Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Best and Lord Jenkin of Roding

Thursday 17th July 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)]

My Lords, I do not claim the expertise of all those who have spoken in this debate so far, but I would like to make one or two points in commenting on the debate that has just happened. I also begin by congratulating my noble friend Lord Ahmad on his preferment. It is extremely well deserved and we look forward to his increasing activity in this House.

The first point that occurred to me in reading the Government’s amendment and the documents that accompany it is that it is clearly a very different concept to that embodied in the Section 106 provisions of the Planning Acts. In that provision, as a condition of gaining planning permission, a developer has to make some other improvement, perhaps by the provision of affordable housing, public space or something of that sort. Clearly, there are some parallels and the discussion that has been held so far on the amendment suggests that the allowable solutions should be closely associated with the development under consideration. To some extent, that reflects the anxieties that have happened over some of the Section 106 conditions that were imposed, which were intended, sometimes, to promote a closer knit, cohesive community, embracing people of different living standards and backgrounds and so forth within a reasonable neighbourhood. Increasingly, developers found it easier to have their affordable housing some distance away thereby, negating the purpose of the planning condition. I hope that that cannot be regarded in any way as an appropriate solution.

Individuals who have a strong commitment to fight climate change and who engage, for instance, in air travel and wish to be able to say, for their own comfort, that they are offsetting their carbon emissions incurred by air travel is an entirely different operation and personal to the individual. Some people regard that as of great importance, and one has to admire their commitment. How effective it is I have no means of judging. But that is quite different from what we are considering here in the zero-carbon homes policies that the Government are promoting. One needs to recognise that on one side and the other, Section 106 and individual offsetting are quite different from what we are considering here.

It is right to remind ourselves about my second point. I am grateful to the Home Builders Federation, which has provided us with some information, some of which I was unaware of. I would be grateful to know whether the Government accept this statement. The federation states that in the UK:

“New housing built today is amongst the most energy efficient in the world and the process of working towards the implementation in 2016 of a zero carbon standard has led to great strides being made by the industry in reducing emissions from new homes”.

In considering these matters, we need to recognise that a great deal has been achieved already. It is a credit to the housebuilding industry and the building industry as a whole how much they are committed to achieving ever-higher standards and lower emissions in their work.

How much difference does it make to the individual? I am never quite sure. Some years ago, under the CERT programme for carbon emissions, I had my house insulated, cavity walls filled, much more effective loft insulation installed and various other things. It was not done under the Green Deal because it was before that, but it was said that it would reduce bills. It is quite impossible to measure that. As one gets older, one needs more house heating, particularly if one is at home all day like my wife. It may help, but I am never quite sure whether it has conceivably reimbursed what we had to spend. Although we got the insulation free as pensioners, we had to spend quite a lot on scaffolding and such things, which was not included in the CERT scheme.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked how far the allowable solutions should be for the benefit of the local community. That needs to be carefully considered. If one can do that, it seems to me that there are advantages to it, but how you measure it I am not sure.

Finally on the question of the exemption of small sites, I do not think that those who have spoken so far recognise that there is a conflict of interest here. The tighter that you make the regulations on carbon, the more likely it is that you will stifle investment in housing. When considering the nature or length of time of the exemption, when this country faces a crisis in housebuilding—an amendment was moved by the noble Lord, Lord Best, that made this point very clearly—we must not risk scaring off people who are anxious to develop small sites but would find the cost of doing so to a high standard of carbon emissions would make it uneconomic, so that they back away and the site is not developed at all.

I should be grateful to hear from my noble friend to what extent the Government are taking account of that conflict in determining the nature of the small sites exemption. As may have already been said, I have been told that there is expected to be a consultation on the definition of the small sites exception, and I should be grateful to hear from my noble friend when that is happening, the nature of the questions that will be asked and the parameters in which it will be considered. All I say at this point is that it is important that we get that right and that, in the housing crisis that we face, we do not risk stifling housebuilding investment that might otherwise happen.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I too, welcome the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, to his new role and welcome the new clauses in the Bill. I want to address the points just made by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and pick up the question of the exemption from the full requirements of the zero-carbon standard for small development, which is not yet fully defined.

