Fracking

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

Yes, nuclear must be part of our wider energy mix. It is a zero-carbon approach and we will continue to invest not just in the plants we have seen so far but in different smaller-scale investments. We are also very interested in fusion and will continue to be so.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, given that the moratorium seems to be going on for a long time, what can local residents around the Preston New Road site in Lancashire expect to happen in the near and medium term? Also, are the areas that have been given licences for exploratory drilling, which is not fracking per se, still able to go ahead with that?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

Cuadrilla has removed all its fracking equipment from the Preston New Road site and no work whatever is anticipated to continue there. The noble Lord will be aware that drilling can take place for a whole range of reasons, not just for the wider energy world. We will continue to monitor it to the highest possible standards where it can continue to be done.

Freedom of Establishment and Free Movement of Services (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)]

My Lords, the main issue from a legal perspective is how the use of delegated legislation can be justified, contrary to past undertakings, for a significant policy change that reduces, or appears to reduce, acquired rights. I agree with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, and my noble friend Lord Pannick have said about that, and I need not weary your Lordships with any more, but I shall address two other points. The first relates to the practical effect of what the Minister in the Commons accepted on Monday is the potential disapplication of rights. The Government must accept that those rights have some value, as my noble friend Lord Pannick said, because of the position that to maintain these rights in favour of EU-plus nationals might violate the most favoured nation principle of the WTO. Indeed, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee records BEIS as saying that those rights afford a guarantee against,

“additional restrictions or barriers that may apply to nationals and businesses from other countries”.

I am puzzled by the suggestion that the removal of these directly effective rights, in particular the right not to be discriminated against in the delivery of services or in owning or managing businesses, will have limited or no practical impact.

The Minister has said, no doubt rightly, that our law will be in accordance with EU law on exit day, but because the rights have direct effect they afford protection, by definition, over and above that contained in domestic law. Without these rights, where are the equivalent entitlements and remedies not to be discriminated against to be found in our law? Nor am I entirely clear whether the right of all EU nationals to apply for settled or pre-settled status, even if that right is successfully exercised by the end of 2020, is a full substitute for the right of residence derived from the directly effective right of establishment under the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016. Will he explain further whether it is the case—and if so, why—that the removal of these important rights, leaving aside the special issue of satellite decoders, will have only de minimis impact in the respect I have identified?

My last point relates to the specific power under which these regulations are made, Section 8 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which is available only where there is a failure of retained law to operate effectively, or some other deficiency in retained EU law, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. I make another point in relation to that: deficiencies in retained EU law are exhaustively defined in Section 8(2) and (3) of the Act, but I cannot find any definition there that fits the present case. There is some suggestion in the Explanatory Memorandum that the deficiency consists of lack of reciprocity, but it is not clear, certainly to me, how a deficiency could arise from the possibility that others might choose to withhold equivalent rights in their own law. If that were the case, then the scope of Section 8 would be very broad indeed. Can the Minister say any more about which provision of Section 8 is relied upon as a sufficient basis for these regulations and, if so, how?

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, I have been listening with great admiration to the knowledge and expert understanding of all this of noble Lords who have spoken. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for tabling his amendment and my noble friend Lord Oates for explaining it all, so that I understand it a bit more.

The right reverend Prelate and other noble Lords referred to UK citizens living in other EU countries and the effect that the whole Brexit thing is having on them. We have friends who live in the south of France and operate a small business there, and they have just held up their hands and applied for and obtained French citizenship as the only way they thought they could secure their position and their business there. There is a clear understanding among a lot of British citizens in other EU countries that in the negotiations so far, the Government have not taken their interests fully into account.

On this regulation, when we were discussing settled status during Question Time this afternoon, the noble Lord on the Opposition Front Bench declared a personal interest, so I suppose I ought to declare a personal interest in that my daughter’s husband is a European Union citizen and they live in this country. They work from home; I must confess that I do not know whether they are technically self-employed, have a zero-hours contract or both, but they certainly have a highly technical, successful operation, which is inherently insecure as it depends on the organisation that provides them with work. Sometimes there is none and at other times there is a lot. They are very concerned, not only about these regulations but about their position, so they asked me to take a look at this.

I looked at it and read the Explanatory Memorandum, knowing that this is where I would find the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth from the Government. It asks:

“Why is it being changed?”


As noble Lords have said, it says that Section 4 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act provides the rights in domestic law, and so on. It then says in paragraph 2.11:

“To address any inoperability and to ensure UK law continues to function effectively, with legal clarity, and that the UK is compliant with its World Trade Organization … obligations, including the General Agreement on Trade in Services, these rights need to be disapplied”.


I have read it again and again and I do not understand why, and I have heard noble Lords speak today and I still do not understand why. However, what concerns me is not that I do not understand this—what inoperability there may be or what conflicts there may be with the rules of the WTO—but that the Government do not seem to know either. The Explanatory Memorandum talks about “any inoperability”; is there any or is there not? I presume that the Government have taken legal advice on this and have a belief as to whether there is or is not. Because they think this legislation is necessary, I assume that they think there is, but they do not want to tell us exactly what it is.

Later, paragraph 2.12 says:

“These directly effective rights of establishment and free movement of services would appear to have limited practical effect, post-exit in a no deal scenario”,


but the Minister is telling us that the Government do not think that it will have any effect in practice. Will it have a limited effect or not really any effect? If it will have a limited effect, can the Minister tell us exactly what that limited effect is, in words that I, as a non-lawyer and a non-expert in these WTO matters, might understand? The Minister himself used the word “could” about three times—“It could have an effect”. But will it or will it not? What is the legal advice, or is it all very vague and nobody knows?

However, the Explanatory Memorandum reassures the individuals and businesses concerned:

“Individuals and businesses will be able to check published no deal planning guidance on gov.uk”.


If I were to look at GOV.UK this afternoon, would I find advice on whether there is inoperability and limited practical effect, or would it tell me not to bother because there is not? If it tells me not to bother because there is not, why is this all coming here anyway?

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, at the beginning of this debate, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said that parliamentarians are talking about this issue. The noble Lord, Lord Oates, and others, said that EU citizens are talking about this issue, and indeed, the British living and working in Europe are doing so too. They are all very worried. There is something about this issue to which the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, referred. It is a confidence issue, a trust issue and a perception issue. That is very important. There is a sense that a safety net is being removed in preparation for worse to come, despite the Minister’s assurances.

I would be appalled by any legislation that attempted to reduce the rights of EU citizens to run businesses or be self-employed in this country under a no-deal scenario. Such legislation should surely be in an immigration Bill, not presented to the House in this form as a fait accompli. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, noted, we are talking about a wide variety of industries being affected. The so-called gig economy, the NHS, IT and the creative industries would be hit hard if EU citizens felt forced out, and we would be culturally impoverished as a result. However, as the noble Lord pointed out, it is not only the livelihoods of EU citizens that will be at risk, but the livelihoods of British citizens living in Europe.

It is a widely held view, but a misconception, that most British abroad are retirees. Of the 1.24 million UK citizens in Europe, Britain in Europe estimates that only 20% do not work. Many of those in work are self-employed, in as wide a variety of service industries as in the UK. It feels, however, as though the Government do not care enough about the British living in Europe, or about their livelihoods, which will without a doubt be threatened through any reciprocal effect. A number of us in this House have repeatedly asked the Government to protect the rights of the British working in Europe. This is not the right way to go about it, and that is apart from the message being sent through this legislation to EU citizens who run businesses or are self-employed in this country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

It is quite clear that we have not succeeded in convincing the noble Lord that the reality is that the retained EU law, which this House fought so carefully over and which was enshrined in the withdrawal agreement, sets out the rights of individual EU nationals in this country with regard to their ability to be employed or self-employed, to offer services and so on. That is contained in retained EU law and will become operational and functional at that point in the future.

Here we are talking about making adjustments to that retained EU law for certain rights to invoke the previous entity of the EU as a means of engaging directly with the Government as a challenge. It is that part we are talking about today.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords—

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

Would the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Greaves]

At a less erudite level, what advice is currently given to these people on GOV.UK?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

GOV.UK is a resource which I hope helps people address their questions. Part of the difficulty with GOV.UK is that it is very hard to anticipate questions that have not been set out in government legislation. We did not anticipate that individuals who have written would be fearful of what had been done. That is why I say again that we must be better at how we explain this in all our communications, whether online or on paper, and in the Explanatory Memorandum. The important thing for individuals to take from this debate is that the impact on them is not what has been explored or explained by others but rather a restricted aspect of future issues that concern future government policy or the ability of the WTO and the UK going forward to agree on most favoured nations.

Spending Round 2019

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Northern Ireland Office (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all your Lordships for your warm welcome on my new role. It is nice to be here for a brief time—I am not wholly convinced it will be my permanent future—but, none the less, I am interested in each of the comments made by noble Lords this evening.

I think there has been far more consensus than there has been division on some of the issues affecting wider society. I am reminded of some remarks, again, by Benjamin Disraeli, which he would have written in Sybil, a book subtitled Two Nations. He said:

“Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets”.


He spoke not of different parts of this kingdom, nor indeed of different social classes; he spoke simply of the rich and the poor—a reminder again that some challenges are with us and must be addressed even now afresh.

I have also thought how we might frame this debate, and I was struck by the comments made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham. It put me in mind of some remarks by a former Vice-President of the United States, Hubert Humphrey, who simply said that,

“the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped”.

That is a test that we need to embrace now.

In lots of ways, this particular spending review does a number of things, but it does not seek to do everything. We need to recognise the difference between what a spending review is destined to try to achieve and what a Budget is setting out to try to achieve. I take for example, one aspect, which I know a number of Lords have touched on this evening: education. It is very easy to talk about education in simple, glowing terms or in simple statistics and headlines. However, it is important to recognise that we made great strides forward in collaboration with the Liberal Democrats in our coalition Government back in the day: 85% of pupils are in good or outstanding schools, compared with 66% in 2010; there are 10,000 more teachers and 921,000 new school places since then; and there are 160,000 more six year-olds on track to become fluent readers compared even with last year.

When we look at the money we put into education, we begin to see how that money can make a difference. Money spent wisely is money well spent. I will touch upon the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Davies. The minimum per pupil funding for a primary school pupil will become £4,000, for a secondary school pupil £5,000. We are putting £66 million into early years spending, and £400 million more will go into further education. Each of these elements should create a positive pathway to move issues forward.

Social care is perhaps one of the shadowy areas that Hubert Humphrey spoke of. In many respects, this is a new area as we begin to explore how funding will work. The money we are putting into social care is significant, but it is only to stabilise the system until we can begin to understand how best we can tackle the wider challenges that exist within the social framework. For too long we have seen these simply as issues to be dealt with by the individual; there is a wider community interest which we have recognised. That is why I expect that the Budget itself, which will come later, will look at this head-on and should, I hope, begin to make a significant difference.

I will try to answer all questions in the time available, but I hope noble Lords will appreciate that there were quite a few. I will begin by picking on the right reverend Prelate, just because I happen to have the notes at hand. I hope he will forgive me. The question of health and social care that I have already touched upon will become important. The £1 billion will make a difference. There is an additional £500 million which should begin to stabilise the system. It does not solve the problems but begins to take us in the right direction.

The right reverend Prelate asked very specifically about unaccompanied children and legal aid. Unaccompanied children were brought into the scope of legal aid in immigration matters when the Ministry of Justice’s Legal Support action plan was published in February 2019. I hope that will go some way to addressing that particular issue. We are committed to ensuring that everyone can get the timely support that they need to access that justice system. If you cannot access justice, you cannot secure it. It is very simple.

There was a question on whether we should be in any way rejoicing that there are 10,000 more prison officers. In some respects, the answer to that should simply be no. That is not a way we should measure things, but it is not the only way we seek to measure things. It is about ensuring that those who find themselves in prison find a way out of prison without returning, looking at the recidivism rates themselves to ensure that people who have found their way into that troubled area are able to find their way out of it. In order to do that, we have to take the pressure off the system itself. Those 10,000 extra guards should, I hope, make some difference. However, it should not be a metric by which we measure the success of our society; it is simply a reflection of the need that these aspects have for us.

The right reverend Prelate will be aware that many aspects relating to benefits will appear in the Budget more sensibly because that is where they will rest. What we are looking at here is the departmental spending aspects. The Government are increasing spending on universal credit: it will be £2.5 billion higher in 2023-24 than when the decisions were taken in 2016.

Overseas aid is an issue very dear to my heart. The 0.7% of GDP is an important measure of our society. We are one of the few developed nations actually to try to meet that. However, we have got to make sure that the money spent works. It cannot be based upon return to the United Kingdom, although we must make sure it is value for money. Money spent unwisely is, in some respects, money lost. It should look at issues around poverty but should also begin to question the notion of how we address the wider global climate change and look at some of the wider issues that rest underneath that. I am proud that we managed to commit that fund. However, I want to make sure that it works for everybody here at home, to make sure that there is support among those who seek to continue the spending, so that it does not get undermined by people saying, “Why are we spending money on foreign people doing foreign things?” We are all part of a global community, and I think we should be able to recognise that.

A number of noble Lords touched on the north, but my noble friend Lord Kirkhope in particular touched on devolution. We often think about devolution within the nations of this United Kingdom but in truth—he is absolutely right in flagging this up—the question is: how does it break through to the parts of Great Britain? It is true that we need further investment, and this spending review looks at investing in a new towns schemes, bringing substantial funds into the north to try to bring this about. This cannot be tokenistic, it must come from the ground up, it must be money spent wisely and it needs to be accountable. We need to see value for money—it is not about headlines, it is about making sure that the people themselves experience the benefit.

Returning to the issues raised by my noble friend Lord Kirkhope, I am also aware that that question of mental health is absolutely vital. For too long our health service has seen this as a separate issue to be encountered later—it is not. It is at the heart of so many of the problems experienced by wider communities. A number of noble Lords have raised this matter, and that is why the Government have been willing to commit money directly into the mental health area. Is it enough money? I do not think there could ever be enough money committed into this area, but I hope it is a beginning, to move us in the right direction. I welcome my noble friend’s comments in this regard. It is important that as a community we recognise, as we pull these things together, that nobody should be left behind.

The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, raised a number of issues, including some put forward by the Labour Party itself. I do not want to be overly political here because each party must decide how it wishes to promote wider ideas. However, I note that some of the aspects appear to be broadly uncosted and unfunded. One of the challenges when you are trying to address wider austerity issues is to make sure your books are balanced and you can deliver what is most important—the sustainability of support. Those very elements are critical to giving confidence that we can deliver against them. I admire each of the aspects of the issues he raised, but they must be sustainable in the way they are delivered. Again, I respect the comments made by the Liberal Democrat Benches, recognising that we cannot spend our way out of a problem. We need to find the right balance in the way we address this. It is not always going to be easy, but I hope that we can find the right dynamic to do it.

If you will forgive me, I will work my way through my notes. The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, was also asking about the timing—and a number of noble Lords raised this question. Is this a pre-election attempt—a would-be pre-election attempt—to interest the wider community? In truth, I think noble Lords will recognise that 31 October is a watershed moment. Whatever you make of that, there needs to be a recognition that after that point there will need to be a brave new tomorrow. Exactly what that looks like will depend on how we enter that point, but we need to be in a position to look at that in a different fashion—a way of seeing how we can begin to budget. That is why, in looking at the spending review, every attempt was made to ensure that it was as up to date as could be, but it does not replace the Budget, which is yet to come later this year. The OBR will have the full details of that material, allowing for a detailed analysis of how money will be spent, and there will be a greater ability to interrogate that. We recognise that a number of issues have lain dormant as we have tackled Brexit. A number of noble Lords this evening and on other occasions have been very clear that we have, in the past, been guilty of becoming indulgent in regard to Brexit and not looking at what we need to be getting our hands dirty with, which is the issues of the people. This spending review aims to try to achieve that as best we can.

The noble Lord, Lord Livermore, asked a number of very detailed questions, particularly in regard to the lower deciles. He is absolutely right to flag this up, because one of the challenges is that if we cannot address the lower deciles the disparity between the rich and the poor—the very thing that Disraeli was talking about—becomes ever greater. In some respects, we have made progress in looking at the living wage, which has made a difference, but to secure the living wage you have to be in work. More people are in employment, which is important, but not enough people are in employment. We need to make sure that not only those on the living wage but those living and working in poverty are recognised. This will be explored further in the Budget itself, but I take away from the points he made the absolutely critical point: we cannot have people left behind who are getting poorer through no fault of their own, and we need to be very careful to achieve that.

My predecessor, my noble friend Lord Young, asked a number of questions, some related to those of the noble Lord, Lord Livermore. He will know far better than I, I do not doubt, that the majority of DWP spend is annually managed expenditure—AME—and the spending review deals with resource spending, so we will see a slight difference in the way this comes forward. The local housing allowance is part of that AME spending, but this is an important issue and I do not want to lose sight of it. I want to make sure that this is absolutely at the heart of the housing question addressed in the Budget and I will ensure that my right honourable friend the Chancellor does that very thing. It would be short-sighted were we to lose track of what that could mean.

The noble Lord also asked when the next OBR forecast will be. The answer is that I do not know—that was an easy one; good—but the Chancellor will know, and I do not doubt that in due course he will tell me, and I will pass it on that further information if I am blessed by retaining this position.

My noble friend Lady Stroud asked a number of quite difficult questions about health, particularly on how those with disabilities are affected. The spending review included £7 million to expand Jobcentre Plus advisory support in schools for young people with special educational needs, and to extend eligibility for access to work to cover internships for disabled people. I would like to know more about that so I will write to my noble friend—I would like more information to understand that as well. The Government will continue to support the most vulnerable: spending on benefits to support disabled people will be higher in every year to 2023 than it was in 2010, which is not unimportant. As for question of wages, the living wage has risen and that is not to be lightly set aside. The total increase in annual earnings should be higher, by a factor of some significance, than they were in 2016. The lowest earners had the fastest pay rises in the last 20 years, but they have not risen far enough, because they started from a lower point—we cannot lose track of that either.

