Localism Bill

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I want to speak to Amendment 136ZD in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Cathcart. My noble friend the Minister is aware that I raised reservations at Second Reading about this part of the Bill and the unintended consequences affecting private owners who allow their property to be used for community use. I thank my noble friend for her explanation earlier because it starts to clarify the intentions. However, the intention of this amendment is to provide greater clarity and also thereby allay justified concerns with a definition of an asset of community value and to provide clear guidance to local authorities, which is essential if we are to avoid confusion and unnecessary legal action which could be the case if we do not get this definition right.

I also think that we should strengthen the tests which have to be met in relation to nominations for the community asset register. We should firm up and define what is intended by community value. The primary requirement in all cases should be that assets of community value must promote social well-being through their past or current use. There should also be a secondary requirement, where local authorities consider it appropriate, of furthering the economic and environmental well-being of the community.

The amendment sets out the various factors that local authorities must take into account: current use; planning policies that affect the asset, which could include planning permissions already in place; what the nominator is proposing to use the asset for; evidence of wider support for the nominator’s proposals within the community; where there may be another site in the locality which could serve the same purpose. I think very much of the local library that might be closing but another publically owned property could be used for that purpose.

However, in accepting that exclusions from the listing will need to be in the regulations rather than in the Bill, the key one is that most residential premises must be excluded from listing. I say most because I can understand the asset where there is a pub where the living accommodation is secondary to the purpose. I am persuaded that village shops, post offices and pubs should be assets, which if communities wish to bid, they should be in a position to do so.

There are so many examples of private individuals enabling communities to use part of their residential premises and it is essential that the regulations make it absolutely clear that these premises are not included. I therefore hope that my noble friend the Minister will give this amendment due consideration and bring back on Report a comprehensive amendment on the definition of an asset of community value. As far as I am concerned the test will be that private owners will not in any way be advised that it would not be sensible for them to continue to allow their assets to be used by the community. If we do not get this right the net effect will be negative whereas what we are seeking to do is a positive thing for many communities.

[Lord Moynihan]

My Lords, I support Amendments 136, 136ZA and 136ZD, to which my noble friend has just spoken. In so doing I need to declare an interest as chairman of the British Olympic Association which has, among its principal objectives, the promotional of sport and recreation.

I seek guidance from my noble friend the Minister because I can see a great deal of good news for sport and recreation. Inasmuch as local authorities will have a duty to maintain a list of assets, the freedom to determine the form and content of the list, to set out specific requirements and to allow community nominations to be proposed, there is in many respects a presumption in favour of listing sport and recreation assets. I would have no problem whatever if this legislation applied exclusively to local authority or public sector facilities. Indeed, we had a lengthy debate this afternoon on Amendment 130, where my noble friend Lord Jenkin sought to insert,

“any public body, including, but not limited to, local authorities, government departments, government agencies and non-departmental public bodies”.

In that context, I see real benefit. As I say, I have no problem whatever with supporting it. On the contrary, it would enhance sport and recreation provision if the principles within this Bill, which I support, applied to those public sector facilities. Many playing fields owned by the Government and many local authority facilities would fall into that category.

However, as I read it and as I listened to the debate, Clause 74(1) and the amendments to which I speak apply to assets of community value wherever they are found, including on private property. Many noble Lords have understandable reservations regarding pubs and local shops, for example, but the situation regarding sport and recreation facilities is, I would argue, very different. Organised competitive sport in this country over the past 200 years has its roots in the relationship between landowners and sporting activity. Many cricket grounds, for example, are still located in the grounds of homes around the country. Many equestrian or sailing events and fishing activities are to be discovered on privately-owned land. The history of British sport rests on the amicable nexus between sport and recreation, on the one hand, and the good will of the private property owners—long may that remain the case—but as currently drafted the Bill risks halting that process.

The reason is this: that relationship is based on good will, on tradition, on the work of volunteers, the love of sport and recreation and, in many cases, clubs which have been formed, nurtured and flourished on the cornerstones of local communities to this day. As I understand it, the sole purpose in this context of the list would be to create transparency, providing a legislative process for local communities to bid for listed facilities. The bid, of course, could be rejected. Apart from that benefit of greater transparency, I seek guidance from the Minister because I do not see any further benefit. On the contrary, at the moment a mutually agreed sale can be agreed between the landowner and a community that uses those facilities. Simply put, the Bill provides for that transparency, then adds a whole series of measures which will negatively impact on the intention and good will of many landowners and homeowners to make their facilities available to the local community.