First, it is extremely important that we encourage small and medium-sized enterprises to get back into business. They were very hard hit in the recession; they went out of business on a big scale when times were hard following 2008. We need to get them back into business if we are to achieve the 200,000 or 250,000 homes a year, or whatever it is, that we need to build. That almost goes without saying.

The big six housebuilders used to do 46% of all the housebuilding in the UK; they now do 70%. Seventy per cent of all new housebuilding is in the hands of that very small number of builders. We need to bring back those small and medium-sized builders. However, I doubt whether this measure is the way to do that. To think that exempting small sites means that small builders will come back into play is a leap of imagination. First, larger housebuilders of course sometimes develop small sites, particularly if they are profitable; or they develop larger sites but in phases. That means that if we choose a threshold of 10 homes, we will discover a whole series of schemes with nine homes being built over a period. Housebuilders like to do things in phases in any case. We may not address the SMEs when we address this. It is not about small builders; it is about small sites, and it may miss the point.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Best and Lord Jenkin of Roding

Thursday 10th July 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Best]

I am very grateful to noble Lords for their contributions to this little debate. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, made the point that something has to change. There has to be something a bit more dramatic, I think, than the measures we are currently working on. He also made the point that it is about quality, not just quantity, and one of the great things about a major development is that you can get the quality. If you are building just 40 houses and cramming them into the space that you have, the housebuilder often sacrifices quality. If you have a master plan working to create a garden village or even a garden community—I like that—on any scale, you can make it work because you have the numbers there.

The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, was supportive of the need to do more but had his doubts about this particular way of helping. He made the point that it is important to identify who is going to initiate major developments. The use of development corporations, with consortia of local authorities, is absolutely the way to create the vehicles that could then take advantage of an easier, fast-track planning system. They would be the chief beneficiaries. It might be through local enterprise partnerships’ city deals. The Olympic Village was a wonderful example of how the growth boroughs in that area collaborated and achieved what remains a very important piece of housing.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

The noble Lord mentioned the Olympic Village. He is quite right to give credit to the local authorities in the area. Having read the report by the London Borough of Newham on what it has achieved through that, I think it deserves the highest praise for what it has done. I have in fact written to the Mayor of Newham to express that view to him.

[Lord Best]

I agree entirely. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, was very supportive but had some doubts. It was important to hear the plans that are now being formulated by the Labour Party. I know that Sir Michael Lyons’s review is due out fairly soon. I think that will be a creative and important contribution to the debate. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, made the point that long-term consensus is going to be essential and we have to work our way towards that, even though he has some reservations about this particular approach.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, very much for her response and for underlining the Government’s commitment to increasing supply, which is the essence of this. My suggestion is by no means a silver bullet, that is for sure. Loans, guarantees, et cetera, are all good; it is whether or not the volume that we need is going to be achieved by the measures that are currently there. With regard to reliance on local plans—remembering that you have no duty as a local authority to meet the needs of your neighbours or of the nation—your local plan must relate to the requirements of your own locality, and that may not encourage you to believe that a very major development is within your remit.

I take the point entirely that the pre-application process adds another year or so to the whole, so in total from beginning to end, with the 28 days from the Secretary of State at the beginning, one may well reach three years. But believe you me, three years for a major development is a triumph in relation to the time that we now must wait to get things done.

This is a proposal for a Bill, not a proposal in itself.

Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Best and Lord Jenkin of Roding

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Best]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 10 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. As this is my first intervention on Report, I note my relevant interests as president of the Local Government Association, chair of Hanover Housing Association and, in the context of the amendment, which concerns good design, vice-president of the Town and Country Planning Association and honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

In support of the intention behind this amendment, I would like to quote from an excellent speech delivered by the Minister for Planning, Nick Boles, to the Town and Country Planning Association shortly before Christmas. He said:

“People look at the new housing estates that have been bolted on to their towns and villages in recent decades and observe that few of them are beautiful. Indeed, not to put too fine a point on it, many of them are pig ugly”.

