Non-Domestic Rating (Rates Retention and Levy and Safety Net) (Amendment) and (Levy Account Basis of Distribution) Regulations 2019

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Monday 18th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

The Minister will be grateful for paragraph 8.1 in the Explanatory Memorandum, which states:

“This instrument does not relate to withdrawal from the European Union”.


It is the first statutory instrument today that does not have that status. However, as the Minister said, it is technical but important.

I remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

I understand that this statutory instrument has to be brought forward every year to enable the rolling 75% business rates retention pilots to take place, which are now being extended to new areas for 2019-20. In that respect the SI is fine. As the Minister stated, it also allows for the new authorities being created out of reorganisation, such as Dorset, to levy business rates. Obviously that is essential. It allows for the return to councils of money which had previously been levied by central government through the business rates account. The total sum amounts to £180 million, which means that the Government will make themselves popular with those receiving it.

Although this is a technical SI, we should reflect that the basis of business rates is under question and under stress, not least because of the pressures on the retail sector. No doubt we shall have opportunities in the future to discuss that issue in greater depth. However, as the Minister said, this is a technical but important statutory instrument and it has our support.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my local government interests as vice-president of the LGA and as a councillor in Newcastle.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, referred to the present situation in respect of business rates. There is a bland assumption by the Government that there is a uniform approach to what can be raised locally, either by domestic rates or business rates, but that is not the position. The amounts that can be generated vary considerably between authorities and the Government have paid little attention to that disparity, in terms of either council tax or business rates.

The Government are making much of the £180 million they are going to restore to authorities. That is £100 million less than the loss that Newcastle City Council alone has sustained in grants from central government since 2010. It is a pitifully small amount and will make little difference to the efforts of local councils—of all political characters—to maintain local services. This is not a substantial change in favour of local government and the Government have to look again at the wider issues of funding a sector of the economy which has been substantially underfunded for the last eight years.

Construction Products (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I sympathise with the view of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, about the volume of statutory instruments that we have to consider, the lack of time to consider them and, thereby, the lack of time to do justice to them. I shall, nevertheless, comment on the statutory instrument. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has raised a number of crucial issues on the possibility of divergence to which we need to be alert.

As the Minister said, the statutory instrument is to come into force only if there is a no-deal outcome on 29 March. It aims to preserve the current outcomes—that is, properly licensed and tested construction products, tradeable without barriers across all 28 EU countries, as far as possible. However, the only one it can actually guarantee, it does: that any approved EU kitemarked products will continue to be recognised as compliant under UK law.

It gives the Secretary of State the power to set new UK standards for products in future, either those that are purely UK-tested or by simply adopting future EU standards. Given that up to a quarter of all components and materials used in construction are imported from the EU, it is clearly hugely in the interests of the UK industry to maintain common standards, and it is unlikely that it would ever welcome a divergence from whatever was the current EU standard. In practice, any UK manufacturer wanting a test certificate for a new product would want it to comply with the EU version of the testing and carry a kitemark, so that it was accepted across the EU and the UK thereafter, whereas there is no automatic right for our tests to be accepted across the Channel, limiting our export potential. Inevitably, the Government will have to set up a UK system, but in real life nobody will want to use it. It is therefore wrong to say that there is no impact and so no need for an impact assessment, although that is the conclusion the Government seem to have reached.

It is not that there are deficiencies in the drafting of the statutory instrument; it is yet another shocking example of the complete waste of time that all this work on no deal is producing—for the Government, for Parliament and for the industry. If, by any chance, there was no deal, the additional cost of setting up a system parallel to the EU which practically no one would ever volunteer to use is certainly not a minor matter. I hope that when he responds, the Minister will comment on that and, I hope, express his agreement with that conclusion.

I raise one further issue, which relates to the responsibility for enforcement before and after. It will lie with trading standards, mostly decimated by funding cuts. What estimate have the Government made of the increased workload for trading standards as a consequence of the introduction of the proposed new regime?

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I concur with many of the points made by preceding speakers about this process and this instrument as an example of the secondary legislation on which we are having to spend so much time.

In the light of the Grenfell disaster, the subject of these regulations assumes greater importance than might otherwise have been the case. It is therefore even more unsatisfactory that no impact assessment has been published. What assurances can the Minister give that, in the absence of a deal, there will continue to be comparisons for industry and the public as to the performance and safety of products from other countries? Will the Government ensure that EU regulations are constantly kept under review and that steps will be taken to ensure that our standards keep pace with increased safety considerations applied within the EU? In the absence of an impact assessment, has there been any conclusion on the potential cost to businesses as a result of the change? The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, made that point.

What will be the process for designating standards under the new regime? Will parliamentary scrutiny of such new or amended standards take place? If so, will that happen under the “made affirmative” procedure? What form of consultation will be applied? In particular, will the British Standards Institution remain a member of the European Committee for Standardization? The Explanatory Memorandum declares:

“Existing European harmonised standards will become UK ‘designated standards’”,


and will be “identical”. Is that to be a permanent position? If not, what timescale is anticipated within which they may be reviewed or changed? What cognisance will be taken of any changes in the EU standards during that period, and by what methods?

Finally, is it to be a requirement that manufacturers must affix a UK mark to products? If so, to what extent have the Government received assurances that such a mark will suffice to satisfy buyers in the European Union or elsewhere?

Tenant Fees Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 11th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, the Minister referred to what I said at Second Reading and he is entirely right. I welcome Amendments 3 and 4. They are hugely helpful because they give local housing authorities the flexibility they need to do their job properly, and for that reason they have our support.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, in supporting these government amendments. It certainly is an important function for local authorities. I have to confess—and I refer to my interest as a sitting local councillor—that I am not entirely sure where the funding for this comes from. Do the Government support this financially, or is it left entirely to local authorities? In the latter event, will he look into the extent to which authorities are financing this important element of support for tenants? We certainly support both amendments.

Newcastle Upon Tyne, North Tyneside and Northumberland Combined Authority (Establishment and Functions) Order 2018

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I refer to my interest as an elected councillor in Newcastle, and one who will be seeking re-election next May. Next Sunday will be the 14th anniversary of the referendum on the proposal at that time to create an elected regional authority for the north-east. Forty-eight per cent of the electorate cast their votes and, I am sorry to say, resoundingly rejected the idea by 77% to 23%. Disappointing as it was to those of us who saw in the concept a real opportunity to create a body capable of promoting the interests of the region as a whole, the result was not a great surprise. Local rivalries have never been confined to the football pitch.

In the mid-1960s, at a time when local radio was being promoted by the BBC, the then leader of Gateshead Council declared that nobody in Gateshead could possibly be interested in anything broadcast from Newcastle. In the mid-1990s I wrote a paper advocating the establishment of a north of England councils’ association, incorporating the counties of Northumberland, Durham, Cumbria and Tyne and Wear—the latter of which has since vanished—and their constituent city and district councils. Knowing that if such a proposition was seen to have emanated from Newcastle its prospects of success would have been negligible, I passed it to the then leader of Northumberland County Council, who circulated it without attributing its source. The association was accordingly established with Hugh Little of Cumbria as its first chairman. When Cumbria departed, it became the North East Assembly and when Tees Valley in turn departed, it became the Association of North East Councils.

It is unfortunate that the four councils south of the Tyne have so far declined to join the new combined authority—I should add that part of Northumberland is south of the river but will be within the boundaries of the new authority. I can understand some of their concerns. The new structure will be led by an elected mayor, a requirement imposed by the Government on all new combined authorities. Newcastle itself voted 62% to 38% against having an elected mayor when it was compelled to hold a referendum—for just the city itself—in 2012. This time, people are being denied a voice completely on that issue.

Moreover, the much-vaunted investment by the Government of £600 million over 30 years, which is all of £20 million a year shared between three councils, is frankly pitiful. Newcastle alone is facing cumulative cuts which, by next year, will amount to £280 million annually, and there is no suggestion from the Government that there will be any benefits flowing our way under any changes in the local government finance system. The same would apply to the neighbouring authorities.

There are, however, some promised changes which are welcome. These include local control of the budget for adult education, with enhanced powers to promote development, and a joint committee to manage public transport. Can the Minister say whether the latter will include a role in relation to rail transport, including the east coast line? Can he give any assurances about the future of the region’s airports? If, as has from time to time been suggested, the Scottish Government abolishes air passenger duty, will the region’s airports, and in particular Newcastle Airport, be able to follow suit?

On the housing front, I understand that the current chairman of Homes England is to chair a housing land board. Can the Minister explain how this will work in relation to the role of the councils in the provision of social housing? Will it be possible for the councils to provide more social housing for rent? Who will determine the size and nature of local housing provision and the provision of the necessary services for residents?

There are ambitious claims for job creation and new housing, with apparently 9,500 people to be helped into employment and 10,000 houses to be built. Can the Minister indicate over what period these goals are expected to be achieved? How many of the 10,000 homes will be provided respectively by local authorities, social housing providers and for sale?

Transport is an important issue for the whole region. It is to be hoped that both the new combined authority and the four councils which will remain from the existing authority will continue to work together through the joint transport committee.

The Metro, which serves Newcastle, North and South Tyneside, Gateshead and Sunderland, is a critical service covering all the authorities in the currently established set-up. There is clearly a potential to expand the service, not least to the west end of Newcastle, one of whose wards I represent. Will the department invest in this important area? It is a modest task in the light of the vast amounts being spent on Crossrail and HS2.

Will the Minister’s department put pressure on the Department for Transport to tackle the dreadful performance of the laughably misnamed TransPennine Express in the service between the north-east and the north-west, a more important project in the eyes of many of us than HS2?

The region is one of 10 bidding for funding from the £1.7 billion transforming cities fund. Six mayoral authorities have already shared £840 million. Given the problems facing the north-east, which are threatening to worsen after Brexit, it is vital that we secure investment of this kind. I understand we are looking for funding in the range of £50 million to £100 million. I hope the Minister will support our bid from the region.

There are some issues which cross the boundaries between the new combined authority and the four south of Tyne authorities. Two further education colleges, on either end, in effect, of the Tyne tunnel, are now combined. One will be in each of the two combined authorities hereafter and I am not clear what the implications of that will be. I do not know whether the noble Lord is in a position today to respond to that. He may need to consult the Department for Education. However, there will be services which cross the river, as it were, which will not apparently be affected directly by the new authority structure and there will have to be arrangements to deal with that.

It is similar in the National Health Service. We have, for example, a Newcastle and Gateshead clinical commissioning group which also crosses the boundary of what will be the two combined authorities. Is it envisaged that any change will be made in the NHS area, given the changing boundaries within local government and the important connection between local authorities’ social care provision and the NHS?

The justice system is another area which merits consideration, especially the probation service, which hopefully is to be restored as a single service in the light of the systemic failings of the split between probation and Chris Grayling’s community rehabilitation companies. Will the combined authority have oversight of both the custodial and probation services in its area and, indeed, of the court system, where court closures are having a serious impact on the working of the courts? It may well be that at least oversight of these areas could well be placed within the province of the new combined authority.

Many of us are hoping that, whatever doubts we may have about aspects of the changes in bodies in the order, they will help the region to address the serious problems it faces, constantly exemplified for me by the presence in the council ward that I have represented for the past 51 years of the busiest food bank in the country. I look forward to the evolution of a North East Combined Authority with the determination and resources to help transform the life chances of our citizens. I endorse the conclusion of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s report:

“It will be important that all involved keep under review the success of cooperation between the new mayoral Combined Authority and the other councils, against the objective identified by DCLG in 2014 of promoting more effectively economic growth and prosperity for the area concerned; and that the Government should be ready to adapt arrangements in the light of experience”.


We are in a period of change. There is real potential for improvements to be made, but it will not be enough simply to rely on that reorganisation, not least in relation to the necessary funding to address the very serious economic and social problems that the area faces. This is a step forward. There is still a long way to go to transform the life chances of people living in the north-east, and in particular in the area covered by these changes.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, in a debate. He reminded us of the history of devolution and of some of the current problems in public investment and governance across the wider north-east. I agree with him that this proposal is a step forward. He used the word “unfortunate” to describe the fact that the four councils south of the Tyne have refused to take part. I think I might have used a stronger word, but for the moment “unfortunate” will do. Indeed the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee said:

“Progress towards establishing a mayoral Combined Authority in this part of the North East has not been straightforward”.


Let us all agree with that. I have been very critical of this and of the failure of local councils across the wider combined authority area to speak with one voice. As the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee reminded us, key business stakeholders appear to view the latest proposal as a second-best option. It is the only option on the table. It is a second-best option, but the final sentence in the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s comment is,

“the Government should be ready to adapt arrangements in the light of experience”.

I very much hope that the Minister will be willing to confirm that that is exactly what the Government plan to do.

I support this proposal because I believe that the north of the Tyne should not be left behind because of the approach taken south of the Tyne. Indeed, there are powerful combined authorities elsewhere across the north of England that have mayors. They give focus to strategic planning and to the delivery of growth, jobs, higher education and skills standards. For that reason this proposal should be supported. It is a very great pity that the area to the south of the River Tyne decided not to take part.

The Minister referred to the transport arrangements. It is true that the current structure will remain in place. There will be a statutory joint authority to bring all the councils and passenger transport executives together on key issues. The seven local authorities are said to be confident that these arrangements will work. Well, they need to work. There will have to be an agreed clarity of purpose for the whole subregion, because this could come unstuck when a critical decision has to be made.

Rating (Property in Common Occupation) and Council Tax (Empty Dwellings) Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 4th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I was reminded by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and my noble friend Lady Pinnock that I did not declare when I spoke earlier that I am a vice-president of the LGA. For the completeness of the record, I do so now.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I will further add to that by declaring my own interests as a vice-president of the association, and also as a serving councillor in Newcastle. I rise to present the views of these Benches in the absence of my noble friend Lord Kennedy, who is en route to Birmingham for the Local Government Association conference.

I have had some experience of dealing with, or attempting to deal with, the problems of empty houses in the ward I represent in Newcastle. It has been impossible, eventually, either to persuade the owners to do the necessary work or, in one case, to acquire the property. While I certainly support the amendments before us, and I understand that they are likely to receive a reasonably warm response from the Minister, it occurs to me that perhaps the aspect of acquiring properties is a matter that should be given further consideration. It is an alternative approach that might well result in a quicker resolution of the problem, and enable the availability of a usable home, than simply collecting money by way of an incentive, as it were, for owners to do something, which may not be all that effective. I would be grateful if the Minister would indicate whether the Government will look again at the powers of local authorities to acquire in these circumstances, and whether these need to be enhanced, particularly in terms of the timescale involved. On the ground, it would probably make a greater difference than these measures, welcome though they are as an additional arm in trying to deal with this situation, which is, at a time of housing shortage, really quite disgraceful and should not be tolerated.

Regulation of Social Housing (Influence of Local Authorities) (England) Regulations 2017

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, first, I remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I thank the Minister for his explanation of this draft instrument. He referred to the Green Paper. I think that I recall his words correctly when I say that the consultation that the Minister for Housing has been undertaking is helping to frame that Green Paper. Perhaps, in summing up, the Minister will tell us when the paper will be published.

I concur with what the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, said about the need to build more homes, and in particular more social homes. Specifically, these regulations will not improve the accountability of housing associations, as he said—but, on the other hand, as the Minister has confirmed, only around 100 are affected directly. It is, however, a weakness in these regulations that no formal consultation was carried out with tenants. That has been identified by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in its response to the statutory instrument. The problem is that tenants used to be council tenants, and they voted for a stock transfer in the expectation that the council would have a significant role. That role is now being reduced to 24%. As a consequence of that governance change, it would have been right to have consulted with tenants.

As the Minister explained, the regulation is being introduced to meet the decision of the Office for National Statistics to reclassify private-registered providers as public bodies, partly because of the powers of the Homes and Communities Agency and partly because of the residual role of local authorities. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, pointed out, none of this builds new homes. It is, essentially, a governance issue. What is missing from the draft statutory instrument is any explanation as to why debt from building council housing should be treated as public sector debt anyway. This governance problem would disappear if the Treasury were prepared to define all local authority borrowing as off balance sheet.

The Prime Minister announced at the Conservative Party conference that on social housing it was her,

“mission to solve this problem”.

The Prime Minister will do so only if local authorities are freed up to borrow and that borrowing is treated, as it is in other countries, not as part of public sector net debt. That is a British measure only. In other EU countries, public corporations are excluded from the general government gross debt figure—the main international measure of debt—in which council housing is classified not as part of government but as a public corporation. An exemption in the UK specifically for council and social housing from the current British measure would comply with international measures of debt. If the Government undertook that change, it would enable more homes to be built and, in particular, more social homes. Therefore, I want to ask the Minister very specifically: why do Treasury rules not reflect international conventions on how debt is counted? If we change the convention, which we are perfectly entitled to do, it would enable those extra social homes to be built.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I endorse wholeheartedly the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, my erstwhile sparring partner in Newcastle City Council. He is absolutely right to draw attention to the anomalous position in which public expenditure on housing is treated. It is not, after all, a matter of creating debt; it is a matter of creating assets. Admittedly, the value of those assets is somewhat eroded by the right-to-buy at a ridiculous discount provisions, but nevertheless it is real. I do not see why the Government should refrain from adopting the noble Lord’s advice and getting this off the balance sheet completely.

On the mechanics of the operation, there is a curious figure of 24%. I do not know quite how you calculate 24% on, say, a board of 15—do you go up one or down one?—because it is a difficult figure and not quite a quarter. No doubt there is some obscure legal justification for having it at marginally less than 25%. I invite the Minister to say that associations should not be precluded from having in attendance at the meeting and participating in the meeting, but without a vote, more representatives of the local authority.

I repeat that they should not have the right to vote, but should have the right on behalf of the residents of the authority of which they are a member to ask questions, raise issues and perhaps make suggestions. Again, I repeat that they would not have the right to vote. Would that not be a sensible way of strengthening the local authority’s role in relation to the issue?

