English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Debate between Baroness Pidgeon and Lord Jamieson

Report stage
Thursday 26th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, our Amendments 140 and 148 seek to remove the London licensing provisions in the Bill. Talking to a number of London boroughs, I found that many of them were quite unaware of this proposed change, seeing it, in effect, as a power grab by the Mayor of London, potentially causing real issues locally in boroughs, where licensing can be a very sensitive issue.

Licensing decisions should be taken locally, with local context and knowledge. For example, in Kingston, I understand that for any licensed premises, their security staff are required to work closely with the police, street pastors, the VAWG team and VAWG charities. This is not just during operational hours but after closure and at local events. This is a detailed local arrangement that works for this borough. Having the Mayor of London call in a licence application and change conditions or impose longer hours on a community would simply not be right and would go against the spirit of this legislation, which is supposedly about devolving down local powers. Those are our concerns. Are the Government really confident that a future mayor, perhaps of a different political persuasion and approach, would not be far more interventionist, blocking the very growth opportunities it is claimed that these new powers are seeking to free up?

The Minister has talked just now about the important role of local licensing authorities. Licensing works best when it is grounded in detailed local knowledge, through local councillors and local communities working together. These proposed call-in or direction powers for the Mayor of London risk overriding this expertise, increasing tension and introducing uncertainty in the system for boroughs, businesses and residents. A key concern I have picked up is how potential conflicts between local priorities, which are reflected in a council’s licensing policy, and pan-London priorities, potentially driven by the mayor’s decisions, will be resolved. There is a genuine fear that this could lead to an additional burden on boroughs, including increased casework, appeals, additional workloads for borough staff and, no doubt, additional costs to the boroughs.

We talked earlier about this being strategic. What does that mean? Take sectoral activity zones, such as Wembley or Twickenham stadia, which sit in the middle of highly residential areas. Those boroughs work really closely with communities. They know what hours and noise levels are acceptable. I am concerned that centralising this in some way could cause a huge risk. We urge the Minister to think again on giving these additional powers to the Mayor of London at this time.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, as has been raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, these provisions introduce a substantial change to the licensing framework for London by creating a role for the Greater London Authority and, ultimately, the Mayor of London in applications deemed to be of strategic importance. This raises important questions about the balance between strategic oversight and the principle of local decision-making.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, has already mentioned, licensing has traditionally been a core function of borough councils, rooted in local knowledge and expertise, and accountable to their local communities. The introduction of a mayoral call-in power therefore represents a major shift, which could result in significant duplication, added bureaucracy and the loss of local voice and expertise.

This raises questions of clarity and process, particularly around the definition of strategic importance, and I am grateful that the Minister said that that will be defined. I would appreciate clarity on the time scale. What assurance will the Minister give that strategic importance will mean what the man on the street would determine to be genuinely of strategic importance, and hence would be for a very limited number of situations?

The Minister also commented that the mayor will not be able to reject applications that have already been accepted. However, as I understand the provisions, the mayor would be able to impose a whole series of conditions on an application that had been given approval at the local level, which, in effect, could make that licence inoperable in any event. Could we have some assurance as to what additional conditions could be imposed, and that these would be fair and reasonable and would not be, in effect, an alternate route to a rejection for something that the local borough had already approved? I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Debate between Baroness Pidgeon and Lord Jamieson

Thursday 19th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a councillor on Central Bedfordshire Council. I thank the Minister for bringing this Statement to the House of Lords. While I welcome the additional funding announced in the spending review, it is unfortunately not keeping pace with the increases in costs and demands seen by councils, and it is dependent on an above-inflation 5% increase in council tax. Is this not yet another tax on hard-working people?

The Government are also imposing additional costs on local government, and while they are funding the £550 million of national insurance increases for directly employed staff, they are not funding the LGA’s estimated £1.25 billion impact due to costs imposed on our suppliers. I might add that this ignores the impact on many of those local charities that do so much for our communities. This will lead to cuts in local government services and a reduction in the support that those local charities provide. Will the Minister commit the Government to look again at this matter?

I remind the House that, in the Autumn Budget, the Chancellor pledged to raise the national living wage. It is set to increase by a further 6.7% in April 2025, with minimum wage rates for younger employees and apprentices set to increase by between 16% and 18%. This is welcome for those on some of the lowest wages. However, it will have a cost impact for local councils, where many social care services are provided by suppliers that pay close to the living wage. This is another cost that local authorities will have to absorb, unless the Government agree to fully fund the increase. Will the Government fully fund the impact of increases in the living wage?

