend a bit of time with us, and we have had an opportunity to talk about it.
The way in which the noble Earl has constructed this amendment just about puts it within the scope of this Bill, but it is not wide enough for all that needs to be done. We believe that the scope can be made wider in the other place. We need to look at that carefully and will come back to it. I hope very much that we will be able to say that we will take that up and see it dealt with in the other place. If we cannot, then we are in the sort of territory that the noble Earl has talked about—a Private Member’s Bill or a hand-out Bill. I assure him that the Government are supportive of what he has said, and I give an undertaking to the House to take this away and look at how we can get it implemented in the best and quickest way. I hope that the noble Earl will be willing to withdraw his amendment.
The Earl of Lytton
My Lords, in the light of that undertaking by the noble Baroness, it would be entirely churlish of me, especially at this time of night, to seek to do anything other than to withdraw this amendment. I do so with my enormous thanks to her and her officials for the input that they have had on this. I have my fingers crossed for a later stage. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.
Local Audit and Accountability Bill [HL]
Debate between Baroness Hanham and Earl of Lytton(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Hanham
We are currently considering the future management of the Audit Commission’s value for money—the question asked. I cannot say anything more today but we will come back to this before Report, I hope, and I will certainly make sure that noble Lords are kept in touch with progress, which I think is what I said last time.
The Earl of Lytton
Not to prolong the matter, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Earl of Lytton
My Lords, I will follow what the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said, in the same vein, because I think that getting rid of the requirement altogether would create all sorts of difficulties, which the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has referred to.
I cannot help commenting that for all the money that is spent on these things, they seem to be reproduced in the smallest print and in the most insignificant parts of the relevant newspaper. One always wonders whether a local authority chooses its moment to stick in an important announcement when the local football team has been moved up to the next division or whatever it happens to be, and nobody is going to read the small print in the public notices part of the paper. Maybe it is because they are being charged so much that the print is so small so they need to cram it into a smaller number of column inches in order to get value for money—but that is speculation on my part.
I agree that better and more efficient ways should increasingly be used to disseminate this information. Very often I hear about things not through the pages of the press, where they are carefully hidden, but because the parish council or some other organisation sends a round robin e-mail and I happen to be on the circulation list and that is how I get to know about it. I think that must be the experience of many noble Lords and many members of the public. So I support the general purpose here. Certainly, I would not necessarily support the removal of public advertising in the press for every single thing that is on the list of the noble Lord, Lord Tope.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, happily, noble Lords have not quite agreed on this again, which is always very useful as far as I am concerned, but they have raised issues that are important and I want to acknowledge that.
The purpose of statutory notices is to inform the public about decisions that will affect their lives, their property and their amenity. There are 162 aspects they will need to be informed about but they are all relevant to local people, either individually or in groups. The amendment does not consider the effect on the public or on business and other groups, and would potentially put local people in the dark. We must acknowledge that there are still people who do not access information other than through newspapers. The local paper, where it exists, still fulfils a very public duty in that regard.
Removing statutory notices from the requirement to publish for local authorities would also stifle local transparency and the rights of local people to challenge decisions that impact upon their lives, because they would not know about them. This is a complex and contentious issue, as my letter to the noble Lord, Lord Tope, acknowledged. I do not believe there is any consensus about taking them out of local newspapers even if they cost a small amount to put in.
The burden of statutory advertising is one that we acknowledge, and the Communities and Local Government Select Committee’s recommendation a couple of years ago for a review of publication requirements for statutory notices cannot be ignored in the long term. Against this background, local newspapers remain an important part of local democracy, ensuring that local people are informed about the decisions that affect their daily lives. It is essential that local people have free and open access to information that can affect them or impinge upon them rather than having to rely on other means. I acknowledge that the requirement to publish some notices in newspapers comes from an age which has long since gone—1972 was a very different time from now—and they could perhaps be removed. However, other requirements remain as valid today as they always have been.
Looking at planning applications, there is a limited amount of time for local residents to make representations, yet applications can and do affect their and their neighbours’ quality of life and property. The previous Administration consulted in 2009 on removing the statutory requirements to publish planning notices in newspapers. It was not well received. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, may remember that.
The then Government concluded that it was clear from responses that some members of the public and community groups relied on the statutory notices in newspapers to learn about planning applications in their area. There was no conviction that good alternative arrangements could readily be rolled out. The effect of this amendment would therefore be to reduce public scrutiny regarding, for example, planning decisions, the provision of sex shops, bus-lane fines, casinos, betting shops and councillor allowances, among myriad others. I acknowledge that all 162 are laid out in Amendment 19E, but I have understandably mentioned a few which are important. Although some may be willing to see all these go, we would ask whether the blanket removal of a huge swathe of statutory notices is really in the public interest or ideal. That does not stop us looking at the statutory notices under initiatives such as the Red Tape Challenge, but they are currently as listed.
It is vital that we understand how local people receive and use information in the 21st century. Some make use of innovative technology, and everyone here sits with their little iPads making sure they know exactly what is going on at home when they are sitting here taking important decisions about legislation. However, not everyone is as privileged and not everybody has, or wants, easy access to technology. They like reading what they want in papers and we cannot disregard that.
It is also true that the money that pays for these statutory notices helps to keep local newspapers in existence. That is important to ensure that those who are not going to be tied up to the internet have ready access to information not only about statutory notices but about what is going on their local area. The newspaper industry is clear that competition with local authority newspapers for advertising revenue is damaging their primary source of revenue and preventing newspapers reporting on what local authorities are doing on behalf of local people.
It would be unfair to remove statutory notices in such a blanket way as proposed, particularly while independent newspapers are—as the noble Lord, Lord Tope, acknowledged—under threat and need to be kept in business. A small contribution to that is through the statutory notices, which seems a good use of public money. We would not wish to accept the amendment. With the comments I have made, and with the understanding that the coalition agreement was that we would try to protect local newspapers, I would ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
The Earl of Lytton
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Tope, will be pleased to know that the National Association of Local Councils supports the thrust of what he has advanced here. It does not believe that there is a problem, nor does it see a need to change the present code status. It is not aware of a single instance of the Secretary of State intervening in a parish council publicity matter. It says that the taking of additional powers by the Secretary of State is distinctly non-localist, and there are some concerns at the potential longer-term implications for parish newsletters. It certainly does not think that this is a legislative priority. I am at one with what has been said on this.