Non-Domestic Rating (Rates Retention) and (Levy and Safety Net) (Amendment) Regulations 2017

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Monday 20th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I must first apologise to the Minister for missing the first minute of his speech; I hope it was not full of fresh information that I ought to be aware of. As far as I am concerned, and I think the same goes for my noble friend, there is no particular objection to these regulations. It is interesting, however, to hear about the proposed pilot schemes—I suspect that the good citizens of Surrey will be waiting with bated breath to see whether they will be included in the pilot scheme. Although the Minister cannot indicate the outcome of ongoing discussions with other authorities, perhaps he can tell us when a decision will be made.

Part of the problem faced by authorities, and by the Government themselves, is the delay in this revaluation—I think it should have occurred in 2015. Will the Minister tell us whether it will be possible to decide on and then stick to a regular period for revaluation? The longer the gap, the greater the impact appears to be, and that is certainly part of the current reaction.

There is also a real problem, not dealt with in these regulations, about the appeals process. The Local Government Association—I remind the House, such as it is, of my local government interests—points out that there have been more than a million appeals from business rate properties since 2010, and 200,000 of those appeals are still waiting to be decided. This has led councils to hold back £2.5 billion in reserves in case they have to meet their 50% share in respect of refunds; 50% is payable by councils and 50% is payable by the Government. The system is clearly creaking around what it is capable of resolving in relation to the appeals system. I wonder whether the Government will look at that system and at the funding that is required to be put in place when there are appeals.

Finally, one of the reactions to the announcement was to point out the strange apparent outcome that very large operations such as Amazon and Sports Direct, with their massive out-of-town sheds, get a very low business rate, whereas the shop on the corner and the pub in the middle of town pay a disproportionately high amount relative to those very large concerns. Are the Government looking at that anomaly and, if so, when will it be resolved? It certainly concerns anybody living in a city area, where business rates income will now be crucial to the services that the authorities can provide, and yet these large institutions, mainly outside urban areas, will both compete with those in our towns and cities and themselves have very little to pay by way of business rates. That anomaly should surely be addressed.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I too am a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

The context of these regulations is one in which there is an increasing lack of confidence in the sustainability of local government finance over coming years. There are several reasons for this, which have been well documented. It is partly about rising demand and it is partly about reducing income. However, there is no doubt that there is simply not enough money to do all the things that local government needs to do.

Despite declining income, however, business rates have not been reducing, and they are very high in international terms. They have become a major burden for many small businesses, even for some that will gain from the revaluation. The situation has become acute for many high street shops and pubs. Competition through internet purchasing from retailers not in shopping centres and that have lower business rate bills has become a major source of concern.

It is true, as the Government keep reminding us, that this revaluation is revenue neutral overall. Three-quarters of businesses will not pay more, but that means, of course, that one-quarter will pay quite a bit more. I acknowledge that there are transitional arrangements, and they will be important. However, the revaluation still means very high bills for some.

Thirty years ago we had a local domestic tax, a local business rate and a revenue support grant from central government, with a strong needs-based element in the government grant regime. I think that that needs assessment is now in danger of being inadequately reflected in government thinking. Much has changed since business rates were nationalised almost 30 years ago, but one thing has not: need remains in both absolute and relative terms and should be fully reflected in government policy.

I draw the Minister’s attention to a comparison that I think is important, between corporation tax and business rates. Business rates raise around £28 billion and corporation tax raises around £43 billion. Corporation tax is being reduced to 17% by 2020, and in my view that reduction cannot be justified when business rates could be made lower. I think that the continued reduction of corporation tax helps bigger businesses—those that pay corporation tax—but smaller businesses that pay business rates but not corporation tax are getting a higher bill as a consequence of their exposure to business rates.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, as we start Third Reading, I declare my vice-presidency of the Local Government Association. The Minister said that this was a better Bill for the work of this Chamber and I concur entirely. The value of the revising nature of this Chamber has been demonstrated in the work that took place in Committee and on Report. I pay tribute to the Minister and his officials for their willingness to meet and to listen, and for the courtesy they showed. The outcome is a much better and stronger Bill than when it came to this House. I learned from the debates we had that there is an appetite from all parts of this House to promote neighbourhood planning. There is a sense of common purpose about that which I strongly welcome.

I said at an earlier stage in the Bill that we need a plain English guide to the planning system which the general public could relate to. The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, talked about the flow chart which will all be very helpful. Indeed, on the departmental website there is a plain English guide to the planning system in general terms. I am looking here for a plain English guide to the Bill which will become a practitioners’ guide as opposed simply to a plain English guide explaining what the Bill is about. It should go into much more detail than we currently have. I notice that the Minister talked about the plans of the RICS to create further briefing materials for the examiner of a neighbourhood plan. I welcome that but if we are seriously to promote neighbourhood planning and achieve many more areas, particularly urban ones, engaging with the process, a practitioners’ guide would be extremely helpful.

Amendments 1 and 5 are very helpful and reflect the discussions we had in Committee and on Report. I too pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, for all her work in this area. The Minister talked about her generosity with her time and that is absolutely right. The amount of time and effort that went into convincing the Ministers, their colleagues and officials that this really is important has borne fruit. These two amendments bring the process of neighbourhood planning closer to those devising a neighbourhood plan. The noble Baroness talked about the planning system being rigid, and indeed it is. There are good reasons why that is the case in terms of challenges but, equally, it needs to be a system that is understood by all those trying to engage with the process. In Amendments 1 and 5 we have the publication of a draft report by the examiner and the potential for meetings to be held about that draft. This is a major step forward and I welcome it.

I have two further points. First, there is the timing of the regulations. The noble Baroness asked about that and it is very important that we get some sense of when it is likely to be. The Minister talked about the consultation on the White Paper and the outcome of that. The consultation on the White Paper is due to end at the beginning of May but we tend to find that there is then a long period—several months—before something happens. Of course, this will be going over the summer period as well so it could be even longer than that. I think I interpreted from the Minister’s words —which included the word “swiftly”—that it is going to be faster than that. I very much hope that it will be, because so many of the helpful things that are being proposed in the White Paper need to be got on with as soon as possible. I hope that there will be a timetable that will speed up the process.

We have not quite finished Third Reading, but I want to say that the process of examining this Bill and getting it to the point where it is in a strong form to pass Third Reading is down to a great deal of effort by a large number of people. I pay tribute in particular to the Ministers, the noble Lords, Lord Bourne and Lord Young, for their support for this process, which has been hugely appreciated.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I join the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, in paying tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, for her very thoughtful and constructive—and somewhat exhaustive —approach to the deliberations on the Bill. It has been a pleasure to work with both the Ministers, but particularly, if I may say so, with the noble Lord, Lord Bourne. I make that point having discovered recently that he, like me, is a great fan of Leicester City; in my case, it is my second team. I rather hope we might be playing in the same league next season and I hope that will be the Premiership. In that event, perhaps the noble Lord would care to accompany me to a match, when naturally Newcastle will expect to beat my other team.

The substantive issue this afternoon is not the fate of either of those teams but the drawing to conclusion of the Bill. It has been a pleasure to work in such a constructive way with both Ministers, but principally, on the major part of the Bill, with the noble Lord, Lord Bourne. He has listened carefully and been very constructive in his approach. Indeed, the whole experience has been a vast improvement on the dreadful time we had with the Housing and Planning Act last year. That is no reflection at all on the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, who struggled mightily to retain her sanity and promote ours during the course of that legislation.

I have one or two questions about Amendment 1. Proposed new sub-paragraph (3)(d) says that a meeting should be held following the issuing of invitations, which are outlined in proposed new sub-paragraph (3)(c). Is that a meeting with an individual, or is it envisaged as a public meeting in which other interested parties would be involved? There might be a number of people who make submissions; there might be only one or two. Would that meeting be just with those who make the contact, or will it be on a broader basis? The definition of “persons” is slightly mysterious. It talks about,

“the qualifying body … the local planning authority”—

that is obvious—

“and ... such other persons as may be prescribed”.

Can the Minister indicate what is envisaged by that rather muffled description?

Then there is the question of the regulations. Will the regulations themselves be subject to consultation? The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, referred to consultation. Will the specific regulations in relation to this amendment be subject to consultation in the way that the Minister has described generally the consultation which will take place on other matters?

Having said that, and while I wait with anticipation to hear the Minister’s response, again I congratulate him and the noble Lord, Lord Young, on the way they have conducted this matter. I look forward to that degree of co-operation continuing over the secondary legislation that will follow. It is very important that the Bill should go forward into practice in a way that, frankly, we have not yet seen adequately with the Housing and Planning Act 2016. I hope that we can learn from that experience and carry the Bill forward in the constructive way that Members of all sides have sought to treat it.

Homelessness Reduction Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Order of Commitment discharged (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 10th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall be uncharacteristically brief at this late stage. I congratulate the noble Lord and the Government on proceeding with the Bill. It is very welcome. However, I hope that the noble Lord will take the opportunity after the Bill passes, which undoubtedly it will, to raise a couple of points with the Government—not immediately, perhaps. The Delegated Powers Committee published a report this week which, at paragraph 18, on the code of practice, raises a point about the method of revising the codes. I am not expecting any kind of formal response today, but perhaps the noble Lord will look at that. Perhaps he can also, in a relatively short time, invite the Government to say how they are going to approach reviewing the £61 million funding in the light of the possible increase in homelessness arising from the housing benefit issue which has been so controversial this week. I am not expecting the Minister or the noble Lord, Lord Best, to reply today, but those two points should be looked at in the next period.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

I add our thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Best, for all his work on the Bill, which has been appreciated within Parliament and outside it. It shows that the amount of work done prior to the presentation of a Bill in the other place and here reaps rewards, because the Bill is very sound. I pay tribute to the work done on this by the noble Lord, Lord Best, which has got us to the position we are now in.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 28th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, this speech will be shorter than that given by the noble Lord, Lord Young, and this speaker is, of course, somewhat shorter than him. I congratulate him on incorporating the two amendments which I had intended to move, Amendments 59 and 60, although I note that there was no attribution in his speaking on the matters which substantially cover them. Nevertheless, I am grateful to him for his clear exposition of all these amendments, for the adoption of the two that I would have spoken to and for clearly listening to the comments, criticisms and suggestions from around the House. I am happy to endorse those matters and I will not move the amendments in my name.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for all that he said about compulsory purchase, both temporary and non-temporary. I think that his comments demonstrate the role of scrutiny and the value of this Chamber. I had a great deal to say on compulsory purchase in Committee but now I have virtually nothing at all to say because the matter has been resolved. It demonstrates the importance of talking with expert practitioners. Perhaps I should also repeat what I said in Committee about the large number of government amendments regarding compulsory purchase although the Bill had come to us from the House of Commons as a finished Bill. In this respect at least—but also on the planning side, as we know—it did not merit the status of a finished Bill. However, I am grateful to the Minister and his colleagues in the department for all the work that they have done. As far as I am concerned, we now have a Bill—assuming that all the amendments are adopted—that will make the statutory position a great deal clearer. I shall say something further when we come on to the question of Henry VIII powers, because some powers will still apply to this part of the Bill. For the moment, however, I have nothing further to add.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the Minister for the proposed changes. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has said what I was going to say and I will not repeat it. The change of wording in the amendment is significant because, as he indicated, it is no longer the case that the Secretary of State has the power to consider something “appropriate”. Rather, he can make provision in consequence of any provision in this part of the Bill. This is much better. Henry VIII powers should never have been applied to the planning chapters of the Bill.

I said earlier that compulsory purchase is indeed complicated and I accept that consequential provision may be needed, which can be taken quickly if there is found to be a further flaw in the legislation that Parliament passes. That said, I seek the Minister’s confirmation that the wording now being used in relation to compulsory purchase is the standard wording used in other Bills. It has been said that there is a power in recent planning Acts for Ministers to make consequential provision. We need to be clear about that and that we are not doing something in the amendment that has not been in any other Bill or Act. I understand that to be the position but would be keen to hear the Minister confirm that there is nothing unusual in the wording of the amendment.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the Minister and, indeed, in congratulating him on these substantive changes, which are ultimately, I suppose, a concession to the powerful arguments advanced, in particular by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and other Members across the House.

It would have been good to see a similar approach from Ministers when we discussed the Housing and Planning Bill at great length last year. It is not a personal criticism of them; the Minister at that time, the noble Baroness, was not allowed to move in the direction in which Ministers on this Bill have been able to move, which I very much welcome.

For clarification, may I assume that my Amendments 71 and 75 are effectively covered by the welcome amendments that the Government have brought forward? That is right, and that is a repetition in the case of the previous amendments. However, I am not entirely clear about Amendment 67 in my name, which requires the Secretary of State to consult the Welsh Ministers before making regulations under Section 38. That proposal was dismissed on the previous occasion, although it had been a matter of strong concern to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, to which the Government’s official response was extremely negative. I do not know whether the Minister can offer any assurance that, whether or not is contained in the amendment, the Government will consult Welsh Ministers. There was rather a general statement that this happens automatically. The purpose of including it in the Bill was to make sure that more than just custom and practice would apply in this case. It would therefore be helpful if the Minister indicated whether the government amendments cover my amendment or, in the event that they do not, whether he will again confirm explicitly that there will be consultation with Welsh Ministers before making regulations under Section 38. It would be preferable to include that in the Bill but, at the very least, a ministerial assurance would carry some weight. In those circumstances, if that were the position, I would withdraw my amendment.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Thursday 23rd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, this is the second last amendment to Clause 7. It is striking that in a piece of legislation called the Neighbourhood Planning Bill only seven pages out of 49 relate to neighbourhood planning. Perhaps at Third Reading the noble Lord might care to move that the title of the Bill should be somewhat different, because most of it relates to a wider issue.

Having said that, Amendment 5 proposes that a series of issues should be reflected in development plan documents. In Committee, the Minister stated that all these matters are covered by the National Planning Policy Framework, but in fact they are not. There is no mention in the NPPF of social housing, although the word “affordability” comes into it, and there is no mention at all of education, so in that respect the noble Lord was mistaken.

In any event, I argue that it would be sensible to include within the development plan specific reference to these requirements. Members of the public will not be terribly familiar with the National Planning Policy Framework, and I venture to think that some Members of your Lordships’ House—including, I confess, me—are not necessarily fully au fait with its provisions. What is the problem with setting out in what is to be a local document the matters that ought to be considered and then dealing with them? That seems a perfectly sensible way to go forward. I hope the noble Lord will reflect on that and agree that, after all, it makes some sense.

I also want to speak to Amendment 8, which deals with two-tier authorities—a county council and a district council. The object of the amendment is to try to ensure that there is a good working relationship between the two authorities. Where a district council does not carry out its planning responsibilities, it is perfectly reasonable for the Secretary of State to have the power to invite the county council to get involved. However, the amendment sets out some conditions relating to that and, in particular, will protect the lower-tier planning authority provided it can demonstrate that it is dealing adequately and efficiently with the timetable for the preparation of the plan. Conversely, if it requires another planning authority to become involved, the provisions of the amendment will not be invoked.

I think we have to tread somewhat carefully around the relationships in two-tier authorities. I hope that the Minister will accept that the amendment will assist better relationships by ensuring that the position of the district council will be respected unless it demonstrates a failure to respond adequately to the requirements of the situation. I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I support Amendment 5, which contains an admirable list of the documents that a development plan should cover.

I shall speak to Amendments 7, 8 and 8A. Amendments 7 and 8A relate to the same issue in Clause 9 and Schedule 2. We had a longish discussion in Committee about the capacity of a county council to undertake the planning function where it was felt that a district council had not been fulfilling its obligations. I have thought very carefully about this and have concluded that Amendment 8, which stands in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and to which support has been given by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, seems a reasonable compromise. It provides a procedure that can be followed and it would probably command broad support in the country. Therefore, I hope very much that the Minister will feel able to accept Amendment 8, or at least come back at Third Reading with something similar.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 8th February 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Shipley]

I shall speak also to Amendments 68, 72 and 73. This group is the first of several about the procedures to be followed by an authority taking temporary possession of land. Current legislation permits only permanent compulsory purchase. As an example of what I think the Government are intending, we could take the building of a bridge. There may be a permanent compulsory purchase order for the bridge itself with a temporary compulsory purchase order for the building compound to store equipment and materials for the period of the building works.

This group of amendments relates to Clause 14. Other groups will follow which address further issues around temporary possession. For the avoidance of doubt, I state that all the amendments in my name are probing amendments to help to improve and clarify the meaning of the Bill. I thank the Compulsory Purchase Association for its advice on what I shall say on this group and on later groups.

Clause 14 sets out the power for acquiring authorities to take temporary possession of land if they could otherwise be authorised to acquire interest in that land permanently, but it could also be an opportunity to codify various statutory instruments authorising temporary possession, and it may prove beneficial for powers of temporary possession—for example, for post-construction inspection and correction of minor defects—to be incorporated. Can the Minister confirm whether codification that would provide a single process for temporary possession might be introduced? Amendment 65 substitutes a new subsection which makes it clear that a single code is envisaged.

There are several government amendments in this group, but at present I think that the wording of the four amendments in my name in this group is more suited to the ambition of the proposed change. Amendment 68 contains words which may not be needed, and I would appreciate the Minister’s guidance on that. Amendment 72 clarifies and emphasises that temporary possession of land need not be taken compulsorily but can be by agreement. Perhaps that needs to be emphasised. Amendment 73 explains the rights and responsibilities of an acquiring authority and proposed paragraph (c) protects the rights of tenants, particularly where a tenant maintains an intention to resume occupation when the acquiring authority ceases temporary possession. I am very happy to listen to the Minister’s response and to look at this again when the government amendments have been incorporated in the Bill, and so I am happy to wait for Report before speaking further on this group. I beg to move.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 69 and 75. They are pretty much self-explanatory. The former simply requires that guidance should be provided when there are temporary rights that can be granted at the same time over the same piece of land. Amendment 75 is rather more important because it provides that the section should not come into force until guidance has been published in relation to it. I assume that is the Government’s intention, and I hope they will accept that amendment.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the co-pilot is back in charge. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham, for tabling their amendments to Clause 14. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, made it clear that his amendment was probing. Before I move on to discuss these and the government amendments to this clause, it may be helpful if I begin with a brief description of Clauses 14 to 26, which introduce the new temporary possession power.