He went on:

“Since new housing estates are all too often soulless and formulaic ... existing residents oppose any proposal to build new houses on green field sites, even when the land is of low environment quality”.

He continued:

“In a nutshell, because we don't build beautifully, people don't let us build much. And because we don't built much we can't afford to build beautifully”.

He later said:

“It is now for the planners, architects and developers, large and small, to seize the opportunity we have created and start designing beautiful places, which local people will welcome”.

Poor design not only affects the lives of the people who occupy the new buildings, it also affects those who live in the same neighbourhood. Because so much new development has been, as Nick Boles says, “pig ugly”, the great British public regularly turn out to stymie and oppose the creation of the new homes that are so essential to ending acute housing shortages.

This amendment would strengthen the emphasis on good design, which should always be a hallmark of projects obtaining planning consent. It would, thereby, make it easier to gain the consent of local communities to the building of the new homes this country needs so badly. I strongly commend it.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I intervene very briefly to say that I very much welcome the amendments that my noble friend Lady Hanham has tabled to this clause. I have recognised from the beginning that it has been very controversial, not least among local authorities. I, too, declare an interest here as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I have made it very clear to the association that I support the main thrust of Clause 1, but equally I recognise its desire to see the criteria dealt with more formally in the legislation. The indications that we have had from the Government in this context have been helpful, as has the Government’s amendment that it will be subject to regulations under the negative procedure, as my noble friend has indicated. These amendments are very welcome and take some of the sting, which local authorities have felt, out of the clause.

Local authorities need not be so worried about the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, whose handling of this legislation I have always admired; he is extremely thorough. He quoted some of the figures from the summary of the consultation response, which I downloaded on my computer yesterday and read. The important thing to recognise is that, in the light of what I have just said about the general attitude of most local authorities towards this clause, it is hardly surprising that the response rate was not much more than 40 to 45%. One has to recognise that of the 227 replies received, 67% were from councils. A further 12% were from local government, professional or environmental organisations, and around 12% were from development interests or business groups. It was a pretty unbalanced response, but that is the nature of consultation; it is the people who feel strongly about such matters who respond. I am sure that those in the development industry look at the clause and say this is a step in the right direction. It is not surprising, given the figures quoted by the noble Lord, that there should have been what is, in a sense, a very heavily weighted response on the part of the local authority world. This does not in any way detract from the support I give to my noble friend for the amendments that she has tabled to this clause. I think that, with these amendments, the clause is a good deal more acceptable and I welcome it.

Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Best and Lord Jenkin of Roding

Monday 28th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I strongly urge the amendment on my noble friend the Minister. My noble friend Lord Tope said that a great many organisations were in favour of the change. I have to say that none is more in favour than London Councils—I should perhaps have again declared my interest as a joint president. It has said firmly that, of all the measures, this could be one which really helps the housing situation in London—which, as noble Lords know well, is pretty desperate at the moment.

The cap exists on top of the normal constraints on local government borrowing. It is an additional barrier to development which seems absurd in the present circumstances, given that everybody is quite rightly saying to the Government that growth and getting things moving should be absolutely top of the agenda. It seems absurd that there should be duplication of the protection against irresponsible borrowing by local authorities. It seems not to have any sensible purpose now. The usual controls operate perfectly satisfactorily. I simply do not understand the case for retaining the cap.

I have perhaps not had my ear quite as close to the ground as my noble friend Lord Tope, but I cannot believe that the Chancellor and his colleagues in the Treasury have not been made aware of this and do not recognise that, if they really want to move housing forward in London and the rest of the country, the cap should be removed. I hope that my noble friend will be able to respond positively.

[Lord Best]

My Lords, I support the noble Lords, Lord Tope and Lord Jenkin, and pledge the Local Government Association’s support. Is its support stronger than that of London Councils? It is equal to that from London Councils.