I shall touch briefly on some of the wider questions in the spending review. Local government spending was raised by a number of Peers, particularly recognising the challenges faced in the settlement for local government. Clearly, there are moneys coming in different areas. There will be a 4.3% core spending power increase. We will see real-terms increases: there will not be just a levelling down in that regard. The extra £1 billion grant for social care, which will affect adults and children, with an additional £500 million, should provide some respite for the budgets of local government. The estimated increase in core spending powers is £2.9 billion, including reference to later consultation of the 2% core council tax referendum threshold and a 2% adult social care precept. That should go some way, again.

On the wider question of housing, and particularly the absence thereof—homelessness—we have put forward £422 million to help reduce homelessness and rough sleeping, including an additional £54 million in 2020-21, a real-terms increase of 13% from 2019-20. Is that enough? I suspect not, but I hope it makes some difference and begins a journey as we try to improve these aspects.

The question of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was raised by some noble Lords.

[Lord Greaves]

The Minister might like five seconds’ rest. He has not tackled the point I raised, which is that none of this new money—or extra money, if that is what it is—for local government appears to be coming to ordinary district councils and unitary councils for their ordinary local, street-level, neighbourhood services. In many places these are in a state of potential collapse.

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The noble Lord raises an important issue. We talk about millions and billions, and various other ways of assessing money, but if people in the street and in their homes do not experience the benefit of that, it simply seems to wash over them. I will explore further how that money will arrive in the very council forums he discusses, I will write to him on that basis and put that letter in the Library.

Before I forget, the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, asked a very technical question. My team simply said that we will have to write to her. If she will allow me, I will write to her on that point and put that letter in the Library.

I am running slightly short of time. I am not trying to short-change anyone, but if I end up leaving anyone out, or they feel they have not had full value, I will happily respond to any points beyond that.

The important points I want to stress, as I try to draw my remarks to a close, will be twofold. One is that the spending review itself is based on the best forecasts available at the time. The question of how they go forward is short-term; it will last for one year but the important thing is that it sets a new direction. We have turned a page. We often use “austerity” as a pejorative term, and for many people it is to live through that, but in truth it is about living within means and spending wisely. From hereon in, we must make sure that the money we spend delivers and that those in receipt of it see the benefit of it. I hope that this spending review will do that very thing. Importantly, going forward, the Budget will also begin to put the flesh on to the wider bones which we have set out here. I hope that will give noble Lords some confidence that the system itself, and the approach we are adopting, has not been jerry-rigged or in any way seeks to undermine what has been going forward.

I know that I have left a number of questions unanswered but I shall not be able to find the questions and answers at this moment. I realise that it is now slightly late and that some of your Lordships, like me, may be a little wearier than we would have been otherwise. If noble Lords will forgive me, on that basis—if I have left anything out, please come back to me and I will respond formally—I shall sit down and let your Lordships all go home.

Spending Round 2019

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, I would like to apologise for not hearing most of the Minister’s opening speech. I am afraid that the change in the arrangements passed me by completely. I apologise for that and ask for the House’s forgiveness.

The noble Lord talked about the Foreign Office and foreign matters; I want to talk about local government, in particular about the spending figures for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The Treasury booklet about the spending round reports that the local government departmental expenditure limit,

“will increase by £1.1 billion in cash terms”,

which is a lot and is very welcome.

“With this increase in grant, Local Government Core Spending Power”—

which is a mystical figure that everybody in local government talks about and nobody understands—

“is estimated to increase by £2.9 billion in total in 2020-21”.

Again, on the face of it, this is very welcome—and indeed it is.

“Combined with the £2.9 billion increase in Core Spending Power, these announcements mean local authorities can benefit from more than £3½ billion of additional resources”,

with increases in council tax, other grants and so on. This sounds a lot. It sounds as though things are going to be okay. I would suggest that it is not that simple, because a large proportion of that money will go towards the problems of social care and social care funding. These are pretty much in crisis in many places.

I declare my interest as a member of Pendle Borough Council, which is an ordinary shire district in the two-tier area of Lancashire. My concern is with street-level services and local community services, which district councils concentrate on providing. Obviously, unitaries provide them as well, and some county council services come into this category, such as highways and libraries. I want to give some figures from my own council in Pendle, not because is it particularly special—although I think it is—but because it is not special but typical of districts in urban areas, old industrial towns in areas such as Lancashire and many other districts around the country. A report—which goes to councillors tomorrow evening, in fact—points out that the four-year spending settlement, the funding settlement for local government, comes to an end at the end of this financial year. It also points out that there will be a real-terms increase in funding for local government overall—the “core spending power”—which is quite substantial. However, the implementation of the fair funding review and move to 75% business rates retention appear to have been put back, because people are too busy doing other things at the moment. The referendum limit for council tax increase is going back down to 2%. For councils such as Pendle, this will have a fairly disastrous effect.

The detailed implications and figures are obviously not yet known and will not be until the local government settlement comes out in perhaps two or three months’ time. However, making reasonable assumptions, the position in Pendle is that, compared with the present year, there will be a shortfall in 2020-21 of nearly £900,000 that has to be found from cuts and what are called “savings requirements” but are actually cuts. By 2022-23, in three years’ time, the requirement in that year, compared with the present year’s spending, will be around £4 million. Of course, £4 million may be a lot or it may be not so much, depending on the present level of revenue spending. In this year’s revenue budget for Pendle, the aggregate spending level is about £13 million. Over the next three years, £4 million has to be cut from £13 million-worth of spending. By any standards that is a lot, and it is typical of many districts—some will be higher, some will be lower, but it is typical. These are at current prices. This is to an authority which, over 10 years, will have cut its spending in real terms by half, or perhaps more, and in which over the period since 2010 the number of people working for it, without any substantial changes in what it is trying to do and what services it provides, has been halved. The position is dire.

These are not unimportant services. They are perhaps not as important as education, social care or the health service, which gets the high-profile headlines. They are things such as street cleansing, town-centre cleansing and work in the town centres, tackling litter and fly-tipping—if people fly-tip on verges, someone has to clear it up—refuse services, recycling services, and all the things a council tries to do in town centres to keep them as prosperous as possible, and some of ours are doing fairly well. There are also leisure facilities, the deficit on running all the swimming pools and all the rest of it, environmental health and the vital anti-social behaviour work that local authorities newly took over under the anti-social behaviour Act that came in about seven years ago. There are parks and miniparks, open space, playing fields and sporting facilities. Even if you have not got your own council housing, which we no longer do, there are the issues of housing standards and tackling empty properties, bringing them back into use, which we have been quite successful at, and planning and development services. There is also a new one: action on carbon reduction. We have a meeting next Monday evening, which I shall be at, where we will set up a working group on how we in Pendle can do our bit to help solve the climate emergency. The only problem is that we have lots of ideas for things we can do but no staff to do them. It is one of those instances where councils will have to roll up their sleeves and get much more involved.

The position on authorities like this is dire, but it does not matter that the authorities are in dire straits; what matters is that the street-level, town-centre and local community services and facilities that they provide are being stripped away to the extent that they are having a dreadful effect on the community infrastructure in a lot of places. These are places that some people call “left behind” in many cases, places that have not shared in the prosperity of Greater London and the south-east, or even the big towns and cities of regions such as the north of England. I suppose the old cliché of life in the north is that “Life is hard”, but keeping communities going in these areas is hard work. We are not being helped by the fact that, when the Government say, “Austerity is over”, whether it may be or not, the money that is available to other services and areas is not coming to us.

Social Rented Housing: Construction

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Greaves]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the comments by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on 22 October about investment in housing, whether they intend to finance an increase in house building by councils and housing associations through increased borrowing; and if so, how many additional houses they intend should be built within the next five years.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and remind the House of my interest as a district councillor.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government and Northern Ireland Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, we are keen for local authorities and other social landlords to build more homes. That is why we have recently announced an additional £2 billion increase in the affordable homes programme to more than £9 billion for affordable housing, including social rents. We have also provided rental certainty for social housing from 2020, which will enable social landlords to plan their homebuilding programmes more effectively. Nevertheless, we continue to be open to dialogue with our local authority partners about any constraints holding them back.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, at the weekend the Communities Secretary said that the Government should borrow a lot more money in order to build between 275,000 and 300,000 houses a year in England alone. Since then, the Chancellor said in reply to my right honourable friend Vince Cable in the House of Commons that this was not government policy. Do we still have collective Cabinet responsibility in this country, or do we have a system in which Cabinet Ministers simply debate with one another in public?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I remind the House of the commitment of the Government to build 1 million more new homes by 2020 and an additional half a million by 2022. In pursuance of that, we look at the borrowing capacity of local authorities. They currently have £3.6 billon of housing revenue account headroom available. We increased the borrowing capacity by £300 million in 2013, of which only £144 million has been taken up. As I have said, we remain open to discussing this matter and indeed do so with our local authority partners.

District Councils

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Greaves]

That this House takes note of the future availability of resources for the provision of District Council services in two-tier areas.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, in moving this Motion, I should first remind the House of my registered interest as deputy leader of Pendle Borough Council. This Motion is about district councils—the 201 non-metropolitan or shire districts that exist in areas where there are also county councils, in two-tier areas. Shire districts have become the Cinderellas of local government, in many ways the forgotten ranks, or the poor bloody infantry, yet they are vitally important as the foundation of local democracy in their areas. According to the District Councils’ Network, they deliver 86 out of 137 essential local government services to more than 22 million people, 40% of the population of England. They cover 68% of the country by area and represent the diversity of England, ranging from former county boroughs and urban areas of acute deprivation to attractive and prosperous county towns, university towns and cities, coastal towns, small towns and villages and much of the richness and diversity of the English countryside. They are a kaleidoscope of old and new communities, rich and poor, growing and stagnant, towns and countryside and suburbs and hamlets, and include much of the English coast.

Districts collect council tax on behalf of themselves, the counties and the other precepting authorities yet, for every pound they keep for themselves, more than £5.50 goes to the county councils. So in that sense they are the poor relations. Yet when people refer to “the council” it is usually the district, borough or city council that they are thinking of—whatever they call themselves. It is much more local at that level; it is the town hall where people are more likely to know, see and hear from their councillors. The district provides many of the most local services, which are now becoming known as “neighbourhood services”. In my view, they could do more; it is time for a devolution of powers and services from counties to districts, where the districts can do it more locally and better.

District council services include refuse collection and recycling; local leisure facilities; parks and open spaces; street cleansing; town centres; planning, development and regeneration; environmental health; licensing; support for local advice services; community safety; anti-social behaviour, and much more. It is at the local level where issues are dealt with that really matter to people in their street, town and community, yet when it comes to finance, district councils have been in the front line of cuts in government funding and in their ability to raise money locally. The District Councils’ Network reports that, based on the 2017-18 settlement data from the Department for Communities and Local Government, 146 out of 201 district councils—that is 72%—will face a negative revenue support grant position by 2019; that is, the districts will be sending support grant to central government.

This year, the core spending power of shire districts is being cut by over 5%. The settlement data on core spending power shows that districts are hit far harder than other categories of council. Other councils show increases in the core spending up to 2019-20, but for districts this year, the figure is minus 5%, then minus 4% and then minus 1%. That is unsustainable and cannot go on.

The Government will say that the new homes bonus has come along to rescue the situation. This was introduced in 2011 and provided councils with a payment for each new house occupied, equal to its council tax, in each year for six years. In two-tier areas, 80% went to the districts. The bonus was funded by top-slicing the total local government grant settlement—it was not new money—and helped to offset the cuts in districts’ grants. However, there were unintended consequences—notably a large shift of funding from northern regions to London, the south-east, the south-west and the east of England. That is a different issue from this debate as it affects all councils, but it is an important one. This year the funding has been top-sliced again to provide extra money for social care, and in two-tier areas that has meant moving money from districts to the social care authorities—that is, the counties. It is being paid only for five years instead of six, and from 2018-19 it will be paid only for four years.

There is a new threshold of 0.4% of the housing stock. If your area has not built more than 0.4% of its housing stock as new housing in a year, no new homes bonus at all will be paid for that year. That is already affecting a lot of districts and is likely to affect more. This threshold removed over £70 million of spending from district councils this year, and the threat is that this will get worse in the future. As an example, in my own authority of Pendle, the year-on budget for paying for services is being cut by around half in real terms between 2010 and 2020. Government support is already down by about 60%. The budget plans for the next three years involve a cut of £4 million on a net budget of £13 million—a gross budget of £23 million. We have already cut £7 million since 2010 and the position is devastating. This is all being forced on these councils by government policies, changes to government support, financing systems and the council tax cap. This is not a time to discuss national government policy but simply to report the effect of it on a council such as this.

So far, like most districts in the country, we have coped in a fairly miraculous way. However, staffing has been stripped to a skeleton service and there is a high level of stress among staff working three or four days a week but doing the same amount of work they did when they were working five. The number of people in offices has been reduced from, say, five to three—again, trying to do the same amount of work. In our case, we have offloaded services to town and parish councils and voluntary groups as best we could. But now, like many districts, we are down to the bone. Basic neighbourhood services are at risk: services such as refuse and recycling, the maintenance of parks and open spaces, street-sweeping, the ability to go and remove litter—all that kind of thing. There is the threat of closing a swimming pool and a sports centre and removing the grant to the CAB.

Burnley, next door to us in East Lancashire, forecasts that £3.8 million has to be cut from the budget in the next three years. Harrogate, which is just over the border, over the hills in Yorkshire, is now in a position where there will be no direct grant at all from the Government from next year. It says that there is acute pressure on non-statutory services, pressure to close a swimming pool and reduce the quality of parks and gardens. When the quality of gardens in Harrogate is reduced, something is seriously wrong.

Guildford’s current shortfall is manageable but it is having to pick up the tab as Surrey County Council withdraws from funding local services and Guildford has to take them on. I have a quote from a colleague in New Forest District Council—so in the south of England:

“I would say that the New Forest District Council has been forced into nearly a decade of ‘managed decline’ in which services have been reduced or stopped completely. We are nearing the point when all the authority does is collect household waste and determine planning applications. It is a distressing state of affairs for all of us who value public services”.


On Colchester:

“With Colchester’s rate support grant due to go negative next year to the tune of £400,000 having come down from over £12 million we have had to make a lot of savings”.


The council wants to build council houses but due to the cap on HRA—housing revenue account—borrowing,

“we had to scrap plans to build 50 Council Houses”.

There is a huge tale of woe from South Cambridgeshire District Council, which reports that it cannot get suitable and experienced planning officers—there is a chronic shortage—and it is failing to carry out its proper duties there. It says:

“We no longer have a designated conservation officer, tree officers, environmental officer, economic development officer … or community support officer. Consequently we lack strategies which we once had, e.g. climate change mitigation, economic development”.


It points out that the sheltered housing wardens who visit people in their homes have been removed and,

“replaced by estate managers who just look after the fabric of the schemes”.

Inevitably, that results in more bed-blocking.

The Association for Public Service Excellence—APSE—reports that spending on neighbourhood services across local government has fallen by more than £3 billion over the last five years. Cuts in funding and wide variations between authorities in funding services are,

“changing the very nature of local government”.

Its excellent report in April, Redefining Neighbourhoods: A Future Beyond Austerity?, which bangs the drum for neighbourhood services, says that the total expenditure in the period it covers fell by 13%; and in the most deprived fifth, environmental and regulatory services are at minus 13%, while the least deprived fifth of local government increased by 4%. Expenditure on planning and development services in the most deprived fifth is down by 42%, and in the least deprived areas it is up by 2%. It says:

“Innovation will not solve the funding crisis”,


and that the answer to the social care funding crisis is not to transfer money from other vital services, especially those at local level that have a huge prevention effect. It says:

“This analysis provides compelling evidence the time has come for a robust defence of neighbourhood services”.


Of course, district councils are the places where neighbourhood services are most important. Do the Government agree with that?

The Institute for Government, in a report which is due to be published in about 35 minutes, makes similar points, and points out that spending on local neighbourhood services has fallen by around a quarter since 2009-10. Spending on waste collection is down 18%; on food safety it is down 20%; on open spaces it is down 23%; on culture and heritage it is down 26%; and on sports and recreation it is down 34%. The very fabric of local services is being eroded and people at national level seem to be blind to what is going on.

The King’s Fund report, The District Council Contribution to Public Health, points out that every £1 invested by district councils in preventive services can save the wider public sector up to £70. There is a suggestion that there should be a 2% prevention precept for district councils to match the social care precept for county councils, which of course in county areas does not raise as much as it does in unitary areas because the district part of the precept is not included in that.

Then there is economic growth, which the Government will tell us is the answer to all the problems. It is what we all want to see. District councils are the key to local growth, yet economic development powers are discretionary and little support is provided by the Government at this level. Districts are often effectively excluded from the system for distributing government funding via local economic partnerships. In Lancashire, the local economic partnership has two representatives out of 10 from the 12 districts on the county-wide LEP. The districts are marginalised, yet in areas with strong districts, such as Lancashire, it is they that provide local knowledge, initiatives and drive.

Therefore, I call on the Government to recognise that, at the very local level in which the districts are involved, if they want to build new council houses, unblock the beds, keep the streets clean, help people to live fitter and healthier lives, keep our food safe and have decently maintained local communities, the time has come to look at districts and to treat them better. The pressure is building. It is almost at breaking point and I do not think that people will accept the situation for much longer. Will the Government please respond?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his reply, and to everybody who took part in the debate. I was a bit disappointed that more people did not take part, as I thought that lots of Peers would come from district areas and would be lobbied by their local councils. Perhaps we need to organise that a bit better.