All acquiring authorities may need to enter and use land for a temporary period. For example, they may require land to store materials for a scheme or to provide access to a construction site, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, explained. The problem is that, currently, only certain acquiring authorities have temporary possession powers—for example, under special Acts which are needed for very large schemes such as the Crossrail Act 2008. Crucially, compulsory purchase orders cannot authorise temporary possession. There is no good reason for this difference, and it is unfair to those who do not have the powers. Clauses 14 to 26 seek to create a level playing field by giving all acquiring authorities the same power to take temporary possession of land. It may also be in the interests of those on the receiving end of a CPO to have the possibility of being deprived of their land temporarily rather than permanently.

In giving acquiring authorities this power, we shall ensure that those whose land is taken are fairly compensated and that there are appropriate safeguards in place to protect their interests. That is set out in Clause 19. For example, temporary possession will have to be authorised in the same way as compulsory acquisition. Also, in certain circumstances, owners and occupiers will be able to require the acquiring authority to acquire the land permanently instead of occupying it on a temporary basis, if that is what they want.

Government Amendments 66, 67, 70, 71, 74 with Amendments 105 and 106 and amendments to other clauses, which I shall deal with later, remove the requirement for the temporary possession to be linked directly to a scheme for the acquisition of other land either by compulsion or agreement. Decoupling is the word that the professionals have been using. The reason for this change is that there may be situations where an acquiring authority needs to take only temporary possession of land. For example, an acquiring authority may need temporary possession of land for a contractor’s compound when they have been able to buy all the land needed for their scheme by agreement, or they may need access to land temporarily to maintain a highway. That is the impact of some of our amendments.

Government Amendments 105 and 106 are consequential on Amendment 66; they simply remove definitions of terms that are no longer required. Non-government Amendments 65, 68 and 72, which were tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, also seek to remove the requirement for the temporary possession to be directly linked to a compulsory acquisition scheme. I hope, therefore, that he will agree they are unnecessary in the light of the Government’s amendments.

On Amendment 69, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Beecham and Lord Kennedy, I agree with the noble Lord that we need to ensure that the interests of leaseholders are adequately protected in introducing this new power. However, I believe that that amendment is not needed, because we have already built in a safeguard which would deliver the same outcome that is requested, but in a more flexible way.

Amendment 69 would restrict the temporary possession power so that it could never be used when a leasehold interest would have less than a year to run after the land was handed back, even if that was the preference of the leaseholder, the freeholder and the acquiring authority. It sounds counterintuitive to prohibit that. The effect of this amendment would be that, if the land was essential to the delivery of the scheme, the acquiring authority would instead be driven to exercising the more draconian power of compulsory acquisition of the land permanently. However, as I have said, we have already built in a safeguard for leaseholders, which I believe will achieve the outcome that noble Lords are seeking. The safeguard is in Clause 17(3), which allows leaseholders to serve a counternotice preventing the acquiring authority taking temporary possession of the land. On receipt of the counternotice, if the land is essential to the delivery of the scheme, the acquiring authority can proceed as if the land were subject to compulsory acquisition and take the land permanently. In these circumstances, the leaseholder would, of course, be compensated for both the value of his lease and losses caused by reason of being disturbed from possession of the land taken. I believe this is a neater solution, which gives leaseholders the flexibility to decide what is right for them.

Amendment 73, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, seeks to clarify what will happen when a tenant’s land is subject to compulsory purchase. As government Amendment 103 seeks to do the same thing—although our approach is different—I will speak to both amendments together. Government Amendment 103 provides that the terms and obligations under the tenancy, with the exception of the payment of rent and the length of the tenancy, will be disapplied to the extent that the temporary possession prevents reasonable compliance with them. Any expenditure which a leaseholder incurs as a result of the temporary possession would be claimed back from the acquiring authority. The noble Lord’s amendment, in contrast, provides that all the terms and obligations are unenforceable for the period of temporary possession.

The reason we have disapplied the terms and obligations only to the extent that the temporary possession prevents reasonable compliance with them is that there may be circumstances in which only a small part of land subject to a lease is also subject to temporary possession. In these situations, there may be no easy way in which to separate out the terms that relate to the land subject to temporary possession from terms that relate to the remainder of the land.

The second point of difference is the exclusion of the payment of rent and the length of the tenancy. We have done this because, again, where only a small part of a tenant’s land is required, making these terms unenforceable could result in a tenant having to pay an uncertain portion of the rent for the land not subject to temporary possession. The loss that would be compensated is not the rent payable for the existing lease, but any rent payable for alternative premises, as that is the loss that has been caused. Under the Government’s amendment, responsibility for paying the rent for the land under temporary possession remains with the tenant. However, the tenant will be entitled to claim compensation from the acquiring authority in relation to any expenditure which a leaseholder reasonably incurs as a result of the temporary possession.

The other point of difference with the noble Lord’s amendment is to do with proposed subsections (4) to (6), which make provision with regards to those who have protected tenancies under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. Occupiers with such a protected tenancy have a right to apply for the grant of a new tenancy, provided they remain in occupation. However, if their land is subject to temporary possession they will no longer be in occupation and will lose this right. Government Amendment 103 and non-government Amendment 73 both seek to preserve this right to renew the tenancy. However, in doing so, the government amendment imposes a requirement for the tenant to confirm in writing to both the landlord and the acquiring authority that they intend to resume occupation after temporary possession. I think it is clear that both amendments are after the same thing: greater clarity for tenants and landlords as to what happens during the temporary possession period, including the treatment of rent.

Finally, in this group, I will respond to Amendment 75, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. The noble Lord made a very valid point, which I entirely agree with, that where the Government intend to provide guidance on the use of a new power, that guidance should be available by the time the provisions come into force. That is, of course, the Government’s intention. The particular element of the temporary possession provisions that the noble Lord has identified is in Clause 15(3)(a), which will allow both temporary possession and compulsory acquisition powers to be obtained concurrently for the same piece of land.

Although this so-called doubling-up of temporary and permanent powers can be authorised, it will not give acquiring authorities carte blanche to double up in all cases. It would not be fair to claimants if there was not a very good reason for an acquiring authority to make an order which included this doubling-up. It would not be wise to anticipate precisely what might be in the guidance at this point, but as I have just said, there would be a high bar to justify doubling-up. The most likely circumstances would be linear transport projects where the final design is not complete by the time compulsory powers are obtained. We know of a handful of orders in the last dozen years where this has been authorised, such as the Docklands Light Railway and the Nottingham tramway.

As for compulsory acquisitions, each case would be considered on its individual merits at a public inquiry before an inspector, and considered by the relevant Secretary of State, before a decision was made whether doubling-up was justified in the public interest.

I hope that I have been able to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, with a firm undertaking that the Government will be seeking views on the draft guidance and will publish it before these provisions come into force. I apologise to the Committee for a somewhat lengthy oration on these amendments, but there are quite a few of them. When the time comes, I will move government Amendments 66, 67, 70, 71, 74, 103, 105 and 106. In the meantime, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw Amendment 65 and for noble Lords not to press Amendments 68, 69, 72, 73 and 75.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 95, I will also speak to Amendments 96, 97 and 102. Clause 19 makes provision in respect of the payment of compensation to those who suffer loss or injury as a result of the exercise of powers of temporary possession, but there are concerns about a number of subsections in the clause. Amendment 95 addresses Clause 19(2), which provides a person—the “claimant”—with an entitlement to compensation in respect of,

“any loss or injury the claimant sustains as a result”.

I have two points here. First, would it not be better to replace “injury” with “damage”? Is there a legal reason why the word injury is used? Damage is of course more wide-ranging. Secondly, should the subsection be redrafted to make it clear that the loss or damage—or perhaps injury—must have been sustained as a result of the temporary possession of the land? The amendment would bring the drafting into line with the usual form adopted in clauses relating to compensation for the temporary possession of land, which typically state that the loss, injury or damage must have resulted from the exercise of the powers—I refer in particular to the Crossrail Act 2008. In addition, are those subsections still needed, given that other amendments are being proposed?

Amendment 97 refers to Clause 19(7), which is intended to clarify that, for the purposes of the statutory limitation period, time will not begin to run until the expiry of the last day of the temporary possession period. I understand that the Bill originally sought to achieve this objective by stating that a “claim for compensation” would “accrue on the last day of the temporary possession period”. The Compulsory Purchase Association’s view is that the original drafting would have caused problems, but that the revised drafting is not complete. The original drafting would have left claimants exposed to a potential argument that, because the claim was stated not to accrue until that time for the purposes of Section 9 of the Limitation Act 1980, they also had no cause of action enabling them to claim for compensation or refer the matter to a tribunal at any earlier time. Thus, in cases where temporary possession is to last a number of years, it could result in claimants having to bear losses without compensation for a number of years, which seems unfair.

The government amendment is intended to address that problem, but it may still permit an argument that, if the cause of action is to be treated as accruing on the last day of the temporary possession period for the purposes of the Limitation Act, notwithstanding that it would otherwise be regarded as accruing before or during the temporary possession period, the cause of action should also be regarded as accruing at that later time for other purposes, including the making of a claim or reference.

The advice that I have received is that an addition should be made to the subsection to confirm that the deemed accrual applies for the purpose of the Limitation Act alone. As such, I am advised that my drafting for Clause 19(7) helps to avoid doubt. The amendment states:

“for all other purposes a claim will accrue as the possible damages suffered as a claimant is not precluded from making a claim pursuant to subsection (2) prior to the last day of that period”.

I understand the complexity of this, and that the Minister may want to respond in writing; the 34 government amendments this afternoon reveal that this is a complex matter. I am not necessarily looking to the Minister to reply to this now. I just hope that before we get to Report, the matter can be clarified so that we have a Bill that is clear in its meaning and will not end up being challenged in the courts. I beg to move.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, speaking as a lawyer, although happily not practising, I see no need to amend the term “injury” to “damage”. Legally, injury embraces damage of all kinds. I would not go to extremes to defend the Government on this or any other occasion, but if the Minister felt disinclined to accept the amendment, I would not dissent from his judgment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Shipley]

I tried to add my name to this clause stand part Motion but unfortunately the queue was too long and I was not able to. I understand that mistakes can be made and need to be rectified. I again draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that we have, on day one of Committee, had 34 government amendments to a Bill which has passed to us from the other place. That shows that Bills have to be drafted better so that we do not end up with people wanting to change them because the right level of thought was not put in to them in the first place. In her emphasis on neighbourhood planning, the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, had it absolutely right—a clause of this kind in a Bill to do with neighbourhood planning, which can, in effect, put a coach and horses through any aspect of it, is unacceptable. I hope that the Minister understands that, and I very much hope that this clause will not survive beyond Committee.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, there is a certain irony in a Henry VIII clause applying to Wales, given that the Tudor monarchy was based on Welsh lineage. I am also reminded of the lines of TS Eliot in The Hollow Men:

“This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper”.

The Bill is ending in the reverse order. We have had a generally mild and constructive discussion for the past four days in Committee, but we end with something of a bang, because if the Government stick to their position, what is being perpetrated in the clause will lead to significant disagreement.

It is particularly important that the Government should listen to advice from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. Others of us have our own views—we perhaps have a political approach, even those of us who are lawyers of a senior vintage, if I may put it that way. To hear the noble and learned Lord’s critique must surely give the Government pause for thought. It is simply unacceptable to insist on a procedure that leaves so much power in the hands of the Government effectively to ignore the obligations which ought to apply in relation to the Welsh Assembly, in this case, but in general to the operation of secondary legislation. In the few years that I have been here, that has time and again been shown to be defective as a mechanism for sustaining proper parliamentary consideration at the appropriate time of important measures with significant implications for various aspects of public policy.

I hope that the Minister will take this back and respond constructively, or secure permission to do so, to the views of this Committee and those of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and, it appears—for I had not noticed its report—to take the views of the Constitution Committee into account. Obviously, he cannot give us any firm commitments tonight but I hope that, after consulting his colleagues, he will be able to satisfy the House by indicating that. Otherwise, it will undoubtedly have to go to Report and, if necessary, a vote at Report. I hope that we can avoid that because, on the whole, the Bill has proceeded in a fairly consensual way. Most of us have endeavoured to work with the grain of the Government’s policy. It would be a shame if that were in contrast with a rigid decision to stick with very unsatisfactory drafting right at the end of the Bill.

West of England Combined Authority Order 2017

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, this part of the country owes a great deal to Conservative Governments. This is the third local government reorganisation that the Conservative Government have effectively imposed on the area in the last 40 years. We had the creation of Avon County Council in 1974, its abolition and replacement with a number of unitary authorities, and now we have the combined authority, while in addition of course we have an elected mayor in Bristol. It is an interesting case of an area being subjected to a number of experiments in local government.

As the Minister may have said, although I did not quite catch a reference to it, one council, North Somerset, ultimately declined to be part of the new organisation. It is interesting that the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has reported in some detail on the outcome of such consultation as did take place in the remaining three authorities. Bristol is a large and historic city with a population of around 400,000, and we also have South Gloucestershire and Bath and North East Somerset, with a total population of what I imagine probably runs to about 800,000 people, of whom something fewer than 1,700 responded to the consultation exercise—with rather different views. In Bath and North East Somerset, of those who did respond a small majority disagreed with the proposal to go ahead with the combined authority, but of course they were outvoted because the vote had been taken across the whole area by residents from Bristol and South Gloucestershire. In one sense there was a legitimate majority among the very small proportion of the electorate who voted.

This agreement is rather different from those we have discussed previously which have gone beyond the basic economic functions referred to here. There is definitely a good case for putting them together in any given area. In Greater Manchester, people are looking at health and social care as well as a whole range of issues that go further along the devolutionary model than this. However, I suppose that there is always the possibility of seeking further devolution in the future or, as is more likely, having it imposed upon them by the Government.

It is interesting to note that the pill, such as it is, is sweetened by the customary reference to additional funding over a 30-year period amounting to £30 million a year. This has been offered to a number of areas. It does not seem to alter very much in proportion to the number of residents in the area, or any other factor. It has to be seen against the background of what is happening to the finances of the local authorities that constitute the new combined mayoral authority. In Bristol, for example, an annual cut of £83 million a year was accumulated between 2014 and 2017. That will be doubled by 2020; that authority alone will lose £166 million a year from its budget and services. I do not have the figures for Bath’s losses to date, but it has projected a further loss of £37 million a year. South Gloucestershire had lost £56 million a year by the current year and will lose £27 million a year over the next couple of years. The total annual loss—annual cuts—imposed on these authorities, which are to be rewarded between them with £30 million a year, will be £280 million a year by 2020.

That is the background against which this wonderful devolution agenda is being progressed. It really is a three-card trick; I cannot find any other way of describing it. It is not to say that the bringing together of these authorities to work on strategic issues is not in itself valuable, but to describe this as a wonderful devolution of power is a grotesque misinterpretation, not by the Minister personally but by the Government as a whole, of the reality facing those councils and their communities under whatever system, mayoral or otherwise, they will have to live with. Frankly, the Government would do better to look at the main line funding of local authorities than by creating these structures with a fairly minimal contribution that in no way off-sets the problems they face.

Having said that, these Benches will not oppose the order. We cannot, because we have not tabled a Motion to that effect. This is a decision that has been taken locally. They think it is the best course for them and we have to accede to their view. The reality is that they will continue to suffer massively, notwithstanding the relatively small amounts the Government will provide by way of extra funding.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, the west of England has actually seen the strongest economic recovery outside London since 2008. Its economic output is reported by the Resolution Foundation to be 7% higher than its pre-crisis peak, while the output in many British cities has yet to return to pre-crisis levels. Its employment, at 76.8%, is higher than any other city region in Britain. That is the background to this combined authority order. I think that the order will enable the west of England to build on the success it has had in riding out the financial crisis—but we need to note that, according to the Resolution Foundation, rising house prices and rents are swallowing up the gains in living standards made from the strong economic performance of the three councils that comprise it.

I have three specific questions for the Minister. I understand that North Somerset has made a decision not to be part of the combined authority. However, given its very close proximity to Bristol, I have not understood how the transport investment decisions will be made and who will be responsible for what.

Secondly, will the Minister confirm that the powers of the mayor for the west of England combined authority will be the same as those of the other combined authority mayors in other places? The legislation is slightly different because it covers slightly different matters. Therefore, I seek assurance that the mayor does not have any form of enhanced power against a comparison with, say, Greater Manchester or any of the others.

Thirdly, the mayor for the west of England has the power to pay grants; there are other powers, but there is a specific power to pay grants. I would like to be reassured that the same involvement of the combined authority in reaching decisions and the same rights and powers for each council separately have to be considered by the mayor. In other words, this is not simply a mayoral order where a single person has an absolute power, subject to scrutiny and audit, to make a decision without the agreement, first of the combined authority and, secondly, of the constituent councils.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 2nd February 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Beecham]

I have some doubts and concerns about these provisions. How does Clause 7 relate to combined authorities? How does it fit with the devolution proposals if:

“The Secretary of State may direct two or more local planning authorities to prepare a joint development plan document”?


A number of areas are about to elect a mayor and become a combined authority. Within that combined authority, however, there will still be constituent local authorities. How does the provision in Clause 7(2) apply to those areas? Can the Secretary of State direct two or more of the authorities within that area to prepare a joint development plan document, when there is an elected mayor and a whole new structure is being created?

Clause 8, on the county councils’ default powers, states:

“Schedule 2 makes provision for the exercise of”,


those powers,

“in relation to development plan documents”.

That assumes a straightforward situation of a county and districts, but in at least one controversial area, I think I am correct in saying that a court case is proceeding about the proposals which affect some parts of Nottinghamshire County Council and the Sheffield-led new combined authority. That may not quite be its name but the Minister will understand what I am talking about: the mayoral authority that will encompass Sheffield and adjoining authorities, to which I think two Nottinghamshire districts wish to affiliate for some purposes. They will, however, remain part of the county council for other purposes—unless of course this is seen, as the noble Baroness implies, as a step towards a back-door reorganisation of local government. Some of us have concerns about that.