I talked at Second Reading about the growing national housing deficit. I was trying to get into common parlance the idea that, every year, we are building up a bigger and bigger deficit. We are adding another 100,000 homes a year to the deficit that we already have because we are building at least 100,000 less than we should. We must do something dramatic to try to turn the deficit into a positive.

Local authorities are sitting on assets against which they could borrow. A lot of housing associations have run out of space to borrow any more, and they have used up the opportunity to borrow against the properties that they own. Many local authorities have plenty of headroom to borrow more against that security. This is prudential borrowing that will be repaid out of rents. It is not frightening to overseas investors and bankers to see another £7.4 billion, which is the amount estimated by the report Let’s Get Building, produced by John Perry from the Chartered Institute of Housing. Over a period of five years, £7.4 billion is not enough to frighten the horses but it would produce 12,000 homes a year—60,000 homes in all. That is about 5% of what we need each year, but it is about 10% more than we currently provide. That is one relatively dramatic way in which, without any subsidy, we could get at least a few thousand more homes built every year.

I chaired a commission for the LGA and the Department for Communities and Local Government called Easing Housing Shortages: The Role of Local Authorities, which sent me around to see what local authorities had been doing. Were they up to it? Did they have any sites on which they could develop? They were using what was called local authority new-build funding, and I saw how councils can demolish those garages on the end of the site and put in 14 bungalows, perhaps, for elderly people, who can then move out of underoccupied council housing into those bungalows, thereby releasing 14 family houses on the council estate. It is creative action; the land is already there; the garages do not get used any more; it is a place where people congregate for nefarious purposes—everyone is delighted to see the development. Local authorities could get on with schemes of this kind up and down the land. I support this amendment.

Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between Lord Best and Lord Jenkin of Roding

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

Surprise, surprise, but there we are. Discussing this with the Local Government Association, it seemed to me that there would be merit in building in some form of escalator. Amendment 12 in this group introduces a limit, as it were, to say that it cannot be less than the previous year. However, that only stops it going down. Amendments 21 and 22, in the names of my noble friends and me, seek to build in a regular process by which the centralised share falls and the localised share rises. I do not for one moment claim that this is the only way of achieving an escalator; obviously, there might be a whole range of different options to do that. With these amendments we are arguing for the principle that the local authorities should be able to look forward over the next few years to a steadily rising proportion, both to increase the incentive to encourage development and more jobs, and to give expression to the increased localism which the Government aim to champion.

Amendment 22 spells out our proposal. I have said that I do not think this is necessarily the only way of doing it, but the proposal is quite simple: one starts at 50%; two years later the central share declines to 45%; two years after that to 40%; and two years after that to 35%. This takes us only up to 2018, and of course one is hopefully looking further forward than that. The corresponding local shares would go from 50% to 55% two years later; then to 60%; and then up to 65%. Therefore, over the period up to 2018, we would move from 50:50 to 65:35. Perhaps we could write this, or something like it, into the Bill. I made it absolutely clear that there are a number of different options for doing this and this was the one that seemed to attract some support in the local authority world. Local authorities particularly want to see some legislative provision setting out that the 50:50 split is not to be permanent or long-term.

As I have made clear—and this is very different from what I said when I was Secretary of State for the Environment in charge of local authorities—I am a huge supporter of the principle of localism. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and others have made the same point. However, I detect the hand of the Treasury in this wish to maintain a 50% share. There is a feeling that it does not want to let go. My noble friend Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville and I have both been Treasury Ministers—I was the Chief Secretary at the Treasury—and I recognise that temptation. It seems to me that we have a choice here. Are we really going to encourage an increase in localisation or are we going to maintain a strong central control with some modest shift in favour of localism?

In considering the Bill and this particular proposal for the division of the business rate retention scheme, I hope that the Government will be prepared to accept that their good faith and belief in the principle of localism and localisation would be demonstrated by writing something like this into the Bill. That is what we are looking for. It would give an enormous fillip to the encouragement of local government which would go the whole way back, and local government would come to be seen as a more important area of governance in this country.