The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, suggested that I should apologise for things that happened during the coalition. Whether or not any apologies are due, I am not sure that I am the right person to ask.

I am grateful to my noble friends Lady Maddock and Lord Shipley for talking about housing, which I had deliberately left to them.

I was disappointed that the Minister did not respond on the proposal for a 2% prevention precept for districts. I just want to say briefly why it is a fair thing to do. In unitary areas—London boroughs, mets and unitaries—the 2% applies to the whole of the council tax levied by the council. In shire areas, it applies only to that proportion of the council tax that comes from the county precept; it does not apply to the proportion of the council tax—10% or 15%, whatever it is—levied by the district. That means that people in shire areas are paying less 2% precept, in a sense, than people in unitaries, because they are paying it only on the proportion that goes to the county and not on the proportion that goes to the district. Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable—even though I would be one person who would have to pay a bit more—that in shire areas, two-tier areas, the district ought to be able to pick up their share of the 2% and apply it to preventive measures. Having said that, in my own authority, the total would be less than £50,000 on 2%, not a huge amount of money and not a great pot of gold. But it would be useful for districts to be able to do that. It is not an additional imposition on council tax payers in district areas compared with the rest of the country. That is an important point. Perhaps the Minister will go away and think about it, and it is something that he could write about.

The Minister seems to be getting a bit obsessed with Pendle—I do not know why. I made it quite clear that, in so far as I talked about Pendle in my speech, I was just using it as an example of a type of area. I talked about lots of other areas, too. However, if the Minister is really so interested in Pendle, perhaps he would like to come and see for himself and talk about some of our problems, and we can explain to him what they are. If he would like to do that, I would very happily, together with colleagues in east Lancashire, across the councils, organise a meeting for him with three or four east Lancashire districts, which all have the same problems. We could explain to him why, probably in four years’ time, the contribution of the new homes bonus in some or all of those districts will be zero. No matter what we do, given our resources, we are probably not going to meet the conditions that the Government are laying down for the number of new houses that would then have to be built. I issue that invitation publicly.

It only remains to me to move the Motion and thank everybody again for taking part in the debate—although I am a little disappointed that the Minister gave a general reply about local government finance and did not focus on specific district issues, in particular on neighbourhood services. They are becoming more and more a matter of concern and the subject of members’ reports, and they are coming up to a crisis point in many areas. Having said that, I promise that the debates will continue.

Motion agreed.

Local Housing Need

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord very much indeed for that contribution. I reiterate the point he quite rightly made that this is about cost, but we must also have regard to quality. He refers quite rightly to the great growth in the housing needs of people aged 65 and over, not least because people, thankfully, are living longer. Their needs will be very different as they age. He will recall that on the then Neighbourhood Planning Bill there was discussion on this, prompted initially by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, I think. As a result of discussions on that, the Government were keen to ensure that we placed an obligation in the National Planning Policy Framework relating to elderly housing, which has been taken forward. It is very much at the forefront of our thinking and therefore places an obligation on local authorities to make provision for that age group when they present their plan.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, the Government’s mantra is that the housing market is bust—they say broken, I say bust. The truth is that the local planning system is bust, very largely due to the cost and complexity the Minister referred to of producing local plans. He is really blaming local authorities for this—I declare my interest as a member of a district council in Lancashire—but all the councils are doing in producing these local plans, using expensive consultants and producing incredibly complex documents, is following instructions from above and doing what they are told to do, and how they are told to do it, by the Government.

The Statement says:

“We are not attempting to micromanage local development … It will be up to local authorities to apply these estimates in their own areas—we are not dictating targets from on high”,


unlike the old regional spatial strategies, but this is exactly what the coalition Government said when they introduced the present system six or seven years ago. It has not worked out like that. The truth is that the numbers that come out are effectively dictated from on high by the rules and regulations laid down. It seems this will be just the same.

Will the Minister give a bit more detail about the relationship between this new system when it comes in, which presumably will be next spring some time, and the existing local plans that have been adopted and the local plans and core strategies going through the system in different local authorities? The Minister said that if a local plan is in existence before 1 April 2018 it will not be subject to these new numbers, but will the new numbers still apply when people apply for planning permission for new developments over and above the numbers in the adopted core strategy or the adopted local plan? What about areas where numbers would go down when local people and perhaps the local authority quite reasonably expect to be able to resist applications for planning permission on the basis of new numbers, even if numbers have been set out or land allocated in their local plan?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, very much for that and give him this assurance: I certainly was not blaming local authorities. I went very much out of my way to say that action was being taken on the system as it was and that it was intra vires their powers. As I have been at pains to say, successive Governments have brought us to the position that the market is broken—bust, as they apparently say in Pendle. It is right to say we are going for a uniform approach, as he indicated, but issues about where the housing goes and the type of housing is a matter for the local authority. We seek to set out a framework here and we are of course consulting on it.

Regarding the dates for when this comes in, if there is an existing plan as of now or an existing plan goes in before 1 April 2018, or later if the national planning policy changes later than that date, that plan is the valid one until it runs its life. New ones will come in and take over from the old plans.

In relation to the issue of some authorities wanting to be or being in a position where, on the formula, they will require less housing, if they want to go further than that then of course the Government will be delighted, but they will need to justify that to the Planning Inspectorate on examination. Once again, that will be an independent process. That is the essence of what we are consulting upon but, as I say, we are very much open to this discussion, which will end on 9 November.

Localism Bill

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, always moves his amendments superbly, and I am fascinated by them, although I heard it elsewhere than in the Chamber this evening, and I apologise for that. But I think that he does not look at this matter from the point of view of people being elected. Ever so many people are elected simply because they have always had some pet subject that was very much of local interest, and that is what got them elected. Any of those people, under this amendment, will find themselves being accused or blamed for the fact that they fought in that way. I am thinking of the Member of the House of Commons, who was elected on the single issue about the hospital in Worcestershire, and elected not once but twice on that issue. Would we have all condemned him if he had shown a particular interest in the hospital in Worcestershire? It is unrealistic to believe that people could be completely opposed to something that they had fought for for years.

The other side of that is that anyone sitting on any planning committee should do so with an open mind. If they do not have one, they have no right to sit on that committee and they should declare it as such. That should deal with the matter, rather than this amendment.

[Lord Greaves]

I declare an interest, since it is Third Reading, or redeclare an interest as a member of Pendle Borough Council, which has a local planning authority on whose planning committee I sit.

I smiled when the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, got into a little bit of trouble for trying to use his native Bradfordian flat irony in your Lordships' House, which is something that I also get into trouble about for the same reasons. I sometimes think that we should run a campaign so that we have a means of telling Hansard to insert a smiley at appropriate places, but I suspect that that is a campaign that I will not win in my lifetime.

I regret the fact that I did not get involved more in this issue in Clause 25, as it now is, earlier in the passage of the Bill. It is not completely satisfactory as it stands, but I think that the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, would make things worse. I shall explain why in a minute. I do so not from his position as an eminent lawyer who knows about things like predetermination, predisposition and perhaps predestination as well, I do not know—or perhaps not. I come from the point of view of how these things are now looked at in local government. What people have not really been talking about is that within local government there is a general belief at the moment that there are two types of issue. There are those that people say are in some way quasi-judicial, or involve things like appointments and disciplinary hearings, as well as planning and licensing, whereby the approach of councillors has to be less predisposed than on other matters. When I got back on the council eight years ago, I spent the whole election campaign speaking about the number of empty, boarded-up houses in my ward. I thought that the position had deteriorated appallingly in the six years I had not been a councillor. The electors actually agreed with me, for once. I have spent a lot of the eight years since then working hard on the council to do something about that problem. I am totally biased on this matter; I think that it is an appalling problem, and I campaign on the council and outside the council to try to solve it and make no bones whatever about that. But if a planning application came up in relation to one of those houses, I would step back and regard it and treat it as a planning application. That is quite well known within local government, although perhaps not as well known in some councils as it should be—but it is the case. Therefore, there is a problem here in that both the Bill and the amendment are broad-brush and do not make that distinction between different types of issue, which are certainly well understood within local government.

I have problems with the words predisposition and predetermination. It may be that in the courts of this land they are well understood, but I do not believe that most councillors would understand those words if you put them to them. The word that is more used in local authority government in relation to that kind of problem is fettering. Councillors are told that they must not fetter their discretion when it comes to things like licensing and planning applications. That is the word that is used—but fettering includes both predisposition and predetermination. The attempt to pull back from the straitjacket that councillors are in at the moment is well done.

I do not think that the position is well understood, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said on Report and said again today, but one problem is that different councils apply different rules. In some cases, when planning applications are submitted—that is probably what we are talking about most here—councillors are banned absolutely from speaking to anybody, including residents, applicants, objectors or the local press. Some councils are absolutely draconian in doing this: one is not allowed to talk to anybody unless one is in the presence of a planning officer. That is totally unrealistic on many councils that do not have lots of spare planning officers to wander around with councillors who are talking to people on their patch.

All this did not originally come from the courts. I particularly noticed it because I was not a councillor for six years and during that time, between 14 and eight years ago, the whole regime changed. It came from decisions of the Local Government Ombudsman, where there were complaints that councillors had made up their mind on planning applications before the applications were dealt with. It also came from references to the standards authorities, particularly the Standards Board for England. That is where this whole regime within local government has come from.

The noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, made the point that councillors are different because they are elected. Therefore, the regime that has to apply to councillors as opposed to other public officials and people serving on tribunals and so on is different because they are elected. Very often they have fought election campaigns and taken part in local campaigning. We have examples from around the country. A market town provides one classic example. A particular political party had campaigned vigorously against the redevelopment of a town centre that involved a big supermarket as the core of that redevelopment. All its councillors—the party had swept the board—were banned from taking part in the part in the decisions once they were elected because it was said they had fettered their discretion because they were part of a party which had won elections on that basis. Clearly there is a huge conflict here between local democracy and fair decision-making. Electors cannot be expected to understand that.

Regarding the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, I would say that there is a lot of talk of bail hostels. As long as a bail hostel is small and is confined to an existing house, I do not think it needs planning permission. It is not a good example in that sense, but I understand the point made by the noble Lord. We have all had to deal with a very difficult application where a lot of residents have been strongly opposed to it, yet it has actually been right. That is when councillors have to gird their loins and do what is right. They do not always do it, but that is democracy.

The amendment of the noble Lord is an admirable attempt to clarify the position. Subsection (2)(c) of the amendment states that,

“an earlier statement or conduct by the decision-maker that amounts to predetermination shall be taken into account and given such weight as is appropriate in the circumstances of the case”,

I do not believe that even local authority lawyers will understand that sufficiently to give clear advice to their councillors, and councillors certainly will not understand it because they will not understand what amounts to predetermination. The words,

“given such weight as is appropriate in the circumstances of the case”,

are a recipe for a lot of lawyers to earn a lot of money when matters come to court to determine what they mean in the circumstances of a particular case. I do not believe it is a useful check on what one does in a particular circumstance that happens locally. Therefore, I do not think the amendment of the noble Lord provides clarity. In a practical sense, at a local level, it will make matters a lot worse, with no clarity.

The problem is that council lawyers are well known for being top of the league of people who err on the side of caution on pretty well everything. If the House were to pass this, it would result in no change to the present position, in which it is the councillors who are totally fettered from doing the job that people elect them to do.

The noble Lord, Lord Hart of Chilton, said that if councillors are given the advice that they cannot say or do anything or take part in any discussions before it goes to a planning committee, it is bad advice. All I can say is that if it is bad advice, it is universal bad advice. Given the choice of two not wholly satisfactory wordings, I very much prefer that of the Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Pannick]

I understand the point and am grateful to the Minister. However, the clause introduces clarity by amending the common law, which the Minister is concerned to maintain. The clause does not maintain the existing common law rules, which the Minister considers entirely adequate. The clause excludes from consideration anything that is said or done prior to the council meeting at which the issue is to be discussed, however extreme the previous statement may be. I entirely accept that what the councillor said prior to the council meeting may not be determinative of whether there is unlawful predetermination, but it must be relevant. That is the objection to Clause 25: it purports, in the Minister’s words, to restate the common law, which the Minister regards as entirely appropriate and unexceptionable. What it actually does is amend the existing common law in a way that will prevent real cases of predetermination being brought and succeeding.

Real concern was expressed in this debate that it is absolutely vital that local councillors should be able to express their views on matters powerfully and strongly if they wish. The noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, and the noble Lords, Lord True and Lord Greaves, made this point. I entirely agree with them that that is the common law position. The cases make it absolutely clear that local councillors deciding any matter are not impartial in the sense required of a judge; they have political allegiances, their politics involve policies and they are entitled to express their views—of course they are. The case of Lewis v Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council in 2009, covered from page 83 of Volume 1 of the Weekly Law Reports, is the leading Court of Appeal judgment. It says that any local councillor who expresses his views powerfully and strongly on any view is not guilty of unlawful predetermination so long as he is prepared to keep an open mind when he goes to the council meeting.

The noble Lord, Lord Sewel, and the noble Lord, Lord Snape, asked for reassurance in relation to the role of party groups and party whips in local government. That, too, has been considered by the courts. In the same case of Lewis v Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, the Court of Appeal approved an earlier judgment in 1985 by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf—then Mr Justice Woolf—where he said:

“I would have thought that it was almost inevitable, now that party politics play so large a part in local government, that the majority group on a council would decide on the party line in respect of the proposal. If this was to be regarded as disqualifying the district council from dealing with the planning application, then if that disqualification is to be avoided, the members of the planning committee at any rate will have to adopt standards of conduct which I suspect will be almost impossible to achieve in practice”.

[Lord Greaves]

I apologise for intervening, but I wonder whether the noble Lord is aware that there is a very widespread view within local government, which in my view is widespread in its application, that on things that are thought to be quasi-judicial like licensing and planning applications there is no party whipping. There may be discussions, but no party whip is applied.

[Lord Pannick]

I understand that, of course; I am responding to the point made that if our amendment were to be carried, this would in some way affect the existence of that whipping that does take place in local government—those elements of party control that are effective. Let me just complete the citation from Mr Justice Woolf: he concluded that there is no objection to any of this so long as, when the councillors come to the council meetings, they have an open mind in the sense that they are prepared to listen to the competing arguments.

The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, was rightly concerned that we should do nothing that should enable lawyers to make lots of money out of all this. That is a very laudable objective. My concern is that Clause 25 is so unclear that it will inevitably provoke litigation, and it will do so because the Minister says that it is not changing the common law but merely expressing it, whereas its terms manifestly do change the common law.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, neither the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, nor the noble Lord, Lord True, were Members of your Lordships’ House when some of us spent many happy hours—hours and hours—dealing with what I think was the first part of what was then the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill. We argued for hours about petitions and petition schemes. I recall my noble friend Lord Greaves—who I think I have just managed to shut up for a few moments—actually bringing in some petitions to his council so that we could see that they are rather different from petitions that come to Parliament in their general layout and form.

We had a very listening Minister then who listened and indeed made many amendments to what was proposed, but we were still left with pages of prescription about how councils should collect, receive and deal with petitions. We heard that most councils did not have such a scheme. What actually emerged, and it was a legitimate criticism, was not that most councils did not have a scheme but that most councils had not thought to put it on their website, which of course they should, but that is rather different from saying that councils do not receive or deal with petitions.

I have much sympathy with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said in moving his amendment. The crucial difference between us is that I believe he was talking about good practice and I do not believe, especially in a Localism Bill, that it is for your Lordships’ House to be prescribing in legislation what should be disseminated as good practice. I still bear the scars of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill, and that, I am afraid, tempers very considerably the sympathy with which I listen to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I will just add a few brief things. My noble friend reminds me of one or two things which I had thankfully forgotten about. I was trying to remember how many amendments I actually put to this chapter of that Bill when it came. That is also something I had forgotten about, which is something that happens.

The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, quite rightly said that councils have to welcome and encourage petitions. But what is really important is the seriousness with which they treat them and deal with them when they come. You can set up as many bureaucratic, complex, legalistic schemes as you like, but if people do not treat the petitions seriously it is just going through the motions and wasting time and energy. If people treat petitions seriously you do not need a complex, bureaucratic, top-down—and, I have to say, pretty patronising—piece of legislation like Chapter 2 of Part 1 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. I note with some wry amusement that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, is desperately trying to hang on to this classic piece of new Labour nonsense, which frankly has not improved the situation of petitions in any council in the country. Those who take them seriously, take them seriously; those who do not, do not.

This is eight pages of primary legislation telling councils in great detail how to deal with petitions. I, along with my noble friend, pay tribute to the Minister at the time, the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, who listened to a great deal of what we had said—it was 12 pages of nonsense before we started, and between us we managed to persuade the civil servants and the powers that be in the then Government at least to take some of it out. As I told the noble Baroness at the time, if the Government simply want to tell councils to have a scheme for dealing with petitions that deals with them seriously, they could do so in half a page of legislation, not eight pages. I have been through this and reminded myself of the huge amount of nonsense in it. I will not detain—or should I say entertain—your Lordships’ House with any more of this tonight, but it really does deserve to go.

The one point that I will raise relates to Section 16 of the 2009 Act, which is the requirement to call officers to account. I do not know how often, if ever, this has been used since this part of the Act was commenced. At the time, we had a long debate, and in our view it was totally inappropriate for officers of the council to be hauled up and held to account before the public in this way. The people who should be held to account are the elected councillors: those who run the council and who have been elected by the people to be responsible and accountable to the people. Clearly, they will need support from officers, and if officers are not performing their jobs properly, the elected councillors are the ones who should take a grip of the situation and sort it out. That is a fundamental principle, in our view, but we could not persuade the Government at the time that that was the case. I am delighted that my noble friend Lord Shutt is, I assume, going to resist this amendment.