How would these default powers affect that area, assuming that the mayoral authority is created with these two district councils? I think I may have said Nottinghamshire, but Derbyshire is in fact involved in this, rather than Nottinghamshire. There may be a similar problem in Nottinghamshire. How would those arrangements be affected by the provisions of Clause 8? I quite understand that the Minister may not be able to answer that immediately but, if that is the case, he will no doubt write to me.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I shall be very brief but want to ask the Minister four specific questions about Clause 8, which will help us when we come to Report. Clause 8 was a late addition to the Bill; it was not in the initial draft that went to the House of Commons. It would help if the Minister could explain why it was felt necessary to include it.

My first specific question is: can a county refuse to undertake the work and, in that case, what would happen? Secondly, can a county subcontract the work to somebody else, which would presumably include the use of consultants? Thirdly, if it does, how is local knowledge about the district in question going to be guaranteed in constructing the plan? Fourthly, with reference to Schedule 2, it looks to me as though a county can charge a district whatever it likes, so what action do the Government plan to ensure that cost recovery is reasonable?

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 31st January 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I found this a very helpful debate and conclude that if not now at some point soon the Minister will have to define words. The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, drew our attention to an important issue around the definition of the word “modification”. When I read the Bill for the first time, I assumed that it would be really very minor in practice. However, it may not be and I am not sure that we can wait until a month after the coming into force of Part 1 for that word to be defined. It is material to what is in the Bill.

Clause 3(2) states:

“After subsection (4) insert … A local planning authority may at any time by order modify a neighbourhood development order they have made if they consider that the modification does not materially affect any planning permission granted by the order”.


The word “materially” starts to become very important. What is the difference between affecting and materially affecting a planning permission? We need to get this sorted out so that we understand it, otherwise we will end up with a modification which I thought was minor actually having the potential to be much more substantial, as the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, pointed out. In addition, I should like to be clearer about what a material effect would be on a planning permission granted by the order. I want to understand that before we reach the Report stage. However, the debate as a whole has been extremely useful.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I declared my interest earlier as a vice-president of the Local Government Association, as I suspect are half of the Members present in this Committee, and as a member of Newcastle City Council, where 20 years ago I was for a couple of years the chairman of the planning committee. But I have to say that I defer absolutely to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, whose expertise is much more current than mine and, I would guess, more profound as well.

I want to raise just a couple of points. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, referred to the provisions set out in Amendment 6 amending Schedule 1 to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 by inserting new sub-paragraph (1B). I have a slightly different point to make. The provision states:

“The local planning authority must notify the neighbourhood forum of”,


a variety of matters. What I do not know is the extent to which a neighbourhood forum is under an obligation to notify residents about these matters. In an ordinary planning application, the usual practice is for the planning authority to notify the residents in an area within a reasonable range of a projected application of its existence. The assumption here seems to be that the neighbourhood forum itself constitutes the community for these purposes. While it may have a representative role, that does not imply that every resident will get to know of matters which would have been raised by the local authority with the neighbourhood forum. Perhaps, if not today then later, the noble Lord could indicate whether I am right in my assumption that the provisions of this new clause are meant simply to notify the neighbourhood forum and whether there is any further obligation on the neighbourhood forum or anyone else to notify residents and other people with an interest.

I turn briefly to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, about the remedy if things do not go well. Given that there is a statutory responsibility here if it is not carried out, I would have thought that the remedy is that of judicial review. That is not an inexpensive process, I am afraid, but I suspect that if there has been an omission in complying with the requirements of the legislation, it is the remedy available to those who have a grievance. Again, possibly after taking advice from those behind him, I hope that the noble Lord will clarify the position.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, this amendment is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Kennedy. It deals with referendums. We now have some experience of referendums in this country—perhaps rather regrettably. Of course, the position in the local scene is that it is an issue which would test the degree of support for local initiatives of the kind that the Bill envisages. I do not know but perhaps the noble Lord is in a position to say what kind of turnout has been engendered in the referendums that have been held. I understand that they are not required to be held and there are other means of consultation. However, it seems important to secure and recognise a substantial degree of public support, as reflected through a reasonably pitched turnout.

Forty per cent does not seem excessive, but it would show a degree of engagement and interest on the part of the local community which ought to be recognised. I suggest that it would give an incentive to local communities and their authorities to debate issues very fully. I should have said that the amendment has the support of the Local Government Association, as did the previous one. In the circumstances, I hope the Minister will acknowledge that this measure would be an incentive to authorities and local groups to engage fully with their communities to ensure a turnout that adequately reflects public engagement with an important process. I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I do not support this amendment as it implies that a huge amount of work in developing a neighbourhood plan could be lost if 39.9% of the electorate turned out to vote on it. We have in this country a history of assuming that those who do not vote are abstaining. It seems to me that the current system works perfectly well. If some people—perhaps a majority of the electorate—decide not to vote, that is their right. It would be very wrong if all the work of a lot of people over a substantial period of time could be lost because an arbitrary figure of 40% was imposed. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has not justified that figure. I would remind him that a large number of local councillors would not have been elected to local government if a 40% turnout figure had been imposed. Indeed, I remind him that he himself in 2014 was elected in the Benwell and Scotswood ward of Newcastle upon Tyne with a turnout figure of 32.1%. However, I do not think that anybody in your Lordships’ Chamber would wish to say that that result was not valid. I hope that the noble Lord will think very carefully about proposing a requirement that there should be a 40% turnout of the electorate on a referendum relating to a neighbourhood plan.

Non-Domestic Rating (Chargeable Amounts) (England) Regulations 2016

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Wednesday 21st December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, it is no doubt timely to review the valuation of properties for the purposes of business rates. My recollection is that it is now 25 years since the valuation for council tax purposes was applied. Consequently, we still have the same number of bands and the same financial layout that was established all that time ago. If it is timely to revalue properties for the purposes of business rates, why is it not timely to review the basis of council tax and change the valuations there—and, indeed, possibly the number of bands?

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, in the context of the existing system, the proposal that the Minister and the department have come up with is the right response. The amended version of option 2, which the documentation explains, is probably the right thing to introduce.

However, there is a lot of concern about the context of this and the impact of the revaluation. I was surprised to read in paragraph 10.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum:

“An impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument because it amends an existing local tax regime. Publication of a full impact assessment is not necessary for such legislation”.

I understand the overall reason for that but I suspect that the department is going to get many more appeals because of the significance of the changes, which, over the next few years, will cause some, who have very high increases in their bills, to wonder whether they could secure a reduction through the appeals system. We heard at Questions earlier about the impact of that on local authorities’ ability to plan their annual budgeting. I would appreciate anything that the Minister can say about how the Government might help to speed up the business rate appeals system.

Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield Combined Authority (Election of Mayor) Order 2016

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Monday 18th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I extend a warm welcome to the Minister on his first appearance at the Dispatch Box in his new position. It troubles me that it was 10 years ago that I concluded a report on public services in Wales, which was named—though not by me—the Beecham report. At some point perhaps the Minister and I could have a session in which I can catch up on what, if anything, has happened since that report was published.

These two orders, providing for the election of mayors for the combined authorities of the West Midlands and South Yorkshire, constitute the launch, in effect, of two further vessels to join the devolution armada which the Government are intent on creating. Both areas contain authorities which voted by substantial majorities not to have elected mayors when they were compelled to have referendums on the issue. The Government pretend that it is open to the authorities in question to accept or reject the concept of an elected mayor for the combined authority and so, formally speaking, it is. However, given that the entire devolution deal depends upon the adoption of the mayoral model, the reality is that councils are faced with the political equivalent of Henry Ford’s offer to those who wished to purchase his cars: “You can have any colour as long as it’s black”. The millions of people who live in these areas can have devolution with any kind of local governance as long as it is headed by a mayor.

In the case of these areas and others which have entered into or plan to enter into agreements with the Government, there are concerns about the new system and the claims made for it by Ministers. Some of these relate to the alleged benefits to be derived from the additional funding to be provided to combined authorities and their mayors for investing in economic growth. The West Midlands will receive £36.5 million a year for 30 years, or, as the Minister said, £1.095 billion, which equates to £13 a year per head of population. South Yorkshire will receive £30 million a year, £900 million in aggregate, which is the equivalent of £22 per head of population per annum.

These figures compare with £915.6 million of local authority capital expenditure and £105.2 million of annual growth fund allocations to the local enterprise partnerships in 2014-15 in the West Midlands, and £367.4 million and £54.7 million respectively for South Yorkshire. Therefore the bonanza amounts to an additional 3.6% for the West Midlands and 7% for South Yorkshire. Meanwhile, Birmingham alone will by 2020 be suffering from cuts to its revenue expenditure of £817 million a year. By the end of this year, Sheffield will have sustained cuts of £350 million a year, with the likelihood of some £50 million or £60 million a year more by 2020. It is clear that the vaunted claims for devolution made by its erstwhile progenitor, the lately departed George Osborne, were, in financial terms, wildly overstated. But there are other issues of concern to these two areas which need to be considered.

As the Secondary Legislation Committee points out, and as I mentioned when we discussed the combined authority order for South Yorkshire, there is an issue concerning the wishes of two districts in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, Bassetlaw and Chesterfield. They will become part of the combined authority and thereby, for the purposes of the combined authority, will come under the authority of the elected mayor for South Yorkshire. They would, however, remain under their existing county councils for functions such as education, social care and libraries. But, given the relationship between, say, housing and public health, which are matters over which the combined authority may be expected to exert influence, how is this likely to work?

I warned that we seemed to be in danger of sliding into a back-door reorganisation of local government as the demand for a unitary model, based on an expanded South Yorkshire combined authority, inevitably grows. Alternatively, or additionally, will we see the creation of a North Midlands combined authority, presumably not a mayoral authority, of which, confusingly, Chesterfield and Bassetlaw would seek to be members, as the Select Committee observed? They would be based upon the two counties of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.

The National Audit Office explicitly warned, as the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee reminds us, that devolution deals, such as that in the West Midlands,

“are increasingly being negotiated and agreed with more complex and untested geographies”.

Its report of 20 April refers explicitly to,

“risks around alignment with the administrative geographical areas for other linked policies”,

citing the NHS planning guidance which requires areas,

“to define their own local health economies and to consider devolution deals while doing so”.

As the National Audit Office points out, given that,

“geographical configurations … have yet to be resolved in many areas, it is not yet clear how these two processes will align”.

So can the Minister tell us what discussions have taken place between the DCLG and the Department of Health, and for that matter with NHS England, about the position in general, and specifically with regard to the two areas we are discussing today? This is particularly relevant to the complex situation in the West Midlands where, as I pointed out when we were discussing the combined authority order, we appear to be reverting to the era of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, with its Kingdom of Mercia.

The West Midlands mayor will head a combined authority with seven member councils, three local enterprise partnerships and no fewer than five non-constituent member authorities: namely, Cannock Chase, Nuneaton and Bedworth, Redditch, Tamworth, and Telford and Wrekin, all of which are districts within a county council whose residents will not have a voice or a vote in the choice of mayor. How is this consistent with democratic local government? What will be the relationship with the relevant county councils?

The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee referred in an earlier report to “combination creep” through the involvement in combined authorities of non-constituent councils or councils outside the geographical limits of existing combined authorities. Given that the report was published only last Thursday I do not expect the Minister to be able to respond today and to provide the greater clarity the committee seeks. But could he indicate when a reply will be provided, and whether it would not be sensible to pause before proceeding with this series of orders, which seem set to lead in some areas to highly complex changes whose benefits are at best highly unquantifiable?

The idea of devolution is welcome, but not every aspiring area is the same. Huge questions go unanswered about finance, accountability and structures to different degrees in different areas, and we do not know whether the new Prime Minister, her Chancellor and the Secretary of State share the apparent enthusiasm of their predecessors for this policy.

Some areas—Greater Manchester, Merseyside and the Tees Valley—are well down the road and are well defined, but more work is surely required to ensure that for the kind of areas we are discussing today, and with some still to come, the serious questions raised by the National Audit Office, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and others can properly be addressed. I make it clear that we on these Benches—all of us—want to see this devolution work and be properly funded, but it is difficult to see how well it will work unless these critical questions are answered. We do not want to see the devolution armada scattered to the four winds like its Spanish naval counterpart.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, on his appointment, and we welcome him in assisting the drive for devolution. I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said about the importance of devolution—it is a shared agenda across your Lordships’ House. I hope very much that the new Minister will bring his expertise to bear on the detail of the move to greater devolution within England as the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act is implemented.

I should say at the outset that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Right across local government, politicians have been very supportive of the move to greater devolution.

Last week, there was a debate on similar orders for Merseyside and the Tees Valley. I do not want to repeat comments that were made during that debate, except to say that I agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said about the general approach being taken and about some of the problems being produced by changes in government, as well as the overall financial problems that local government has.

Last week it was confirmed—as it will be tonight—that there will be a mayoral election in May 2017, even if there is no agreement later this year on the powers and budgets that a combined authority will have. I understand the reasons for that, although if that were to happen it would clearly make things more complicated and more difficult to explain to the general public.

In our debate on Merseyside and the Tees Valley, I drew attention to a report on the devolution process published at the beginning of this month by the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons. There is a full record in Hansard of what we said, but the crucial sentence in the report that I want to draw to the Minister’s attention tonight is on page 3 of the summary:

“There has been insufficient consideration by central government of local scrutiny arrangements, of accountability to the taxpayer and of the capacity and capability needs of local and central government as a result of devolution”.

I subscribe to that. There was a request by the Public Accounts Committee that:

“Government should set out by November 2016 its plans for how it will ensure that local scrutiny of devolved functions and funding will be both robust and well supported”.

I think there is a commitment from the Government to come back with the detail of the powers, budgets and scrutiny at the same time so that we get both at once, because that really matters.

I am grateful to the Minister for the letter that we received today by email. It answers some of the issues that we raised during the debate on the Merseyside and Tees Valley orders concerning how a chair of an overview and scrutiny committee could be appointed. It is made clear in the letter that an independent chair will be appointed following “an open, competitive process”. I think that that implies the Nolan procedures, but I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed that it does. The letter states that,

“a candidate must submit an application to the combined authority in response to a public advertisement”,

and the appointment,

“must be approved by a majority of the members of the combined authority”.

The letter then says—this is a point I take issue with—that there will therefore be,

“a wholly transparent appointment process mirroring the approach which councils must use when appointing independent persons under the Localism Act 2011 for the purposes of the councillors conduct regime”.

Local councils are bound by statute to proportionality in the make-up of committees. The difficulty here is that a combined authority will be the leader of the local authorities. It is entirely possible—and certainly it would happen in the north-east of England, where I live—that there would be seven Labour chairs. I am concerned that proportionality simply cannot exist in such a constitutional structure. Indeed, an independent chair could be appointed by a majority vote of a one-party committee. I hope very much that when the Minister comes back later this year, the guidance—if it is guidance, as opposed to being statutory—makes it clear that this appointment cannot simply be in the hands of a handful of people, all from one party, who may decide to support an independent person who, in practice, may well not be entirely independent. I draw that to the Minister’s attention because it is important we ensure that public confidence in the powers of an elected mayor is protected.

Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral Combined Authority (Election of Mayor) Order 2016

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this order. As she rightly pointed out, this is one of the stages in the establishment of mayoral combined authorities.

First, will the Minister confirm that, once this order is agreed by Parliament, there will be a mayoral election on 4 May 2017? I ask because, as the Minister herself said, paragraph 7.8 of the Explanatory Memorandum states that:

“The Government will seek Parliament’s approval later in 2016 to further secondary legislation necessary to devolve the powers and budgets to the Combined Authority, as agreed in devolution deal”.

Can she confirm that there will be a mayoral election even if there is no agreement on the content of the devolution deal? It presupposes, first, that later this year the authorities making up the combined authority will finally agree with the Government and that there will be no changes by the establishment of a new Government, and, secondly, that Parliament itself will agree to the orders. I would like clarification on that.

The Minister will recall that, in our debates during the passage of the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill, a great deal was said about the scrutiny and audit arrangements. Those grew in importance between Committee and Report and between Report and Third Reading. It was generally agreed that the arrangements initially proposed in the Bill were inadequate and some improvements were made. I draw the Minister’s attention to the report of the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons, Cities and Local Growth, published on 1 July, just a few days ago. In the summary, on page 3, it states that:

“There has been insufficient consideration by central government of local scrutiny arrangements of accountability to the taxpayer and of the capacity and capability needs of local and central government as a result of devolution”.

I also subscribe to that view. Is it possible for the Government to set out the reply they will make to the Public Accounts Committee alongside the next stage of parliamentary approval of the detailed arrangements of powers and resources for both mayoral combined authorities? Recommendation 8 of the Public Accounts Committee says, very specifically, that:

“Government should set out by November 2016 its plans for how it will ensure that local scrutiny of devolved functions and funding will be both robust and well supported”.

I would like to think that, when we get to the next stage of considering the arrangements for these combined authorities, we will have a response to this very specific point which the committee raised.

The Minister will recall that, during the passage of the Bill, I and my colleagues made a number of comments about the scale of responsibilities for an elected mayor within a mayoral combined authority. It is a big geographical area and it is a wide set of responsibilities. We queried the capacity of an individual person to do so much across all the areas that the Minister has described; in this case, it is transport, strategic planning, adult skills, employment support, business support, a business rate retention pilot, joint working with Her Majesty’s Government on children’s services, health, housing and justice. That is a very wide range of tasks for one person to be formally responsible for, even though the combined authority as a whole will have some shared responsibilities. Is the Minister confident about the structure being set up, not least because of the concerns of the Public Accounts Committee? It has identified a range of issues that in most cases we considered during the passage of the Bill some months ago, and the problems and the questions have not gone away.

