Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Pickles and Chris Leslie

Monday 5th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

The Localism Bill will indeed do that. Perhaps the most notable of its provisions is on the transparency of chief executive and senior salaries, which will have to go through a vote of the whole council. I am sure my hon. Friend understands that the Localism Bill is just part of the move towards transparency, which might better be described as ensuring that the public are kept informed.

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

How transparent is it for Ministers to mask the real cuts in local government spending, such as the 16% cut for Nottingham city council, by dreaming up a statistical methodology that they call spending power and spinning it as a cut of just 8%? Why do they not just come clean about the cuts to the poorest areas in the country?

[Mr Pickles]

The body that thought up the spending power recommendation was the Local Government Association. Indeed, immediately before we announced it, the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson), who is sat on the Labour Front Bench, endorsed it as the way we should go.

Amendment of the Law

Debate between Lord Pickles and Chris Leslie

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

Well, I suppose there comes an occasion, you turn up, there’s a lot of people there—and you just start to talk. These things happen, and we should be in a forgiving mood. I mean, anybody can compare themselves to Martin Luther King.

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Who would you compare yourself to?

[Mr Pickles]

Certainly not to Martin Luther King.

Let us be clear: Communities and Local Government was the unprotected Department under Labour’s plans. Unprotected Departments would have received a larger average real-terms cut over four years under Labour than they are under the coalition’s deficit reduction plans over the spending period.

Thanks to the £18 billion of savings from our welfare reform programme and the £3 billion of savings from lower debt interest, the coalition is cutting £2 billion less from departmental budgets than the Labour party would have. Labour would have cut local government more, and, without the support for a council tax freeze, the end result would have been soaring council tax.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Pickles and Chris Leslie

Monday 17th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

I am glad to know that I am going down well in Burton. Information about councillors’ expenses has for some time been available from councils, but I hope the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) will take the opportunity some time to say that Lord Beecham’s request for extra remuneration for councillors at a time of crisis is singularly inappropriate.

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

In that case, should not all Departments, not just councils and the Department for Communities and Local Government, also have to publish every £500 item of spend?

[Mr Pickles]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, a number of other Departments have taken that initiative. I look forward to seeing the whole Government follow where councils lead—[Interruption.] I am relaxed about that. It is up to individual Departments, but there are already a number that publish expenditure above £500.

Localism Bill

Debate between Lord Pickles and Chris Leslie

Monday 17th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

The cabinet system has many advantages, but it means that a number of councillors are denied the opportunity to be involved. We do not take a strong view on that matter, but the Bill will enable councils to go back to the committee system if they want to do so.

The Bill will give councils the powers and authority that they need. It will be a shot in the arm for local democracy. It will give councils a general power of competence. That is probably the single most important item in the Bill. It will turn convention on its head. It differs from a general power of well-being in one vital respect: instead of local authorities having to find a statute that allows them to act, the fun-loving legal advisers will have to find a statute that prevents them from taking action.

We know that the Labour party considered a general power of competence, so what held them back? Apparently, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) once argued that councils should not be allowed a general power because it would allow Islington to build a nuclear bomb. He is a much-respected Member of the House and his worries should be taken seriously. I have good news. The residents of Islington and the rest of us can sleep safely in the knowledge that the Radioactive Substances Act 1993, the Nuclear Explosions (Prohibition and Inspections) Act 1998 and the Nuclear Safeguards Act 2000 will prevent Islington council from obtaining weapons of mass destruction. In short, the power of general competence for councils does not simultaneously abolish all other laws of the land.

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State advocated the power of general competence as a means of increasing the freedoms of local authorities. However, clause 5(3) states:

“The Secretary of State may by order make provision preventing local authorities from doing, in exercise of the general power, anything which is specified, or is of a description specified, in the order.”

Does that not completely negate the supposed freedoms?

[Mr Pickles]

I am surprised by the hon. Gentleman’s statement, because he and I have previous. When he was engaged in a respectable profession before returning to this House, I recall him advising me on these issues. His advice was that these things should not be absolute, and that the Secretary of State needs to retain residual powers just in case. He should not castigate me for taking the advice that he gave all those years ago— nice try.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Pickles and Chris Leslie

Thursday 25th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

The short answer to that is, of course, yes.

I am afraid that the policy pursued by the last Government left us in a very difficult position. Let me give an indication of how difficult it has become. I remind Members that in 1997 there were 887 unlawful encampments. That figure was bad enough, but it has now shot up to 2,395. As for the second part of my hon. Friend’s question, we intend to restrict retrospective planning applications substantially.

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I warn the Secretary of State of a new type of unauthorised encampment? In my city of Nottingham, the chief executive of Framework, a major charity for the homeless, warned this week that there would be hundreds of rough sleepers in tents in the woods or in sheds on industrial estates as a result of the swingeing cuts that the Secretary of State has implemented in the Supporting People budget. Will he please think again?

[Mr Pickles]

I think that the hon. Gentleman may be a little mistaken. As he will know, the Government have passported £6.5 billion to local authorities to support people, and we expect that money to be passed on to the most vulnerable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Pickles and Chris Leslie

Thursday 15th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

Gracious, no—indeed, under our green deal, energy certificates will perform a much more important role. They will be about bringing the price of energy down and ensuring that somebody with a house that has a good energy certificate does well, because we want to get houses on to the market. We will insist that the energy certificate be commissioned and in place before the sale takes place. It is about speeding things up—the hon. Gentleman is not familiar with that idea. We are in favour of house sales, not bureaucracy.

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am glad to hear that the right hon. Gentleman thought deeply about the consequences of removing the home information pack arrangement, but in his careful and calculated assessment, did he work out the number of people whose jobs might be affected? Clearly a number of people across the housing market professions have been gearing up to work in that area and will now no longer have that employment. How many people?

[Mr Pickles]

When the hon. Gentleman was in another job, during his brief interregnum between spells in this place, he used to advise me solidly to cut away waste and speed things up, and I have followed that advice. HIPs were just part of a service that was provided. We have just heard from the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) about energy certificates, and a number of such services are available.

It has to be said that it is not as though the removal of HIPs came as a shock. It appeared clearly in the manifestos of the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats, and in the coalition document.