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords who have spoken on this matter. Clause 46 of the Bill repeals the duty on principal local authorities in England and Wales to have a petitions scheme and the associated provisions. Amendment 15 would omit this clause, therefore reinstating the duty, and Amendment 49 would then amend the original legislation, which the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, referred to when he mentioned the eight pages. Incidentally, I have a note that there would be still four or five pages left of that, including the requirement to call officers to account. So a lot of it would still be there.

While the intention behind the amendments to ensure that councils treat the receipt of petitions sensibly and appropriately is laudable, I am not persuaded that reinstating this prescriptive and burdensome duty, albeit in a revised form, is either necessary or desirable. The revised duty proposed would remove Section 11 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009, which provides for principal local authorities to have petition schemes, but it is clear that they would continue to need such schemes, given that Amendment 49 includes several references to petition schemes. Even with this change, the revised duty would mean a significant new burden on local authorities. The effect of subsection (6) of the proposed new section is that the statutory petitions schemes would have to go into far more detail than is currently required about how particular categories of petition will be treated.

In addition, the extension of the statutory duty to all categories of petition—including mayoral petitions and council tax petitions—which the amendment creates, will create further additional burdens, as a scheme would then need to provide for different processes for different types of petition. To reinstate the current overly prescriptive duty not with a clean sheet but with a confused mishmash of some retained elements, with some changes and some provisions dropped, is not at all helpful. We trust local authorities to make the best choices for their local areas and to respond to residents’ concerns in a locally appropriate way. However, how that looks should be a matter for local discretion, not central prescription.

We simply do not believe that we need to reinstate this duty in order to force local authorities to have a petitions scheme, any more than we believe that we need to tell local authorities how to respond to petitions from their own residents.

The noble Lord, Lord True, asked whether the Government still support the concept of petitions. Let me make it clear that they absolutely support and encourage the use of petitions but at a local and not at a national level. It seems to me that people want to put up a petition in a post office or whatever. They do not want to have to scratch about wondering what the proper way to organise a petition is for that council. They want to get on with the petition, get the names together and get on with it. That is how it is in democracy and how it is in local areas. In the circumstances, I trust that this amendment will not be pursued.

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Moved by

[Lord Greaves]

50: Before Clause 109, insert the following new Clause—
“Sustainable development: duty to publish guidance
(1) The Secretary of State must—
(a) publish guidance on the meaning and application of “sustainable development”, and(b) take such steps as he considers necessary to bring such guidance to the attention of relevant bodies.(2) For the purposes of this section “relevant body” shall in particular include—
(a) a local planning authority,(b) a county council in England that is not a local planning authority,(c) the Secretary of State when carrying out functions relating to applications for development consent,(d) a qualifying body as defined in section 61E(6) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and(e) a body or other person that is prescribed or of a prescribed description.”

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, we move back fairly quickly to discuss Part 5 of the Bill on planning. My amendment is grouped with a Labour amendment, Amendment 51. This is my fourth attempt to put a reference to a definition of sustainable development in the Bill. We have the end of this Bill in sight in your Lordships’ House, and I should like to take this opportunity, specifically in relation to sustainable development and the other planning provisions in the Bill, to thank the Ministers in this House; Greg Clark, the Minister in the Commons in charge of the Bill; and the team of civil servants responsible for the Bill for what seems to have been an enormous number of discussions and careful consideration that they have given to the points I and my colleagues have raised in relation to planning.

As for this issue, I believe that there was a willingness to consider it seriously. However, it has again fallen prey to the legal advice that Ministers have received—like their predecessors in the previous Government—that the Bill is not the place to provide for sustainable development. I regret this but, nevertheless, we are where we are.

The amendment sets out what we understand—from discussions with the Government and from government statements in all our debates on sustainable development and the national planning policy framework in recent weeks—the Government are going to do. We believe and sincerely hope that they are going to set out a better and fuller definition of sustainable development within the NPPF. It is worth going back to what the draft NPPF says. Paragraph 9, headed, “Delivering sustainable development”, states:

“The purpose of the planning system is to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development. Sustainable development means development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”—

the 1987 basic Brundtland definition. The draft NPPF continues:

“It is central to the economic, environmental and social success of the country and is the core principle underpinning planning. Simply stated, the principle recognises the importance of ensuring that all people should be able to satisfy their basic needs and enjoy a better quality of life, both now and in the future”.

That, as we have all recognised, is okay so far as it goes, but it does not go far enough.

In particular, it does not recognise that the definition and strategy for sustainable development moved on significantly in the 2005 sustainable development strategy, Securing the Future, which the present Government have assured us on a number of occasions is still valid, that they are not in any way revoking it, and that they still stand by the strategy. The 2005 strategy contains a number of basic definitions of sustainable development and the Labour amendment in this group sets them out. While I should not, technically, speak to that amendment until it has been spoken to by the Labour Party, I feel some proprietorial right to do so, given that it is, as far as I can see, word for word, identical to the amendment that I moved on Report. I am flattered by the fact that the Labour Party has tabled that amendment again, and I regard it as being a compliment on my parliamentary drafting. Perhaps I should make it clear that I regard that as requiring an ironic comment. Never mind— perhaps it requires what I might call a “Sewel smiley”. If we can have Sewel Motions, perhaps we can have Sewel smileys. However, it is interesting that, yet again, the Labour Party seems to be one step behind what we are doing on this Bill.

My amendment on Report was to an extent probing, but its essence, and the essence of what has been put forward across the House—both in the debates on the Bill and on the national planning policy framework—is the three pillars of economic, social and environmental considerations; the need for balance between them; and the importance within the planning system of achieving that balance.

I was interested to read and watch on the television what Greg Clark said when the House of Commons debated the NPPF on 20 October. He stated:

“There has been some suggestion that the proposals represent a fundamental change in what the system is about, but they do not. They will, quite rightly, balance the environmental, the social and the economic, and there is no change in that regard”.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/10/11; col. 1082.]

At col. 1084 he said:

“It was necessary to update the 1999 strategy in 2005. Six years on,”—

that is, in 2011—

“there are some respects in which thinking on sustainability has progressed. For example, there is the idea that the separate pillars of the economy, the environment and the social aspects of sustainability can be traded off, one against the other. Some people argue—and I think there is some merit in doing so—that that is a rather defensive position and that one should be looking for positive improvements to the environment, not simply to trade-off. That is very much the thinking in the Government’s natural environment White Paper, which talked of a net gain for nature”.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/10/11; cols. 1084-85.]

I regard that as extremely helpful and encouraging. I know that the Minister will have some difficulty in saying too much, or indeed anything at all, about what the Government may be intending or wishing to put in the NPPF at some point in the future after they have considered the consultation on it. The consultation has closed. There have been 14,000 responses, which are more than a few, and I understand that for the best possible reasons the Minister cannot pre-empt the government response.

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[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, the initial expectation in the NPPF was that there would be a balanced approach to this. There are the three legs that are really relevant to planning: economic, social and environmental. Brundtland, of course, includes science, and we have been given lots of other ideas of what it might include. If I can just leave it at that, we expect this to be a balanced approach to sustainable development and we recognise that there are elements that are more reflective of the planning system. Then we will have to wait and see what comes out of the discussions.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful for that reply from my noble friend the Minister, who I think went as far as she could—in fact, I think she pushed the limits a little further than some of her more cautious advisers might have liked. I hope that what she said turns out to be satisfactory in the long run.

I just want to say another couple of quick things about sustainable development. Going back to what Greg Clark said in the House of Commons debate on the NPPF, which I think is extremely important, this is not just about balance. Balance is very important indeed, but really good planning can enhance all the three legs, or pillars, or whatever they may be called, of sustainable development. That is possible with good planning. Clearly individual decisions may be balanced one way or another, but overall there has to be balance and enhancement, particularly of the environment. Again, I hope that the issue of environmental limits that you cannot go beyond will be addressed in the NPPF.

Listening to this debate, I was musing that we have not only had the four debates on sustainable development in this Bill and the two NPPF debates; the debate seems to have gone on over the years. I was thinking back to the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, the Planning Act 2008, the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 and the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, when there was a willingness of the then Labour Ministers to think about what they could do about putting this into the Bill. In the end, however, they said, “No, it cannot be done, for all the reasons that have been put forward”, and all the legal reasons put forward by their advisers. Having struggled against a Labour Government on four of these Bills and trying to find our way through this one under the coalition Government, we are where we are.

Will the outcomes be satisfactory? Will we look back on these debates and say, “Yes, the NPPF is okay, despite the inauspicious way in which it was launched upon the world and despite a lot of the unfortunate wording within it”? Will that all be sorted? Will we get a document that will work? All I can say is that I hope we will. We have a lot of good intentions from the Government and from Ministers, not least my noble friend the Minister here. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches will certainly be keeping up the pressure, and we simply ask them not to let us down. On that basis, I withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 50 withdrawn.

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[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, becomes flattered again, I should say that this was another handy vehicle to make sure that we got this on the agenda.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, if the Labour Party really needs a new parliamentary draftsman to write its amendments, I might be prepared to offer my services.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

They would be very welcome.

The Bill is about to leave the House when we have no certainty that there will be any transitional provisions, let alone what those provisions might look like. The changes to our planning system, the demise of regional spatial strategies, the introduction of the duty to co-operate, the introduction of neighbourhood planning, together with the NPPF and the proposed presumption in favour of sustainable development, represent a major upheaval to the planning system. The key continuing feature—we support this—is the significance of the local development plan, which, subject to material considerations, should continue to determine which planning applications would be approved. However, we know that many local development plans are not up to date. Even if they were, there seems to be uncertainty as to whether the NPPF in its current form would itself cause all of them to be out of date.

The Minister, in our debate last week, contended not. I am bound to say that I believe that this is not a universal view. Is it accepted that the NPPF will introduce new policy which must be complied with? It is of deep concern that the noble Baroness gave the Government’s position in our debate in the following terms:

“We have not decided yet what, if any, transitional arrangements there should be”—

although the Minister then added—

“but we see that you cannot get rid of the regional spatial strategies and not have something else”.—[Official Report, 27/10/11; col. GC 384.]

Perhaps the noble Baroness can expand on the latter phrase to see whether we can derive any comfort.

As we made clear in last week’s debate, we do not support or encourage local planning authorities to hold back on updating their local plans, but is it not the case that they are dealing with a moving target? There has been a very considerable response to the NPPF consultations, to which the Government have to give due consideration. It may not be until next April when we see the final version of the framework, with the prospect of no further consultation thereon, and probably no parliamentary process. It is acknowledged that the Government would be looking to fast-track a process for updating local plans, and for obtaining certificates of conformity, but this is not, surely, a total solution. Local planning authorities will not know what they have to conform with until they see the final version of the NPPF sometime next year. What assessment have the Government made of the planning inspectorate’s capacity to cope with all of this? Indeed, what assessment have they made of local planning authorities’ capacity to cope with this?

Is it not the case that the presumption in favour of sustainable development is supposed to be the stick that encourages local planning authorities to get local plans up to date, because if they do not, the national policy will be the framework for planning decisions. This carries the implication that if the stick is effective, local authorities will want to avoid the NPPF on its own providing the framework without the local plan—that is, development which an up-to-date local plan would not support could gain approval unless the adverse impacts of development would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits. Does the Minister accept that this could be the consequence of not having local plans up to date?

The Government are asking local planning authorities to ensure that their local plans are up to date when the NPPF, as drafted, includes new policy and the final form is unknown. Will an up-to-date plan not have to reflect the duty to co-operate? The draft NPPF is clear that local planning authorities will be expected to co-operate and to plan for issues with cross-boundary impacts. A demonstration of this will be required when local plans are submitted for examination. Will it be the case, therefore, that any plan which does not involve the duty to co-operate could be challenged as being not up to date?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Best]

My Lords, in Committee and on Report, I tabled amendments on transitional arrangements. I agree that it is imperative that local plans are in place as soon as possible but councils must have adequate time and resources to put in place sensible plans that conform to the new NPPF and ensure that local needs are met and local people have a say in the development that affects them. This will require clear transitional arrangements so that citizens, councils and developers have certainty about when and how the presumption of sustainable development will apply. Those areas that have invested a significant amount of time and resources in getting an up-to-date local plan in place prior to the changes should not be required to go through the process again or to face further delays. It is important that any process for registering conformity is light touch and swift.

I have been pleased to hear from the Royal Town Planning Institute that progress is being made in making transitional arrangements. I know that the Local Government Association is also part of the process of working with the Government on this. I feel sure that the Minister will be able to confirm that appropriate arrangements will be put in place quickly and I look forward to hearing her response to the sensible points raised by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I congratulate the Labour Party on writing such a brilliant amendment. The interesting thing about transitional arrangements is that when the Bill came to your Lordships’ House, they were not being talked about at all. The view was that in six months it could all be sorted out. The more it has been discussed in this House and with Ministers, the more it has become clear to everyone, including those of us who raised it tentatively at first, that it is an extremely important issue. Getting it right is crucial to the transition from the present system to the new system. The good news is that I believe that the Government, particularly the planning Ministers, now understand that. The bad news is that they have not yet produced a clear plan for that transition and how it will work. I believe that it is being thought about seriously across government.

Whether or not it should be in the NPPF is an interesting question. Originally, we were told that it did not need to be in the Bill because it could be in the policy framework. The more some of us think about it, the more complex it is and the policy framework may not be the best place for it—certainly not for most of it. It is so complex and requires so much detailed and substantive guidance to planning authorities on how to cope with the transition that it probably will need separate guidance. I do not think that this would in any way undermine the Government’s wish to bring the total of planning policy guidance down to around 50 pages, although I think that it will be a bit more than that when it comes out. The point is that, by its very nature, guidance on the transitional process will be temporary; it will come and then it will go. That is another reason why perhaps it should not be in the NPPF but should be separate guidance to local planning authorities in some detail as to how to cope.

Going back to another anecdote, I am reminded of the following phrase, which I learnt from Professor Danny Dorling:

“Anecdote is the singular of data”.

In this case I think it genuinely is.

I am about to read from a Pendle Council press release, not for special pleading but because I believe it is typical of the position that very many local planning authorities are in at the moment. I received the press release on Tuesday, headed “Six week consultation on Pendle’s most important planning document”. It says:

“It’s the final chance for Pendle residents to comment on a document that will influence how Pendle changes in the years to come. A six-week consultation starts on Friday 28th October on the Core Strategy”.

Then it explains what is in the document and what its purpose is. It continues:

“Between now and Monday 12th December you can view a draft version of the Core Strategy”,

at various council outlets and libraries throughout Pendle or, alternatively, on the website. It goes on to say:

“During the six-week consultation, planning officers will be attending a series of drop-in sessions in different parts of Pendle”.

That is what that glossy leaflet was all about. I think there are 10 or 12 of those taking place. It is a big consultation operation and exercise. It then says:

“A display will also be available to view at Nelson's Number One Market Street”—

which is the council’s call-in centre—

“for the full six weeks”.

The councillor who looks after planning issues in Pendle says:

“‘The Core Strategy will set out the overall approach for planning and development in Pendle for the next 15 years, so it's essential that residents make their views known before it's finalised … This is your final chance to help shape the future of Pendle’”.

Then I thought: this is all going ahead. The council quite rightly, I think, decided to continue going ahead with the production of its local plan as quickly as possible despite the presence of the Localism Bill casting a shadow over all these operations. This is really localising and turning into an anecdote some of the broad questions that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked. Will Pendle Council and lots of other councils around the country have to start again when this Bill comes into effect? To what extent will they have to go back and revisit their evidence base for their local plan? To what extent will they have to go back to the core strategy—which is 200 to 250 pages thick, I would guess—and rewrite it? To what extent will the whole process now be put back by six or 12 months? Will this quite intensive consultation process all have to be done again at this time next year perhaps? Those are the kinds of practical questions that councils all over the country are facing. They need very clear guidance on the transitional period from the Government as quickly as possible.

I think that this is my last speech on this Bill. There may be sighs of relief around the House. I have already thanked the Minister, her colleagues and the civil servants on the Bill team for their great kindness and for the assistance that I and my colleagues have had. I also want to thank people around the House. I thank the noble Lords, Lord McKenzie and Lord Beecham, on the Labour Front Bench for their very sensible and constructive approach to the Bill. I may be doing severe damage to their career prospects within the Labour Party by saying that, but I think it needs to be said. We have worked with them and discussed things with them. We have not always agreed, but the amount of co-operation that there has been around the House on the Bill has been to the advantage of the House and to the advantage of the Government in that when the Bill leaves very shortly now, it will be a very much better Bill than when it came.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, it is a great strength of the Government’s policy that it commits us to plan-led and sustainable development. It follows from that that it would be extremely unfortunate if there were to be possibly a long interval—a black hole—in which possibly half of planning authorities, maybe even all, did not have a valid plan. During that period there would be real danger of abuse and bad, inappropriate development gaining permission, and perhaps even being built, which would contradict the Government’s proper objectives. Unless the Minister is able this evening to give clear-cut reassurance that there will be firm and legally binding transitional arrangements, I fear there could be consequences that the Government do not want. I also fear that there will be needless public anxiety—or, possibly, even justified public anxiety—and it would be sensible and helpful if the Minister could finally allay our anxieties on this point.