I welcome the Tees Valley Combined Authority (Election of Mayor) Order and I congratulate Tees Valley on getting on with the process of devolving power to its mayoral combined authority, and in particular for overtaking the North East Combined Authority, which seems to have suspended discussions with the Government pending the election of the new Prime Minister. That is now going to be sooner than perhaps the authority had anticipated. I noted in the Minister’s introduction, unless I misheard her, that a number of further orders for areas such as South Yorkshire and the West Midlands are said to be forthcoming, but I do not recall any mention of the North East Combined Authority in that list. Assuming that I heard her correctly, can she clarify what the position is given that the order has been placed before Parliament for consideration? Is it delayed, over what timescale is it delayed, and is there still any potential, given the legal requirements, to hold a mayoral election in May if it is delayed much longer?

I have raised a number of issues for the Minister to respond to. Devolution is a positive thing, but she will understand that throughout this process we have expressed a whole range of doubts about the structures which are being established and the democratic accountability that lies within the process.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

I would like to inform the noble Lord, and possibly the Minister, about the situation with regard to the North East Combined Authority. It was originally thought that we would be taking that either this week or next week, but now it will be taken in September. It is not quite ready, as it happens, so next week would be difficult. My understanding is that it will be taken in September during the two weeks that we are back.

[Lord Shipley]

I thank the noble Lord for that clarification. I hope that we will have a chance to consider the plans for the North East Combined Authority in the House of Lords.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Monday 25th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I speak in support of the noble Lord, Lord True. I said a number of things in Committee on this group, and Amendment 121E in particular, about the independence of the advice being given, the role of planning officers employed by a council to comment on the report that has been written, and the importance of the general public understanding that independence and due probity is being followed at all points, because the issue of public trust is critical. For the public to have any confidence in the planning system, a robust firewall must be in place so that those writing reports are, and are seen to be, independent of applicants and subject to all the relevant codes of conduct that apply to professional planners.

It is vital that the people whose reports the community’s elected representatives are being asked to trust are people whom the public trust, too, especially if neither the public nor the council members are able to choose them. Local authorities can contract out these services, and some do, but they must nevertheless guarantee that alternative providers are subject to the same quality, accreditation, competencies and code of conduct that would apply in the public sector. Ensuring that independent providers are qualified to work in the public interest is a necessity, and must apply not just longer term but during the pilot period that we discussed under the previous group.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I have a good deal of sympathy with the points of both the noble Lords, Lord True and Lord Shipley. I am concerned how it would be seen by the public generally, but also by those applicants who have paid for a report to be prepared, which may make a recommendation. The decision will certainly be made by the committee. That is more or less the position that operates now in the existing system. Sometimes, council planning officers’ recommendations are not accepted by the committee, and they may help appellants on appeal. However, if you are paying for that advice as an applicant, it creates a different ambience altogether, it seems to me. It makes the whole process rather more confusing and difficult for the applicant, as well as for the local authority. I hope that the noble Baroness will look again at how the process works, because it is fraught with danger for both the authority and public understanding of what is happening.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, the declared aim of the Government’s promotion of the concept of permission in principle was to facilitate the building of homes, especially on brownfield sites. This objective is all the more compelling in the light of today’s news that the number of housing starts in the first quarter of this year was the lowest in three years—while of course we still have several hundred thousand sites with planning permission that has not been activated.

For ideological reasons, the Government rely almost entirely on the private sector and building for sale, whereas I recall that 50 years ago Newcastle City Council alone was building 3,000 new council homes in a year. Perhaps the Government should reconsider their hostility to the provision of social housing and do something to redress the balance.

However, leaving history aside, it was reassuring to hear the Minister affirm in Committee on 22 March:

“We are currently consulting on an approach that would enable permission in principle to be granted for housing-led development to allow for the possibility of mixed uses that are compatible with a residential environment. This means that as long as a site allocation is housing-led, local authorities will be able to grant permission in principle in line with local and national policy for other uses”.

In reply to my question at the time as to whether there would be a definition in guidance about what “housing led” actually means in terms of the proportion of sites, she confirmed that there would, and she gave the example that it might include retail, community and office space, saying:

“This approach is absolutely crucial to continuing to promote sustainable development and the delivery of balanced, mixed communities, spaces and places”.—[Official Report, 22/3/16; col. 2281.]

This reflected the statement in paragraph 402 of the Explanatory Notes to the Bill that the uses “must be housing led”.

The Opposition and, I suspect, most other Members of the House entirely support that approach, which is reiterated in the department’s policy factsheet, which states explicitly:

“The Bill will allow permission in principle to be granted when local authorities or neighbourhood groups choose to allocate housing-led development in future local and neighbourhood plans or identify it on brownfield registers”.

However, a different picture emerged in the Government’s response last week to the 26th report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. Paragraph 35 of the reply confirms:

“The Committee is right to emphasise that this measure will facilitate the building of vital new housing, by allowing permission in principle to be granted for housing-led development. That is, development that contains an element of housing but which can also include other compatible uses in the interests of encouraging mixed use and sustainable development”.

That sentence alone prompts a degree of suspicion. Housing-led development now appears to be defined as development containing only “an element”—unquantified—of housing.

That some mysterious alchemy continues to be at work is confirmed by the contents of paragraph 36, in which the Minister proclaims that,

“I consider it to be reasonable … for other uses, such as retail or commercial space, where there is no housing element. There is no restriction on the types of development for which full or outline planning permission may be granted”.

Paragraph 37 goes on to say that amendments will, however, be tabled—as they have been—to exclude “fracking or mineral development”. Welcome though that latter position is, we now have a permission-in-principle cocktail in which the ingredient of housing development can be reduced to homeopathic proportions or even be excluded altogether.

I am sure that the Minister did not deliberately mislead the House. We all know how hard she has struggled to explain and defend this dreadful Bill and the way in which it comes to us, laden with promises of future consultations and government responses in the form of reams of secondary legislation, none of which Parliament will have seen before the Bill becomes law. It is not her fault that the timetable results in Delegated Powers Committee’s reports, intensely critical as they are of the process, reaching us a day before matters are debated on Report.

But the position now in respect of permission in principle and the necessary involvement of housing is completely unacceptable. The amendments in this group are designed simply to enshrine in legislation what the Government told us were the Bill’s intentions—namely, to facilitate the provision of desperately needed new homes in, to use their own words, “housing-led development”. All the amendments seek to do is to hold the Government to their originally declared policy, which they appear to have changed, possibly without the Minister even noticing.

I therefore commend the amendments in my name and, in particular, Amendments 102C and 102D, which make it clear that permission in principle is to be for housing-led development—by which it is clear that I do not mean exclusively housing development. In Amendment 102D the permission in principle is for the development of brownfield land for that purpose. I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I support this group of amendments for the simple reason that the point made so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, should be in the Bill.

When I saw these further amendments, I returned to the Hansard report of Committee. I refer to col. 2330, where my noble friend Lord Greaves had initiated a debate on whether Clause 136 should stand part of the Bill and raised the question of what permission in principle should be for. He said:

“We are told that permission in principle is just for housing ... There may be other things associated with housing development, such as shops or local offices, but so long as it is housing led that is okay”.

I will quote entirely what the Minister said in reply. She said:

“I confirm to the noble Lord that it would have to be categorised as housing-led development. For permission in principle to be granted, it would have to be categorised by size, location and type of development. I hope that reassures the noble Lord”.—[Official Report, 22/3/16; col. 2330.]

But of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, made clear, it is not quite as simple as that. The problem we have is the one we have had throughout the Bill, which is that it is a skeleton Bill. It does not have detail, much of which is to be presented in the form of regulations through either the negative or the affirmative procedure. These three amendments would make the matter absolutely clear. Line 6 on page 67 of the Bill says:

“Permission in principle may be granted for development of land in England as provided in section 59A”.

Reading on, I do not see the word “housing” appear anywhere. The amendments would alter the wording to, “Permission in principle may be granted for housing led development of brownfield land for housing in England as provided in section 59A”. That seems so much clearer. I think that that is the Government’s intention but I do not think that a matter of such fundamental importance should be left off the face of the Bill. I therefore strongly support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I note that this amendment has been supplied to us only today in the form of Amendment 107B, having previously been Amendment 107A. The basic thrust behind the amendment is broadly the same but the wording has altered. I had some doubts about Amendment 107A, and I still have those doubts. Perhaps, in replying, the Minister or the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, could explain the position. I do not want to see one of the cornerstones of British democracy, which is the town and country planning system, upended by this amendment. Certainly the previous version, particularly subsections (1) and (3), was very worrying. Those subsections have been altered in Amendment 107B, but a number of questions still arise.

The first question is around how neighbourhood planning fits with this structure. A great deal of emphasis has been placed on the importance of neighbourhood planning. However, I am looking at subsection (3)(c), subsection (4)(a) and subsection (5), and although they refer to consultation that is deemed to be adequate, there is no indication of what “adequate” consultation is. Nor is it clear what would happen if the local reaction of a neighbourhood is very negative to a proposal. It is also not clear how the summary views expressed—let us suppose that 90% are against—will be considered by the Minister. That is one aspect of this that causes me concern. I do not really understand how we can have a system of neighbourhood planning and then alterations to a planning system, as proposed in this amendment.

Secondly, there is the issue of sustainability. I do not understand to what extent planning freedoms would mean that a local area could disregard issues of sustainability. I am thinking of issues around drainage and water supply, but there are other examples. I feel uncertain about exactly what is being proposed here and why it is deemed to be so important, with an assumption that the current planning system cannot deliver the answer that is required: to build more houses. We already heard earlier, in the debate about the neighbourhood right of appeal to a planning approval on neighbourhood planning, that 10% more homes are being built in areas with neighbourhood plans than would otherwise have been the case.

I am struggling to understand what problem the mover of this amendment is attempting to solve. It would help enormously to have some concrete examples to work with. When I hear about combined authorities, which are huge structures that do not have much connectivity with electors, I wonder how this will build public confidence in the current planning system.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I also come to this without a full appreciation of the implications. In particular, I wonder whether schemes would be able to depart from what might become requirements elsewhere; for example, in relation to energy efficiency or other aspects that one would expect to be part of planning consent for new schemes.

I do not quite understand what the decision-making mechanism would be. Once the scheme had been floated, would it still involve applications having to be approved within the new framework by something equivalent to a development control committee or sub-committee of the kind that most councils now have, or is it to be a sort of executive process without member involvement at the level of individual local authorities or perhaps a combination of authorities when one is looking at a wider area? It is not quite clear how the practical side would be handled.

I share the doubts of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley—if not doubts, then questions—about the nature of public involvement and how that would be fed into the process. Can the noble Lord identify any experience in another jurisdiction—one which is somewhat analogous to ours—of this kind of approach? Is there experience of this way of dealing with applications that we might learn from in terms of how it might develop here? I would certainly be interested in seeing the matter progressed, but I do not think that we have enough information positively to affirm that it should go forward as part of the Bill—it is a bit early for that without knowing a good deal more about how it might work. It may be that some further indications can be given and the Minister wants to take the matter back, although not necessarily with a view to dealing with it in a week’s time at Third Reading—we are pretty late in the process to bring something as potentially radical as this into the Bill. Even if it does not go very far on this occasion, it is certainly a concept that is worth exploring, but if I were the Minister, I do not think that I would be jumping at incorporation into the Bill quite at this stage. However, she may have a different view.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I speak in support of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord True, who asked a set of important questions. I shall not repeat them, and I am pleased that a large number of Members of the House are here to hear him ask them. This is an example of the creation of a bureaucracy that may not solve a significant set of problems. In other words, because there may have been some difficulties in a limited number of cases in some places, we may set up a large bureaucratic structure to solve them.

I have read the impact assessment and the Bill very carefully, but I am still at a loss to understand what problem the Government are trying to solve. It may in some cases speed up some Section 106 negotiations but, in the main, I am not sure that it will. It may create a set of unintended consequences. When I read line 1 of the impact assessment—

“The Government wishes to provide for someone to be appointed to help resolve, within a set timescale, outstanding issues about planning obligations relating to individual planning applications”—

I immediately wonder who the “someone” will be. How will you ensure that they do not have some kind of interest? How will you know that there is a firewall between that person and their conclusions? For example, the impact assessment does not answer the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord True: what might the impact be on starter homes? That is a very important question, because the funding of starter homes comes from reductions in the amount of Section 106 money received by local authorities.

On page 167, at lines 10 to 12, the Bill states:

“The local planning authority must not refuse the application on a ground that relates to the appropriateness of the terms of the section 106 instrument”.

I understand that statement in one sense, but at the heart of our debate about starter homes is the fact that Section 106 provision will be reduced to help to provide the developer subsidy for those starter homes. There are major implications in this, and I see more potential problems over Section 106 negotiations. I am not convinced that setting up the kind of bureaucratic structure that the noble Lord, Lord True, described, will actually help us to solve that problem. It will be solved if local planning authorities are properly resourced, have the proper powers and there is a proper context within which they are to work to build the homes that the country needs.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I wholeheartedly endorse the critiques of the proposal by the noble Lords, Lord True and Lord Shipley. Several real problems have already been identified, but it is worth reminding ourselves that this is yet another incursion on the rights and roles of local authorities, imposing an external component on to the resolution of what ought to be determined locally between the local authority and the applicant. Moreover, the whole thing is another bureaucratic nightmare. There are five pages of the schedule. The Explanatory Notes make it clear that there are also to be regulations—surprise, surprise, once again made by the Secretary of State. They say:

“The Secretary of State can also make regulations setting out … who, other than the local planning authority and applicant, could make a request for the appointment of a person”.

So it need not even be the planning authority or the applicant who makes that application. Who else might make it is presumably at large—anybody could. The regulations can also deal with,

“the timing and form of requests”,

and,

“that a person can be appointed if outstanding issues have not been resolved within set timeframes”,

as well as,

“further detail about appointments … what qualifications or experience the appointed person must have”,

and “fees payable”. Those will all be determined by regulations.

The Explanatory Notes say:

“The appointed person must take into account any template or model terms published by the Secretary of State. Regulations can also set out other details … Regulations can also set out restrictions on the local planning authority’s ability to ask for additional obligations”,

as well as,

“periods for determining planning applications after a report is issued;

circumstances or cases where the consequences in this Schedule don’t apply; and

any further steps required to be taken by the appointed person”.

Once again, we are going to have myriad regulations, the sight of which is withheld from us, presumably because they have not yet been drafted. They will be produced at a later date, again without any prior consideration by Parliament at the time when the Bill has gone through. There is also the possible perverse effect that, given that applicants may have, as they perceive it, difficulties with the local authority, why should they not seek the involvement of the appointed person—not so much by way of an appeal but in the initial part of the process? They could delay things even more. If they thought that they were not going to get entirely what they wanted from their application, why not go through this process? That unintended effect seems to me a ridiculous proposition, and I very much hope that the noble Lord will test the opinion of the House—and, if he does not, I will.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Monday 11th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 5. I declare my vice-presidency of the Local Government Association, since we are starting Report. In Committee we had a very lengthy discussion on starter homes; on whether the 20% discount should exist in perpetuity rather than for five years; on whether cash sales should be permitted; and on the impact of Section 106 agreements and the consequent adverse impact on the number of affordable homes for rent. We argued that starter homes should not be the central policy proposal in the Bill since homes of all tenures are needed, particularly for rent. Since then, the Government have conceded that an age limit of 23 and above should be imposed to prevent richer parents buying starter homes for students. They have also conceded that the five-year limit on resale should be extended to eight years with a taper.

Amendment 5, to which my name is attached, proposes that the 20% discount should apply in perpetuity. The other amendment in this group, Amendment 1, which has just been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Best, would increase the length of time for which a starter home should be held from five to 20 years, again with a taper. Either is much preferable to the Government’s current position. Amendment 5 seeks to keep a starter home as a starter home in perpetuity. Amendment 1 would deliver a similar outcome in practice, since a starter home would remain a starter home for very much longer than the Government propose. It would also be potentially easier to implement in administrative terms. We should note that the Government’s two changes will not stop cash sales for those who are over 23. Nor will they prevent rich parents buying homes on behalf of children and then securing a cash bonus when the home is sold.

The context today is important. People expect fairness from our legislation, and that fairness dictates that housing policy should not be about only the 200,000 owner-occupiers who could gain from a cash windfall; it should also be about people on low and middle incomes who cannot afford to buy a home even with a 20% discount, who should be helped to secure a home for rent—and not just in the private sector.

There are two amendments in this group, Amendments 1 and 5—but if the noble Lord, Lord Best, wishes to test the opinion of the House, I believe that he should be supported.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall also speak to both amendments, having signed both—which I suppose is by way of an each-way bet. I hope that the odds turn out to be favourable.

Many noble Lords will have received a letter from the Minister of 7 April in relation to starter homes, and I shall return to that later. But I also wrote to her on 4 April with a number of queries and I received a reply some four days later. That reply raises some interesting further questions. I asked about the Government’s definition of affordability in this context and whether it would be determined in relation to average house prices in a given area, subject to the proposed caps, or whether, and in what way, the definition would be linked to income. The reply was that since starter homes would be purchased by first-time buyers under 40, the Government would expect them to be below the average house price for the area and to be offered at a genuine minimum 20% discount, but that,

“the discount may be greater in some locations”.

I do not recall that this latter possibility has been raised before. Can the Minister exemplify the locations in which a greater discount might be offered and indicate who will determine it and upon what criteria?

The Government are apparently working with the industry and valuation professionals,

“to ensure an agreed, transparent valuation process is agreed”,

to demonstrate that the discounted sale price is indeed at least 20% less than the market value. In her letter to Members in general, the Minister quoted the Office for National Statistics price statistics, showing that the new-build average was £291,000 in England—slightly more than the average for all dwellings—while for first-time buyers it was £181,000 excluding London. She expects that the actual starter prices will be lower than the average, even before the 20% discount.

But this of course assumes that developers will not take advantage of the scheme to increase the cost of new homes to buyers, who will be cushioned by the scheme from such increases by the operation of the discount. This is not an industry noted for its philanthropic propensities. At the very least, we must expect developers to build at prices which will, after the discount, meet the current level of new-home prices—that is, at 25% more than the discounted price. What, after all, will be the vaunted “local open market value”? It surely cannot be a simple average, which is what the Minister appears to assume.

