Localism Bill

Debate between Lord Newton of Braintree and Lord Boswell of Aynho

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boswell of Aynho]

My Lords, I have not spoken previously on the Localism Bill, nor would I claim any particular expertise in the planning system, but I would like to respond to the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, in the context of this debate, with particular reference to Gypsies and Travellers.

The noble Baroness and I, and indeed my noble friend Lord Avebury, have participated over a number of years in the work of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Gypsy Roma Travellers, and we have always been conscious of the difficulties that that community faces in adequate site provision, and also the degree of lack of salience—or should I say lack of appetite, perhaps—by local authorities in meeting their existing obligation. I can well understand her fears that these might be projected into the future.

Perhaps I may just comment from my experience over nearly a quarter of a century in another place as a constituency MP. The two planning issues on which I tended to wrestle most assiduously were either at the macro level, major infrastructure projects, or at the micro level, difficulties about Gypsies’ and Travellers’ sites—whether they were organised or not—but more typically, when there was no adequate provision, and they were moved on; although the provision in Northamptonshire tended to improve over the years.

This particular amendment is of course about making an adequate assessment, and that is a proper start. The difficulty, in my experience, is that very few authorities see themselves as having an interest in carrying out this assessment—one or two enlightened ones do, maybe for economic reasons, in order to secure a temporary labour force. Most will do as little as they might. And yet, one could fairly say that the amount of land required to meet all these needs across the nation is quite small, and in local authority areas is even smaller. It would certainly be in the interests of local authorities, who wanted to put some order into this process, to make adequate provision so that people could move to those sites and away from others. We do not want to open the recent wounds about that matter, but I think that a number of authorities are very diffident about doing so.

The reasons for that are perhaps, first, that they may fear that they are shouldering a disproportionate burden; in certain cases they may feel, secondly, that the very fact of assessing provision or having a discussion about it may, as it were, attract or create an additional population whose need has then to be met; and thirdly, they are, to be frank, often facing the hostility of the local settled population, and a very strong political pressure not really to meet their duties.

This has to be balanced; what I have always said locally is that the one thing I do not take is a one-dimensional view of this. There is a need for give and take, sensitivity and a proper discussion on both sides, but it has to start with a proper assessment. There may be a feeling that this is not going to happen.

In addition to this, I should just make the point—and it does look back to the issue of cross-border co-operation—that of course the nature of the travelling population, by definition, is that people move around; not all the time, or in every case, or outside or across local authority boundaries, but it does mean that they have to be looked at with at least a degree of flexibility and sensitivity, given, as the noble Baroness has said, some of the social pressure which is upon many of them, and which is evinced by many frightening social statistics in terms of a perinatal mortality or health outcomes, education, and the rest of it, which we need not go on to tonight.

I am not an ideological opponent of the Localism Bill—I think it is a good approach for the reasons that my noble friend Lord Deben very eloquently brought forward a few minutes ago. But we have to look at meeting the needs, indeed meeting wider statutory responsibilities for equality, which are enshrined in the duties of local authorities, and seeing whether they are adequately discharged.

I hope that encouragement will be sufficient for the local authorities so that they meet their obligations. All I can say is that I very much hope that the Minister can reassure us that she will be able to keep a watch on the situation, and I hope, if it is necessary—though one trusts that it will not be—that she will keep an open mind to any other measures or contingencies that may be required to see that this small but significant and vulnerable section of the population and their housing needs are assessed and met.

[Lord Newton of Braintree]

My Lords, being from Essex, albeit from Braintree and not Basildon, I am a bit hesitant, as my noble friend will probably understand, to follow him down the path of the issue that he has raised. I have to say that it was a brave speech and I have considerable sympathy with the approach that appeared to underlie it.

I want to come in on a different aspect of this, which is emboldened by the speech of the noble Lord from the Cross Benches. My concern in this field is that the more you go for localism and devolve decisions downwards, the more you will risk people saying, “We don’t want this in our back yard. Put it in somebody else’s”. As regards affordable housing, we need to recognise that even in the smallest units, which are not always recognised by villagers in some quite small villages—I live in a fairly large village in Essex—or the most articulate and active people, there is a need to provide houses for the families and young people who are perhaps not so comfortably off but who are essential to the overall life and social structure of the village or the neighbourhood, as it is defined in this Bill.

We need to recognise that with the disappearance of pressures from above—that is, the spatial strategy—on local authorities to build this, that or the other number of houses, we slightly strengthen the ability of everyone to say, “Yes, we all know that a lot of houses are needed but not here, thank you”. We may need to do something to correct that. The thrust of the point of the noble Lord on the Front Bench opposite, although not the wording particularly, is probably well made, and I hope that it will receive an understanding response.