There is no doubt that as, over the past 30 or 40 years, the public have seen local government decision-making increasingly being taken over by central government, there has been a great loss of public interest in and concern over lower and lower voting figures. It is to the huge credit of local councillors such as the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, and others who are here that they have kept the flag flying in these difficult times. We now have a change of direction and I think that this has given local government an enormous boost of encouragement. It can say, “We really do still count. We are still looked to as an important area of government and not just as an instrument of central government”.

To my mind, if we could build into the Bill some form of escalator so that over the next few years there could be seen to be a shift in the percentage from a 50:50 towards a 65:35 split, or whatever it might be in six or seven years’ time, that would send out a very important signal to local government that the national Government are on its side and that they want to make localism work and make it a greater reality. The advantage would be that it would increase local authorities’ incentive to encourage development and so achieve growth and jobs.

If that is not done, it will give the impression that the Government—the Treasury would carry the blame—are giving a higher priority to tight monetary control than to encouraging growth. There has been a huge amount of argument about that over the past year or two but here is one way in which we can fight back on it. I hope that we will be able to persuade my noble friend on this. She will no doubt wish to discuss it not only with her colleagues in the DCLG but with Treasury Ministers—I know that they have a lot of other things on their plate at the moment—to see whether we can do something along these lines. It would be a hugely important signal to send out and a great encouragement to local authorities, as I hope that noble Lords will agree.

[Lord Best]

My Lords, I would like to speak to Amendment 16, which comes before the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. I declare my interest as president of the Local Government Association. I express thanks to my various vice-presidents, particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, for an exposition in very eloquent terms on the point covered by my rather cruder Amendment 16.

The LGA, representing district, metropolitan and county councils of all political hues, as the noble Lord has said, has expressed disquiet that there is to be a division of the business rates that retain so much central control, despite the positive rhetoric of localism. The LGA recognises that central government wants to keep a firm hand on local government finances during the period of deficit reduction covered by the current spending review, not least to impress the international financial markets that deficit reduction is being taken very seriously. The measures in the Bill are likely to last well beyond that deficit reduction timescale and local government at large is keen to ensure that the retention by central government of 50% of all business rates revenues, and indeed 50% of any business rate growth, shall not be maintained after its purpose has been fulfilled.

This amendment calls for central government to discontinue its retention of a share in local government business rates revenue after 2014-15; that is, after the last financial year in the current spending review period. I recognise that the Government may well be keen to extend the period a little longer because their deficit reduction objectives are likely to go on beyond 2015. However, the LGA, London Councils and others representing local government all agree that that top-slicing of business rates revenues by central government needs some clear end date. The 50% top-slicing greatly restrains the ability of local government to benefit fully from its support for any business rate growth and undermines the localism agenda of devolving powers away from the Secretary of State to local government.

In responding, perhaps the Minister could address one aspect of this concept of a central share of all business rates. I know that the Government have stated their intention to return the revenues that they receive through this arrangement to local government. That certainly sounds as though the Government’s intentions are not to redirect resources away from local spending, but it is unclear how the funding received by the Government will be returned to local authorities and what conditions are likely to be attached to it. Clarification on just how that somewhat circular movement of finance will operate would be much appreciated. The underlying point of the amendment is to draw out the Government’s view on just how long this central government control over half the business rates should last. I entirely support the comments on that from the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin.

Localism Bill

Debate between Lord Best and Lord Jenkin of Roding

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, a number of us mentioned this matter at Second Reading. One of the longest lists of noble Lords spoke in that debate and addressed the problem of these EU fines. I do not want to repeat what has already been said, but the most important factor we are dealing with is that the Secretary of State is an interested party, whether he or she likes it or not. Therefore, it cannot rest with the Secretary of State to decide how to deal with this EU fine if it emerges. It has never happened yet, but it may one day. It was my noble friend Lord Teverson, I think, who said the Secretary of State was not just judge and jury, but prosecutor and executioner. That puts it extremely well.

