Community Life

Lord Phillips of Sudbury Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is being done to mitigate the social and cultural consequences of the weakening of community life in the United Kingdom.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, community life is not weakening. Strong communities are shaping their own destiny across England, and we are supporting people in their efforts. The Government’s localist approach, for example, gives more power to communities and local councils, and communities are seizing the opportunities offered. One of our flagship programmes is the National Citizen Service. This year, 90,000 young people will deliver a community project through this service.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury (LD)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that reply. Is it not the case, however, that one of the key factors in what is clearly a declining community vitality in this country, is the ever increasing volume of legislation pouring forth from this place, which tends to undermine and confuse the ordinary citizen, and is still running at the rate, after repeals, of about 10,000 pages of new statute law every year? That is more than I have been able to discover in any country in western Europe.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, the Government are fully committed to removing unnecessary bureaucracy. Speaking specifically about DCLG, since 2010 it has enacted legislation which has, as I have already said, empowered citizens and local communities. The Localism Act 2011 is a good example. In January of this year, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister announced that the Government have indeed met the Red Tape Challenge target to find 3,000 regulations to scrap and improve. Already more than 800 of the reforms have been implemented.