I also asked about the size of the deposit that buyers will have to find, to which the enlightening response was that,

“this will be determined by individual lenders”,

with whom the Government are apparently in discussion. As with so many of the concerns about this Bill, Parliament is being asked to establish this scheme with absolutely minimal or indeed no information about how it will work in practice.

Similar concerns apply to my third question about the reviewing of price caps and the geographical areas to which they will apply. This will, like so much else, be kept under review, with local authorities being consulted and with a power to prescribe different rates for different areas—but with no advance timetable.

I asked what standards in relation to building density, space, energy efficiency and special needs—for example, for disabled people—would be required and by whom they will be determined. The opaque answer was that starter homes,

“will be subject to the normal planning considerations and building regulations”,

to be agreed—an interesting word—at local level. So, despite the significant public contribution and the tax-free gains to be made by the first-time buyers, the Government are doing nothing to address these concerns. In fairness, they refer to councils’ ability to require higher levels of accessibility and to apply the nationally described space standards, and they have published,

“an initial set of design exemplars”—

but these will be optional.

In reply to a question about enforcing the prohibition on lettings, the Minister indicated that discussions are in train with the industry, lenders and local government which might involve a requirement on a starter-home owner to provide evidence of personal occupation—for example, in the form of council tax or utility bills. I should have thought that this would not be too difficult to evade and very difficult and costly to oversee effectively.

On tenure, I asked what consideration would be given to the provision of a mix, including affordable social rented housing, for which there is huge demand, as the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Shipley, have already said. The reply was less than comforting, stating that planning authorities will,

“need to apply their plan policies, including those on affordable housing, in light of the legal starter homes requirement”.

It went on to affirm:

“We would expect them to seek other forms of affordable housing, like social rented housing, where it would be viable”.

But this formulation begs the questions of what “seeking” means in terms of any power to require such a provision and what is meant by “viability”.

Some other questions are responded to after a fashion in the Minister’s more general letter. Thus, in response to questions raised by me and my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, she stated that an individual who had inherited property might still be considered a first-time buyer—a very convenient provision for the fortunate few. And yet another consultation is to take place on how to enforce the requirement to occupy the starter home—a question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves.

It is impossible not to conclude in relation to these and other matters that we are being invited to buy not just a legislative pig in a poke but a veritable herd of such animals. This makes it all the more necessary to improve the Bill, as most of the amendments in the relevant groups that we shall discuss today seek to do. In particular, there is the major question which is the subject of Amendments 1 and 5, which would require a tapered repayment of the discount on sale, in the case of Amendment 1, or, as in Amendment 5, that the discount should last in perpetuity, thus avoiding a double bonus to first-time buyers by way of tax-free gains from both the discount and the inevitable rise in value over time—without even the need for offshore financial organisations to be involved.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Wednesday 23rd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, my name is attached to Amendments 101C and 101D. I can be brief because we discussed the issues from which these two amendments derive during our consideration of the housing elements of the Bill earlier in Committee. Amendment 101C makes it clear that the Bill should be about all tenures of housing, not just owner-occupation. Amendment 101D would leave out lines 6 and 7, which give the Secretary of State the power to define affordable housing however he wants to define it. That power is a problem and those words should be removed from the Bill. I hope the Minister will concur.

We discussed in some detail the definitions of affordable housing and affordability. I am concerned that the Government muddle the two terms. We have a statement right at the beginning of the Bill that starter homes are to be defined as affordable homes, but for many people they are not affordable at all. Given all the evidence we have had from organisations such as Shelter, it seems to me wrong to use terms that cannot be justified. It seems even more wrong to give the Secretary of State the power to redefine terms which are already wrong. “Affordable” and “affordability” have clear dictionary definitions, and whichever dictionary the Minister cares to consult in the Library, the definitions are always the same: they relate to people having the resources to pay the bills. Given that many people cannot pay the cost of a starter home, it is wrong to define a starter home as affordable.

I hope the Minister will be able to respond, but these amendments will probably be brought back on Report in a form that joins them to other concerns about the nature of affordability.

[Lord Beecham]

I take the noble Lord’s point, and I think many of us would agree that the Government’s notion of affordability is far removed from that of most other people, but the thrust of the amendment is surely right. What alternative is in the noble Lord’s mind to ensure that there is a definition that he, I and many others would regard as being related more to the circumstances and means of those who wish to occupy these properties?

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord. We discussed this at a much earlier stage in Committee, in the context of the fact that affordability ought to be defined in relation to people’s incomes and median incomes, and that is the point with which I entirely concur.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Shipley]

Perhaps I can explain what the issue is, although I thought I had done so previously. The amendment relates to the planning part of the Bill. At the very beginning there was a debate, and amendments that I think the noble Lord himself moved, about the definition of affordability. We had a long discussion about that. The context of the amendment that the noble Lord is criticising simply relates to whether the Secretary of State should have the power to define a word that is clearly expressed in any dictionary that the Secretary of State may wish to consult. On “affordable” and “affordability”, the Government are muddling their terms, and I believe that that is happening deliberately to make it appear as though housing is affordable when it is not. The Government define the words “affordable” and affordability” differently, but in the dictionary they are the same thing. They relate to the ability of people to pay. All I said when I spoke to the amendment was that I thought we had to go back to amend the Bill at the beginning of its housing element so that the definition of “affordability” was better stated, but then not to allow a Secretary of State to make a change by regulation to the meaning of a word that had a clear meaning in the Oxford English Dictionary.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I do not want to prolong this dialogue, but surely it would be better to tie the Secretary of State down to making regulations related to, for example, an indexed figure in connection with household income. That would be a more sensible way to do it than simply taking out the clause.

[Lord Shipley]

To avoid any doubt, I am very happy to do that, as I said 15 or 20 minutes ago. The question is whether the Secretary of State, having defined what “affordable” and “affordability” are, should then be allowed by regulation to alter them, which I think he or she should not be.

[Lord Beecham]

The point would be to circumscribe the Secretary of State’s ability to regulate it by linking it to an index. However, we are not voting on that amendment and I will not take matters any further.

Greater Manchester Combined Authority (Election of Mayor with Police and Crime Commissioner Functions) Order 2016

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Wednesday 23rd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, the concept of devolving power to cities and regions is admirable. The councils in Greater Manchester and Teesside are to be congratulated on the way that they have worked together to negotiate a deal with the Government with the object of assuming greater control over the services, policies and destinies of their respective areas. My amendments welcome the principle of devolution, but draw attention to two aspects of the situation which are far from satisfactory: both deals were conditional on having an elected mayor, and large questions remain over funding.

Astonishingly, the Minister claims that there has been no requirement, no compulsion, to have an elected mayor. That is perfectly true, but of course, if you do not have an elected mayor, you do not have a deal. That is a strange position. We continue to oppose that requirement. There have, of course, been referendums in several authorities on the mayoral issue under the present system, several of them ordained by the Government. My city rejected the concept, despite the best efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, to persuade the electors of Newcastle to support it, while I am happy to say that his successor as leader joined me in the campaign against it, as did Manchester. As to the latter, I remind the House of the claim by Nick Boles that the only route back for the Conservatives in Manchester was to have an elected mayor. Naturally, no such motives could possibly have influenced the Government in imposing this requirement on the deals for greater Manchester, Teesside, and, indeed, anywhere else that opts to take them up.

Of course, there have also been referendums to dispense with elected mayors, as in Stoke and, interestingly and more relevantly for the purpose of this debate, in Hartlepool, which is part of the Teesside authority. They had an elected mayor, but disposed of him—well, not of him, but of the post. A referendum to do likewise is in progress in North Tyneside, which is a member of the proposed north-east combined authority currently in the throes of deciding whether to sign up to a deal.

However, I suspect that for most people, the key factor will be what benefits devolution might bring. These will depend on two factors: the nature and extent of the power to take local decisions on key areas of public policy, and the extent to which adequate funding is available. The two geographical areas that we are considering today have, as is proper, taken different approaches to the first of those questions. Greater Manchester has opted for an ambitious range of responsibility extending from the local economy to transport and police to health and social care. Recently, a further significant area has been added to the original deal: involvement with the criminal justice system including, as I understand it, probation. Teesside has taken a different approach, concentrating, as well it might in the aftermath of the disastrous closure of the Redcar steelworks, on the local economy, with transport and skills at the heart of its programme. In some ways, of course, this represents a return to the former Teesside county borough.

However, there are big questions about the extent to which enthusiasm for devolution extends beyond the Treasury and perhaps the DCLG, not least in the light of recent events. There is nothing new in this. Under the Labour Government, regarding the Local Government Association’s concept of total place—under which local councils and a range of government departments were to work together on a range of policies and programmes affecting individual localities, not least in regard to their financing—there proved in effect to be no real buy-in other than from the Treasury and the DCLG itself. What is different this time? During the passage of the cities Bill, the Minister convened a meeting with the noble Lord, Lord Prior, the Department of Health and interested Peers. It was attended by the Minister for the Northern Powerhouse —or poorhouse—who left after 25 minutes without uttering a word. More importantly, it was apparent that the Department of Health, certainly at that time, had had little if any engagement with the process.

Can the Minister tell us how much involvement other departments from the Treasury down have had in the agreements which today’s orders enshrine? More especially, can she say what structures are in place, or will be in place, to secure their continuing engagement so that a cross-departmental perspective is included in the work of the new authorities? There are precedents of a kind, including the inner-city partnerships of the 1980s, in which I recall serving alongside a number of Ministers at what was then the Department of the Environment, several of whom are or have been Members of this House. This is all the more necessary given, for example, the parlous financial state in which all the member councils involved in today’s orders find themselves. Their cumulative loss since 2010 occasioned by funding cuts and unfunded cost pressures amount, on an annual basis, to no less than £180 million in Teesside and over £700 million in Greater Manchester, with Manchester’s loss alone amounting to just under £197 million to date. That is the annual loss that it will have to carry from now on, and it is, of course, rising. The current round of budgets will push those figures to an even higher level, with more to come over the next few years.

Strikingly, only one of the councils in the two areas—Stockport—received any transition grant under the recent government announcement. I suppose it should have considered itself lucky to have received anything, as it is not a Conservative council but one with no overall control. Even so, the £2 million it received is only 5% of its annual loss so far.

Here is the key issue. How much certainty will there be about the level of funding for the key areas where responsibility is being devolved, let alone the services which remain with the individual councils, and whence will it come? The Government are committed to pouring vast amounts of money into Crossrail and HS2, about which many of us north of Birmingham have considerable doubts, and a modicum into what they misleadingly call HS3, which will improve the appalling rail link between Manchester and Leeds—though not, incidentally, extend to Teesside—but this is capital expenditure. What guarantees are there about the revenue budgets of the combined authorities and separately of their several numbers and of the capital funding for other programmes which will be necessary to make a reality of the claims to be promoting a northern powerhouse or any other substantial economic improvement elsewhere?

What will be the impact of the Chancellor’s £6.7 billion cut in business rates recently announced? Can the Minister inform us how and to what extent councils will be protected from this loss of revenue on which, given the demise of revenue support grant, they were supposed to rely? I assume that the Treasury has now briefed her following her understandable inability to answer questions about this matter last week—I do not blame her at all for that. I understand that whereas hitherto the DCLG has used its share of business rates to ensure a modicum of redistribution to authorities with a low business tax base, it is now scrabbling round to find a method of securing some equalisation when they will not be receiving any business rates. Can the Minister tell us what they are looking into, how far they have got and when we might expect an announcement? Is it true that, in future, increases in the business rate will be based on CPI rather than on RPI as hitherto? That would represent a further erosion of the value to local government of the business rate.

Moreover, how does the Government’s effective removal of democratically elected councils from the provision of education—which the councils have supported though not controlled, as the Government and media constantly assert, for many years—fit with the concept of devolution? If one is looking—as certainly Teesside and I suspect Manchester and other authorities are—to enhancing skills, extending links with further education and opening up employment opportunities to the next generation of young people, because the current generation has not had those opportunities, how can that possibly be reconciled with what is in effect a nationalisation of the education service and the exclusion of local government from it?

What other incursions on local council responsibilities are being considered in the Treasury or other government departments which might extend to the new authorities and their members? Can the Government give any assurance that the new authorities will not go the way of metropolitan counties, which in many ways foreshadowed these new structures? Those were invented by a Conservative Government in 1973 and abolished, along with the GLA, by a Conservative Government 12 years later.

Finally, may I mount again a hobbyhorse that I confess to having ridden in a number of debates? Will the Government abandon remote control and engage effectively with the new combined authorities and other councils through the well-tried and successful mechanism of regional offices, engaging relevant departments and agencies at the local level? In fairness, this was a product of a previous Conservative Government. It worked very well, providing an invaluable two-way conduit between Whitehall and the locality. If that was good enough for Margaret Thatcher, it should surely be good enough for her successor.

Perhaps I may raise one other question, not directly in relation to Greater Manchester or Teesside but possibly to other areas which are considering a deal. There seems to be the opportunity, or temptation, for a backdoor reorganisation of local government to take place in areas where counties with shire district components may find themselves in a difficult position in relation to adjoining former metropolitan county areas. I cite for example the position in South Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, where for some purposes those district councils may become part of the combined authority, but not for others. However, once they start getting into the health and social care combination that is going to pose extreme difficulties, because social care is provided by the current shire counties. There is a suggestion in the air that the Government may be looking in this way to promulgate a further reorganisation of local government, creating more unitary authorities and changing the map completely. I do not know whether the Minister is in a position to comment about that today. If not, perhaps she can write to me. I beg to move the amendment.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, first, I welcome the two orders, each at a different stage of the devolution process. I understand there will be a further order in respect of the Tees Valley later this year about a mayoral election next year.

I listened carefully to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and to his amendment to the Motion. It is true that the financial context is important. I also subscribe to his view that having some system of government offices linked particularly to combined authorities would be a hugely helpful conduit or communication channel.

However, I noticed three things that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, missed out of his amendment. The first was the opportunities for councils through a combined authority structure to share services and thereby cut costs. Secondly, there are the opportunities for public service reform across all public services, which can be delivered only by closer co-operation across council boundaries. Thirdly, there are the opportunities to create strategic policy in areas such as transport and regeneration which transcend council boundaries and would give the combined authorities a role in devising what policy should be rather than waiting for Whitehall to start a process and attempt to define that policy.

I also accept the noble Lord’s comments on business rates, which need to be examined very closely. However, the implications of business rate devolution suggest that councils must come together geographically to make the best use of the powers that they will have, particularly to encourage business rate growth.

Greater Manchester has the benefit of having all three major parties involved in the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, and I pay tribute to its leadership, cross-party working and clear sense of what devolution could mean in terms of benefits for Greater Manchester as a whole. However, first, I have doubts about the following assertion, at the very end of the order:

“A full regulatory impact assessment has not been prepared as this instrument will have no impact on the costs of business and the voluntary sector”.

In fact it will have an impact because this order is about transferring police and crime commissioner functions to the elected mayor model, and there would be powers of precept and so on. If business rates are then to be set locally, there is a clear implication that there will be an impact.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Thursday 17th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that he has in fact made a very good case for the neighbourhood planning process? It is a process that engages people in decision-making rather than huge numbers of houses being proposed from a centralised planning function in a civic centre and not commanding the support of local people because it has not been discussed with them. Does he further agree that the concept of permission in principle could well make things worse rather than better?

[Lord Beecham]

I think that we will shortly be spending a good deal of time on permission in principle and, judging by what the noble Lord has just said, there may be a degree of agreement. I repeat that people have to look beyond their immediate circumstances and geography. They have to acknowledge that there are needs beyond that immediate locality which have to be reflected in an overall plan. There needs to be a significant contribution from localities to the overall plan but not one that is limited purely by locality in the narrower sense; otherwise, particularly in the present circumstances, we will not get, for example, the required number of houses, although that is not the only issue that needs to be considered in terms of development.

However, there are housing shortages and physical constraints in some areas. One immediately thinks of London in that context, but other areas also have restrictions. My noble friend Lady Hollis may well say that Norwich, for example, is tightly constrained, and other urban authorities would say the same about their areas. One thinks of Stevenage, for example, which is built to its limits and has no option but to seek—unavailingly, as it turns out—collaboration on development from its neighbouring authorities. There is a balance to be struck, so up to a point I agree with the noble Lord. However, I notice that the noble Lord’s former colleagues are effectively trying to resurrect Gosforth Urban District Council, promoting the concept of the parish council there, which, of course, is entirely unrelated to the fact that they may feel a little under pressure politically.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, the noble Lord is very keen to talk about a place other than your Lordships’ House. It would be part and parcel of successful neighbourhood planning. It is very difficult to organise neighbourhood planning without a formal structure to enable it to happen. Therefore, I entirely subscribe to promoting town councils in the north of Newcastle upon Tyne and I sincerely hope that he will too.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

Does the noble Lord suggest that this should be like-for-like replacement?

[Lord Shipley]

The noble Lord takes the words out of my mouth, because my second safeguard is that there should be like-for-like replacement in the same area. That involves a similar type and requires the same level of affordability and the same tenure. There should be a requirement to have like-for-like replacement in the same area unless the local authority concludes that there is no need for like-for-like replacement, given its knowledge that there is greater demand for bigger or smaller homes, for example.

We have heard a number of warnings about the impact of council house sales on the buy-to-let market. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis of Heigham, made clear, 40% of council-home sales have gone to buy to let. I hope that the Minister will be exceedingly careful about this. There are opportunities on other amendments to talk further about that.

There are two other things that the Minister needs to bear very carefully in mind. The first is that councils should not end up paying tithes to central government for high-value empty properties that are not empty—in other words, notional taxation. The second is that councils should not have to pay tithes to central government for properties which may be high value but which are needed for rent.

We shall look at that issue at greater detail on Amendment 66E, but the point is that we need a very clear definition of what the Government think a high-value property is. I had assumed, until quite recently, that high value was a market value in absolute terms, but I understand that government thinking, in terms of writing the regulations, is that there will be a definition of high-value for one-bedroom properties, for two-bedroom properties, for three bedrooms and for four bedrooms and more. We have to understand exactly what the Government’s exact thinking is on the definition of high value.