I have put my name to the amendments moved and spoken to most eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, and to the longer amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Gardner. Both recognise, first, that there can be no allocation until there is responsibility, and, secondly, that it cannot be the Minister who does that; there has to be a process of arbitration. We are in the middle of a negotiation outside this House between local authorities, led to some extent by the Greater London Authority and the London boroughs and the department. What we hope to hear from my noble friend on the Front Bench is exactly what is happening there; what stage have these negotiations reached? Are we in the process of getting some sort of reasonable settlement? Clearly in Committee like this we do not take a final decision when we are, as the Romans said, “in medias res”. We are in the middle of the affair, so we need to know what the Government have in mind and what negotiations have been going on, where they have got to and when they expect to reach a reasonable conclusion.

I share the view of the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, that the solution is not to delete the whole part of the Bill. I heard what my noble friend Lord Tope said on this, but the fact is, bluntly, if there is a serious infraction of a European directive, whether on air quality, water quality or whatever else, is it to fall solely upon taxpayers in general, even if it is perfectly possible to point the finger at the individual authority? At Second Reading, I quoted the example of a directive on waste and the position if a particular local authority was consistently failing to comply. Is it really being seriously suggested that the general body of taxpayers should contribute to the fine?

Of course, the purpose of all these things, as my noble friend Lady Scott said, is to encourage authorities and everybody else to comply with the regulations. That is what is intended but, as I asked in my Second Reading speech, as regards the problem of Heathrow, who is responsible for the air pollution? Noble Lords will have seen reports in the press today of the increase in stacking over Heathrow in the four stacking areas, which is materially adding to air pollution in London. They said it is because Heathrow has been forbidden to expand. I and I think most noble Lords actually support that. Successive Governments and parties have taken that decision, but who is going to pay if it leads to an EU fine? It seems unfair that the whole body of taxpayers should pay.

There has to be some reasonable, fair, proportionate solution and it is my understanding that that is what the discussions are trying to find. I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench is going to be able to help us. I am sure I am not the only one who received a paper from the Greater London Authority with a document saying “possible policy statement text” with a summary and a number of key principles. It says:

“The use of these provisions must be fair, reasonable and proportionate. There will be an Independent Review Panel. There will be no surprises, and authorities will have opportunities to make representations. Decisions must be evidence-based and transparent”.

It goes on:

“Authorities will not be held responsible for breaches that were not within their power to avert and will only be fined if they have demonstrably caused or contributed to the fine and can afford to pay”.

I find it rather a difficult document to absorb but it sets out a substantial flow chart, which I am sure other noble Lords have seen, that shows the number of stages—opportunities for appeal, occasions when notice must be given and so on—whereby an authority might become liable. We need to know more about this. However, I am inclined to agree with those who say that it is not sufficient simply to send it all away. We must recognise that if there is a fine, there must be some mechanism for dealing with the matter.

I refer briefly to Amendment 117A in my name, which was suggested to me by one of the big water authorities. These are now private undertakings and have expressed concerns as to whether Clause 36 applies to them. It is a question of whether a water authority that was found, for instance, to have breached the urban waste water treatment directive—possibly as a result of the discharge of sewage into the Thames—would be liable to having a fine imposed on it. I understand that the Government are quite sympathetic to this and that it is not the intention that private undertakings should bear any part of this. Part of the reason for this, which was explained to me by the water companies, is that they are already subject to stringent regulatory controls by the Government. If they comply with those controls, they should be within the law. If they fail to comply, it is open to the regulators to take proceedings against them to make them comply.

Thames Water, for example, has long been concerned about the amount of sewage that can periodically overflow and run into the Thames, with discharges the whole way along. As a result, Thames Water is now planning—work is well under way—to establish a long sewage pipeline under the Thames, for most of its length, which will eventually discharge into the sewage treatment plant at Beckton. This is a huge project, which involves lengthy tunnelling and must avoid all the other tunnels that pass under the Thames. Thames Water is doing what it feels is justified. Therefore, it feels it would be a monstrous infraction to have to pay an EU fine because of a breach of the water directive. I hope my noble friend will be able to give me some comfort on that.

