Localism Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has had a long, distinguished and occasionally challenging career—and I say that as someone who served on the same authority for 20 years. I put two points to him. First, would he agree with me that almost everywhere else in Europe, unlike in this country, the principle of subsidiarity refers to the most local level of government—that is, local government— at which a good decision can be taken or policy made? Localism based on community groups and neighbourhoods that are self-forming and sometimes self-selecting are not a version of subsidiarity under the widely used European term.

Secondly, the noble Lord referred to people in the locality and the difficulty of decisions being made above the locality level. How would he envisage that working? I cite two issues to do with planning from my experience in local government. In the 1980s, long-stay mental hospitals were being replaced by local hostels for people to be reintegrated into the community. I faced ferocious public meetings with people who were absolutely determined that it would not happen in their backyard. It was an extremely difficult decision, made worse by the sadness in Ribbleton of three of the people who had spoken out publicly against such hostels coming to me privately and telling me that members of their families had been locked away for decades.

The second planning issue involved a hostel for former prisoners around the corner from where I lived. If the localism that seems to be implicit in this legislation had applied, they would not have had it, and I cannot think of any other community that would have welcomed the proposal. An absolutely ferocious public meeting was held. I was the only member of the planning committee who had given approval to it and who was present at that meeting. It was verbally nasty. When I was out with my children, I was threatened with a beer bottle by a member of the public who had been at the meeting and had been drinking. At the end of the meeting a ferocious woman in a hat bore down on my husband and said, “Is she your wife—can’t you keep her under control?”

That sort of public meeting and those sorts of services are the most intractable. They are very difficult unless a decision and delineation are made so that the general good and the needs of smaller groups can be protected. I know from his background that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, would sympathise with the need for the provision of both those services for ex-prisoners and former long-stay patients.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I look forward to addressing the questions that the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington of Ribbleton, has just raised when we come to the neighbourhood section of the Bill. It is important that for such people, and indeed for Gypsies and others who have traditionally been made unwelcome, we have a system whereby localism does not become exclusion.

I welcome the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. My noble friend Lady Hanham may remember that in 2006 my brother, Tim Palmer, published a pamphlet with Policy Exchange called No More Tears. If she has read that, she will realise that I am a considerable radical when it comes to localism—I share his views—and I regard the Bill as a small step on the way. In her reply to the amendment, I hope that at this stage of the Bill we shall have a good exposition of where the Government stand on localism at the moment, which will give us a good context for the rest of these debates.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, there was much in my noble friend’s speech in moving the amendment with which one could not but agree. I particularly liked his point that there may be too many provisions in the Bill where it appears that the Government are trying to tell local authorities how to exercise their newly granted general power of competence. I look forward to identifying particular points in the Bill and saying, “Look, this is not necessary”.

Where I have had difficulty with my noble friend’s new clause is that it is not going to achieve anything in the direction that some of us would like to see. You have to look at the individual provisions of the Bill if you actually want to reduce the degree of central control or direction of a locally exercisable power. If my noble friend is seeking to oblige the House to look at the Bill with that in mind then his speech will have made a useful contribution, but I am not sure that the provision that he seeks to put in would add anything. The way that one deals with legislation is that one looks at the provisions in the Bill itself and that is what we will spend a large part of the next four weeks doing.

On the interpretation of the Bill, I remind the House that the courts decided long ago, in the case of Pepper v Hart, that if the provisions of a Bill are unclear, the courts are entitled to see what Ministers said in introducing and debating it. I had to downsize my own household when we moved back to London, and I offered around my bound Hansards, which covered well over 40 years, to see whether anyone wanted them. They are all now in the Supreme Court on the other side of Parliament Square. I have not been to look at them but I am told that that is where they are. They did not cost me or the court anything. That is in order that the Supreme Court judges can have in front of them the Hansard reports of what was said by Ministers to be the purpose of the Bill.

Looking at what Ministers can say about this Bill and what is actually in it, one wonders what the purpose of the proposed new clause is. My noble friend made an interesting exposition of a number of points, but it would not be appropriate to add a new clause of this sort when we have eight days of debate in which we will be dealing with the details. I have to say that if my noble friend sought to press his new clause to a Division, I would have some difficulty in supporting him. I hope that he will forgive me.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I enjoyed what my noble friend Lord Taylor of Goss Moor said, and I would like to hear more about that, but I hope that we do not embark on a definition in the Bill for something that, in all practical terms, will be impossible to define in practice. Not only will it have the effect described by my noble friend Lord True, but for neighbourhood plans, anything of this sort will make any power that the neighbourhood has completely nugatory because it will always be open to attack by someone who has their own definition and own ways of looking at sustainable development in any particular circumstance. We have an example in east Hampshire where a decision has been taken that sustainable development means that there should be no new development of any sort in the countryside. In other words, to fit in with that strategic objective, there can be no neighbourhood plans because there can be no development. That is all based on sustainable development.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor]

If I may say so, that is precisely why, if we are to have a Bill that makes the definition of sustainable development the whole basis of our planning system, we should say what we mean. It was precisely the issue mentioned by the noble Lord that led me to start my report by saying that we need to ensure that our approach to sustainable development is properly defined as a balance between economic and social environmental interests, is forward looking and is not an assessment of the countryside as unsustainable.

[Lord Lucas]

I therefore think that this is a very important thing to get right. I shall listen to the Minister with great interest. If we get it wrong, it has the potential to destroy a very important part of the Bill.

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, in moving the amendment, to which I have added my name, my noble friend made it clear that it is a probing amendment. It might therefore be that the Minister is not about to accept it. If that proves to be the case, I am conscious that the Minister has received considerable advice from behind her that she should not attempt to define sustainable development now or at any time in the future. Therefore, perhaps she could confirm that the Government intend, in the not very distant future, to publish their definition of sustainable development, a definition that will subsequently appear in the national planning policy framework document. If she can confirm that, can she also confirm that it will at least reflect the balanced approach that the amendment seeks to achieve?