Localism Bill

Lord Howard of Rising Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 2011 Lords Chamber

When Ministers had the good, original idea for what we now call the Localism Bill, it received a wide general welcome in outline across the board before the Bill was published—I stress, before the Bill was published. The idea of a Bill on the concept of localism—whatever we mean exactly by that, and we have had that debate—which devolved more power and responsibility to local authorities and enabled them to act and do things in the way that best suited them and their local conditions was of course going to be recognised. However, I suspect that as work on the Bill went on in ever more detail the usual risk aversion came into play, and those drafting the Bill looked increasingly at the dreadful fears of “what if” and “supposing that” and came up with a Bill which, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and others have eloquently said, does anything but set local government free. It both prescribes and allows the Secretary of State to prescribe in extraordinary detail many of the things that local government has grown used to expecting. If we are to break that kind of dependency culture, which much of local government now has, we need a different approach from that contained in or allowed by much of the Bill.

[Lord Howard of Rising]

My Lords, I support the amendment of my noble friend Lord True. In doing so, I declare an interest as a district councillor.

I should like to give the Government and the Minister an example. Norfolk County Council, which is the senior authority of my own district authority, tried to impose an incinerator in Norwich but found that it was unable to do so because of the unpopularity that this aroused and the fact that no one would sell it the land. Consequently it secretly bought a plot at Kings Lynn and said that it was going to stick an incinerator in there. My district council held a referendum which overwhelmingly rejected this suggestion. The local press has been continually complaining about it; there are meetings; there is massive objection to it. Despite this overwhelming unpopularity, Norfolk County Council is claiming to the Secretary of State that the proposition has universal local support.

I urge the Minister to consider the amendment of my noble friend Lord True because, plainly, there is often unhappiness—the example which I have given is not unique—about bullying by upper-tier authorities of lower-tier ones.

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Moved by

[Lord Howard of Rising]

77A: Schedule 2, page 227, line 9, leave out “implement” and insert “require, and give effect to, referendum on”

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Moved by

[Lord Howard of Rising]

79A: Schedule 2, page 227, line 27, leave out “9NB(2)(c))” and insert “9N(2)(c))”

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Moved by

[Lord Howard of Rising]

81A: Schedule 2, page 228, line 19, leave out from beginning to end of line 38 on page 229 and insert—
“9N Referendum on change to mayor and cabinet executive
The Secretary of State may by order require a specified local authority to hold a referendum on whether the authority should operate a mayor and cabinet executive.”

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Moved by

[Lord Howard of Rising]

84A: Schedule 2, page 229, line 39, leave out “that” and insert “this”

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Moved by

[Lord Howard of Rising]

84E: Schedule 2, page 232, leave out lines 18 and 19

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Moved by

[Lord Howard of Rising]

87A: Schedule 3, page 240, leave out lines 9 to 41