[Lord Best]

My Lords, I support the two amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton. She has to be at the LGA conference today, which will miss its usual presidential address because I am here. I was much convinced by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, who said that we should avoid this whole issue. It will get us into an awful lot of trouble and legal hot water. However, I suspect that that will not prove an acceptable course of action and there will have to be an apportionment of blame to decide who the polluter is when the polluter must pay. That leads us to worry that that apportionment of blame cannot be undertaken by the Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government or Defra. They would be parties to the case and it would offend natural justice if they were the ones to decide how blame should be apportioned.

Localism Bill

Debate between Lord Best and Lord Jenkin of Roding

Thursday 23rd June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Best]

I send the Minister on her way with further congratulations on the changes that have withdrawn the offending passages about shadow mayors. The top three in the Local Government Association’s long list of hopeful amendments include removal of the references to the combination of elected mayor and chief executive and removal of the issues around shadow mayors. That just leaves in our top three the question of EU fines, which will come up later. However, two out of three so far is extremely satisfactory and we are extremely grateful to the Minister for that.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 76.

Localism Bill

Debate between Lord Best and Lord Jenkin of Roding

Monday 20th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Best]

I have not spoken in the Committee stage, so I declare my interest as president of the Local Government Association. In that capacity, let me say that the earlier remarks from the Minister on shadow mayors and mayors acting as chief executives will be extremely well received at the LGA this evening.

I wanted to say one or two things in support of the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Newton. The underlying intention is honourable—that if the general power of competence is inhibited by any other legislation, the Secretary of State has what could be rather draconian powers to overrule other legislation. But that clearly needs to be hedged around with some safeguards. A number of us have received representations from an alliance of disability groups, which are particularly concerned that some of the legislation that relates to their rights and entitlements might be diminished. That came to us from Age UK, Scope, which is involved with people with cerebral palsy, the National Autistic Society, the RNIB and Mencap. All these organisations are deeply concerned that some of the protective legislation that surrounds the world of disability might be done away with for the possibly good reason that it got in the way of the power of general competence —but that would seem a lesser priority. So we need reassurances here, and I support this bunch of amendments.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I wish to add something to what my noble friend Lord Newton of Braintree and the noble Lord, Lord Best, have said. The anxiety is not so much that any Government would be so stupid as to try to repeal essential provisions on welfare of the sort that have aroused some alarm but that this Government might be succeeded by another who are not so keen on the whole process of localism, devolution and subsidiarity and might therefore use the powers in a way that would restrict the general power, which might go contrary to the purposes of this legislation. I declare once again that I am joint president of the London Boroughs Association, which is certainly concerned about this possibility. The chances of any Government wanting to make material inroads into the welfare legislation to which reference has been made, and much of which is in the list in the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, are a little unreal. No doubt, however, reassurance will be necessary, and I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench will be able to reassure those who have expressed anxieties that that is not the intention.

As I understand it, the purpose of this clause—the whole of the purpose of the power that is given—is simply to enable a local authority to exercise its general power of competence. If there are obstacles in previous legislation that prevent that, or if there is overlap, then to that extent the order may then remove the obstacle. It cannot just sweep away whole legislation; as I understand it, the provision in question has to be specifically related to the general power. I have had a lot of representations as well, and it is right that these fears should be aired on the Floor of the House so that reassurances can be given. However, the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, made the point that there is a distinction between the clauses as to whether the resolution is affirmative or negative.

I have two things to say. The first is that if the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments makes a recommendation—I, too, read the wording that the committee recommends strongly that it should all be affirmative—it would be very unusual indeed for a Minister not to accept it. I have been through a number of Bills, most recently the Energy Bill, where that has been accepted. The whole range of recommendations was accepted, and government amendments were put down to achieve that. The second point is that if you have sufficient parliamentary supervision, that should be a sufficient assurance of protection. The power is necessary if you are going to make a reality of the general power of competence but it has to be defined, as I think it is intended to be, and it has to be subject to affirmative resolutions as recommended by the Joint Committee.