As the Minister is well aware, the rapidly increasing costs of SEND services is crippling councils, and this desperately needs to be reformed, as we have often debated in this House. Continuing the statutory override for dedicated schools grant deficits will delay a number of councils going bust, but with the deficit set to increase by a further £3.2 billion in the coming year, this is just kicking the can down the road—again, this needs to be fixed.

The Government propose to look at the funding formula and, if I have interpreted them correctly, to focus on deprivation. While this may superficially seem appropriate, in practice the major cost driver of local government is social care, including SEND services, which represents around 70% of cost. This means that the focus should be on population demographics and where there will be the greatest need. Analysis by the County Councils Network and PwC demonstrates that rural areas will see the greatest increase in demand compared to metropolitan areas. We have just finished a debate in this House on rural areas. Can the Minister commit that the Government will look at and consult on the underlying cost drivers before any changes to funding formulae are made?

Furthermore, the Government are imposing a number of additional burdens on councils, including through their children’s Bill, renters’ reform Bill and planning measures Bill. Can the Minister confirm that these additional costs will be fully funded through the new burdens doctrine?

I turn now to the Government’s changes to the funding formula, with the repurposing of the rural services delivery grant and the new recovery grant. The latter is heavily focused on metropolitan authorities, with only three county and rural unitary authorities receiving the grant. I reiterate that 70% of the cost of upper-tier authorities is for social care, which is largely driven by demography. Along with the pernicious impact of national insurance increases on social care providers and charities, this will inevitably lead to further cuts to services.

Finally, I turn to growth and fiscal incentives. There have been few fiscal incentives for growth, but the new homes bonus and the business rates retention scheme were genuine incentives for growth and gave some compensation to communities for the impact of this growth. I add that growth imposes significant additional capital costs on councils, and these incentives were helpful there. The proposals to stop the new homes bonus and to reset business rates are deeply concerning, as they will have significant deleterious impacts on the councils that have done the right thing and supported growth, while benefiting those that have not taken the tough decisions to support growth. Given that the Prime Minister has said that growth is his number one mission, milestone, step and so forth, can the Minister assure the House that the councils and communities that have supported growth will not lose out?

I thank the Minister for sharing this Statement from the other place. I wish her, and the rest of the House, a very merry Christmas and a peaceful new year.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

I thank the Minister for the opportunity to discuss the provisional local government finance settlement. It is always an early Christmas present for finance departments in councils up and down the country.

Local government was brought to its knees under the last Government, with funding cuts happening at the same time as further responsibilities were given to our hard-working local government workforce. From the Liberal Democrat Benches, we welcome the move set out in the Statement for multiyear settlements—something my party has long called for.

The Statement suggests that funding previously allocated to rural local authorities under the rural services delivery grant will be repurposed under a need and demand basis. This is despite the grant providing rural local authorities with £100 million for the rollout of essential public services, including emergency services and the provision of social care in the last year.

From these Benches, we are concerned that this new system of allocation will not recognise—as has just been discussed—that the sparse and isolated nature of rural areas drives higher costs for the delivery of essential services, creates challenges in the recruitment of staff for key services, and of course requires local authorities to provide a greater public subsidy for the provision of services such as public transport.

Deprivation in rural areas would also likely be hidden through the use of this measure because it occurs over a wider geographical area. Using deprivation as an indicator of demand for services also does not consider local authorities with a higher number of elderly or vulnerable residents and the additional demands these residents place on services, as the noble Lord just outlined in his response.

I urge the Government to provide rural councils with a funding settlement which reflects the impact of the rurality and sparsity of the areas they serve, through the application of the fair funding formula. With additional pressure on councils to deliver further scrutiny in planning decisions, deliver further housebuilding and accept additional NICs changes, it is essential that they are funded robustly to achieve these aims. Can the Minister say what plans the Government have to ensure that local authorities in rural areas have the support that they need? These authorities face unique challenges and their funding settlement needs to reflect this.

We are also concerned about the funding of certain services such as special educational needs and indeed special educational needs transport. What assurances can the Minister give that the new funding settlement will allow local authorities to deliver special educational needs services at the level needed, as well as child and adult social care?

From these Benches we welcome the consultation on wider local authority funding reform, but we urge the Government to move as fast as possible with this, as 2026-27 feels a long time away and, the more time passes, the more the contents of this Statement will feel rather like a sticking plaster. Can the Minister say anything more today about the timescale of the consultation and whether genuine fiscal devolution will be considered, so we are not looking just at how the government funding is divided up but at powers to enable local authorities to raise funding to invest in services and infrastructure for their local communities, rather than always being reliant on the Government of the day?

Finally, given that we are on the final sitting day before the Christmas break, I take this opportunity to wish the entire local government workforce a very happy Christmas, and of course I extend that to all noble Lords as well.