I have a separate concern that I expressed at Second Reading on the suitability of the present code to become a statutory code at all. When I put this to the Local Government Association, it agreed with me that the current drafting appears to be less than precise and said that it was a matter on which the LGA had taken some advice. However, that is not to say that the general thrust of the code is wrong. It actually contains some good principles but is qualified by all sorts of terms, mainly prefaced by the word “should”, and includes phrases such as “likely to be perceived”. There are also imperatives about there being no,
“commentary on contentious areas of public policy”,
and positions being presented “in a fair manner”. Authorities should not do anything,
“designed to influence members of political parties”.
Paragraph 13 of the code states:
“The purchase of advertising space should not be used as a method of subsidising voluntary, public or commercial organisations”.
That begs the question: when is a subsidy merely part of a cost contribution? I note also that the definition of what might be unreasonably partisan, contentious, sensitive or likely to have an influence if not even-handed is probably not a constant between Parliament at this level and the parish pump at that level. I certainly question whether it applies in equal manner to everything in between. How would making this code statutory improve things? Would it be simply an avenue for contention whereby the matter would have to be thrashed out in the courts—the Secretary of State versus some borough, parish or other?
Is that a profitable way to go forward, bearing in mind that there do not seem to have been any substantial problems? It is said there have been one or two in some London boroughs but I do not know whether they are regarded as being typical or whether those boroughs that have had the finger wagged at them have failed to observe the wagging finger. Other noble Lords may know more about than I do, but it seems to me that the case for the clause is not made.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I recognise that the Room is not with me but it is none the less extremely important that the clause stands part of the Bill.
The code of recommended practice, agreed by both Houses of Parliament, is the guidance to which local authorities must have regard when producing their publicity. It sets out the seven principles that local authorities have to abide by when producing their publicity. We know what they are and I shall not read them out. The publicity code is necessary because local authority publicity can be expensive and contentious. We acknowledge that the majority of local authorities abide by the guidance in the publicity code. However, there are some that do not. There are examples of local authorities that still produce weekly newspapers that are highly contentious and political. While there may be only one or two authorities that have done this, it is proper that someone is able to make sure that that does not happen.
Clause 38 provides the Secretary of State with the power to take action where a local authority is not complying with the publicity code. This would be taking action by direction. The Secretary of State can direct a local authority or a group of local authorities to fulfil or take notice of the publicity code and can require compliance. Such directions do not require all local authorities to comply—although it could do so, which would make the power statutory, if there were to be a real outbreak across every single local authority.
However, that is not what this clause is directed at. It is directed at the one or two authorities that are still not conforming to the publicity code. If a publicity notice is excessive and people complain, it enables the Secretary of State to direct the local authority to comply with that code. The clause sets out the procedures to be followed before a direction is given and these require the Secretary of State to give proper notice of the proposed direction and for an authority to make representations within 14 days.
Growth and Infrastructure Bill
Debate between Baroness Hanham and Earl of Lytton
The Earl of Lytton
My Lords, I will not detain the House for long. My interest as a practising chartered surveyor in matters to do with planning is well known. The concern about this area of the Bill is not to prevent development from taking place but to ensure that the community should have some input. There is a serious and objectively important issue here. It is that the density of development is a construct, particularly in urban and suburban areas, that needs constant review and monitoring. Filling up open space with development—perhaps “filling up” is a rather pejorative term, but noble Lords will get my drift—touches on and concerns that issue, and produces long-term, quantifiable effects on value, amenity and the general sense of space. That affects not only the public perception but individual neighbours. It is very easy for someone with a very short-term agenda who simply wishes to have further space for whatever reason to try to construct something that is less than worthy in the context of the locality. I pay tribute, as I have before, to the way in which local planning authorities have protected this construct, this facet, of our built environment. It is important that there should be oversight. Policies to protect amenity space, light and air should none the less still have house-room here.
There are a couple of issues that I hope the Minister will be able to clarify. Another qualitative consideration that risks being lost is to do with materials—things like colour, finish and texture. They risk being lost under the process of prior notification where the principle of development is enshrined in a permitted development context. I appreciate that design guidance in supplementary planning documents may overcome this if it is sufficiently up-to-date and all-encompassing, but it is not always.
It has been mentioned already that the local planning authority will receive no fee, whatever the length and breadth of its administrative role may be in dealing with something under a prior notification regime. I think that that is probably an injustice, other than in circumstances where, as the noble Lord, Lord True, and others have said, it is a straightforward in-and-out issue.
We have heard about the issue of too much planning and overconcentration. I believe that I made a comment earlier in the course of the Bill about the colour of people’s front doors or the design of their windows. We need to try to distinguish between removing the overconcentration on the particular and the wholesale removal of scrutiny, because the two are not the same.
Comment has been made on how the service of notice would work. That must wait for another day, but I would instinctively prefer 28 days rather than 21.
A further area, that has already been pointed out by the noble Lords, Lord McKenzie and Lord Shipley, is the question of definitions—back garden as opposed to side garden, curtilage as opposed to plot area, setting as opposed to something else—and the basis of identifying the proportion of the plot actually built upon if you want to get some sort of absolute measure. I remember a situation where I made an application for a tenant’s garage. It was turned down because, although it was in a rural road, the planning officer decided that it was offensive to the “streetscene”. Anyone walking up the “streetscene”, where they saw one house every half-mile, will realise what I mean when I say that I did not think that “streetscene” was a concept that applied to something that was stuck behind a hedge up above a high bank. This occurred because, needless to say, the building was not built with a frontage onto a highway, as you might normally expect, but was built end-on to the highway, so front and back gardens had a boundary with the highway. It is this sort of muddle that needs to be sorted out, because for every plot that is governed by the standard criteria of an urban street, there are other ones that are not so governed because they are corner plots or otherwise different and individual. We need to somehow disentangle that.
The noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, asked what the sanction will be for not complying with a scheme as prior notified. Indeed, that is something that we need to be very careful about.
On the whole, though, I believe that the Minister and her honourable friend have gone some way to try to deal with this business through this halfway house of prior notification. Prior notification is not an unusual construct, despite what the RTPI may wish to say; it is commonplace in agricultural permitted development, so I do not have any particular worries with it as such. If the Minister is prepared to give some sort of undertaking that the detail of this will be subject to consultation, not least consultation via the processes through this House, then I will be inclined to take the side of the noble Lord, Lord True, and be prepared to draw a line under this—to take half a bun or two-thirds of a bun, even if it is not the whole bun that we wanted to start with.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords who have spoken, particularly my noble friend Lord True, for the tenor of this debate. I accept that there is not everything that everyone would want here, judging by the questions, but the House seems to accept that we have moved a long way since we started on the Bill.
I want to reiterate that the revised approach that we are taking responds in a targeted and direct way to the concerns that have been raised. As noble Lords have said, there are already existing permitted development rights that have operated effectively for a number of years. The change is that those permitted development rights are extended with regard to the size of buildings. This is not new, although I well understand the concerns that noble Lords have raised. Our revised approach will now ensure that under the new rights, in the case of larger extensions, any objection from immediate neighbours will be fully taken into account before permission is granted. I will come back to “immediate neighbours”.
Growth and Infrastructure Bill
Debate between Baroness Hanham and Earl of Lytton
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I am not sure that a combative meeting, which I think that that would be, would be very valuable. Perhaps I may think about that and see whether it would be helpful; I am not certain that it would be.
The measure is designed to give businesses security, to enable them to know where they are and to help them through what is a very difficult time.
I was asked also about the capacity of the Valuation Office Agency. We believe that it does not make any difference; it is up to it. It will have to do the same estimates again in a couple of years.
We have discussed the impact of appeals on several previous occasions. I have already told noble Lords that headroom is created in the local government financial settlement to ensure that rating appeals are taken into account and that local authorities do not lose out as a result. I hope that, with those explanations, noble Lords will decide not to press their amendments.
The Earl of Lytton
My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving such a detailed reply at this time of night. I thank the noble Lords, Lord McKenzie of Luton and Lord Smith of Leigh, for their contributions and for filling in a lot of the detail that it was not possible to give in my introduction.
My meeting with the Minister’s officials was entirely satisfactory, save for the fact that it did not give me the answer that I thought I should have derived from it—but that is par for the course; one accepts that. I understand that the particular meeting to which I referred took place last Wednesday. The Minister—it was not the noble Baroness but one of her colleagues from another place—who had originally been destined to be there for half an hour or so, was there for two minutes and 40 seconds. Just one of the representative bodies got a question in and was more or less told, “Well, it’s a done deal and that’s it”. That seemed to be the end of the conversation, which was not really satisfactory for people coming along and explaining the situation from a business standpoint.
It does not give businesses any comfort to know that the report by Sir Michael Lyons is to be left on the scrapheap because it was commissioned by a previous Government who did not implement it. These things are done with much fine intellect and great skill is applied to them, and they should be taken at face value. I say from these Benches that if businesses are just going to be subjected to the idea of the thing being of no consequence because it is politically inconvenient or political point-scoring, that does not do anything for growth or infrastructure. It does not do anything for businesses or business confidence because all this politicking switches businesses off; they do not operate on that basis.
The Valuation Office Agency’s data were fine in their own terms, but it was how they were interpreted thereafter and the claims made for them that were not substantiated. It would have been better if they had never been prayed in aid at all. The Gerald Eve analysis of the figures—produced by the Valuation Office Agency, not by Gerald Eve; it was a reworking of the Valuation Office Agency’s own figures—has to this day not been challenged or countermanded in any sense. The political overlay is a matter of dismay to many businesses.
The cost of occupation is directly related to jobs. If we are all in this together, and somebody in the Treasury or wherever in the Government is saying, “Well, we’re not going to have this thing, because, in fact, we don’t want any sort of wobbles on the transition to the Local Government Finance Act arrangements and the business rates retention scheme and all that sort of thing”, that is fine, but it would be just as well if that were said outright and then we would all know where we were.
There does not appear to be any other reason for that. With the greatest respect to what the noble Baroness said, I do not believe that the figures add up in the way that she said. I do not believe that there are 800,000 gainers. I do not see that in the figures there. It is an allocation of a large proportion of “don’t knows”, and that is not the same thing at all. Obviously the noble Baroness is entirely dependent in these things on the information that is provided by her department but there is a great deal of concern about the information, what it means and what is being claimed of it. Different interpretations are being attached to things that should have a straightforward meaning to everybody. This is a problem that we need to address.
Growth and Infrastructure Bill
Debate between Baroness Hanham and Earl of Lytton(11 years, 3 months ago)
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The Earl of Lytton
I apologise to the Committee for intervening now; I thought that I would intervene earlier but felt that it had been discussed. I want to try to disassemble something here. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, of which I am a member, recently looked into this question of the operation of the telecommunications code. One of the things that became apparent was that the code has been an exceedingly clunky means of dealing with difficulties and disputes because it has to be dealt with through the county court. One of the things that the institution was particularly keen to air—and perhaps I should have done so earlier—was that this process really needs to be dealt with. I would have invited the Minister then, and maybe I still can, to say whether it is correct that the Law Commission is looking into this whole business to try to find a better and more streamlined way of dealing with that particular process. I do not know whether British Telecom, or whoever it may happen to be, is concerned about the whole process, or specifically concerned about planning, or whether within that it is concerned about national parks, or whether it is actually the telecommunication code that is a common denominator for all planning authorities. If the Minister cannot respond to that now, perhaps it could be explored at some juncture.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl. I will make sure that that is considered and give him an answer before next time—as I will with the other matters raised before Report.
