Localism Bill

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, since the Government have completely failed to provide me with a health Bill this summer, I thought I might keep in legislative shape by taking a look at the Localism Bill; and indeed the person responsible for it. Eric Pickles was in my younger years—and indeed his, because we are the same age—infamous as the leader of my home town, as well as that of the noble Lord, Lord Patel: Bradford. We bear the scars, I have to say. He managed to wreak significant damage on the fabric of the city before he lost an election.

If noble Lords will bear with me, I would like to take a small trip down memory lane with Mr Pickles and then I will address my remarks to the community right to challenge and right to buy. I expect the Prime Minister believed that Eric Pickles’s time as a councillor and leader in Bradford qualified him for this job. However, I wondered if the Prime Minister had read a book called The Pickles Papers by Tony Grogan. I recommend it to your Lordships’ House; I recommend it to David Cameron, to the coalition partners and particularly to the civil servants at the DCLG and perhaps the Bill team. It tells the story of what Eric Pickles likes to call the Bradford revolution. As my noble friend Lord Beecham has suggested, there are parts of the Bill that reflect the obsessions of Mr Pickles, and, if I might add, it feels to some Bradfordians that there are parts of the Bill that are about settling some old scores.

I remember the so-called Bradford revolution well, as I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, would too, were she in her place. This period had all the ingredients of a soap opera rather than a council chamber: intrigue, double-dealing, ambition, power, sex, money, conspiracy, corruption, betrayal and blackmail. They are all in the book. I have to say, my Lords, do not get too excited about the sex or blackmail.

What we actually saw was a city leader in Bradford who was mostly financially supported by Conservative Central Office and using Bradford as a Thatcherite experiment, with the slimmest of majorities. Indeed, with the casting vote of our lord mayor, whom Mr Pickles confirmed in his position for two years instead of the usual one, he then revealed a plan to wipe out what he called the municipal socialism of Bradford for ever and to transform Bradford Metropolitan Council into Bradford plc, with himself as chairman of the board of directors. He did significant damage to the city—and I am very much aware of some of this, because members of my family worked in the voluntary sector. He tried to kill off the voluntary sector, including organisations which promoted racial harmony. His cuts created huge hardship in the poorest communities. He closed down the youth services, and he raised the prices of meals on wheels not once but twice in a year, and so on.

This may seem familiar to noble Lords. Just think about the cuts that Mr Pickles volunteered local government for with great alacrity. Just think about the 142 extra powers in the Bill and the toxic Henry VIII powers in Part 5. As if to add insult to injury in Bradford, we are in line for a shadow mayor. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Wei, that he should beware—this is not a politician to whom the words “big society” come easily, I suspect.

I turn to the right to buy and the right to challenge, because I am an optimist. In a nutshell, the right to buy is intended to facilitate the takeover of public buildings and other assets by community groups and local charities. The right to challenge would allow local groups to express an interest in running a local service which they felt they could provide better. The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, spoke about the poetry in the value of these proposals, but I intend to be slightly more prosaic.

Could the Minister confirm that, although we are merely starting to consider this Bill—and this House may have serious and substantial amendments to make to this part of the Bill, on the issue of asset locks or whatever—the DCLG has launched consultations on the detail of supplementary regulations that will govern how these new rights are supposed to work? In terms of policy-making and parliamentary scrutiny, this seems not so much to be putting the cart before the horse as trying to bake the cake with only half the ingredients.

With regard to assets of potential community value, currently it is not clear whether the asset listing can include assets which are of potential community value, as well as those that have had community value in the past, or currently. The Bill indicates this would be possible, but the consultation paper actually indicates otherwise. This seems to be of obvious and a lot of importance. Often community organisations can find new and transformative uses for assets which otherwise are underused or even liabilities. Will the new powers encourage creative and innovative community action? For instance, derelict land is a good case in point, and there are very good examples of this.

One consequence of not allowing the right to apply to assets of potential community value would be to create a disincentive for landowners to allow informal use of property by the community, as the Countryside Landowners Association complained about, which has already been raised today. If, however, the right also applies to assets of potential community value, then the fact that a landowner had previously allowed community use would become of less consideration for local authorities in determining which assets should be listed, so the disincentive would be diminished.

The Government need to address the issue of the moratorium period, as they need to strike the right balance between the interests of property owners and the challenges facing community groups. A period of three to six months may not be enough, and Locality—previously the Development Trust Association—which has been working with community groups on community asset transfer from both public and private property for nearly 20 years, tells me that three months would be wholly inadequate for this purpose, and even six months might be too short. This is one issue that we will need to discuss.

There are a lot of issues about the community right to buy. For instance, there is the right of first refusal, wanting to avoid the bureaucracy that has made the Scottish model cumbersome, and the right of first refusal being workable without additional bureaucracy. I suggest to the Minister, given that this issue has been raised several times, that we should have a meeting to discuss the issues of first refusal and asset locks. This is such an important issue, around which I think there will be a great deal of consensus.

There are several issues with the community right to challenge. Briefly, can the Minister confirm whether in determining who makes an expression of interest to run a service the priority should be given only to local community groups? It seems important that the local authority should have the option of procuring the service directly from the organisation submitting the expression of interest, if it considers that desirable, yet that would obviously need to take place within the regulatory framework of commissioning. I recognise that in some cases the EU rules or other requirements will necessitate an open tender approach but that is not always the case.

It would be helpful if the Government could encourage commissioners to procure services from community groups who submit an expression of interest and, in some cases, use a grant rather than a contract approach as a suitable way forward. However, is that one-way traffic? In other words, what happens if there is an electoral mandate to continue to provide a service in-house, perhaps based on the unsatisfactory experience of an out-of-house provider? It seems that the Bill looks at it as one-way only. Perhaps the Minister could clarify that issue for me.

I am concerned about how the right to challenge will manifest itself and I will be seeking reassurance that there is a proper test of community and accountability. I fear that we may have a case here of the old-school Conservative “councils should meet once a year to hand out contracts” faction engaging in an awkward dance with the new-wave “radically devolve powers to local communities” faction. The result could be that the right to challenge would look less like a tool for community empowerment and more like a lever to accelerate access to the private sector. I am sure that is not the intention, but we need to make sure that the safeguards in the Bill mean that it cannot happen.