Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Shipley]

42A: Before Clause 8, insert the following new Clause—
“Access arrangements to combined authority meetings for the press and public
(1) The Secretary of State shall, by regulations, provide that, where a meeting is held—
(a) between a mayor established under the provisions of this Act and the relevant combined authority;(b) by the leaders of a combined authority;(c) by an overview and scrutiny committee of a combined authority,arrangements must be made, so far as is reasonably practicable, to allow reasonable access to the meeting for the public and the press.(2) For the purposes of this subsection (1) “so far as is reasonably practicable” means to the extent possible to allow transparency of proceedings and decisions, while taking into account—
(a) the need for unencumbered advice from officials, and(b) the need to protect commercial confidentiality.(3) For the purposes of subsection (1), “reasonable access” may include but is not restricted to—
(a) attending and viewing the meeting,(b) taking notes of the meeting, and(c) taking a visual or audio recording of the meeting.”

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 42A concerns media and public access to meetings, addressing issues around the right of the press and the public to have access to the meetings of combined authorities. Existing statutory requirements enable the press, the media generally and the general public to attend, view or listen to council meetings, council committee meetings and council sub-committee meetings. These regulations are well understood in terms of their requirements and their spirit. Alongside the right to attend meetings, there are rights to receive advance notice of meetings, to see agendas in advance and to inspect relevant documents.

This amendment seeks to ensure that those rights of access cannot be diminished in the case of combined authorities. It requires reasonable access to be ensured and, in subsection (2), acknowledges the need to ensure that commercial confidentiality is protected and for officials to feel able to give essential advice to those who are charged with making decisions. Both criteria are, of course, within the existing regulations for local government.

Why, therefore, does the Bill fail to make any mention of an obligation on the mayoral authorities which it creates to meet in public? Members of the public and the media currently have a general right to attend council meetings, including those of the local authority executive or the cabinet and their committees. They also have the right to film, audio record, tweet or blog from those meetings. These rights are primarily set out in the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012 and the Openness of Local Government Bodies Regulations 2014. Given the freedom that the Secretary of State will have to set up the new authorities by ministerial order, there is great potential for them to be watered down unless the rights of the public and the press are protected by being placed firmly in the Bill.

Given the importance of overview and scrutiny committees, will the Minister tell us the intention behind Schedule 3, which contains an enabling power allowing the Secretary of State to block disclosure of information to an overview and scrutiny committee and to determine what material it, in turn, can put into the public domain? This amendment seeks to address these concerns. I look forward to the Minister’s confirmation that there will be no diminution of the right of the press, the media generally and the public to attend meetings of combined authorities as they currently do within local government.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, we are fully committed to openness and transparency in the proceedings of local government and have already moved amendments to that effect. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said, we need to be sure that nothing in or arising from the Bill could dilute or disapply existing public rights of access to meetings, records and related documents. The noble Lord has also posed a pertinent question on Schedule 3.

There may be a lack of clarity over the precise circumstances envisaged in subsection (1)(b) of Amendment 42A concerning,

“leaders of a combined authority”.

Presumably, the provision applies when they are meeting as members of that combined authority rather than otherwise. Perhaps that needs clarification. We have generally argued for dealing with matters on the face of the Bill, so we look forward to assurances from the Minister that the issues raised here are already covered. To the extent that they are not, we will work with the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, to fill any gaps on Report.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 42A seeks to insert a new clause regarding access for the press and public to combined authority meetings. Whatever the whys or wherefores of the press’s engagement with council meetings, I am happy to confirm that legislation already exists on these issues. As my noble friend Lord Brooke has pointed out, the Local Government Act 1972 provides that all meetings of a combined authority must be open to the public except in limited, defined circumstances.

A meeting of a combined authority, as with other council meetings, may be closed to the public in only two circumstances: if the presence of the public is likely to result in the authority breaching a legal obligation about the keeping of confidential information; and if the authority decides, by the passing of a resolution of its members, that exempt information—for example, information relating to the financial affairs of a particular person—would likely be disclosed.

The Conservative-led coalition Government made new regulations in 2014 to make it absolutely clear that a combined authority is required to allow any member of the public or press to take photographs, film, audio record and report on all public meetings. This openness helps to ensure that combined authorities are genuinely accountable to the local people they serve. It also ensures genuine transparency in this digital age, where our democracy can be enhanced by the use of social media and blogging to communicate widely and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, said, to capture the market that does not want to spend more than 30 seconds reading such matters.

These requirements apply equally to any committees or sub-committees of a combined authority, including any overview and scrutiny committees. Subsection (1)(a) of the proposed amendment refers to a meeting between a mayor and the relevant combined authority. I should clarify that the mayor will be a member of the combined authority—indeed, will be the chairman—so such a meeting would simply be a meeting of the combined authority and is covered by these rules. Similarly, a meeting of the leaders of a combined authority, if I understand the noble Lord’s meaning, will be a meeting of the members of a combined authority, who are most likely—although not always—to be the leaders of the constituent councils.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked about Schedule 3. This is an enabling provision which ensures that there is flexibility to decide which information can be appropriately disclosed or must be discussed. For example, certain information may be commercially confidential or contain sensitive personal information.

I hope that, with these reassurances, the noble Lord will agree to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, can the Minister explain what the Government plan to do if all the members of a combined authority are members of the same political party and hold informal pre-meetings prior to the meeting of the combined authority which is being held in public? Let us say that the meeting of the combined authority ends up being a short meeting and the private meeting beforehand ends up being a long one. What steps do the Government plan to take to deal with such situations should they arise?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord raises an important point, but it has always been thus—informal meetings between people are not obliged to be held in public. The point on transparency is that the decision-making has to be in public and the public can be there to see it. However, informal meetings have never been subject to those rules.

[Lord Shipley]

I thank the Minister for her reply. We may need to revisit this issue on Report but, for the time being, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 42A withdrawn.

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[Lord Beecham]

I am afraid that I am going to have to follow the usual ministerial procedure and say that I shall have to write to my noble friend. I do not have the information. I copied the report to my noble friend this morning and I think it runs to 163 pages. I do not have it immediately to hand, or anything big enough to contain it, but I will communicate with my noble friend.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for clarifying the wording of Amendment 44A: that it is about the growth of business-rates revenue. I was slightly disappointed that these two amendments were degrouped from the two amendments moved a moment ago by my noble friend Lady Janke, because they are all in the same area. They all relate to the question of whether we are dealing with decentralisation or with devolution. I have heard the Minister say that this Bill is primarily to do with decentralisation, but there is an overall context that is to do with devolution. However, I do not think that fiscal powers are about decentralisation where they can be varied from a national norm, so we are talking here about fiscal devolution.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, that this is set in the context partly of multiyear financial settlements, which I think all parties would benefit from, but also, crucially, of fair funding. It is therefore in part about the level of cuts that have been imposed on poor authorities, but it is also about the absolute level of funding. The issue of needs-based allocation will not go away, however much fiscal devolution we have, because even with the powers that we have set out in Amendments 43 and 44, there would clearly need to be some needs-based reassessment of the total sums involved. That is why, of course, Amendments 43 and 44 use “may” rather than “shall” in relation to the powers of the Secretary of State, as clearly there would need to be significant flexibility in those powers.