Growth and Infrastructure Bill
Debate between Baroness Hanham and Earl of Lytton
The Earl of Lytton
I added my name to this amendment not least because it was originally drafted by the National Association of Local Councils, in relation to which I have already declared an interest.
I apprehend that Clause 1 is not intended to create a new type of planning application or that such applications should follow a fundamentally different evidential or representative process. It needs to be stressed that neighbourhood plans, as well as local plans, will continue to be relevant to that process. I am glad to see the Minister nodding her head. It is right that the amendment seeks to clarify this. In writing to me in the context of Clause 1, the Minister helpfully said:
“Local people will be able to comment on an application in the usual way if it’s being decided by the Planning Inspectorate instead of the local authority”.
That seems to be an incredibly helpful overarching consideration.
There is one bit of detail that needs to be addressed. Parts of the online version of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990—I am referring to Schedule 1(8)(i)—have been altered by subsequent legislation. I appreciate that the Minister may be unable to answer right now but it is not clear to me precisely what has been appealed and whether the amendment fulfils that purpose. I would like to clarify that because, under the original 1990 legislation, the parish council had to notify the planning authority that it wanted to be notified in relation to appeals. I do not see how that process will operate with the Planning Inspectorate. I am sure that there must be a way, but I would appreciate having some clarification as to how it will work in practice. The effect of Clause 1 is to move this one stage further away from the parish and neighbourhood in an application going direct to the Planning Inspectorate. In other words, it has not been dealt with by the principal authority with which it may already have existing arrangements. If the Minister could give us some clarification I would be enormously grateful.
Baroness Hanham
I have been trying to make it clear all the way through this afternoon and evening that, when the application is taken to the inspectorate, the same consultation processes will have to take place as would have taken place if the local authority had conducted the application itself. The consultation document makes it clear that there will be no dilution in the ability of communities to become aware of applications through notifications or discussions, or in their ability to comment on them in very much the same way.
I appreciate what my noble friend Lord Deben says about people being consulted. I draw his attention to the Localism Act, in which there is a requirement for planning developers to undertake pre-application planning discussions. One would expect that to happen in the first instance. The size of the applications being discussed by my noble friend would be beyond the purpose of the clause; they would be major infrastructure applications. However, some applications that will not go quite so far will still be big enough to arouse local feeling. We intend that all the current statutory requirements on local authorities should be transferred to the inspectorate. There will be the same standards of publicity and consultation, and the same opportunities and periods to make representations; and all the relevant documents will have to be available at the offices of the relevant planning authority and on the Planning Inspectorate’s website, so one will be able either to look them up on the internet or check them out locally.
Local Government Finance Bill
Debate between Baroness Hanham and Earl of Lytton(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Hanham
My Lords, these amendments enable First-tier Tribunal judges and other members to sit as members of the Valuation Tribunal for England when requested to do so by the president of the tribunal for England, when that request is approved by the Senior President of Tribunals. That is so that the expertise of First-tier Tribunal members, who currently hear appeals relating to council tax benefit, can be utilised in determining appeals on decisions made on council tax reduction schemes—something which the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, was keen to see cleared up.
The Government are clear that there will be a single appeals process for unresolved disputes on claims for council tax support by a body independent of the local authority. The majority of those who expressed an opinion on the matter in the consultation document and at engagement events support that view.
The Department for Communities and Local Government has agreed with the valuation tribunal and the Ministry of Justice to enable members of the First-tier Tribunal to sit as members of the Valuation Tribunal for England when requested to do so.
When determining a person’s entitlement to a reduction under a scheme, a billing authority may need to carry out a detailed assessment of a person’s means. That may be necessary to comply with the regulations prescribing reductions for persons in receipt of pension credit, if the default scheme is in place, or if a billing authority’s own scheme includes a means-tested element. It is therefore important that the valuation tribunal can access the right expertise in considering appeals which relate to means-testing. The amendments allow the valuation tribunal to be supplemented by members of the First-tier Tribunal for this purpose.
Amendment 88E inserts a new paragraph A18A into Part 1 of Schedule 11 to the Local Government Finance 1988 Act to allow a member of the First-tier Tribunal to act as member of the Valuation Tribunal for England. Paragraph A18A(2) places conditions on when a First-tier Tribunal member may act as a member of the Valuation Tribunal for England. It may only be at the request of the president of the Valuation Tribunal for England and with the approval of the Senior President of Tribunals in relation to an appeal that relates, in whole or in part, to a council tax reduction scheme, and if the First-tier Tribunal member is not disqualified from being or acting as a member of the Valuation Tribunal for England.
Paragraph A18A(3) imposes conditions on whether requests may be imposed for a First-tier Tribunal member to act as a member of the Valuation Tribunal for England. Such a request may relate to a particular appeal or to appeals of a particular kind and may be made only if the president of the Valuation Tribunal for England considers that members of the First-tier Tribunal are likely to have relevant expertise. Paragraph A18A(4) allows the Senior President of Tribunals to approve a First-tier Tribunal member acting as a member of the Valuation Tribunal for England for a particular appeal or for appeals of a particular kind. Paragraph A18A(5) allows the president of the Valuation Tribunal for England to withdraw his request at any time, and requires a First-tier Tribunal member acting as a Valuation Tribunal for England member to cease to do so if the request is withdrawn.
Paragraph A18A(6) provides that references in Schedule 11 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, and in regulations made under paragraph A19 of that schedule, to a member of the tribunal include a member of the First-tier Tribunal acting as a member of the tribunal. Paragraph A18A(7) makes certain exceptions to when references to a member of the tribunal includes a member of the First-tier Tribunal acting as a member of the tribunal, specifically paragraphs A7 to A10 and A12, which make provision about the appointment and removal of, numbers of, and payments to members of the Valuation Tribunal for England. These do not need to apply to acting members of the Valuation Tribunal for England because they will continue to hold office on the terms and conditions under which they were appointed to the First-tier Tribunal.