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[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I think there is an important point here. Will the certificate of conformity be available to planning authorities that have an approved local plan that is waiting for inspection before it is inspected, or will it be only for local plans that have already been adopted?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I thought the noble Lord had had his last word on this Bill, so I am a little bit taken aback. I will get an answer to that question as we go along. The answer is no—only adopted plans will have the certificate of conformity.

I hope that I have made it clear that the transitional arrangements are still under consideration but that there will be transitional arrangements. I have been asked whether there will be guidance from the Secretary of State. It will set out as clearly as possible what the transitional arrangements are and any other procedural issues.

Let me conclude by reiterating—this is not my last word, unfortunately—the importance that this Government place on local plans and the need for effective arrangements, delivered through policy or guidance, to manage transition. I want to offer a firm reassurance that the Government recognise the importance of this, as I said earlier today, and will ensure that this is addressed alongside the revisions that are made to the NPPF itself. We are of course looking very closely at all the suggestions that have been made about transition during the consultation process.

We recognise there are genuine issues to be addressed about the status of local plans during the transitional period. I hope that I have addressed some of these tonight, but we will also be considering them further. With these reassurances I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.

Localism Bill

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Greaves]

153ZZAKA: Clause 102, Page 80, line 40, leave out “may” and insert “must”

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I shall speak also to the other amendments in the group. These amendments are about charges for neighbourhood development orders and would amend Clauses 102 to 105, which are about charges for meeting costs related to neighbourhood planning and financial assistance in relation to neighbourhood planning.

The Bill states:

“The Secretary of State may with the consent of the Treasury make regulations providing for the imposition of charges for the purpose of meeting expenses incurred … by local planning authorities”,

relating to neighbourhood planning functions. As regards the phrase:

“The Secretary of State may … make regulations”,

we say that this should be “must”. Without being able to levy charges, local planning authorities risk being seriously out of pocket. Will the Minister confirm that the expenses which will be reimbursable through these charges include the cost of organising a referendum?

An important question is when the charges have to be paid. The Bill says that it will be,

“when the development is commenced”.

But that means that all the costs of the local planning authority, including the cost of a referendum and examination, may never be recouped if the development does not take place. We are proposing amendments that suggest that the charge should be paid when the draft neighbourhood development order is submitted to the local planning authority by the parish council or the neighbourhood forum, as with an ordinary planning application. Why should this be different and why should the local planning authority, the council, have to carry this cost, perhaps for ever?

An alternative amendment suggests that the cost should be levied when the local planning authority resolves to hold a referendum—in other words, the costs begin when it is really serious and after the decision has been made whether it should go ahead to a referendum. Again, the risk is that the local planning authority is seriously out of pocket due to things that are completely out of its control. This could make a very serious hole in its budget, especially if it is quite a small district council.

The second issue in this group relates to financial assistance by the Secretary of State in relation to neighbourhood planning. The amendments suggest that the first need is to publicise the changes in the planning system. What will the Government be doing to tell people about the changes in this Bill, if and when it becomes law?

The main amendment is to probe who the Government intend should receive this money and how much is involved. The Minister has mentioned that some money has already been paid out to organisations to provide support and training. Forty pilots have been announced and have been funded to the tune of a relatively small amount of money. The Minister can no doubt tell us what that sum is. Why, therefore, is this provision needed, if money can already be provided to pilots? Why do we have to have a separate provision in this Bill allowing this money to be spent? What extra things will it be spent on that it could not be spent on at the moment?

The Bill provides for,

“the provision of financial assistance … to any body or other person”—

which may involve,

“the making of agreements or other arrangements with any body or other person”.

Who does this refer to? Does it include parish councils and local planning authorities, or is it restricted only to neighbourhood forums? Clearly, we are back to the difference between a parished area, with a parish council, and an unparished area with a neighbourhood forum. What kind of bodies are likely to get this money and what are they expected to do with it? What are the processes for handing out this money? How is it going to be decided who to give it to? If neighbourhood planning takes off in a big way, one assumes that the amount of money that the Government have available will not be sufficient to seriously subsidise everybody. Therefore, they will have to choose one way or the other. I beg to move.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has raised a series of what seem to be quite pertinent questions and I look forward to the Minister’s response. I will just comment on two of the amendments. In Amendment 153ZZAKA, the noble Lord suggests that there has to be a “must” in respect of making regulations—although I see the force of the argument that most, or all, local authorities would be daft not to, we are dealing with localism and I do not see why the discretion should not be with the local authorities. I may have missed it, but I think that Amendment153ZZAKF deletes a right to enforce in the case of death or insolvency. I think that is the thrust of the amendment, but I was not quite sure what it was about. Perhaps I misunderstood but it would be helpful if the noble Lord could clarify that.

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[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, without actually going back to it and looking it up, I do not think so. If that is what it says, it was a mistake. Perhaps it is the wrong line.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I can probably enlighten the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, on what his amendment was about when we get to it. Amendments 153ZZAKA to 153ZZAKF all relate to the provisions on charges that we started discussing in the last group. Amendment 153ZZAKA would make it a requirement for the Government to introduce regulations imposing such charges. It is our intention to introduce charges that would be payable by developers on development that has been given permission by a neighbourhood development order. However, that is not to say that, in future, a decision could not be made to meet some of the costs of neighbourhood planning in a different way. We do not, therefore, wish to tie our hands by making it a requirement to regulate in this way. Having said that, before the next stage I would like to test out the business of when the charges are paid so that I can have a sensible answer about it. It is very late for a charge to be made at a time when permission has been given and just before development.

Amendment 153ZZAKB would specify that the costs that can be covered by such charges include the cost of holding a referendum. That is already implicit in the current provisions, and specifying a single cost like this could be taken to imply that other costs have been excluded. They have not, and that would be included.

Amendments 153ZZAKC and 153AKD both relate to the point at which any charge should be made. I am sorry—I leapt in on the previous amendment with what I should have said on this one. Our view is that developers should pay a charge when development commences. We just need to get a little more advice on that, and as to why it is there. It would be more helpful if the fee and charge were made earlier. I will come back to that.

Amendment 153ZZAKE says that, when charges are imposed in relation to a local development order, the charge must be made before the authority takes any further action in relation to that order. The provisions do not extend to local development orders. In the case of neighbourhood development orders, if full permission has been given for development, there may be no further action for a local planning authority to take. So this provision would have no teeth.

Amendment 153ZZAKF would restrict the ability of the Secretary of State to make regulations about the collection and enforcement of charges on a neighbourhood development order. This was the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, could not quite remember. The consequence would be that charges would still apply in relation to neighbourhood development orders, but the collection and enforcement of those charges would be constrained. These powers are designed to ensure that the regulations can deal flexibly and efficiently with changes in circumstances or with problems which become apparent in the future.

There were five amendments on financial assistance. Amendments 153ZZAKG, 153ZZAKH and 153ZZAKJ relate to the provisions on financial assistance for neighbourhood planning. Amendments 153ZZAKG, 153ZZAKH seek to prevent the provision of financial assistance for promoting the benefits of neighbourhood planning, and Amendment 153ZZAKJ seeks to prevent assistance being given to other bodies or individuals. We believe that, in addition to central government funding to local planning authorities for their neighbourhood planning functions, communities that wish to engage in shaping their future should receive support. This could be achieved through funding an independent advice service, through direct funding of neighbourhood groups or through a mixture of both approaches. We would not want to rule those out. The amendments would limit our flexibility.

I recognise the concerns behind Amendments 153ZZAKG and 153ZZAKH. It is certainly not our intention to finance reams of propaganda in support of neighbourhood planning. But we do want to ensure that communities, especially those communities with little prior knowledge of the planning system, can understand what neighbourhood planning can do for them. This is what this provision is aimed at. Similarly, Clause 105(2) would allow us to enter into contracts with training providers or to give grants to voluntary sector organisations to work with communities to help them realise their goals. That reinforces what I said to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, under previous amendments. It is important that when these neighbourhood forums are set up they have the support they need to enable them to do the job that has been put before them. I hope that that answers the noble Lord’s questions and that he can withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply but it does not really take us much further than we can deduce simply by reading the Bill. Concerning financial assistance, I am trying to find out how it is going to work, how much money there will be, who will be responsible for handing out the dosh, how people apply for it and who then makes a decision between the different people applying. Perhaps the Minister does not have any of that information, but that is what I was really trying to probe. Does she agree that somebody can write down what the Government’s thinking is, as far as it goes, together with who has had the money so far and on what basis they have been chosen? Would it be possible to write about that?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I will certainly write. Regarding the four organisations that have already received the money, I think there was a full tendering exercise but I will certainly ensure that the noble Lord has the details he asked for. I regret that, both when listening to him and reading his amendments, I was not aware of quite the details that he was looking for but with him having made them clear now, I will make sure that he has answers to them.

[Lord Greaves]

That is fair enough. When you put down amendments to delete pieces of Bills to probe things, it is sometimes difficult to get through exactly what you are trying to get at. Concerning the charges, the amendments that I put down should be seen as a whole. Individually, they make no sense at all but, taken as a whole, I am trying to suggest that the point at which the charge is being levied is too late at the moment—the Minister had some sympathy with that and is going to look at it—and that it should be paid upfront. People should go in and hand their money over the counter, or however they pay, rather than being sent a bill and then having all this chasing and enforcement procedure. In the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, did not understand, I was just taking out all the chasing-up-the-money procedures. If you take a planning application in and do not hand your money over, your application is not dealt with; it is as simple as that. It seems to me that the same thing should apply for this.

However, the Minister said that she would look at this other point and I look forward to learning the results of her researches. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 153ZZAKA withdrawn.

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I trust that, with those reassurances, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Greaves]

Before the noble Lord does so—this is a slightly cheeky intervention—my noble friend said that the Government did not believe in telling people in great detail how to carry out consultation because they were not experts on it and because it is a fast- moving area. Why do they, therefore, in so many parts of the Bill take a very different view when it comes to consultation by local authorities?

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

My Lords, I have to say that during discussion on the Bill, noble Lords are constantly saying that the Government are being too prescriptive, on the one hand; or, on the other hand, that the Government need regulations or some backstop somewhere. It seems to me that there is balance in all things. What I have read out is the balance perceived at this point. This is Committee, so, as always, the comments of noble Lords will be taken into account.

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[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

My Lords, my Amendment 155 is in this group. After listening to the complexity of the last amendment, I must say that mine is extremely simple. However, it is not quite what I intended to table. It is headed, “Requirement for consultation on retrospective application”, which is exactly what I believe should happen. However, it says that the local planning authority may require an applicant to do this. My view is that the council planning authority should do this.

I have had personal experience in two parts of the country. In my village, local people supported an application to convert a barn opposite into a home and to build a wall two metres high. Suddenly, we found that we were faced with a wall at least two to three metres higher than originally proposed. When we said that we were not consulted, we were told that the builders of the wall had been given retrospective permission. However, it was given without any of the people who had taken an interest in the application, and in many cases supported it, having any idea that the thing had gone back for retrospective permission. I believe that anyone who sent in comments on the original application should certainly be consulted again, but I do not think I intended it to be the applicant doing it. I intended it to be part of the planning procedure. It is a very simple amendment. It cut out the lovely view we all had of the village green, the only unspoilt part, where there are sheep and so forth wandering around. Instead, we have got a wall three metres extra in height. I think this sort of thing is happening to people everywhere, and it should be covered.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I have the fourth amendment —Amendment 170CH—in the group, which is a bit of a mixed bag. I also added my name to the first amendment which was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, and support everything he said about it.

Amendment 170CH is another amendment which originated with the RTPI. I am also grateful for help with it from Vivien Green, who is a planning consultant who lives not very far away from me in Pendle. The amendment would add two new sections to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The first would be new Section 106D, “Notification of initiation of development”, the key part of which reads:

“A person who intends to carry out development for which permission has been granted or for which a local development order, a neighbourhood development order or a community right to build order has been made must as soon as practicable after deciding on a date on which to initiate the development inform the local planning authority of that date”.

It also requires the local planning authority to draw attention to this provision when it gives permission for development.

The second new section, Section 106E, “Display of notice during development”, states that,

“A person carrying out relevant development must display a notice containing prescribed information while the development is taking place”,

and gives some more details about the classes of development to which this applies—it obviously would not apply to small developments or simple changes of use—and to some other provisions in relation to it.

There is no doubt that there is a general problem with enforcement. In general, enforcement is something that local planning authorities do not always do as well as they do some of their other tasks. It is seen as something that you do when you have a bit of spare time, perhaps, and it does not get the same resources put into it. That includes enforcement of conditions and of compliance with the details of planning applications. It is our view that a provision that developers and people with planning permission should have to inform the local planning authority when development starts would be of help in this respect.

Such a provision would ensure that checks can then be made on pre-commencement conditions and subsequently that development is proceeding in accordance with approved plans. It is already a mandatory requirement for developers to give 48 hours’ notice of intention to commence work under the building regulations. Of course, developers may use someone other than the council to provide building control, but, nevertheless, many still use the council. Even if a developer is going to use a council building inspector, in a number cases the development can commence by the actions of the developer long before a building control notice is required.

I have been provided with correspondence between the Member of Parliament for Pendle, Andrew Stephenson MP, who was originally contacted by Vivien Green to take this matter up, and Bob Neill, the Minister, whose letter puts the argument about why the Government are not happy about this, which is perhaps what the Minister is going to say. The letter says:

“However, I would be reluctant to impose a further statutory requirement of this nature on developers, in addition to those that apply under Building Regulations and the Community Infrastructure Levy system, particularly when we cannot know whether local planning authorities would be likely to use the information routinely or only exceptionally. If a developer is suspected of having failed to comply with any pre-commencement condition, the local planning authority’s enforcement team is still able to take action”.

However, I think the argument that it is onerous should not be taken too seriously. Filling in a simple form, possibly a prepaid one, to notify the council of the intention to start development is not a great burden and is definitely not in the same league as the CIL system. Where developers are using the local authority for building control purposes, they have to notify them under the building regs. It would be perfectly possible to have a joint form so that there would be hardly any extra work. It has been a statutory duty to notify the planning authority in Scotland since 2009, and developers did not raise this requirement as an issue or a cost when the impact of those changes was assessed recently by the Scottish Government. It is a relatively minor thing for people to do but it could have a significant effect in improving the system of making sure that people are adhering to conditions and to the planning application that has been approved. In our view, it would be a useful small reform. I look forward to the Minister’s comments.

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As I say, this has been an interesting debate, and I hope the noble Lords are reassured by the Government’s proposals in the Bill and that they will not press their amendments to a vote.

[Lord Greaves]

The problem with enforcement is that it is inevitably reactive when it depends on people making complaints. However, there is no need for it to be reactive in the case of new developments. We all know just how much annoyance is caused when someone in the street is seen to get away with doing various things for which other people apply for planning permission and pay fees. We all know how someone can do it; they can stretch the system out for quite a long time if they want to do so. A system under which there was automatic notification and inspection of the work would seriously cut down on development that did not have planning permission. As I have said before, the Government say that it is a major imposition to ask people simply to say when they are starting work, but that is not true. The Minister said that we cannot know how many authorities would use this provision. Perhaps the people who are promoting this amendment might try to find out.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. He said that he did not think my amendment could be made to work because it had no sanction, but when I moved the amendment I suggested that one could impose a fixed penalty sanction for failure to comply, which hopefully would deal with his concern.

I support Amendment 170CH, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. In fact, had I got round to it I would have put my name to it for the reasons that he gave. It seems to me that there could be three notifications: building control; the one that the amendment seeks to introduce; and CIL, which is triggered by the commencement of a development. I offer this to be helpful to the Government. Surely those three regulations could be rolled into one to satisfy the requirements in the noble Lord’s amendment: you could have two out and one in, so you would be ahead of the game.

On the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and supported by my noble friend Lady Whitaker, I should like to read the record of what the noble Lord said because at this hour I did not follow it in great detail. Certainly I would be very concerned if the perception and the reality were that this clause was principally in place to deal with Gypsy and Traveller families. I know how committed both he and my noble friend are to ensuring that those families have justice. For a brief while when I sat in the noble Lord’s position, I remember answering a Question on this. If I am right, across the country something like the extra provision of one square mile of land would be sufficient to deal with the issue. It is undoubtedly the case that local authorities have not fulfilled their duties in making enough provision. However, I should like to read the record so as to understand better the technicalities of the point made by the noble Lord. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord McAvoy]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment. I declare an interest in that my eldest son, Thomas, is a ganger with Network Rail; he is not in the high echelons of management, but he is a ganger with firsthand experience of working on the line, doing maintenance and improvements. No one wants a situation in which Network Rail, or any organisation, can disrupt public services by not fulfilling its tasks properly. Carelessness can lead to other things. Nevertheless, Network Rail, like many other companies, needs the process to be transparent and speedy. I know that it is difficult to get planning applications—or indeed any applications, such as applications for improvements to the rail network—processed speedily, but speed is needed. Anything that improves that must be a good thing. I hope that the Minister will be able to give my noble friend a positive response.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I and my noble friend Lord Tope have five amendments in this group. In view of the time, and in the hope that we might get on to the next group before we go home, I would be happy for the Minister to write to me detailing the government’s responses to those five amendments. If he agrees to do that, I shall not say anything further on this tonight.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, this is a very large group of amendments, many of which are quite technical. None of them has been spoken to in any great detail. I am grateful to my noble and learned friend Lord Boyd for his technical paper, which helped me on this, and for his guidance. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, that I puzzled over his reference to 132 kilowatts and I was not quite sure what the amendment was about. I now know that it is important, although I am not quite clear why.