I remind the Minister of a point I made when we had our Question for Short Debate a little while ago. I feel very strongly about the need to protect the rights of larger families to rent larger council homes. By their very nature, larger properties tend to be higher-value properties. I hope that we will not end up in a position in which houses with larger bedrooms, needed by larger families, are sold off into owner-occupation when there is demand for them. Larger homes—and homes in other categories which have to be considered—will have to be protected as rentable stock.

So there are a number of questions for the Minister. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Porter, about the need not to sell off council homes—again, we are into Amendment 66E at this point—because I think that local authorities ought to have the right to decide whether a property should be sold off. Most properties, surely, are not surplus to a council’s requirement. The prospect of high-value council homes, which may be essential in a local area, being sold off, with the result that a potential tenant who needs to rent that property will be denied the opportunity to do so, I regard as a scandalous potential outcome of this Bill.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Thursday 3rd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

I agree with the noble Lord. I am as concerned as he is about these matters. Of course, I had assumed that there would be a role for the valuation system. There may be a role for local authorities, or there may be a role for both. That system exists in relation to council tax valuation, for example, but it seems to me that to prevent market abuse—the noble Lord, absolutely rightly, discussed that before the lunch break—we have to be clear about this, otherwise there could be a problem with how properties are valued. For that reason, in my view there has to be an independent valuer.

This would operate in exactly the same way if there were a taper, going down 1% a year over 20 years, or if the 20% discount applied in perpetuity, but there are ways in which that can be done by using local government and the valuation system. I do not wish to say much more. In this group—

[Lord Beecham]

In terms of the perpetual restriction, does the noble Lord think that it would be possible to discount the sale price by the 20% on every sale for perhaps 20 years or in perpetuity so that no money changed hands? The sale price would be paid, and as far as the buyer was concerned the property would be priced in competition with other kinds of property. I would have thought that that would be a mechanism to secure the preservation of the 20% discount.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

In a sense, everything has been said about this issue, but we must put on the record, for the avoidance of any doubt, that this amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, is extremely important. As we have heard, had it not been for the manuscript amendments, this would have been the first that we discussed. It brings to the fore the issue of principle about the role of your Lordships’ House.

I agree that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s report is one of the most critical—possibly the most critical—that I have read. For that reason, it matters profoundly how the Government react to it. This House must be able to do its job properly. With so much being left to secondary legislation and so much that will not be with us by Report, the Government will have to do a very urgent job.

It has been asserted that perhaps the secondary legislation has not been drafted. It really ought to have been. If it has not been, we should be told. If it has been, and it is in a form that we could see, even if it is a draft of a draft, that would be extremely helpful. I think the Minister understands the strength of feeling in your Lordships’ House about this issue. I sincerely hope that she can respond positively to the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I warmly endorse everything that the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, has said, and I, too, pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, who of course has long had an interest in these matters and has repeatedly raised them in your Lordships’ House.

It is important that the Government listen to the experience of Members from a variety of backgrounds, who know a good deal about the implications of legislation of this kind. There is a temptation to legislate in haste with a risk that you—or, more particularly, other people—repent at leisure. There is that concern about the way this matter has proceeded thus far. I fear that it is not uncommon for the committee to comment adversely on the way that matters are brought before your Lordships’ House. Lack of consultation and the reservation to government of powers to prescribe by secondary legislation, which may not come for a long time or sometimes come into force before any scrutiny has been given, is particularly invidious when we are looking at areas such as this, which impinge on the lives of many citizens.

Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I cannot really account for it but somehow Part 5A of the Local Transport Act 2008 has managed to escape my notice hitherto. I am interested to see that the Government have decided to incorporate reference to transport infrastructure in the devolution Bill, and that is very welcome, but I am not entirely clear about the scope of the proposals before us. Clearly, I welcome the Commons amendments here but, on the face of it, they appear to relate to Highways England and to rail matters, which of course are very important, but I could not see any reference to such issues as ports and airports as part of the functioning of these transport bodies. Perhaps the noble Lord could advise whether they are included and, if not, say why not.

Of course, those of us in the north—the noble Lord has referred to Transport for the North—are very conscious of the huge disparity in the expenditure on transport infrastructure in our part of the country and the vast amounts that have been poured into Crossrail, which we have heard recently is to be further extended. Rather worryingly, it is to go under the block of flats in Balham in which I have a flat. That will no doubt take some time but the disproportion in expenditure is quite remarkable. It is a huge factor and one hopes that it will be redressed.

I am not entirely clear about the likely size of these sub-national transport bodies. A lot of the work will serve to connect different parts of the country but in the part of the country that I come from, in particular, we will be looking at cross-country routes to the north-west—to Cumbria and Carlisle from Newcastle and Sunderland and places on the east coast. For the purposes of these bodies, will we not be looking at, for example, simply the combined authority area, because that does not extend beyond the borders of Northumberland and Cumbria? If the area is to go beyond that, what sorts of boundaries will we be looking at? If it does not go beyond that, what mechanism will exist to bring together areas which are not part of the same combined authority?

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for his briefing note, which I received last week, on the proposals in this amendment for sub-national transport bodies. I welcome the switch in emphasis that he has referred to. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, talked about levels of expenditure and, in particular, the enormous amount that is spent on London and the south-east in comparison with the north of England. Having a sub-national transport body of this kind will be extremely helpful in refocusing the attention of Whitehall on the need to fund the north better than it currently does. Therefore, I thank the Minister for that and I think that the proposals are absolutely right but I want to say two things.

The first concerns the question of to whom the sub-national transport bodies will be accountable—in other words, the extent to which the constituent councils of those sub-national bodies will have a regular reporting mechanism. It seems to me very important that there should be a regular means of providing feedback from those councils to the sub-national transport body. Secondly, I hope that the Minister will agree to a system of annual reporting, which occurs elsewhere in the Bill in relation to combined authorities, elected mayors and other matters. Can he confirm that there will also be annual reporting by the sub-national transport bodies? I would find that extremely helpful.

My last point relates to the use of the negative procedure as opposed to the affirmative procedure. The Minister will have seen the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which challenges the use of the negative procedure. The grounds are that the powers will exist for a limited period of time. The definition of a “limited period of time” does not appear anywhere. Is it a matter of a few months or of two or three years, or is it a matter of something more significant?

I hope that the Government might be persuaded of the importance of using the affirmative procedure. Given the scale and magnitude that this proposal represents in reality, I think that using the affirmative procedure would be better than using the negative procedure. Does the Minister have any comments on that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, this amendment is welcome and has been warmly supported by the national parks authorities, although I understand that there was some slight misunderstanding about that on the part of the Opposition in the House of Commons. Certainly, we want to endorse the sentiments of the noble Baroness about the potential for each national park authority. Of course, I come from a part of the world where there is a remarkable national park, and it occurs to me that the Government might want to facilitate a close relationship between combined authorities such as the one in the north-east and, I suspect, the one in the Sheffield area with the Peak District National Park, so they can collaborate in a way that perhaps was not possible before. It would of course be a matter for the authorities, rather than for legislation, but it is something the Government might encourage.

One matter that was raised in the House of Commons was clarified at the time by the Minister, but I invite the noble Baroness to repeat the assurance that nothing in this proposal would facilitate the adoption of fracking in any national park area—that is, that it would not be open to a national park authority to allow such a development. It would be good to have it on the record in your Lordships’ House as well as in the Commons.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I welcome the proposal for the national parks. As with the rest of the Bill, a regular review of how this power is being used would be welcome, and I am sure we will have that.

We thank the Minister for her leadership on the Bill. It has been seven months since we began the process, which we have found rewarding. Although from time to time there have been differences—some still remain—the truth is that the outcome is in the interests of stronger government at the sub-regional and local level in England, and I welcome that. We will see how it goes over the next few years, but I am very optimistic that the groundwork put in by the Minister and her colleagues during this Parliament and the last one is going to bear fruit.

Local Government Finance

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Thursday 17th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I refer to my local government interests in the register. I extend the customary thanks to the Minister for repeating the Statement, but I can offer few thanks for the substance of the Statement or the malign effects that it will have on local communities and the services on which they rely. The Minister in a previous life was a highly respected council leader. She has earned similar respect in this House. Not for her the shocking lack of understanding displayed by the Prime Minister in his exchange of correspondence with the chief executive of Conservative Oxfordshire about the impact of government policies on local authorities—supported over the last five years, I remind the House, by the Liberal Democrats.

However, this year's settlement takes us to a new level. A week ago, I spent three hours at a meeting of Newcastle's health scrutiny committee discussing possible cuts in social care and public health provision of an unprecedented severity. The clock is being turned back by 40 years to a time when, as chairman of social services, I helped to transform provision of these key services in Newcastle. A combination of cuts in funding and cost pressures, the latter of which the Government studiously ignore, will next year be reflected in a requirement for the city to save £221 million on a council budget of what had been £280 million in 2011-12. This grim scenario is of course not confined to Newcastle. Councils of all political colours, all over the country, are facing similar pressures, as the Conservative-led Local Government Association—whose chairman is in his place today, and I welcome him—has pointed out. Such pressures are aggravated by new costs such as the so-called national living wage, which will impose a responsibility to pay £330 million extra next year, rising to £834 million by 2020, or the deprivation of liberty assessments amounting to £172 million—again unfunded, like other new burdens.

In his Statement, the Secretary of State declared:

“When local authorities account for a quarter of public spending, it was always the case they would have to carry their share of reducing the largest deficit in post-war history”—

words which the Minister has repeated. In fact, of course, local government has taken the largest cut of any part of the public sector or government departments—and, by the way, the Chancellor has still missed his deficit reduction targets.

In this year again, local government is taking a huge hit relative to other departments. One of the few positives to emerge is that, as the LGA had requested, we will now have a four-year budget. As yet, however, the funding formula remains unchanged, and while revenue support grant will disappear by 2020, it is entirely unclear how the increasing reliance on business rates will work in practice given the wide disparity of such income between different authorities. As yet there are no details of how there might be an equalisation scheme, although I understand that the Government may consult on this.

Moreover, the worrying trend of reverting to a 19th-century poor law system for income support, reflected in the localisation of council tax support, is apparently now to be followed by localising the attendance allowance paid to 1.5 million people over 65 with a disability who need personal care, which costs in total some £5 billion. What assurances can the Minister give about how this sum will be allocated and whether it will be ring-fenced? If it is to be ring-fenced, what is the point of the change?

The decision to allow councils to increase council tax by 2% without a referendum in order to support social care is welcome as far as it goes. However, it does not go very far. In Newcastle, we would raise only £1.7 million, which is a fraction of the cuts that are looming over our social care budget; and of course in a city where 70% of council tax payers are in bands A and B, the 2% yields much less than in other, more prosperous parts of the country. The Government have announced their intention of addressing that issue but it is unclear how they will do so, and after all, councils have little time before they have to announce their budgets. In any event, it is unlikely that a new formula will make a radical difference to the kind of figure I have referred to for Newcastle. Similarly, we await details of changes to the new homes bonus, under which Newcastle and many similar authorities have been net contributors to other, more affluent areas.

Public health is another area in which the Government play the three card trick. Having, rightly, restored public health responsibilities to local government, 42 years after Sir Keith Joseph removed them, this Administration imposed an in-year cut of £200 million in the current year and go on to impose in the Statement and the spending review additional cuts of 3.9% in real terms every year until 2020, which amount to a staggering £533 million. These cuts, moreover, will inevitably lead to greater pressure on the NHS, which is itself facing unprecedented financial challenges.

The Government make much of their devolution agenda. What we are witnessing and what today’s settlement exemplifies is that responsibilities for large areas of public services are being devolved without adequate resources to deliver them. Long on rhetoric, short on cash, the Government will the ends and withdraw the means.

I have sought to exemplify some the problems that my city and my constituents will face as a result of today’s announcement. However, of course, these effects will be felt to varying degrees in most local authorities across the country. The House is fortunate in having among its Members on both the Government and Opposition Benches a number of experienced former council leaders—one of whom I suspect will speak to this Statement very shortly in his capacity as the Lib Dem spokesman on local government. However, it also has several former Secretaries of State, none of whom is in their place today, and with all of whom I used to do battle as council leader and subsequently chairman of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities. I never thought I would say this but I am, to my surprise, feeling almost nostalgic for those days, given what their successors are now doing. The Statement that has been announced today will inflict great damage to local government in this country. I fear that, again, it is a case of the Government passing the buck but emphatically not passing the bucks.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement and declare my vice-presidency of the Local Government Association. One figure missing from the Minister’s Statement was the reduction by 24% of central government funding support for local government over the spending review period. When taking into account the forecasts of income raised locally by councils, the overall position is a 6.7% real terms reduction over those four years. However, that is of course a national figure and will be very different in individual authorities.

I remind the Minister that during the last Government, the National Audit Office consistently warned that the department needed to understand much better the impact of its decisions on local authority finances and services. The Public Accounts Committee, in a report two years ago entitled Financial Sustainability of Local Authorities, identified that while the department collected a significant amount of data from local government, it had not made clear how it would monitor councils’ ability to cope with funding changes. Then, in November last year, the head of the National Audit Office warned:

“The Department really needs to be better informed about the situation on the ground among local authorities across England, in a much more active way, in order to head off serious problems before they happen”.

Can the Minister say what the Government have done in response to the criticisms of both the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee?

Much has been made of the extra 2% on council tax to help maintain adult care services, and there has been an admission that different councils will raise different sums of money from that 2%. In London, for example, Newham will only be able to raise 4.1% of extra funding whereas Kingston upon Thames will have 11.3% extra. What has been done to equalise the cash available in the central allocation of grant to reflect this? I note that in the Statement, the Minister said there will be an allocation of £1.5 billion to complement the new precept and then went on to say,

“that is, more goes to councils that raise least from the precept”.

So far, so good, but does that mean that enough is going to those councils? Simply telling us that more is going to go to them is not sufficient. Will the Minister bear in mind that the total sum being made available falls well short of the £6 billion the Health Foundation estimated will be needed by 2020?

Much is being made of the fact that by the end of this Parliament, local government will keep all the revenue from business rates. I understand that there will be guarantees of continued comparable funding at current levels, but any growth will stay locally. One consequence of that is that poorer areas are likely to get poorer while richer areas, because they can keep an increase in business rates income, are likely to get richer. What is the Government’s policy on equalisation, given that there will be no more revenue support grant?

Finally, earlier this week we heard that inspection figures indicate that the number of children’s services departments rated inadequate outnumber those rated good. This was described by the Government as a failure of state provision, but the implication was that it was all the fault of local government. We have reached a tipping point whereby the availability of money matters, and the Government have an absolute obligation to meet National Audit Office criticisms of their lack of understanding of the consequences of their actions. Government cannot go on requiring councils to deliver more services to more people with less real cash. It is an impossible task; will the Minister care to admit it?

Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Tuesday 21st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, this may prove the last time that I speak on the Bill in your Lordships’ House so I thank the Minister for her work on it, although we have not always agreed. I hope all the amendments that we have passed in your Lordships’ House will be approved in the other place. I am looking forward to the affirmative procedure being followed many times as proposals come forward because the Bill has set a direction and is defining a vision for devolution within England. It will empower local areas and for that it is hugely welcome.

I am particularly glad, too, that we have this final amendment on audit committees. It is the consequence of much discussion, both in debates in your Lordships’ Chamber and in meetings with the Minister. I am grateful that we will have audit committees because they are important for the reasons set out in new subsections (2)(a), (b) and (c) in Amendment 13. It is of crucial importance that there is a committee that is seen by the outside world to be assessing the outcomes of delivering total place spending; that is, public sector reform will be driven so that the different departments of state in Whitehall are joined up at a local level and, as a consequence of being joined up, thereby drive efficiencies and more effective services. I am fully supportive of the ambition and detail of the Bill.

I am particularly pleased about the words in new subsection (4) of Amendment 13 that ensure that,

“at least one member of an audit committee is an independent person”.

That is crucially important for external bodies’ understanding that the audit committee is indeed an independent body. In terms of assessing risk, for example, it is very important that that confidence is available. The appointment of those independent persons—I hope that there would be three on an audit committee—is very important and very welcome.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I refer to my local government interests, one of which is being a member of Newcastle City Council’s audit committee. I am particularly grateful to the Minister for accepting the thrust of my amendment that there should be such an independent committee. I join the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, in expressing thanks to the Minister, who is, like me and, I think, seven other Members present in your Lordships’ House today, a member of the distinguished union of ex-council leaders—in my case, very ex.

The Minister has been very helpful and patient as we have gone through the Bill, but I should like to make a couple of points. First, while I welcome the inclusion of a reference to an independent person as a member of the audit committee, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, my original amendment referred to having the chair as an independent member. Perhaps that is something that the Government could look at when the Bill goes to the House of Commons. It would seem right for that provision to be made. We will obviously not press that point today, but perhaps the Minister will take it back to colleagues.

The other point is a question that the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, touched on when he mentioned the need to effectively scrutinise the performance of government departments and other public agencies. I think I understand the position but it would be helpful if the Minister could confirm it for the record. The powers of the scrutiny committee to call before it any public body would apply, as it does in local government at present, to the overview and scrutiny committee constituted by a combined authority because there would be government agencies—we have referred several times to Highways England in that context but there may be others and I am thinking of health and social care, the role of NHS England and so on—which at the level of the combined authority may need that degree of scrutiny. I take it that that is the case, but it would be helpful if the Minister could confirm that for the record. I repeat my grateful thanks for all her help, and I am happy to support these amendments.

Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Monday 13th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, Amendments 9, 11, 12 and 14 in this group relate to the functions of the elected mayor and his relationship with the combined authority in that context. Amendment 9 requires the consent of the combined authority to the appointment of a deputy. In Committee the Minister asserted that given that the mayor would by definition have been elected, it was only reasonable for him or her to appoint their deputy. However, we are dealing here with very wide powers over potentially sizable geographical areas, as we heard earlier this afternoon, and certainly with large populations.