Paragraph A18A(8) empowers the Valuation Tribunal Service, the body that provides administrative support to the Valuation Tribunal for England, to make payments to the Lord Chancellor in respect of the expenditure incurred by the Lord Chancellor, in paying a First-tier Tribunal member remuneration, allowances or expenses, while acting as a member of the Valuation Tribunal for England. Further work is being undertaken with the valuation tribunal and Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service to determine the most efficient approach to administering payments to First-tier Tribunal members. This amendment ensures that the Valuation Tribunal Service has the power to make these payments, should it be concluded that this be the most efficient approach.
Amendments 88F to 88H make consequential amendments to the Local Government Act 2003, which are needed as a result of new paragraph A18A(8). With these explanations, I hope that noble Lords will feel able to approve these amendments.
The Earl of Lytton
My Lords, I welcome in general the amendment and will not detain the House very long. It follows what I have been espousing earlier in our debates—namely, the streamlining and consolidation of the appeals process. However, I have two questions for the Minister. As I have not given prior notice of either question, I would fully understand if she would prefer to reserve her position and write to me later. First, will the benefit hearings element, which will now be transferred to the Valuation Tribunal Service, be hybridised with assessment appeals? My concern has always been that once the benefit comes under question and there is an appeal on the question of benefit, it is only a minor step for an advisory service to advise a benefit claimant or potential benefit claimant to appeal also the assessment, or possibly the liability. The question is how are they going to be dealt with, when previously they would have gone to the tribunal for the benefit element and the question of the assessment—in other words the banding—would have been dealt with through the valuation tribunal. If they are going to be consolidated in some way, will they be completely aggregated together or will the benefit element have its own listing and programme? The reason I ask this particular point is because my understanding is that there is a considerable backlog of listings for the valuation tribunal, so the risk is that moving the benefits cases may exacerbate what is already an unsatisfactory situation. How they are managed will be critical.
My second question relates to paragraph (8) of the insertion, relating to the valuation tribunal service making payments to the Lord Chancellor. That is fine, but can the Minister confirm that the Valuation Tribunal Service will be given additional financial resources commensurate with the costs it incurs in dealing with what would otherwise have been benefits tribunal cases, which have been transferred to it? I hope that the Minister will be able to clarify both those points.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, those questions are quite detailed and if the noble Lord will forgive me, I shall write to him with the answers, as I think he suggested, and make sure that the Members of the Committee receive copies.
Local Government Finance Bill
Debate between Baroness Hanham and Earl of Lytton(11 years, 10 months ago)
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The Earl of Lytton
My Lords, I shall speak very briefly on Amendment 26. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, would not thank me for sitting silently when the matter revolves around the question of non-domestic rating. There are two words in the clause that the proposal seeks to amend. One is “diligently” and the other is “payable”. A great deal hinges on those two words.
I previously explained at Second Reading and in comments made in the debate on the Queen’s Speech that there is a problem with the management of the tax base, which is implicit in the bundle of rateable values that afford the basis on which this particular bit of local government finance arises. I would have to say that diligence may be there in abundance, but efficacy is not. Later on—although I suspect not today—we will come to amendments that I have tabled where I set about trying to deal with some of the shortcomings implicit in the present system.
There is no unwillingness to implement a proper and fair system at all levels of central government, government agency and local authority. But if the system is underfunded and suffers from a lack of degree of care and maintenance input, problems will arise. What may be diligence to one body of people may look like neglect to others. I am particularly concerned that if the term “payable” means what would otherwise have accrued to the billing authority in this sense but does not for whatever reason, that represents the horns of a dilemma, bearing in mind that, as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said, the billing authority has no responsibility for the maintenance of the tax base. In other words, it has no stake. Some of my amendments try to address that. As matters stand, the billing authority has no role in the accuracy of the list or indeed whether something is in the list as a non-domestic hereditament or not.
It concerns me that, if the Government’s own Valuation Office Agency cannot catch up with this, to try to make that somehow by implication the responsibility of the billing authority must be wrong in the absence of additional resources in which to achieve it. Clearly, there are no additional resources because we are talking about a 10% cut. If it came to be interpreted by the courts, although I am no lawyer, I fear that the words “diligently” and “payable” may have the sort of meaning that I rather fear and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, fears might be attributable to them.
It could put the billing authority in an extremely difficult situation and could have knock-on effects throughout a large number of billing authorities with the potential for what I can only describe as a large degree of mayhem in local government accounting for any given year until it works through the system. I support the principle of what has been said.
Baroness Hanham
I thank the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for moving the amendment and I hope that I can reply to most of the points that have been raised. Amendment 26 seeks to remove the obligation on local authorities to act diligently, which are the words that have been questioned regarding the collection of the non-domestic rating income due to it under Sections 43 and 45 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988.
This section focuses on the need to establish the payment that will have to be made by the billing authority to the Secretary of State in respect of the central share that is due. It is obviously important that there is a clear understanding of what is meant by non-domestic rating income in this context, and this paragraph confirms that the Secretary of State will introduce regulations that provide that clarification.
In preparing those regulations, we are clear that the Secretary of State should be taking into account not just the income that the billing authority receives, but the amount that it would be reasonable to expect any authority to collect if it acted diligently. That is the amount that is due to it, and if it does not get that and its collection rate is below 100%, it is still being assessed on the former amount. This is not a new concept. The principle of diligence is well established, as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, intimated, in the 1988 Local Government Finance Act in its treatment of a billing authority’s contribution to the business rates pool; for example, Part 2 of Schedule 8.
Local government is therefore familiar with the principle of due diligence as part of its responsibilities for collecting non-domestic rating income. It would send a rather unfortunate signal if we were to suggest a lessening of the responsibilities of local authorities to ensure that the business rates that are due to them are actually paid. I think that most local authorities understand and make enormous efforts to ensure that they get the maximum amount of business rating that they possibly can. I certainly remember being challenged when we got up to 97%; now we want to get to 100%.