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[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I apologise to the Committee for tabling a manuscript amendment this morning, but as a result of discussions with my colleagues, it seemed helpful to have this amendment on the table in order to assist progress over the summer towards the Report stage. It is something that might be considered as a compromise and a way through what is a very difficult position with certain sections of the public. That is why we did it. But now we seem to be spending a lot of time discussing whether to take the amendment when we could either be considering it or we could be going home. My view, and what I think is the view of my colleagues, is that it should be properly grouped with the debate on whether Clause 124 should stand part of the Bill. The debate on this amendment is an integral part of the debate on Clause 124.

I do not blame anybody for it, but at the last minute the amendment was put in the wrong place, and perhaps it should have been tabled the other way around the clause stand part debate. But it has been tabled and it can be discussed tomorrow with Clause 124. If having it on the agenda tomorrow is a procedural difficulty, I will not move it tonight so we can all go home in the knowledge that it exists and that we can discuss it as part of the consideration of Clause 124. I have to say that I will not be here, so my noble friend Lord Tope will deal with it. The amendment needs to be discussed with Clause 124, because it is part and parcel of the same debate. I do not think that having them together will take any further time. If there is a procedural problem about that, I shall not move the amendment and take advice from whomever.

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[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I thank the Chief Whip for that accommodation. I apologise unreservedly for misleading the House. My noble friend Lady Crawley informs me that usual channels agreed to finish at around 23:00, not 22:00. I beg your Lordships’ pardon. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. It is best that his amendment be debated tomorrow, as the noble Baroness said.

We will strive to finish this stage of the Bill tomorrow, but I cannot give an absolute commitment. I think that we should finish in good time and we will do our utmost to do so.

[Lord Greaves]

I shall just let the amendment be. Thank you.

House resumed.

Localism Bill

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I have added my name to amendments in this group and I agree with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has said.

I am sure that most Members of this Committee, never mind the whole House, will not spend a lot of time reading the details of Schedule 5 to the Bill and all the ways in which the Secretary of State will be able to lay down very detailed powers and instructions for local authorities on how to carry out council tax referendums. However, these measures are extraordinary, and typical of a huge amount in the Bill. If the Bill constitutes localism, it is extremely detailed top-down localism.

I have seven amendments in this group, six of which are effectively the same. They seek to remove the description of high council tax increases as “excessive”. The Bill says that if a council wants to impose a council tax increase which is higher than the Secretary of State thinks is appropriate, as agreed by the House of Commons, it will be described as excessive. This is bad legislation. The word is prejudicial rather than neutral and is almost a slogan. One of the things that the Secretary of State will be able to do is to determine the question in any referendum that takes place. I can imagine a question such as, “Do you agree with your council that they should impose an excessive rise in the council tax this year?”. That is the effect of “excessive”. Legislation should be neutral and should not use such words. My amendments seek to delete “excessive” and replace it with,

“higher than the level recommended by the Secretary of State under the provisions of this Chapter”.

That is what the legislation should say. It should be value neutral and simply set out what the position is. Of course, if the noble Lord’s amendments were all passed, mine would be pre-empted and would fall. I would be delighted if that were the case as I would rather not have these detailed prescriptions there in the first place. However, if we are going to have them, we should use proper language and not political slogans.

My Amendment 129LABA concerns the date of the referendum. It probes the Secretary of State’s ability to lay down detailed instructions on this and seeks to ascertain why councils cannot be left to deal with this themselves. However, this is in effect already covered by the rather more sweeping amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and therefore I do not need to speak to it further.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, first, I wish to speak to the amendments spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, with which we sympathise. It is not just a case of semantics and of substituting one form of words for another. For the reason that he has outlined, we agree with him that if “excessive” is used in the legislation it will inevitably end up in the question that is put to the voters in a referendum, as it would be the technical term. We are denying local authorities the right to campaign for the council tax increase that they want. If we want to approach this matter in a neutral way, the very least we can do is to remove prejudicial legislation, as the noble Lord termed it.

The Minister may well say that “excessive” is not a new term and that it is embodied in the current capping legislation. However, there is a difference between that position and what may happen in the future because the current arrangements for capping will not be put to a popular vote. Therefore, that term is effectively an internal term rather than one that would inevitably feature in the referendum question on some basis or other. For that reason, I believe that we need to recast the term that is in the legislation.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. It is a central point of our concern with this legislation that it is stuffed with detailed powers and that the Secretary of State has to draw back from the nominal rights that it is seeking to give to local authorities. I doubt whether the gap between finishing Committee in July—if we do—and Report in September is long enough to unpick some of the stuff that has come from our discussions today, but at least there is perhaps a longer gap than usual. Our attitude to the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, depends on precisely where the Government are on this. When last Thursday we had our first canter around the issue of capping powers, it was said that all Governments of all persuasions had held to themselves a reserve power. If in fact it is the Government’s position that they are eschewing that power, we do not feel obligated to hold to the position that I think I outlined—that it is difficult for us to deny the current Government those powers if we took them in past years. If that is not one of the criteria of the Government, that point falls away. When he responds, perhaps the Minister can tell us whether the Government see the arrangements currently included in the Bill as capping powers, whether they believe that they should have the right to hold those powers, or whether they are, by one formulation or other, happy to let local electors decide on what the appropriate level of council tax should be. If his response is, “Well, we think there should be reserve capping powers and this is what the Bill is about”, that is one thing, but if the argument is that the Bill is about making sure that electors are the final arbiters in this, that helps us in our position on the matter.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, that there is a question about his formulation. Under the Government’s proposition, a level of council tax, if deemed excessive, requires the authority to produce a substitute calculation. As I understand it, a substitute calculation is one that is not excessive. I suppose that most authorities in this position would compute a substitute council tax that was just a smidgen short of what the excessive level would be. I am not quite sure, on the noble Lord’s formulation, what that substitute calculation would be and what would happen in circumstances where there was a referendum, 5 per cent of the electors called for it, and they did not support the level of council tax that was proposed. What are the consequences of that? If the noble Lord could help us with that point, it would be appreciated. It is clear under the Government’s propositions what the consequences would be, but I am not quite sure what the consequences would be under the noble Lord’s formulation.

I think that this has been a very helpful debate. It is incumbent on the Minister to say whether the Government see the powers as capping powers and believe that they need them, or whether that is not their position and this is basically about letting electors decide what the appropriate or inappropriate level of council tax would be.

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[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness because I passed by my handwritten notes and did not read them out. My noble friend Lord Jenkin set some homework for Ministers during the Recess. We will carefully consider the Committee’s deliberations, and we are grateful for all noble Lords’ counsel, even if we do not agree with all of it.

The amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Greaves would change the wording of new Section 52ZB so that an authority is no longer required to determine whether it has set an “excessive” increase in council tax. Instead it is required to determine whether the increase is,

“higher than the level recommended by the Secretary of State”.

We consider that it would not be appropriate to change the wording of the new section in that way. The question of whether an authority’s relevant basic amount of council tax for a financial year is excessive will be decided in accordance with a set of principles determined by the Secretary of State and approved by the House of Commons. If an increase in council tax is then set locally that exceeds the level anticipated by those principles, it is perfectly reasonable to call it excessive. The increase might be justified, but the authority will have to persuade the electorate of that. It would be excessive because it exceeded the norm adopted by most authorities. The Government’s policy on this must be set against the background that average council tax increases have been high over the years, and in many years higher than inflation. This Government have taken steps of their own to help move away from this position, notably by funding a council tax freeze for this year. Ultimately, however, the best way to control excessive local expenditure is to make sure the local electorate can put a stop to it.

[Lord Greaves]

The Minister said that it will be up to the local authority to persuade the local electorate of the case that it is putting forward. Is it not the case that local authorities will not be allowed to spend money on campaigning in such referendums?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am not certain of the details, and I hope we will come to a suitable amendment to debate that.

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[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I cannot agree with my noble friend's point that it does not have a place in legislation, but I undertake to consider whether the word “excessive” is appropriate in the referendum question.

[Lord Greaves]

I am grateful for that; it is a step forward. If the Government are to do that over the Recess, will they consult the Electoral Commission about that matter, as it is a referendum question?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I think it would be extremely unlikely that we did not take advice from the Electoral Commission.

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[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I shall speak also to the other amendments in the group. I hope that noble Lords will forgive me if my speech is not so brief. Amendments 129LZB and 129LAB seek an identical wording. The first relates to the substitute calculations of a billing authority, the second to substitute calculations of a precepting authority. Each calls for the inclusion in accruals of non-domestic rates in addition to the redistribution of non-domestic rates. This does no more than make provision for the localisation of the business rate in due course. In the absence of such an adjustment, by what mechanism will these calculations take account of localised business rates, should that be where we end up? Prior to this happening, perhaps the Minister will confirm the position of redistributive non-domestic rates. Will he confirm that currently, taking one year with another, amounts collected are fully redistributed? Will he also confirm that there are no plans or discussions concerning the possibility of charging amounts against the national pool before redistribution?

Amendment 129LAC concerns the recovery of the costs of a referendum. New Section 52ZN(7) allows a billing authority to recover from a precepting authority the cost of holding a referendum. However, new Section 52ZN(8) gives the Secretary of State powers to deny or modify the right of a billing authority to recover such costs. The impact assessment estimates that the cost of a referendum, depending on the size of the local authority and whether other elections are held at the same time, could be between £85,000 and £300,000. Therefore, not inconsiderable sums are at stake. In what circumstances is it envisaged that recovery of referendum expenses would be denied to a billing authority? Does the Minister consider that the term,

“incurred by the billing authority in connection with the referendum”,

will cover the costs of rebilling in the event of a referendum not supporting the level of council tax calculations—in other words, the costs associated not only with the referendum but with its consequences? If the term is not meant to cover that, how is this otherwise catered for?

Amendment 129LE deletes a range of regulation-making powers that the Secretary of State has in connection with a referendum. In this respect, it is more focused and less ambitious than that of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. The powers extend to the question to be asked; publicity; the limits on expenditure; the conduct of the authority, its members and its officers; when, where and how voting is to take place; how the votes are to be counted; and the disregarding of alterations in a register of electors. Frankly, it is outrageous that these matters cannot be left to an individual local authority. Amendments 129LF and 129LG deal with another matter.

As the legislation currently stands, the Secretary of State has power to determine that the referendum provisions are not to apply, notwithstanding that a council’s tax calculations are, in his view, “excessive”. The Secretary of State can do this if he considers that, without that level of increase, the authority would be,

“unable to discharge its functions … or … to meet its financial obligations”.

Our amendment is an opportunity to probe the meaning of this, but also to argue for an opportunity for a local authority to request an independent assessment of whether the criteria are met. There was limited debate in Committee in the other place on this issue. The line that the Minister was taking was that this safeguard was really only about a crisis or a catastrophe; for example, the collapse of BCCI, where the Western Isles had invested heavily. Clearly there are extreme examples, but where principles are applied to a local authority as part of a category of authorities, they do not sufficiently take account of its specific circumstances.

The Minister discussed the application of this safeguard where it was an issue about the level of services and how they were provided. In the House of Commons Bill Committee of 8 February, col. 440, he argued that local authorities had to set a budget that was lawful and would enable them to fulfil their statutory functions. However, if such a lawful budget was deemed excessive, it would only stand if supported in a referendum; if not, it could logically be the position that the authority would therefore be unable to fulfil its functions. The fact that the Ministers may be satisfied in aggregate that local authorities have been provided with sufficient resources—and we might argue about that—does not mean that each and every one in the same category will be. It may be that a particular authority has encountered issues of provider failure, litigation and redundancy costs, possibly because it is in transition to a delivery model that the Secretary of State might find more acceptable. It may be that some of the issues, for example, relating to contract litigation, where it might be genuinely difficult to provide sufficient information for a realistic assessment in a referendum at a particular point in time, could be in point; indeed, it could be prejudicial to a local authority’s case for it to do so. Sometimes it would difficult to condense quite sophisticated legal issues into information that would accompany a referendum question. So we have two fundamental points that these particular amendments are seeking to probe.

What does the Minister see as the boundaries of the use of these provisions? Discussion at the other end suggested that they were only to be applied in extreme, catastrophic circumstances. We postulated other circumstances—but not routine—where a local authority should not be forced through a referendum with all the costs and uncertainties that this entails. Our amendment, as well as being a probe, also sets out an alternative route for a local authority to benefit from this provision, whatever its boundaries. There should surely be a right to some independent assessment of whether these provisions apply. I would not commit it to the precise mechanism that we have set down; I simply raise the issue of the principle. I beg to move.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I have a later amendment, Amendment 129LEA, which is on its own. I would have included it in this group if I had quite understood what the latter part of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, was about. The new Section 52ZR, which the Bill would insert into the Local Government Finance Act 1992, provides for the Secretary of State to give a direction,

“that the referendum provisions do not apply”,

because,

“the authority will be unable to discharge its functions in an effective manner or … the authority will be unable to meet its financial obligations”.

When speaking in the stand part debate introduced by my noble friend Lord Shipley last week, the Minister referred to this briefly when he said that these provisions would be used only in very extreme circumstances, such as,

“where the High Court has exercised its powers to appoint a receiver where an authority has failed to service its debt”.—[Official Report, 30/6/11; col. 1971.]

I do not know how often that happens, but I do not think it has happened, certainly in England, in my lifetime. It seems very rare, so I tabled Amendment 129LEA for the purpose that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, tabled his amendment: to probe the Government on exactly what kind of circumstances this provision might be used in. In view of that, I will listen carefully to the answer in this grouping, and I will not move my amendment when we get to it.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, Amendments 129ZB and 129LAB would add the words “non-domestic rates” to new Section 52ZF(3)(a) and new Section 52ZJ(4)(a). There is no need to do this. The wording “redistributed non-domestic rates” covers the sums that would have to be taken into account in respect of non-domestic rates when an authority carried out its original council tax calculations.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked whether amounts of non-domestic rates are fully redistributed. The answer is yes, by virtue of Schedule 8 to the Local Government Finance Act 1988. When making substitute calculations to determine an amount of council tax that is not excessive by reference to the principles under the new Sections 52ZF and 52ZJ, an authority must use the amount determined in its previous calculations for redistributed non-domestic rates. This is because an authority should not be able to change its estimate of the amount it will accrue in the year in respect of redistributed non-domestic rates to calculate an amount of council tax which complies with the excessiveness principles.

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These are very complex but important matters, and if I may I will write if there are any points which I have not covered. In the mean time, I hope noble Lords will feel able to withdraw the amendments at the appropriate point.

[Lord Greaves]

The Minister said that the billing authority—I am thinking in terms of a two-tier area with counties and districts—may be able to recover its costs. Should that not be automatic if the referendum is in relation to the level of council tax set by the county council, for example?

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Moved by

[Lord Greaves]

129V: Clause 68, page 57, line 26, leave out from “with” to end of line 28 and insert “this Chapter”

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, we now move on to Chapter 3 of Part 4 of the Bill, excitingly titled “Community Right To Challenge”. I have seven more amendments in this group, along with my noble friend Lord Tope, and there are a couple from the Labour Party. These are the first of a series of amendments on this community right to challenge part of the Bill which I am moving on behalf of the Liberal Democrats on the basis of the criterion which the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, put forward at Second Reading—workability. This is a completely new idea and a completely new set of provisions. It is extremely important that, when they leave this House, they leave in a workable condition. They may already be in a workable condition, or they may not. Our job is to make sure they are, whether or not they require changes.

The basic principle—in rather obscure language, I have to say—is that,

“a relevant authority must consider an expression of interest”

if submitted by a relevant body that is interested in,

“providing or assisting in providing a relevant service”.

I have to say that back in Colne this is not the language people use and, no doubt, when the community right to challenge gets down to the grass roots, people will have a plainer English explanation of what it is all about. The relevant authority is, as set out, a principal local authority in England, or a body set out in Clause 68(2)(d), which reads,

“such other person or body carrying on functions of a public nature as the Secretary of State may specify by regulations”.

Here we have more mysterious regulations specifying mysterious people. Before the Bill leaves this House we need to know who these people are, at the very least.

A “relevant body” is defined as,

“a voluntary or community body … a body of persons or a trust which is established for charitable purposes only … a parish council … two or more employees of that authority”—

in other words, two or more employees of the council whose services are being challenged—

“or … such other person or body as may be specified by the Secretary of State by regulations”.

It is not a surprise to find that there, since it is what we find everywhere in the Bill, but, again, we need to know what it means.

A “relevant service” which is being challenged on the relevant authority by the relevant body is,

“a service provided by or on behalf of that authority in the exercise of any of its functions, other than” …

and “other than” is, effectively, a service that the Secretary of State makes regulations saying shall not be subject to the challenge. Yet again, we have a power to the Secretary of State that we need to understand.

This, in many ways, is the nub of the problem. This is framework legislation, skeletal legislation, and there is a huge amount down to regulations. It might seem boring to keep saying this, but in every part of the Bill this seems to be the fundamental problem. What we have here is a new idea—what I would describe as a spiffing wheeze—that has been dreamt up by the Government. It has actually been dreamt up by the Conservative part of the Government and I do not complain about that; a coalition is a coalition of two parties and each party has a right to bring its own spiffing wheezes to the table. We have to find out how this is to be done as I do not think that we are being told that at the moment. I would like all these specific powers for the Secretary of State to be removed, or at least a lot of them.

Is there any hope that we are going to see draft copies of the regulations before the Bill leaves this House? We do not have them for Committee stage. Will we have them by Report? If we do not have them by then, I can see that there might be a certain amount of bother in the House.

That is all I that I really want to say about this. I have some more notes but they just repeat what I have said, so I will not say it again. The noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, is going to express shock and surprise that I have not said it three times.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

Most certainly not. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, ceased to surprise me about 20 years ago. My point is that it is very helpful for other parts of your Lordships’ House to know when we are dealing with a government view or whether it is a jolly wheeze thought up by one party—on this occasion, according to the noble Lord, by the Conservative Party. I hope that members of the Conservative Party in your Lordships’ House will tell us when a jolly wheeze has their support but not that of the Liberal Democrats. It is a new form of coalition Government, and I am enjoying it.

