Localism Bill

Lord Empey Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, I wanted to speak briefly to Amendment 110 and to make a few other comments, but it would be a brave Ulsterman who would take on the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, on a Welsh amendment. However, I assure him that I want merely to talk about the principle here. Although the Bill does not apply specifically to Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Local Government Association has asked me to raise some matters of principle, because if the principle is established in the Bill that local authorities will or could be liable for EU fines, sooner or later it will have national significance. While some EU directives may often have specific geographical implications, others have wider national implications.

I do not have a problem with the principle that the polluter pays, but it has to be understood that local government throughout the United Kingdom is not a universal picture. Local authorities in Northern Ireland have far fewer powers than those in the rest of the United Kingdom. They also raise most of their own money—more than 80 per cent—by rates. Consequently, they do not have a large central government grant, as is the case in England. Therefore, it is not possible for the Government simply to reduce the grant that local authorities in Northern Ireland receive in order to take the money off them, because they do not get it in the first place. If you impose a fine on a Northern Ireland local authority, you impose it directly on the ratepayer. That has to be understood.

The other matter is that the powers of local councils vary considerably. The Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland is largely responsible for local government, but other groups and public bodies will perhaps share policy implementation with local councils. Air and water pollution have been talked about. Local councils obviously have or could have an environmental health role in this, but other public bodies might be responsible for other aspects, including water pollution, sewage and so on.

The Northern Ireland Local Government Association, in consultation with other local government bodies, including the LGA, has expressed concern—not only because they have not been consulted about the measures, but because, although the Bill does not directly affect them at present, they believe that sooner or later it will. That is because EU fines have a national implication, as well as a local one. It was, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, who said that he was not aware that EU fines had started to be imposed. I can assure him that they have, because I know, at home, our Department of Agriculture is being fined very heavily over issues concerning mapping. Grants were being distributed on the basis of maps, and now we have armies of planners who, as a result of not having much to do during the recession, are poring over aerial maps, because in the designation of fields, the boundaries of areas of rough ground may have become unclear. Brussels is now saying that people have been double claiming and doing all sorts of things. I can assure the noble Lord that fines are being imposed, exemplary damages are being applied, and the fines are vastly in excess of the amount of money that may have been inappropriately spent or given to a particular claimant. The Government are being fined millions of pounds above that. We are talking about substantial issues.

[Lord Berkeley]

I should like to say that it was not me who suggested that the British Government had not been fined.

[Lord Empey]

I beg your pardon; I may have picked up a comment from someone else.

When the Government are finalising what they are going to do on this issue, they need to take into account the significant regional disparities. One understands that the Government are trying to establish the point that the polluter pays. However, the big issue with all this is that we send representatives to Brussels—and I do not know whether the late-night hospitality and the all-night sessions are to blame—decisions can be forced through at 4 am and our representatives keep putting their hands up to approve them. Then, five or six years later, they blame Brussels for enforcing those decisions when it is they who have agreed to them. I have to say: beware the late-night hospitality. We should pick representatives who are good at doing this at night. In a negotiation, I fear that the officials will know full well that a certain Minister has to get away to an event somewhere else, perhaps at 1 pm the following day, and know that if they push for a decision at 3 am or 4 am, the Minister will put their hands up and agree to anything. I seriously suggest that we be careful what we agree to, because it comes back to haunt us many years later.

I accept that the provision in the Bill does not apply to Northern Ireland, and it is not entirely clear as to whether it applies even to Wales. The Minister may answer that this is an England-only Bill, but while local government is a reserved or devolved matter in certain areas, EU fines are, of course, a national issue or a reserved matter. The interface where these issues collide is not entirely clear to me, and I sincerely hope that the noble Baroness will take this into account when she replies.

[Lord Newton of Braintree]

My Lords, it is probably rash of me to intervene in a debate that has so far been dominated largely by great gurus of local government, another of whom is yet to speak. However, it must have become obvious, at least to my Front Bench, that I am one of those who become more rash, rather than more cautious, as the years advance. I have endlessly declared my wife as an interest, in respect of Braintree District Council. I hasten to add that she has not told me to say anything about this issue. The council is well conducted—and I say that not just because she told me that. However, I support the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and say that the concern is confined not just to his Benches. That has admirably been made clear, but having geared myself up to speak, I decided that I would do so—albeit very briefly.

First, the noble Lord, Lord Tope, was right to say that this issue should have been discussed with local authorities, not just bounced out with the publication of the Bill. Secondly, I have every sympathy with what my noble friend Lord Jenkin said—whether or not something like this survives, the Secretary of State should not be judge, jury, prosecutor and executioner. That leads to my interest in some of the amendments in the group, including that of my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes. I noted that the noble Lord, Lord Best, who knows as much about all this as anyone, said—although he did not use this phrase—that the Government were opening a can of worms. The whole of the rest of the debate has demonstrated that it is indeed a can of worms, not least in the speeches of my noble friend Lord Cathcart and the noble Lord, Lord Empey. It may be too late to put the lid back on it, but my noble friends ought to contemplate whether they can squeeze it down a bit or at least make it a more palatable lot of worms.

I do not have much more to say, but I have two questions that link with the points made in recent speeches. I want to put them very directly. First, as was initially raised in uncertain terms by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, just where does this stand in relation to the devolved Administrations? Since the noble Lord spoke, I have checked Clause 213 on the extent of the Bill. If I read that correctly, this lot does extend to Wales; but it does not extend to Scotland and, as we have just heard, it does not extend to Northern Ireland. Therefore a fine from the European Union would be imposed on the United Kingdom Government. We are the members of the European Union, not Scotland, even if it would like to be, or Wales, even if it would like to be, or Northern Ireland—I do not know whether it would or not. That means that in certain circumstances the United Kingdom Government could be fined, but if the fine related to a local authority in Scotland, the European Union could do nothing about it. Only an English council could have a knock-on fine under these proposals. If I got that wrong, I would be glad to be told; but that appears to me to be the meaning of the Bill and I do not think it is satisfactory.

Secondly, as was touched on by my noble friend Lord Cathcart, is this or is this not retrospective? I could just about understand it if councils knew what they were getting into when they made a decision that might lead to this risk. However, unless I have read the Bill wrongly, this is a backward-looking proposal. A fine could be imposed that related to something that had already happened, in circumstances in which a local authority had no reason to suppose that there would be a penalty. Most of us would regard that situation as deeply unsatisfactory, and I do not regard it as satisfactory on anything that I have heard today.

From what the noble Lord, Lord Best, said the other day, we know that this clause was one of the top three targets of the Local Government Association, which is why he is here today, no doubt. He was very kind, and rightly so, to my noble friend Lady Hanham on the Front Bench for having been so conciliatory on its other two main targets—one was the issue of mayors, the other I cannot remember. I urge my noble friend to be conciliatory on this one as well.