Amendment 27 relates to the regulations that will be introduced to establish the administrative arrangements to be put in place for processing payments of the central share. We are clear that we intend to be as accurate as possible in making the calculations for the amount of the central share. However, it is obviously prudent to ensure that mechanisms are put in place to deal with those scenarios where it is subsequently determined that the payments to the central share that have been handed over by billing authorities are either lower or higher than those required. Paragraph 7(2)(b) of Schedule 1 makes it clear that the regulations to be introduced by the Secretary of State on the administration of central share payments may make provision to deal with under or overcontributions. Having reflected on that paragraph, and the proposed amendment, it is not clear to me in what way the proposed amendment will improve the clarity of the intention of that paragraph.
Amendment 30 would prevent the Secretary of State including, within regulations governing the calculation of payments to be made by billing authorities to major precepting authorities, adjustments to reflect either costs that fall on billing authorities or different circumstances that will need to be reflected in any payment schedule; for example, we envisage that, in defining non-domestic rating income, the regulations will make an adjustment for the cost of collecting the business rates income. Otherwise, there is an obvious undesired outcome that the billing authority has to absorb the cost of that administration alone. Similarly, the definition of income will reflect specific circumstances where the rates collected may be apportioned slightly differently; for example, as we confirmed in our statements of intent, it is our intention that all the business rates income from new renewable energy projects will be retained by the planning authority. The regulations would enable the relevant adjustments to be made to reflect such circumstances.
Amendment 31 relates to the circumstances that might apply following an audit of a billing authority’s calculations for the purposes of making payments to its major precepting authorities. We hope that there will be few, if any, occasions, where the audit of a billing authority’s calculations and information certified by the audit did not match what was supplied to the major precepting authority. However, there might be occasions when this is the case. Paragraph 9 confirms that regulations may make provision for the use of the certified information in relation to payments to the major precepting authority. Use of certified information in this way would mirror the arrangements set out in paragraph 40(6), which provides that the Secretary of State should be able to rely on certified information and existing non-domestic rating pooling.
Transparency over the funding to be available, and the basis of the calculations used to determine that funding, will clearly be important to everyone to establish confidence. This section sets out that the regulations may include provisions to establish what might happen where there is a mismatch between the information supplied and the certified information produced by the audit. In such a scenario, we envisage that all parties would want to understand the nature of the difference and how the certified information and calculations might be used to correct, where necessary, any mismatch. In my view, the regulations are absolutely the right place to provide that additional clarity on the use of the certified calculation or information.
Amendment 39, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Smith, and spoken to in his absence by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, would replace the current flexibility in the Bill and instead require payments from central government to local government to be made in just two instalments. I hope that I am able to reassure noble Lords that it is our intention, subject to consultation with local government, to spread payments in respect of the rates retention scheme, both to and from local authorities, over the course of a year. We intend to do this by setting up a schedule of payments over the year. We will consult on the number of instalments over which the payment should be made. However, we believe, at this stage, that the two payments envisaged in this amendment would be too restrictive under these circumstances. I ask the noble Lord, with this explanation in mind, to withdraw the amendment.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked about mandatory payments. I understand that will be outside the central charge. I may need to write to the noble Lord, but mandatory payments are clearly important as they cannot be ducked. I understand the question of sports and leisure clubs is still under discussion, and perhaps we may be able to deal with that at a later stage.
The Earl of Lytton
My Lords, can the Minister clarify something further for me following what I said a short while ago? Let us imagine the situation of a popular coastal town, in which there are a large number of properties that may be used seasonally for holiday purposes. Many will in fact be people’s second homes and may even get a reduction when assessed for council tax because they are second homes. Because of the seasonal nature, it is difficult to track whether these are going to fall above or below what I believe is the 140-day threshold of occupation for holiday purposes. I have to say that I am not sure whether that is for general tax purposes rather than local tax, but the question then is what their whole or main use is. In theory, if one is using the property year-round for holiday lettings, that is clearly a change of use, but there is no requirement to go for planning consent and it probably does not require any building regulations control. There may be some issues to do with health and safety, but how would the billing authority know what stock lay out there and what it was used for?
I appreciate that the Minister may need to come back on this, but in such a situation, how would a billing authority know whether it was behaving “diligently” or whether it was supposed to go around tracking down who all these people are? When I did an investigation last year into holiday homes, I found that a very large number of what I understood to be holiday homes, which were clearly being advertised as such through letting agencies, were in fact subject to a council tax assessment. If we are not careful, we will be putting an absolutely impossible burden on the billing authority, if “diligently” causes it to fall foul of something that is going to be extremely difficult for it to catch up on.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, we are in danger of amending the amended. These clauses were amended in the other place as a result of some of the concerns there. These amendments would reverse changes to the way that the Government distributes surplus levy income that were made in the other place. I recognise the noble Lord’s intentions in tabling these amendments—indeed they reflect much of the Government’s proposed process for distributing the levy surplus when we first introduced the Bill in the other place. However, as the Bill was amended to meet concerns raised there, I cannot accept these amendments. We have said that any surplus levy income that is not needed to fund the safety net will be distributed back to local authorities. We will not simply hold larger and larger surpluses.
Amendments 47 and 48 propose that the Secretary of State should consult with relevant authorities in advance of determining how much levy surplus should be distributed back to local authorities and set out the basis of distribution of levy surplus in the annual local government finance report. Although I sympathise with the intentions behind these amendments, setting out the distribution of any levy surplus through the local government finance report rather than through regulations is not the best approach. In fact, there are unintended consequences of this approach, in particular for the timings of payments to distribute the levy surplus.
When the Bill was discussed in Committee in the other place, concern was raised that the proposed process for distributing surplus levy was a bit long-winded. Setting out the basis of distribution through the local government finance report would mean that even when the Government had taken a decision to distribute some or all of any surplus back to local government, authorities would have to wait six months to a year before they saw the money. As a result of that, the Government agreed to look into speeding up the distribution and therefore amended the Bill—which is how it stands now—so that the process for distributing levy surplus, and the basis of that distribution, could be set out in regulations, ensuring that the payments can be made immediately after the decision to make them is taken.