[Lord Greaves]

The noble Baroness is, unusually, wrong. It is not a new form of coalition Government; it is how most coalitions work. Different parties bring different proposals to the table, compromises and trade-offs are reached and, one hopes, the best ideas from each of the parties come through. All I am saying is that it is no secret that the community right to challenge, as it is now called, and indeed the community assets that we will move on to discuss after this, came from the Conservative Party. I am not criticising that party for that or saying that I do not support it.

When I opened my remarks I said clearly that what we have to do with a new, untried, untested idea is ensure that it is going to work. If it does not, one of two things will happen. A lot of difficulties will be caused on the ground because the idea has not been thought through properly or, alternatively, it will be realised that it has not been thought through properly before these myriad regulations are produced and it will never happen, the regulations will never happen and perhaps the chapter will never be commenced. What I and the Liberal Democrats are trying to do is to be satisfied that the proposals are workable before they leave us so that they are actually a great success when they go out there.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, the amendments in my name start with Amendment 130ZBA. In estate agents’ parlance, the key to property is always described as “location, location, location”. When it comes to this legislation and the work of the Civil Service in advising Ministers, the phrase seems to be “regulation, regulation, regulation”, and it is to that that this amendment is addressed. The purpose of Amendment 130ZBA is to require the Secretary of State, before making regulations prescribing which services may be tendered and which not after an expression of interest, to consult with the Local Government Association or any public bodies to which the relevant section would apply. That echoes pleas that fell on unsurprisingly deaf ears last night in this Chamber on the police reform Bill where similar requirements were sought that the Home Secretary would require that police commissioners consulted with local authorities in respect of various matters. That did not appeal to Ministers but I rather hope that on this occasion Ministers will acknowledge that it would be sensible and right for the Secretary of State, before making regulations around this issue and indeed others in the Bill, to consult with a representative body for local government.

The second amendment would simply take out Clause 68(9). It is similarly designed to reduce the regulatory function to which other noble Lords—the noble Lords, Lord Jenkin and Lord Greaves—have referred. I hope the Government will acknowledge that no harm will be done to them, and indeed the general tenor of the legislation will be improved, if they were to accept these amendments.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I am sure that they use plain English in Colne. I imagine that it is very direct language, and I very much doubt that they use the term “spiffing wheeze” or “jolly wheeze”. My noble friend may have forgotten that the department has actually issued a plain English guide to the Bill.

[Lord Greaves]

A lot of people in Colne used to read the Beano.

[Baroness Hamwee]

But do they read the plain English guide to the Localism Bill? That says, on the community right to challenge, that many local authorities,

“recognise the potential of social enterprises”.

I hope that my noble friend Lord Shutt of Greetland, who I think will respond to the debate, will be able to say a word about whether in the Government’s mind social enterprises are something different from community groups. Many social enterprises are in fact businesses. That is not a criticism, but they are very different from community groups. The application of these provisions to social enterprises is interesting. The guide refers to them providing,

“high-quality services at good value”,

and delivering services “with”—that is, with local authorities—“and through them”. I was interested in the “with”, which, in the legislation, finds its manifestation in,

“assisting in providing a relevant service”.

I do not know whether my noble friend is able at this stage—we may need to wait for the regulations, which I, like the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, hope to see before too long—to explain what that assistance might look like.

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[Lord Beecham]

The noble Lord may recall that I have an amendment dealing with precisely that matter, which we will discuss later.

[Lord Greaves]

My noble friends Lady Hamwee and the Minister are straying on to matters covered by future amendments. I remind my noble friend that she might have suggested some of those amendments. As for the idea that this is all about letting 1,000 flowers bloom, I invite my noble friend the Minister to come on over the tops and have a look at Colne at the moment. It is in an absolutely beautiful condition thanks to Colne in Bloom. There is a massive display of flowers; far more than 1,000. On the other hand, letting 1,000 flowers bloom did not do much good for Mao Tse-Tung. It has different connotations.

The Minister referred to recent consultations. Can he give us an assurance that the Government will publish a pretty full account of the results of those consultations and the evidence that they got? Will it be possible to access them?

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

I do not have it to hand, but I am pretty certain that they are to be published on 2 August. I think that that is the statutory date when the results of the consultation must be published so that people know what people have had to say, so that will be done.

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[Lord Greaves]

Will what is published be a pretty good summary of what people said in the consultation, as well as of the Government's views? I think that the Minister is saying yes to that. That is good news, as was the fact that the Minister said that the department will endeavour to prepare draft regulations. People may have to work hard over the summer; some of us will be watching from the south of France.

The Minister referred to unnecessary, burdensome information required by a recalcitrant authority. That is the same way of thinking: that councils cannot be trusted to do things right, that some of them will be recalcitrant and that therefore everybody, even the great majority who will do it right anyway, must be lumbered with the alternative unnecessary, burdensome information, which is all the rules and regulations which come from central government to councils.

We are aware that the Department for Communities and Local Government is losing a lot of its staff. Who and where are the staff who will be employed to produce all that vast range of new rules and regulations—which, in our view, are unnecessary? We are not saying under any circumstances that there is no need for regulations, Secretary of State orders or secondary legislation. We are saying that the scale and amount of it is out of hand and will be more so as a result of the Bill.

The Minister rightly said that we are in favour of pushing power down into communities, and that expressions of interest should not be rejected out of hand. We all agree with that, but many later amendments in this part are about safeguards to ensure that the process will not be dangerous or cause difficulties and problems. We will come to those.

The Minister said that councils need to keep up to date and, for example, reflect the types of organisation representative of their communities. I am sure that that can be done without taking all those extra powers. The problem is that if the power for regulations is there, regulations will be produced, in some cases at great length. Far from keeping councils in order, in many cases they will simply prevent councils doing things in the best way for their local circumstances.

My final point, to which, again, we will come, is that the Minister said that some powers are to make it possible for the Secretary of State to exclude additional services from the challenge. The problem is that we do not know which services will be included and which will not. Again, we will come to amendments that will probe that.

It has been a useful introduction. I say thank you to noble Lords who have taken part and to the Minister for his attempt to be helpful. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 129V withdrawn.

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[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

My Lords, this is the other side of the coin in terms of whether one is being too prescriptive. This amendment would require a relevant body to demonstrate that a substantial number of service users support its proposal when submitting an expression of interest. This puts an unnecessary burden on relevant bodies, and the relevant authority if it must verify the information. Where more than one relevant body submits an expression of interest, service users could be approached several times, which may be frustrating and confusing. This will be magnified by the fact that local people will use many different services. We agree that expressions of interest should reflect the needs of service users. Relevant bodies will often have excellent insight into these needs. The Bill enables relevant authorities to specify periods for the submission of expressions of interest in particular services. They could, for example, set periods that would enable relevant bodies to take into account the results of any consultation with service users, undertaken as part of the commissioning cycle. We are considering how service-user needs might be reflected in the requirements for an expression of interest. I hope, under these circumstances, that the Minister will feel it appropriate not to press the amendment.

[Lord Greaves]

The Minister said that more than one relevant body might submit an expression of interest in a particular service at any given time. I am trying to think of an example. Two community groups might be interested in taking over a particular park. They might be at daggers drawn and they will not want to put in a joint bid. How does the authority decide between those two community groups? I am trying to avoid using words like “relevant bodies”. Anybody out there listening to this discussion will not have the slightest clue what we mean by “relevant authorities”, “relevant bodies” and “relevant services”. But if two community groups want to run the same park—for example, because it is on the border of two quite different areas—how does the council decide which one to deal with?

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

My Lords, the council concerned will have its own procedures for dealing with these things, but the chances are that one submission will be better than the other. If they are bang on equal, it might come down to price, but councils have their own decision-making ways. If the submissions are almost identical, councils will just have to look at them with great care. But it would be strange if they were identical. One could look at what lies behind the application, the strength of the body, whether it looks sustainable and whether the committee of the organisation looks as if it is there for the long haul. I am quite certain that these are all things the authority will be looking at.

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[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

The noble Lord is asking, in effect, to put a regulation into the Bill. The government line is that we do not need it in the Bill and therefore this is regulation-free.

[Lord Greaves]

To go back to the question I asked, the answer my noble friend gave is probably OK if the two applications come in at the same time or within the same council cycle so that they can be discussed by whatever procedures a particular council has to deal with these matters. But does the Bill not say that once an application has been accepted and is being considered, no more applications for the same thing can be made and accepted? Therefore, if one came in today and the other came in a couple of months later, perhaps in response to the knowledge that the first one had gone in, it could not be accepted. How would that be dealt with?

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Ullswater)]

My Lords, I must advise your Lordships that if this amendment is agreed to I will not be able to call Amendment 130ZA because of pre-emption.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I have Amendment 130ZC in this group, which I will speak to in a minute. Before I do, I want to say that I think we agree with a very great deal, if not everything, of what the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has just said. We certainly agree with the broad thrust of his amendments. It seems illogical that if there is to be a system in which local people can, in the terminology here, challenge the existing providers of a service and suggest that they might do it better, that should be only for services that are provided by local government, not by other public bodies, because when it comes down to it services provided by local government, as opposed to other public bodies, are fairly arbitrary. There are good reasons for a lot of them, but for some of them it is not very clear why local government does them and someone else does not. It is certainly not clear why someone else does a lot of things and local government does not in this country. The division is arbitrary and it seems to me that the relevant criteria should be whether it is a local service and then whether it is desirable that this should apply to it.

We agree very substantially with the noble Lord’s Amendment 130, and with his Amendment 131, which would allow a local authority on behalf of its community to take over in appropriate places. Of course, there is a great question mark over how funding is going to be arranged. You immediately get into all sorts of questions about whether there would be ring-fenced funding for a particular service or whether it would be rolled up in the general local government grant, the existing formula funding or whatever is going to replace it, and how that would be organised. Nevertheless, those are not insuperable problems. Initially, one assumes that there would be ring-fenced funding for particular services that were transferred, but the basic principle is something that we would certainly support.

The noble Lord is not enthusiastic about his Amendment 132 requiring local authorities to produce a list of challengeable services. He suggested that it is bureaucratic. However, there is certainly another side of that coin because the Government are going to lay down a list of services that are not challengeable and that are excluded. Indeed, they are going to give themselves power in regulations to change that list from time to time, as we have already discussed. If people know what they cannot challenge, presumably they can work out what they can challenge, so it is not really a problem and the noble Lord’s amendment is probably unnecessary, whether or not it elicits enthusiasm.

My Amendment 130ZC would allow a district council in a two-tier area to challenge the county council and to suggest in certain circumstances that it could take over county services. There is an ongoing argument in some areas between districts and counties about what counties do and what districts do. In my own county of Lancashire, there was a great deal of devolution from the county to the districts in 1974. It simply followed existing practice with the old municipal boroughs and even some of the larger urban districts in the county. In recent years, the county council has been pulling services back and taking them to the centre, even though it is a large, far-flung council. I do not know exactly how far it is from north to south, but it cannot be far off 80 or 100 miles, and it is 60 or 70 miles from east to west, so it is a huge county. It is also an area with strong districts, some of which used to be county boroughs and are still resentful of having been downgraded, and some of which have always been strong municipal boroughs and are now the basis of strong districts.

District councils across the country vary hugely. Some are, frankly, quite feeble and weak affairs, and others try to behave as if they were unitary authorities but do not quite get away with it. Nevertheless, there are a lot of services that it can be argued would be better run at a local level and which in many cases have been. An example is local highway functions that cover not the main roads but local streets. In Lancashire, they were run by most of the districts until three or four years ago when the county decided to take most highway powers back to itself. Demonstrably, the system has not improved since then. Some would say that it has not got worse, but others might disagree with that. It is an area that could be challenged.

The whole area of leisure and recreation has a very local base to it in many cases. One example is country parks. Having a network of country parks across a wide council might be the best way to do it, or country parks might best be run at a local level and involving local people.

[Lord Moynihan]

I am grateful to my noble friend for raising that. Very briefly, a classic example of this are the national sport centres, which initially were set up to focus on excellence in sport and did so for many decades but which increasingly have come to serve the local community through community use and Sport for All. These are surely very good examples of where you can be far more aligned to local authorities—if they are run by local authorities—working with local clubs and with local governing bodies while protecting high-performance sport.

[Lord Greaves]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that intervention. Libraries are an example of this. In some parts of the country they are very controversial at the moment because they are being closed down on quite a large scale, while in other places they are not. So long as the existing funding for a library may be transferred to districts, there is no reason at all why districts cannot take libraries over. Indeed, the municipal boroughs before 1974 were the library authorities, and many of the fairly new libraries that now exist were built by the boroughs and not by the county council. If the county council is seriously looking at reorganising its library service, one of the ways in which it could perhaps increase the efficiency of libraries and local involvement in them is by transferring at least some of them to the districts. I am not saying that that is an ideal solution everywhere, but it is something that ought to be challengeable. There are a number of things like that.

As for national services, the ward I represent on the council had a recent problem of raw sewage flowing down from an inefficient septic tank system on a caravan site on a hillside and causing real problems to residents in the lane below. Noble Lords can imagine what their back gardens were like—not very pleasant at all. The Environment Agency became involved in this. It came and went and came and went, and the district council, which has no direct responsibility for it, became involved, and in the end it was the district council that actually organised the system, spent the money and connected the caravan site to the main sewage system. It then recharged the people who lived on the site and the people who own it. It was the district council that actually sorted it out on the ground, even though, as far as I could work out, the statutory responsibility lay with the Environment Agency. That is a classic example of the kind of service that, if transferred at a local level to a competent local council, might well be run better.

As for the river system, the Environment Agency is responsible for main rivers, but certainly in our part of the world some of the things that are classified as main rivers are tiny little streams. There is no reason at all why they should not be the responsibility of the district council. The district council has no statutory responsibility for rivers and it is not funded by government for it, but some district councils employ drainage officers because they are the sensible people on the ground who sort out flooding and drainage problems when they occur. How much better if they were actually statutorily responsible for it? I therefore support the noble Lord’s amendment with some enthusiasm, and put mine forward with enthusiasm as well.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I put my name to the first of the two amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and I endorse all that he said. I can imagine my noble friends the Ministers saying that it is not possible to graft this on to the Bill at this stage, but the principle is a very good one, as my noble friends Lord Greaves and Lord Moynihan have also said. If the Ministers cannot accede to these amendments now, I hope that they might be prepared between now and Report to talk to local authorities and local government associations about ways in which local authorities might be given opportunities to suggest ways of localising more services.

I must apologise—and this may be a relief to some—that I have to attend a full council meeting later this evening, and if I am not in my place at 7 pm, with the less-than-coalitionist ardour that there is on opposition benches in Richmond I might find that a division is called. I could not support my noble friend on the list of challengeable services because—and he has made this point—it would cause bureaucratic problems for local authorities. I did not put down amendments to Clause 74, which comes later, because it would have been discourteous, anticipating that I was not going to be here. However, I must say that the other form of list that your Lordships will discuss later this evening might, in my estimation, need at least two officers to compile these kinds of lists. Therefore, while encouraging my noble friends the Ministers to resist my noble friend’s amendment, I also hope—in anticipation, as it were—that they will think more carefully later about the other lists that are imposed on local authorities in this Bill.

Finally, I support the suggestion about counties and districts, and of course I also support the principle relating to the Greater London Authority and London boroughs. Self-evidently, there are many things—in an earlier debate I gave the example of running high streets —that London boroughs could do far more effectively than a regional authority. I hope again that my noble friends the Ministers will consider that too.

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[Baroness Thornton]

I am standing up to give the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, time to move his amendment, which comes before mine in this group.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, if the House is willing to be tolerant, I will admit that I was asleep.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, I have called Amendment 130ZD and it was not moved. I now call Amendment 130A.

Amendment 130A

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[Baroness Thornton]

In that case, I will speak to my amendments and give the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, a chance to catch up on his amendments in this group. Before I do so, I declare an interest as an ambassador for Sporta, the trade group of social enterprises which deals with local sports and leisure services, and as the founding chair of the Social Enterprise Coalition. I shall speak to Amendments 130A and 131A, and comment on some other amendments in this group, although I may leave that until they have been spoken to. My noble friend Lord Patel is right to say that Clause 68 is important. I have always believed that socially owned businesses, founded and run in this case by local people, have an important and valuable role to play in the provision of public services.

Amendment 130A seeks to put beyond doubt the kind of enterprise which can challenge and be considered appropriate to contract for the services under consideration. I seek clarification from the Minister about this because, as it stands, it seems that the expression of interest could be used by local authority employees setting up a private company. I believe that that might be a loophole that would need to be closed. Amendment 130A states that,

“after ‘authority’ insert ‘who have formed an organisation for charitable purposes or a community interest company or industrial and provident society’”.

That covers basically all the organisations that are not private enterprises.

Amendment 131A again seeks to make completely clear an issue which is, in a way, about the size of the organisation. I believe that there should be a requirement that the expression of interest can be initiated by a local organisation or in collaboration with a local organisation. Many national charities already provide and contract for services at a local level—for example, Barnardo’s and Action for Children, which I know about through a long association with them. I believe that those national charities, along with any national social enterprise—indeed, there are those that are contracting which are building social businesses providing social care—would want to contract for those services at a local level. But they have to prove that they are working collaboratively with local agencies to provide locally integrated solutions.