Let me cite an example. A private landowner who has a squash court attached to his property might want to provide a local village school with the opportunity regularly to use that court, but with this legislation the person concerned is unlikely to do so. He or she will certainly be very wary of so doing. When the property is up for sale, a search initiated by a future buyer may find that squash court is now listed under this legislation. A buyer making an offer may be time-constrained and thus walk from the sale or offer a reduced price. A buyer may well walk from a sale faced by a hostile local community, with the power of the press on their side given the publicised moratorium on the sale and the provisions in the Bill. I am sure that nobody in this House, on either side, can foresee this, but nevertheless there are risks that a future Government of a different political complexion might embed the full list in new right-to-buy legislation, damaging the value of the properties, or, looked at another way, putting a new tax on today’s market value of the properties. Put simply, many landowners will avoid these risks and shelve their plans to provide for sport and recreation today.

If my noble friend the Minister can allay these concerns I will rest persuaded, but on reading the Bill—I have not had the privilege that my noble friend Lord Hodgson has had of many letters or briefings on this subject; indeed, I have not had a single briefing—I am concerned that where there is good will among individual owners of properties, where, through their good will and intent, they build strong relations with their local communities, allow primary schools to access their land and use those facilities, the tennis court, swimming pool or squash court, the consequence of the Bill, which may be an unintended consequence, will be such that that individual immediately stops doing that any more for fear that listing will impact on the final value of the house. If there is a way to address that in the Bill and to recognise that nothing could be more damaging than multiplying that across the country with the negative impact that that would have on sport and recreation facilities and the negative impact that it would have on good will and local communities—which is what the Bill is all about in driving localism—I would be content to support the Bill, to move forward and to persuade my colleagues in the British Olympic Association that this is a subject that does not warrant the concern that it currently has.

Put simply, there are many landowners who I believe will avoid these risks, as I say, and shelve their plans to provide for sport and recreation. That would, frankly, be a disaster, particularly in the countryside, and I am sure that it is not the Government’s intention. As a result I ask my noble friend to address himself to my three amendments and to take this clause away in order to see how sport and recreation can be fully protected, particularly those facilities I have focused on this evening which are owned in the private sector by private landowners. I emphasise that I fully support the provisions of the Bill to free up many facilities that are owned in the public sector for community use—many playing fields we go past daily that are unused or underutilised—so that the local community can benefit from availing themselves of those facilities. If we can engage with that in the Bill and increase participation as a result, there will be real benefit, but if the unintended consequence is that we impact negatively on the good will in the private sector and among private landowners to make these facilities available, it would be a very sorry day for sport and recreation.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I want to make one or two points. I have been hugely impressed by what my noble friends have been saying about this. I listened with care to what my noble friend on the Front Bench said about the objectives behind these provisions and I shall want to read that very carefully in order fully to understand. I am not sure, possibly as a result of my poor hearing, that I got it all, but I will read it.

My fear is due to the fact that the whole essence of localism is supposed to be building a partnership between local authorities and local communities. It depends for its development on the good will that will be generated by this process. I have put my name to a lot of amendments, including that to which the noble Lord, Lord Cotter, spoke earlier, because it seems to me that that is essential.

We are talking about public assets. I find it quite extraordinary that this is intended to apply to a wide range of privately owned assets. Businesses, yes—the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, made the point that, if there is a business such as a post office, a pub or something else that is going out of business, it is perfectly reasonable that a community might wish to say, “We can run this. We will take it over. We cannot open for the full time, but we will be open so many hours in the week” and be able to do that. That is a voluntary and community partnership.

What I find difficult is that this is all to be imposed by central government. There must be some way in which the statute could be drafted so as to build on the idea of community partnership with local authorities rather than giving everyone the sense that this is being imposed on them from the centre. One fact tells the story: there are 54 references to specific cases where the Secretary of State can issue regulations from the centre in this part of the Bill alone. The whole thing is being imposed from the centre.

I do not want to go on singing this song because I have sung it a good deal during the passage of the Bill, but the amount of detail that the Government are seeking to impose is absurd. Why do they have to decide and lay down what is of community value? Why can a local authority not establish criteria? Guidance could be given about the sort of principles, but does that need to be included in statute? Why does the Secretary of State have to decide who can make a nomination and who cannot? This gets the whole thing off on entirely the wrong footing, and it is the wrong sort of emotional approach to what one is trying to achieve—that is, localism, local responsibility and the ability of local authorities to respond to the desires of the local community. After all, the councillors are elected by people from the local community. That is the relationship that one should be building on. As a number of people, including my noble friends Lord Greaves and Lord Tope have said, this gives the impression that no one in Whitehall trusts local authorities unless they are being told what to do.

I am sorry, but I get quite hot under the collar about this because it rather upsets me. I have some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, who put his name to the question on whether the clause stand part, to which I have also added my name. Having considered the details of the anxieties and objections of the local authority associations—I have them all here but I will not weary the House with them—I have come to the view that we cannot go ahead with this part in the way that it is currently conceived or drafted. The whole concept behind this seems to be drawn up on the wrong principles. I hate having to differ in such a rooted way from my noble friends on the Front Bench but one really has been driven to this. I have not had anything like the representations that my noble friends have had and have spoken about but, hearing them and realising what is behind this, I beg my noble friends to think again.