Furthermore, to provide appropriate parliamentary oversight, the Government ensured the regulations would be subject to the affirmative procedure and hence subject to the approval of both Houses of Parliament. Regulations will need to be in place well in advance of any levy surplus being distributed, so authorities will have the certainty that the noble Lord is seeking. Once the regulations are in place, they will have this certainty each and every year until and unless they are revoked.
Amendment 49 requires the Secretary of State to report to Parliament the reasons why any remaining balance of the levy account has not been redistributed within three years. Again, although I recognise the intention behind this amendment, I do not believe it to be necessary. I reiterate that it has always been the Government’s default position not to hold back excessive amounts of surplus levy. The levy account will also operate with a high degree of transparency—the payments made both to and from this account will be easy to identify, as will the overall balance. Furthermore, the Comptroller and Auditor-General will report on the account and lay this report before Parliament in the same way as he currently does in the report entitled Pooling of Non-Domestic Rates and Redistribution to Local Authorities in England. This will provide Parliament with adequate opportunity to raise the issue of the levy balance, if required, through the normal processes.
On the basis of these arguments and the fact that this has already been amended, I hope that noble Lords will not press their amendments.
The Earl of Lytton
My Lords, apart from the redistribution of this levy to local authorities, it remains the case that it is funded by what is paid by businesses on their non-domestic premises. I simply wish to have an assurance from the Minister that under no circumstances could this be used or treated as any sort of contingency fund to overcome inherent deficiencies and time lags in the system. As I have previously pointed out in the context of this Bill, non-domestic ratepayers are getting a bit of a raw deal in terms of what they pay per square foot by comparison to other contributors to local government finances. Their values are based on 2008 antecedent valuation date figures, for which they are paying ever more through the processes of transition, in circumstances where their own economic situation is increasingly challenged. Furthermore, I believe that the Valuation Office Agency has admitted that there is an element in the national non-domestic multiplier for losses and adjustments resulting from appeals.
Local Government Finance Bill
Debate between Baroness Hanham and Earl of Lytton(11 years, 10 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Earl of Lytton
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, made a perfectly correct reference to some comments that I put to him. Indeed, I have made comments in the context of this Bill before. Before I go any further, I ought to declare various interests: as a practising chartered surveyor, a member of the Rating Surveyors’ Association and a member of the Institute of Revenues, Rating and Valuation, which explains my interest in the valuation aspects of business rates.
There is a growing issue that creates a greater than usual level of uncertainty with regard to the yield of business rates. I referred previously to the number of outstanding non-domestic rating appeals. I believe that the current total is around 144,000 or 146,000. Even if you get rid of the repetitious ones, the true total probably sits at around slightly more than that—so, 80,000 or 90,000 appeals. Some of these go back to the 2005 rating list.
Business rate payers are getting increasingly concerned that access to justice is effectively being denied to them. A typical lead-in period from the time when an appeal is lodged to the time when the Valuation Office Agency is able to make any sort of substantive comment, I am advised, is in the order of two years—and that is not to the time when it actually gets before the valuation tribunal, when the valuation officer can actually open his book and address the issue. I do not blame the Valuation Office Agency for that. I think that the Committee should be aware that this is fundamentally to do with the agency being starved of the necessary resources. It is being starved of the personnel and starved of the resources to upgrade its computer technology; its computers do not interleave with the valuation tribunal’s computers, and so on and so forth.
Businessmen are particularly concerned because the non-domestic multiplier—that is, the multiplier that is applied to the rateable value in order to provide, as it were, the gross amount of the rates payable before transitional relief and other things—contains an element for potential losses to the tax base arising from successful appeals. So businesses up and down the country are bearing the cost of this contingent risk factor which is implicit in the fact that we are dealing with a system that is lacking in the necessary resources.
My point in raising this on Second Reading was to outline that this is the nature of the animal that is about to be bestowed—or, rather, its risks are about to be bestowed—on to billing authorities. I think that this needs to be addressed. I do not know how this relates to whether the Bill should be brought into force in 2013 or subsequently—I make no comment about that. I just say that there is an in-principle issue about the maintenance and management of the tax base that, if you do not get it right, will be in the nature of passing the buck, an issue that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, raised on Second Reading. This is a risk factor. I think that it would be entirely wrong, although— I declare another interest as president of the National Association of Local Councils—that does not make me unaware of the risks that are being imposed on the principal authorities, which are represented here by their president, my noble friend Lord Best. I think that it is right that, when we are dealing with these matters of principle, we actually address them at this stage. This is part of the tapestry—the backdrop—over which an awful lot of the other bits that we discuss will have to be viewed.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I thank everybody who has contributed. I particularly thank my noble friends Lord Tope and Lord Jenkin, who have broadly said what I will say. I do not think that local government really wants us not to proceed at this stage. This has been in the offing for some time; people are well aware of what is coming about and there have been many discussions with them. Therefore, the suggestion that local government will not be able to implement the rates retention system from 2013 is not correct. Local government will have all the information that it needs to implement the rates and retention scheme effectively, before it has to do so. We will be publishing draft regulations before Report in October. Other information in terms of consultation of the technical detail of the scheme is going to be available over the summer and there will be draft secondary legislation in the autumn before the draft local government finance report is due. Therefore, by autumn, all the information necessary for the implementation of the business rates scheme will be out, even if some of it is in draft. Other information will then be available tying in to the local government finance report, which has to be laid, as it is part of the whole system.
The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, has raised a question that I hope we may defer, because he has tabled a major amendment about it for later in the debate. Indeed, some of the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, are also the subject of amendments. We might have a better opportunity to discuss them later. While I understand the noble Earl’s views that this is, or should be, part and parcel of the scheme, we think that that could and should be dealt with separately. As I said, we will come to points on appeals later on, but in setting up the retentions system we will make an adjustment to reflect the cost to local government of outstanding and future appeals, so there will be some amelioration.