This would still allow national organisations, which have great skills and experience in delivering these services, to bid but would ensure that the Bill meets its main objective of devolving power and giving a voice to local communities. The involvement of a national social enterprise or a national charity may be the difference between a local body being able to challenge and contract for local services and it not having the capacity to do so. It is important that large and small, and local and national, collaborative working is part of this Bill and is put beyond doubt. That is what these two amendments are about. I beg to move.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I apologise for falling asleep; it is these Zs all over the place which are doing it. I am not speaking to Amendment 130ZD, which I missed. However, Amendment 133ZN has exactly the same meaning. I was going to apologise for putting down the same amendment twice in the group but it seems that that was providential. I certainly have a great deal of sympathy and support for what the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, has just said.

We put down amendments to take out the reference to employees not because we do not think that in appropriate circumstances it is a good idea for employees to take over running the services for which they are employed, but because we are not at all convinced that this Bill is the best place to legislate for employee buy-outs, employee buy-ins, employee takeovers or whatever. They do not quite fit with the concept of the community—however the community or somebody in the community is defined—making a challenge and saying, “We can run this service. Can we have a go please?”. Employees are very different in that sense as they represent the producer side of the service rather than the consumer side and, clearly, if consumers or citizens or residents take over a service, they become producers as well. Equally, employees can make the same journey in the other direction.

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[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

My Lords, I understand what the noble Baroness is saying, but there is a concern about being overprescriptive. It is important that we do not do anything to put employees off. We can return to this; there is no reason why not; but we know what the intention is. It is to free up the opportunity for employees to take part in a right to challenge. I am far from certain that we should be prescribing that there are these various routes and it is outside the theology if they take the fifth route and not routes one to four. We need to be a bit careful about that.

[Lord Greaves]

If there are not to be clear structures which are recognised as appropriate, how do you prevent the situation in which two employees make a right to challenge when they have absolutely no support from the rest of the employees, but because they have made the right to challenge, the process has to take place?

[Lord Beecham]

Before the noble Lord replies, may I point out that I have an amendment dealing with precisely that matter as well?

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Moved by

[Lord Greaves]

131D: Clause 68, page 58, line 17, at end insert—
“( ) This section does not apply to any company or other body or person the activities of which are carried out for profit.”

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I was very carefully not saying “Not moved” to any of those previous amendments.

I rise to move Amendment 131D, which is grouped with Amendment 131ZP and with the question on whether Clause 73 should stand part, which is to be moved by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, which should lead to another interesting debate. Amendment 131D is a probing amendment to stimulate a discussion which follows on from the discussion we have just been having about the nature of the organisations which might end up running local services, whether they are very local services, such as looking after a pocket park, or much more substantial services, such as taking over refuse collection. In relation to “relevant bodies”—in other words, the bodies that are challenging to take over services—my amendment would add the words:

“This section does not apply to any company or person the activities of which are carried out for profit”.

It is clear that there is not an absolute distinction between profit-making and non-profit-making bodies. We have already discussed the way non-profit-making bodies might make a surplus, but for the purposes of discussion, that is fair enough. Amendment 133ZP is a belt-and-braces amendment, which would insert the same wording at the end of Clause 73.

The fear about the proposed community right to challenge—and there is a lot of fear about the proposal—is that it will lead to the fragmentation, privatisation and commercialisation of a lot of council services; that, in the name of the community making the challenge and as a result of local community organisations, parish councils and whatever putting in the first challenge, the big boys will then come galloping in. The noble Lord referred to the risk of non-local bodies moving into the area. Perhaps there is a risk of local commercial organisations of a slightly cowboy variety, or, more likely, large corporate companies, coming in and taking over, all in the name of the community.

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[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

My Lords, I understand the point that the noble Baroness is making. I will bear it in mind and take it back to the department.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I thought that this group might lead to an interesting discussion. We have had an interesting discussion, which I do not think can end today. I have the sense that of all the groups we have discussed so far, this is the one on which my noble friend the Minister has batted on something of a sticky wicket. However, like a good Yorkshireman, he has rightly batted with a straight bat. There have been a few Bradfordians in the Committee today. The noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, has just gone but there are still a few of us left. The Minister does not quite qualify as a Bradfordian by a couple of miles, but he is still using a straight bat.

There are two fundamental issues in this group. One was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Patel of Bradford. The question of how this money is going to be handed out, to whom and what criteria will apply is very important. As we are all Bradfordians, I shall talk about Leeds. If there is an agreement between Leeds council and a big community-based group which would like to take over a lot of community-based services, and that happens, it seems to me very appropriate for government money to be used to assist that process. The process will proceed on the basis of co-operation and people agreeing that a particular group requires help and assistance to build up its capacity. However, if the money is handed out to large national organisations, whether they be charities or other bodies, in order to make speculative challenges or to come in after the challenge phase as part of the procurement for large-scale services such as children’s services or adult care services in large authorities, that would seem to me a less desirable use of the money. If it is to be used in relatively small or medium-sized amounts to bolster local community-based groups, that seems to me a good use of government money. However, I have problems with this provision being part and parcel of large national organisations taking over local services. That is the kind of thing that we shall have to probe further.

However, the fundamental issue in my amendments has not been confronted. My noble friend the Minister stated clearly that large commercial organisations, multinationals or others, will not be able to take part in the community right to challenge and will not be able to make expressions of interest. We all understand that but the problem arises at a later stage if it is a challenge for a service that costs £1 million a year to run and therefore has to be put out to a tendering process. As far as I can see, that would be very like the competitive tendering processes which used to be compulsory, and which some councils still carry out in order to get the best value because that is the way they want to do it. If that is to happen on a compulsory basis as a result of what was initially a community right to challenge, a problem will arise. Procurement does not appear in the Bill. I have been looking at where it might appear. Clause 72 is headed “Supplementary”. Clause 72(1) states:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations make further provision about the consideration by a relevant authority of an expression of interest submitted by a relevant body”.

That seems to allow the Secretary of State to make any regulations he wants about the whole procurement process. Clause 72(2) states that a relevant authority must,

“have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State”,

which, as we know, comprises instructions and does not even come to this place for us to nod it through. There are real issues here about the procurement process. If it is to be not in the Bill but in the regulations, the procurement regulations—if there are to be any—have to be among the regulations that the Minister manages to dredge out of the department before we get to Report. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 131D withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Greaves]

131J: Clause 68, page 58, line 23, at end insert—
“regarding services provided on behalf of more than one authority jointly”

[Lord Greaves]

This amendment is the first in a group of four amendments. In moving it, I will also speak to the three others. It is a miscellaneous group of different things that I put together to avoid getting leant on by the Whips. I think I can deal with these fairly quickly.

Amendment 131J is about how to deal with services provided by more than one authority jointly. The two adjoining authorities might be a district and a county in a two-tier system. I have a number of examples of that; I do not think I need to read them all out, but they include leisure facilities. Amendment 131K is about how the Government are going to review what is going on. This is an all new, untried and untested system that, we assume, will be brought into operation across the whole country at the same time, and the amendment is about how the Government are going to have a continuous review of what is going on, and continuous consultation with local authorities on how it is happening.

Amendment 133ZK provides more regulations and restrictions. It is about the rejection of an expression of interest. It seems to me that there are two stages at which things can be rejected. One stage is where the expression of interest is made and the authority can simply say, “We are rejecting the expression of interest and are going no further”. At the moment, Clause 70(8) says:

“The relevant authority may reject the expression of interest only on one or more grounds specified by the Secretary of State by regulations.”

That is crucial. Again, it would help if we could know what those regulations are; they ought to be in the Bill. The second stage is procurement, which we have been talking about.

Amendment 133ZL is a provision by which the relevant authority, the council, can carry on as before with the exercise, even if the relevant body—the community body or the parish council—withdraws its expression of interest or refuses to agree to modify the expression of interest. It is an indication yet again that once the process has started, it will continue and be very difficult to stop. That is, I think, of concern to some of us. We can see a situation in which a community organisation as defined is persuaded to put in its expression of interest. It is not really interested at all, but it gets the process going and is in league with one of the big boys, a big commercial organisation, which, if the figure is over £156,000, will then come in and try to clean up. There are real concerns that there are loopholes here that need looking at before the system is unleashed. I beg to move.

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

Amendment 133ZK would remove the Secretary of State’s power to specify in regulations the grounds for rejecting an expression of interest. We have taken this power to ensure that power really is pushed down into the hands of communities. The majority of relevant authorities will of course act within the spirit of the right, but the power to specify the grounds on which an expression of interest could be rejected prevents a recalcitrant authority from rejecting it out of hand and defeating the purpose of the right. I accept that, as my noble friend indicates, we are back to regulations.

Amendment 131J would give a Secretary of State a power to make provision in relation to services that are provided jointly by authorities in regulations. We would expect relevant authorities to take a common-sense approach to services that are provided jointly, and to agree together a period during which expressions of interest could be submitted and arrangements made for considering them and for carrying out any subsequent procurement exercise. However, provision in relation to jointly provided services can already be made if necessary under the powers in Clause 72.

Amendment 131K would require the Secretary of State to consult representatives of relevant authorities when making regulations of guidance, and to have regard to their views. We have recently concluded a consultation, with all those with an interest in the right, on our proposals to use the various powers that we have taken. We will consider the need for consultation on future changes.

Amendment 133ZL would remove the authority under this chapter for a relevant authority to undertake a procurement exercise when an expression of interest has been withdrawn or a relevant body does not agree to modifications to it proposed by a relevant authority, meaning that it has to be rejected rather than accepted. An authority might wish to carry out a procurement exercise in these situations if, for example, it is attractive to the type of service delivery set out in the expression of interest and if the authority wants to initiate a procurement exercise anyway, or if services are currently contracted out and the company needs to undertake a procurement exercise in order to maintain service continuity. Clause 71(7) provides clarity in stating that a relevant authority may determine whether to carry out a procurement exercise where an expression of interest has been withdrawn. I hope that that will persuade my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Greaves]

My lords, I will withdraw it in a minute. However, I will, as always, read carefully what my noble friend has said and decide whether any of the amendments in the group need further pursuit.

The more I hear this debate, the more I am concerned about the word “challenge”. I think “challenge” is wrong because it is an adversarial word. If any of these arrangements are going to work, there will have to be a willingness on both sides—that is to say, on the part of councils and the organisations that are making a bid to run services—to make them work. There has to be co-operation. If that is not there, frankly the arrangements are not going to work very successfully. What is needed more than anything else in many places is a culture change, which can best be created by people exhorting, explaining, being enthusiastic and persuading, rather than having hundreds of thousands of words telling people in detail what to do. If people do not like what they are doing, they will do it grumpily, and it will not work very well.

The only question I will ask my noble friend the Minister concerns all this talk of recalcitrant authorities. What estimate have the Government made of the number of local authorities which they expect to be recalcitrant in relation to this particular part of the Bill?

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

I have no idea whether there is any estimate. When starting afresh with a new proposal, one of the things I think to myself is, “Could local government have done this anyway? Could it have said, ‘It could be that all sorts of bodies could do things rather better than us. Can we find ways in which we can give these opportunities?’”. I am doubtful that I have heard the answer. Therefore, because this has never been done, there might be a perception that this is the sort of thing that local government would not get up to on its own. The authorities could be recalcitrant in those circumstances, but in general I do not know, and I suspect that the calculation is not there because I do not see how you could get that calculation. However, it is worth looking at what has happened to date.

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[Lord Greaves]

The Minister is tempting me to go into a whole new area, which I will resist, except simply to say that there is a culture in local government nowadays that is very different from what it was 30 or 40 years ago; you do not do anything at all, on anything and in any way, unless you have permission from the Government or the regional office, which has now been abolished, or someone else up there, to do it. People are scared to death of doing things because they have lawyers who tell them that not only can they not find the power in the legislation; they cannot find the instruction in the legislation and all the stuff that tells them exactly how to do it. That is the problem in local government now; it is in detailed bureaucratic thrall to central government, and we are about to pass a Bill that increases that.

Having made that counterpoint to what my noble friend said—which might have some justification but is, I think, part and parcel of the fact that people in Whitehall do not believe that local government can ever be trusted to do anything useful or sensible unless they are told how to do it as if they were in kindergarten—I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 131J withdrawn.

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[Lord Newton of Braintree]

Prompted again by what I have heard—I hope that this is not out of order, because it raises a point about the clause with which we have just finished—this is the first reference I have seen to town councils as distinct from parish councils. Town councils are not specified as relevant bodies in the previous clause; they are included in the new clause. What is the position of town councils under the Bill?

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, legally, town councils are parish councils. I think that is the answer the Minister will give. It is true, anyway. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, is poised to come in again. A town council is a parish council that has passed a resolution under about three lines of the Local Government Act 1972 to call itself a town council. It can have a town mayor if it wishes, but it does not have to. I think that is all there is to say about it, but the noble Earl might have other things to say.

I strongly support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. It is ridiculous if a parish council can put in a lot of time and effort to consider taking over local services, has to do it through the expression of interest procedure and can then be outbid by other people. There is no sense in that. The Minister might say that it is unnecessary because if the district, unitary, county or whatever council agrees to it, it can happen anyway. My experience is of a borough council that tries to offload things to the parishes such as public conveniences when the parishes do not want to take them on, but that is a different matter. Throughout local government, there is a culture of conservatism and fear of taking on and doing more things. Changing that culture is the most important thing that we have to do. The amendment would be a very useful addition to the Bill.

[The Earl of Lytton]

My Lords, there is nothing like the words “parish council” to get me out of my seat. Noble Lords will know of my interest in parish and town councils. To answer the first question, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is right: fundamentally, structurally, parish and town councils are effectively synonymous. The differences are in the way in which they operate, but structurally in their clerks, membership and rules of engagement with which they have to comply, you can more or less say that the term is synonymous one with the other, except that one happens to apply to a town. It is an area where we have great difficulty with what we might call the family of parish and town councils, because town councils such as Weston-super-Mare have huge budgets and are on a principal authority scale, whereas many tiny rural parishes, although they may have quality parish council status, are extremely small. That lack of consistency makes it very difficult to deal with parishes as a cohesive whole.

I say straight away that I have not conferred with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I am very pleased that he has moved this amendment. There are some extremely good examples of where principal authorities have felt that they had the confidence to pass on to a parish or town council a function that they knew could be dealt with readily, cost-effectively and which was well within the capacity of the town or parish council concerned. But I am bound to say that nationally, the track record of passing things down to the lower tier has been fairly poor, taking things as a whole. That is one of the issues that lies behind localism. We need to get that straight.

What the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, suggested was a sort of localism-light in the sense of trying to avoid a bureaucratic and procedurally-driven process. On the whole I would welcome that as well. At Second Reading, I said that these things have to be rendered down to a localism scale—a community scale, not based on the sort of procedures and checks and balances that perhaps apply to the much more senior aspects that must be rightly dealt with by principal authorities.

I give one example. In my own parish council in Shipley in West Sussex, which is one of the largest geographically but has one of the smallest populations in the whole of West Sussex, a parish councillor commented some time ago on the problem the parish council was having with verges. People were encroaching on road-side verges by extending their gardens, filling-in road-side ditches, and doing all sorts of things that might include impairing forward visibility along the road. They were planting things, and so on and so forth. The verges, in so far as they were part of the highway, would have been vested in the highway authority, which in that instance is the county council. We know that all county councils are subject to cost constraints, and certainly West Sussex where I live is no stranger to that and has introduced some commendable measures to try to square the circle, so to speak. But it cannot be in all places at all times and it cannot police those verges. Such things should be preserved in the generality of the public interest—they are assets of community value in many cases but they are often orphan pieces of land. They may historically have been part of an enclosure plan or something like that which attached them to a particular estate or riparian owner, but over time, and with the process of land registration, that link has been lost. The boundary may have been drawn to an ordnance survey boundary that was set back from the hard edge of the road, so you end up with orphan strips.

Parish and town councils in some instances—I am not saying in every instance as they may not have the facility to do it—would like to get hold of those to manage them properly and make sure, in particular, that they are not filched by neighbouring householders or have things dumped on them where nobody seems to be responsible. They may get driven over because it happens to be a convenient place to pull off for dog walking, as happens in my part of the parish. That is just one example of something that could be of benefit.

In general, I support the amendment but there is a caveat. The words,

“net additional expenditure or net reduced revenue”

is a proviso that the noble Lord wants to insert under subsection (3)(a). There is a problem with activities, services and things being passed to parish councils shorn of any resource to deal with it. That is the classic thing that we refer to in parish and town council circles as double taxation. The parish then has to raise by precept a means of funding that expenditure because the principal authority has said, “Yes, you can have this but there is no funding to go with it”. I therefore enter a caveat on that. On subsection (4), I would flag up that it might be extremely difficult to verify, knowing what little I know about local government finance, to deal with the matters that the noble Lord is trying to cover there. I well understand his reasons for putting them in, but I do not know how you would prove it. However, in general I support the direction of travel of the amendment.

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[Lord Greaves]

Will my noble friend confirm that it will still be possible for district councils or any principal council to come to an arrangement voluntarily with their parish councils to transfer service delivery to the parish council outside the provisions of the community right to challenge?

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

My Lords, I believe that is the case. I do not see that that should be disturbed by anything that the Bill is doing. The noble Lord talked about it the other way round, saying that sometimes district councils try to offload and the parish says, “No, we would sooner you kept doing this”. I do not see that there is any reason why that cannot be done under present arrangements. The right to challenge is a different principle. There is a risk that this amendment could catch relevant authorities in an endless and burdensome cycle of considering requests and counter-requests from different parish councils in their area that have different ideas and preferences as to how services should be run.

Finally, the amendment would risk cutting across the community right to challenge as a whole. Requests from parish councils to provide services differently, which might include the service being provided by the parish council or by another organisation, would potentially override expressions of interest from other relevant bodies. I hope that in the circumstances the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.