Localism Bill

Debate between Lord Patel of Bradford and Lord Lucas

Tuesday 5th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, this is going to make for a very interesting Division on Report. It will be fascinating to see who ends up in which Lobby.

I should declare an interest that I own an asset of community value—a woodland in Kent. I would be happy to go along with the Bill’s provisions but that is for me. It is my decision and my feeling about my relationship with the community. Any suggestion that assets of community value are restricted to assets that are already in community use when it comes to land is extremely dangerous. It produces exactly the side-effects that all my noble friends have been talking about of immediately causing assets to be withdrawn from community use.

There is no great function for this part of the Bill when it comes to rural communities anyway. Under the neighbourhood planning provisions rural communities with a lot of land and space to spare, and therefore an ability to develop, will be in a very strong position to do deals to support the businesses that they want to support and mould communities in their own ways. They are the great winners from neighbourhood planning. I suspect that suburban communities with decent amounts of space will do equally well. I am concerned about the example that was adduced about the problems that arise in cities where neighbourhood planning has very little to offer. Such communities by and large will not have the ability to tackle these things proactively, to accumulate wealth to be able to support or buy assets as and when they are wanted and to think ahead in the way in which it will happen in rural communities. I do not have an answer to the question posed by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, about what happens in cities, but for rural communities this part of the Bill is entirely unnecessary, as neighbourhood planning will do it all.

[Lord Patel of Bradford]

My Lords, I will be very brief as the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, covered many of the points succinctly. First, I thank the Minister for her intervention earlier. It was very helpful, but I think that we need to study the note in the Library. I have a feeling that this will be an iterative process. We would certainly welcome involvement in that and further meetings.

Notwithstanding the benefits that my noble friend Lady Thornton pointed out in respect of this clause to local communities and local areas, we recognise the good intentions and the thrust behind many of the amendments and the arguments that have been presented, together with carefully crafted amendments. We obviously need to look carefully at the practicalities of what this means. I can say certainly that the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, struck a chord. It is clearly an issue that we need to take further and seek more clarification from the Government.

We agree with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, in respect of the centralised delegated powers. We are completely on board with that. That issue has kept coming up throughout all the debates and needs to be looked at very carefully. As I say, I think this is going to be an iterative process. The amendments pose some very serious questions that we need to explore further, and I look forward to what the Minister has to say about that. We will certainly want to sit round the table with the Minister and others and look at this a bit more carefully.