We have worked pretty collaboratively with local government throughout the development of these proposals. In March 2011, we published the terms of reference of the local government resource review and in doing so we clearly set out the aims and the scope of our proposed reforms, as well as the timetable for implementation. We have since consulted local government on numerous occasions. In July 2011, we published a consultation on the design of the rates retention scheme and, in August 2011, we published a further eight technical papers to provide more details on these proposals.
We have listened to what local government has said. This was evident in our response to the consultation published in December 2011 and, indeed, that consultation continues today. The Bill that we are debating is the product of this attentive engagement and consultation. It has, of course, received pretty considerable scrutiny—perhaps unlike the Localism Bill—in the other place and there has been a gap since then for people to think about it and to ask for any information that they do not have.
We will continue to work with local government as we proceed. First, there is our working group made up of local government representatives, including the LGA, which is contributing to the policy and technical debate for the information that will be coming out shortly. There is a further consultation later this month on the technical details underpinning the scheme. There is plenty going on still to shape the legislation going forward.
In terms of our approach to the implementation, we believe firmly that the existing timetable should be adhered to. Before the new rates retention scheme is introduced in April 2013, local authorities will be consulted on their baseline funding before the end of this year, and after a debate in the other place they will receive their final settlement in early 2013. That follows the normal practice that has existed for years. I can remember discussions on local government finance taking place: we always thought that it was a bit tight, but it has always been at the end of the year, sometimes in December. That will be there. This means that the timescale for agreeing baseline funding in advance of April 2013 will be the same as happens currently for the first year of a multi-year settlement. Local authorities will be able to use that information to inform their local budget setting in a timely manner, as they always have done.
I strongly believe that we should be able to implement the rates retention scheme from 1 April and that it is desirable to do so, because local government is expecting it. Moreover, the Bill contains provisions to amend the date of introduction to a subsequent financial year should this be absolutely necessary, although I do not think that noble Lords should hang on to the coat-tails of that. It seems inevitable that such a clause would be included in legislation; there often are clauses in case the absolutely extreme happens. I do not expect the extreme to happen over business rates; I expect them to be implemented by 2013 for all the reasons that I have given noble Lords about the consultation, the discussions and the information that has been presented. Broadly, unless there are major changes to the draft regulations—and I suspect that, even if there were changes, we would be able to cope with them—we will be able to proceed as I propose and get there satisfactorily by the beginning of the next financial year.
For all those reasons, I reject the amendments. I am conscious that I have not commented on the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Smith, but perhaps I can pick up those points later.
Baroness Hanham
In either case, I understand that the local authority would get the benefit of the rate and the growth.
The Earl of Lytton
My Lords, I am thinking about the current process of recording hereditaments, as they are known, in the local rating lists. I call to mind that as a result of the riots last year, one or more commercial premises were totally destroyed. As I understand it, there is a vacant site awaiting redevelopment that is described as a shop and premises, and it is in the list at £1. The Prime Minister had in fact said in the wake of the riots that properties with damage would be taken out of assessment altogether. Now, there is a little wrinkle here. If a site remains in the assessment, effectively as a cleared site, but is still called a shop and premises or a department store and premises, or whatever it was, at a £1 rateable value then it is still in the list. When it comes back into the list again as a refurbished property, it will be at whatever the level is of the new premises. If it was a redevelopment process—not riot damage or anything like that—in which the local authority was a key player, the question is whether it stands to be disenfranchised because the hereditament has not been taken out of the list altogether and is not therefore really a new entry in the list. It is a revaluation of an existing one.
This might be looking for trouble where there is none, but I want to be very careful. As I made clear both in the debate on the Queen’s Speech and at Second Reading of this Bill, there are a number of little wrinkles creeping in because of the way in which Treasury policy now appears to influence the work of the Valuation Office Agency in handling the entries in the valuation list. I want to be absolutely sure that by dint of this business of not taking things out of assessment when in fact they probably should be, we are not going to find that we have disenfranchised the authority from that gain in rateable value, which is undoubtedly the work of its own hands.
Localism Bill
Debate between Baroness Hanham and Earl of Lytton(12 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Earl of Lytton
Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may ask him if he would comment on the fact that although it is true that parish and town councils provide a disproportionate amount of the subject matter for standards committees, it is also true that because there is no other body of a sort which has recourse to a committee dealing with standards, there is no other basis to judge whether that statistic is large or small, or whether it is characteristic of dealing with community affairs. What I am trying to get at is that it is perhaps not a specific criticism of parish councils as a construct.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I am going to leap in because I think, with the greatest respect, that the noble Earl is out of order. On Report, we normally get the Minister to wind up after the Opposition. But I hear what he says.
The amendment has its faults, and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has already recognised that. But having said that, we are not unhappy about the principle of neighbourhood forums investigating opportunities to create town or parish councils for their area, and we accept that that gives greater democratic legitimacy. The noble Lord is also correct that there were a great many standards inquiries on parishes, but we also accept that they have responsibilities, duties, income and powers that would bring benefit to these neighbourhood proposals.
This is why we have already committed, in the Open Public Services White Paper, to look and see how to make it easier for neighbourhood forums and others to have a parish or town council for their area. In doing so we are looking at streamlining the community governance review process, to which the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, referred in rather uncomplimentary terms, but we need to strike the right balance so that neighbourhood forums or communities that want a parish council can get one relatively quickly. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, was correct that this is not a speedy process at the moment, but if we speed up the process there will have to be safeguards to ensure that parish areas reflect community identity and interests.
The listening phase—which I have written down here, by which I assume consultation is meant—on the Open Public Services White Paper has just finished, and we are looking at cross-government implementation plans being announced in November. Building stronger neighbourhoods, including making it easier for people to set up parish councils, will be a priority for us in those plans.
While I do not want to pre-empt this work that has got to be done, I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, that we will consider the issues raised in this amendment in conjunction with that. I hope that, as I said, that process will not be terribly long in coming to conclusions. I hope that with those reassurances, the noble Lord is willing to withdraw his amendment.