The amendment does not advocate a sort of “House of Cards” process, as chillingly exemplified by Kevin Spacey in the United States version of the entertaining drama by the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs. However, it is surely reasonable for the appointment of a deputy—even one drawn from the members of the combined authority—to be approved by that body, especially as there is effectively no limit on the character and extent of the powers that might be so delegated. Moreover, of course, the deputy would, in the event of a vacancy, step into the mayoral shoes pending a fresh election. For these reasons Amendment 12 is also relevant, as it requires the consent of the combined authority to the delegation of powers by the mayor to the deputy or, as the Bill prescribes, any other officer or member. After all, neither the public nor the combined authority would have had a say in those appointments.

Amendment 11 seeks to ensure that mayoral functions which the Secretary of State may make exercisable only by the mayor should be assigned only with the consent of the combined authority. That appears to be the position, if I read it correctly, of the Greater Manchester agreement, and if it is right for Manchester, I suggest that it should be for more general application. Finally, Amendment 14 reinforces the need for combined authority consent to a Secretary of State’s order as to the delegation made under subsection (3). I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 10 and 13 in this group. Broadly speaking, whereas the amendments moved by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, are about securing the approval of the combined authorities, ours require the approval of the overview and scrutiny committee. As we said in Committee, it is much better for that committee to do it, for three reasons. First, it is independent of the mayor and of the combined authority. Secondly, it can be objective and can hold a hearing in public to assess the suitability of a proposed person, thus giving real effect to the principles of scrutiny. Thirdly, it can satisfy itself that the person selected can represent the interests of all parts of its combined authority area, which can sometimes be very large.

In a sense we debated this in Committee, and I listened carefully to the Minister’s answer at the time. I am not convinced that it is right to give the powers of what could appear to be patronage to a single individual. Nor am I convinced that the members of a combined authority, who were appointed as opposed to being directly elected to it, should simply be given the power to decide or to agree who the deputy should be. I would be much happier if we had an independent process which the overview and scrutiny process would look after. I therefore look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the point about how you ensure that those who hold very senior, responsible jobs, which are very well remunerated, can maintain the confidence of the general public.

Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Monday 29th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[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.

Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Monday 29th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I can be brief because the noble Lord, Lord Woolmer, has addressed part of the aim behind this amendment. As it stands, the Bill gives the power of consent on governance arrangements to local authorities. Amendment 45 requires that,

“the Secretary of State must be satisfied that the local government electors … have been properly consulted”.

In one sense and at its simplest, that could be a referendum. However, it is not quite the same thing as a consultation because that enables a debate without there necessarily being a vote to follow it. But if there is not to be a referendum, and I understand the arguments against, we need to be clear that there has been a consultation which is extensive, meaningful, and results in the proposal commanding broad public support. I beg to move.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I have to say that I regard this amendment as somewhat unreal. I had the pleasure of working in three places during the recent general election: first, in my own authority of Newcastle; secondly, in the only seat that Labour retained in Scotland, clearly thanks to my superhuman efforts; and thirdly, in Stockton-on-Tees. The relevance of the last is that more posters were exhibited in Stockton-on-Tees for the Thornaby Independent Association than there were for all the other political parties put together; it is an association for the Thornaby part of the constituency.

The notion that electors are committed to the structures which have been created over time is somewhat fanciful. The good residents of Clara Street, in the ward of Benwell in the west end of Newcastle, which I have represented for approximately a fortnight longer than the Minister has graced this earth—that is, dare I say it, just under 50 years—are not consumed with interest in the governance structures of the local authority. I shall use the phrase again: it is quite unreal. Of course they talk of nothing else but the constitution of council committees in my ward and other places. What the amendment seeks to do is prescribe that, in some undefined way, the Secretary of State has to be satisfied that local government electors have been “properly consulted”, whatever that means, on the details of the procedures laid out in Clause 10. The clause covers the governance arrangements of local authorities, their constitution and membership, and the structural and boundary arrangements in relation to them. It goes on to state,

“‘governance arrangements’ means the executive arrangements, committee system or prescribed arrangements operated by a local authority under Part 1A of the Local Government Act 2000”.

In those 48 years, I have not had a single question addressed to me by a constituent on any of these matters. It may be that I am in an unusual position, but I suspect not. It may be that the constituents of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, in another part of Newcastle where he was a long-serving councillor, were somewhat more engaged with the minutiae of governance structures, but I am somewhat sceptical that that occurred even then. What is suggested in the amendment is effectively undefined and unworkable, and it is not something we can support. I regret to say that when the Minister, as I expect she will, says that it is not necessary or that she does not understand it, or possibly both, I will concur with her entirely.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am sorry to hear that the noble Lord will regret that we concur; we quite often concur. It is not at all unreasonable to consider that, as the elected representatives of those areas seeking devolutions work up their proposals, they will have considered carefully what the communities, local people and businesses in their areas want and expect. It is not at all unreasonable to believe that those elected representatives will have thought deeply about how to implement the proposals they are seeking, what those proposals will mean for those areas, and how those proposals will affect the local people who live or work in those areas. We can be confident that local representatives have ensured that they have engaged with their communities and their electorate to whatever degree, and in whatever manner, they judge necessary in respect of the many different elements that may be in the proposals they put to the Secretary of State.

In these unprecedented processes to deliver devolution, it is not right that we start inserting detailed requirements about the Secretary of State having to second-guess those democratically elected locally, or to be required to form a view as to whether, in his opinion, those democratically elected local representatives have acted as they should. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw this amendment.

Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group relate to the delegation of functions to the deputy mayor who under Clause 2 would be appointed from the members of the authority by the mayor. They relate more generally to the sweeping powers contained in Clause 3 for the Secretary of State to render any function of the authority to be exercised only by the mayor or, even more remarkably, the deputy mayor or any other member or officer of the combined authority whom the mayor might choose. That represents a massive concentration of power in the hands of an elected mayor. It is an unacceptable vesting of power, which he can delegate to anybody, in effect, whom he chooses.

The very authorities that have blazed the trail of innovation that led to this Bill in the Greater Manchester area did so without this effectively unfettered power. The great local government leaders of the past—from Joseph Chamberlain to Herbert Morrison and others, some of whom adorn the Benches to this day—did not have such power. It is unnecessary for the Bill to include that measure.

Amendment 18 would require the consent of the combined authority to the appointment of the deputy mayor and Amendment 20 would require the consent of the authority to the delegation by the Secretary of State of the functions exercisable only by the mayor. Amendment 21 would require the mayor to consult the combined authority on the further delegation of general functions by the mayor to a deputy. Amendment 22 deals with the provision of Section 107D(5) under which:

“Any general function exercisable by the mayor”,

may be exercised,

“by the mayor individually, or … by a person acting under arrangements with the mayor”,

only with the consent of the combined authority. The purpose of this group of amendments is to ensure that the combined authority has some influence over the delegation of hugely important powers otherwise left in the hands entirely of the elected mayor. I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I support the main aim of Amendment 18, and will speak in particular to Amendments 19 and 37 in this group. As the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said, the Bill proposes a massive concentration of power in the hands of the mayor. In the context of the appointment of a deputy mayor, there has to be an appointments process that is understood publicly and has public consent. We cannot have a decision just emerging from a set of private decisions. Our Amendment 19 is designed to make the process more transparent. We do that by saying that the appointment by a mayor of a deputy mayor should be,

“subject to approval by the overview and scrutiny committee”,

and that approval can be secured,

“by a simple majority of members of the oversight and scrutiny committee”,

agreeing that the appointment should be made. We also say in proposed new subsection 1(D):

“An overview and scrutiny committee may”—

at its discretion—

“in pursuit of making a determination … hold a confirmation hearing for the deputy mayor”.

That is clearly defined in proposed new subsection 1(E) as meaning,

“a public meeting at which members of the overview and scrutiny committee may question witnesses and where the committee can compel—

(a) the mayor;

(b) the proposed deputy mayor; and

(c) any other persons that the committee considers relevant to attend”.

This is a much better way of proceeding. There are a number of examples around the world where such confirmation hearings are held, and it seems to me that it would be justifiable in this case, given the dangers that we addressed on Monday during our first day in Committee about the creation of a one-party state. So Amendment 37 would require the approval of the appointment of the deputy mayor by the overview and scrutiny committee.

This is an important issue of principle for us, and I hope that the Government will give due weight to the need to ensure that in a Bill which is proposing such a massive concentration of power, some protection of the public interest can be secured by means of our amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, this is a probing amendment in relation to the controversial proposal under new Section 107E to permit mayors to assume the role of police and crime commissioner. In fairness, this is not a case in which the Government are imposing that as a requirement—at this stage, at any rate—but it is an option on the table that the authorities in Greater Manchester have chosen to adopt, which is no doubt satisfactory at least to the police and crime commissioner in that area, since he has become the interim mayor of Greater Manchester. He is a very able person, and if we have to have somebody in that role I have no doubt he will do an excellent job.

However, the problem that may arise, and does arise in the case of the north-east, is that the boundaries of the combined authority include more than one police and crime commissioner area. In the north-east we have two police forces and two police and crime commissioners, one for Northumbria and one for Durham. The same difficulty may well arise in other areas, such as the West Midlands or the south-west. Not only may there be two or more distinct police forces with their own police and crime commissioners within the boundaries of a proposed combined authority; there may be police authorities and areas represented by police and crime commissioners which are only partially within a combined authority. There may be an overlap between the boundaries of a combined authority and police authority areas.

It seems that in that event, it would be inappropriate simply to consign all or part of an existing area to the responsibility of a combined authority mayor. Therefore, the amendment calls on the Secretary of State to propose alternative arrangements to meet these geographical difficulties, if I may put it in that way. I invite the Minister to explain how the Government intend to approach the issue and what kind of parliamentary approval would be sought. For example, would further amendment to the legislation which established the position of these police and crime commissioners be required? I hope the Minister can deal with that point today, but if not, perhaps it can be discussed before we reach Report. I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I agree with the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. I want to ask the Minister about the nature of a police and crime commissioner appointment. I recall that when we debated the terms of those appointments in your Lordships’ House not that long ago, these were clearly full-time appointments—substantial salaries were to be paid. Does the Minister agree with me that if a decision can be made that an elected mayor can undertake those functions along with all the other functions that may be devolved or delegated to them by the Secretary of State, it is very hard to see the basis on which a PCC appointment should be seen as full time? If it should not, what is the implication of that for other police and crime commissioners?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, Amendment 24 would insert a new provision within new Section 107E to require the Secretary of State to bring forward proposals to make alternative arrangements where the geographic boundary of a police and crime commissioner area does not correspond, as noble Lords have said, with the area of a combined authority.

New Section 107E would enable the Secretary of State to provide, by order, that the mayor of a combined authority area would exercise the functions of a police and crime commissioner, subject to the necessary consent from the appropriate authorities. If such an order were made, new Section 107E would also require the Secretary of State to provide that there is no separate police and crime commissioner for the area of the combined authority. The Bill also enables secondary legislation to be made which creates the position of mayor for the area of the combined authority, while retaining a separate position of the police and crime commissioner for the policing area.

The Bill does not prevent a mayor also being given police and crime commissioner functions where the relevant combined authority area does not correspond to a single police area. Should it be considered appropriate to transfer functions to a mayor in such a case, powers in existing legislation would enable police areas to be altered to facilitate such a scenario. On this basis, mechanisms are already available to enable alternative arrangements to be made. However, as we know, Greater Manchester’s devolution deal is the only one to date which will include a directly elected metro mayor also taking the police and crime commissioner function. We also know that in this area the police force boundary corresponds to that of the combined authority.

We will consider any future proposals to transfer police and crime commissioner functions to the mayor for a combined authority area on a case-by-case basis, and will transfer these functions where appropriate. Clearly, geographic issues will be an important consideration in this regard. With these explanations and assurances, I hope the noble Lord will feel content to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I do not know whether the noble Baroness has answered the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley.

[Lord Shipley]

I am quite happy to have the question answered later. We will be going on to another set of amendments that deal with the nature of the appointment of a police and crime commissioner, and I would be very happy if the Minister wanted to reply at that point.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, as I indicated, we will not be pressing this matter at this stage. I therefore beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord McKenzie is resting temporarily but will occupy centre stage shortly, which will give me some relief and perhaps your Lordships as well.

This group of amendments deals not so much with the boundaries of the proposed arrangements for police and crime but with the functions of the police and crime commissioner that would be taken over by an elected mayor if a combined authority and its mayor chose to take that particular route. The amendments clearly address the controversial concept of transferring powers and functions. PCCs were created, as we have heard, with a great fanfare three years ago and were met by a public response of virtually total indifference.

The Government’s proposals in new Section 107E at least have the virtue of requiring the consent of the appropriate authorities. Amendment 27 makes it clear that this consent must be unanimous. However, the section does not deal with the issue raised in the debate on the previous amendment of where the boundaries do not coincide. That is why Amendment 24—to which we will return—requires the Secretary of State to,

“bring forward proposals to make alternative arrangements”.

It will be recalled that the turnout in the PCC elections plumbed the very depths of political engagement, barely exceeding the total share of the vote achieved by the Liberal Democrats in the recent general election. However, the notion that the mayoral role should encompass that of the police and crime commissioner gives a whole new meaning to the hallowed phrase “one man, one vote”, given the more extensive powers vested in the so-called metro mayors. One man’s vote would, as the Bill stands, effectively be the only vote that would count over a huge range of budgets, services and policies, and, if the Bill’s permissive proposal were activated, over a huge area of public policy and administration in relation to police and crime. That becomes part of the mayoral function, possibly carried out by the mayor himself or herself, or possibly delegated—and we have talked a little about delegation.

The question is: what is the Government’s long-term vision for the police service? Do they see a mix of mayoral and PCC models, and how sustainable would such a binary system be, especially in the light of hugely difficult financial pressures across all public services? Already the police service is suffering significant cuts, with more apparently to come as the Home Secretary airily dismisses concerns about what is happening to our police service.

Amendments 29 to 32 deal with a range of issues. Amendment 29 establishes the need for a proper appointment process where the PCC functions are to be exercised other than by the mayor himself. Apparently it will be for the mayor to choose whether that will be the case or not. Amendment 31 gives the Secretary of State power to allow the equivalent of the police and crime panel, which currently exists, to suspend any relevant person exercising PCC functions on behalf of the mayor. Amendment 32 applies the same disqualification procedure for a mayor’s appointee to a PCC function. There needs to be some mechanism to deal with that situation, which does not on the face of it appear to be dealt with in the Bill.

Finally—and, it might be thought, crucially—Amendment 30 requires the Secretary of State to provide for the protection of police budgets transferred to the mayor, should the mayor opt to take the police and crime commissioner functions into his functions and those of the combined authority. That would be an important safeguard, should that take place. It would effectively ring-fence the expenditure which hitherto had been the responsibility of police and crime commissioners and, before that, of the police authorities. I trust that the Minister will be able to give some assurances about that crucial financial issue. I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, a number of issues arise from this group of amendments. I look forward to the Minister’s response to the point that I raised in the debate on Amendment 24. I am getting very confused about the Government’s proposals for the election or appointment of police and crime commissioners. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, raised a set of points that need to be very carefully examined and responded to. Therefore, in addition to the question that I have already posed about whether or not these are full-time appointments, I am really very concerned about the public interest. For example, will the general public know when a mayoral election is taking place that the person elected as mayor may, in due course, also become the police and crime commissioner? If there is a set of elections for these full-time posts now, what are the implications and how will it work for someone standing as elected mayor who may then become the police and crime commissioner?

Interestingly, in the Bill, the Government have proposals to suspend or disqualify a PCC, but, as I understand it, the Bill does not provide similar powers for the suspension or disqualification of the elected mayor. We have to tidy this up. At the moment, we have elections for a police and crime commissioner. Will the election of a mayor include clarity in advance of the ballot that they are also a candidate to become the police and crime commissioner? We seem to be giving the Secretary of State enormous power to change the terms under which an elected mayor has been elected, to enable them to do something else—become the PCC, which is, by its nature, a full-time post.

I am absolutely at one with the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and the amendments that ask for an appointments process. If we do not have an electoral process for the PCC, surely there should be an appointments process if the person elected mayor is also to become the police and crime commissioner.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord. I apologise for omitting reference to two amendments in my name, which partially deal with the points that he has made—Amendments 31 and 32. The Bill permits the suspension of a mayor’s PCC role, and Amendment 31 would allow for any person who has had a PCC function delegated to them by the elected mayor to be suspended also. Similarly, where there is a disqualification of a mayor’s PCC role, the amendment would allow for the disqualification of any person who has had that function delegated to them. I apologise to your Lordships for not having referred to those points in my relatively brief opening remarks. I hope the Minister will be able to deal with them in due course.

Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, these are very important issues. I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Bradley and Lord Warner, for all the points they have made, which I hope the Minister will take as constructive criticism. I anticipate that we will have a significant debate—or at least I hope we will—when we reach Amendment 44D on Monday. I simply want to say that Amendments 36D and 36E both have our support. They raise some very important issues and are a practical example of some of the issues we were discussing earlier today such as the NHS and social care, and how that works in practice in an area. This is an example of clarifying what is within scope for devolution to a combined authority and which Ministers have what powers with regard to the devolution of both resources and responsibilities. I will not detain the House any longer on this matter, but I expect that we will return to it when we debate Amendment 44D on Monday.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, although my political interest in social services goes back more than 40 years to the days when I was chairman of the social services committee in Newcastle—the four most productive years in my fairly long political life, which is rather a sad comment on the rest of it—I will confine myself to only one question. I have been a member of the health scrutiny committee in Newcastle since its inception, and I am not clear about the role, which is a statutory role, of the health scrutiny committee in the context of devolution. We will be debating later the question of overview and scrutiny within the combined authority, but I wonder how that will fit alongside what I take will be the continuing statutory responsibility of social services authorities at any rate to have an overview and scrutiny committee to deal specifically with health, well-being and social care.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, the amendments in this group relate to the overview and scrutiny committees of the combined authorities and concentrate on what can only be described as the extraordinary powers the Bill confers on the Secretary of State to prescribe, and indeed circumscribe, the way in which they may operate. The provisions are contained in Schedule 3 to the Bill.

Amendments 36H and 37B would establish that the committee may consider not only decisions made or action taken, which is the limit of the powers conferred by the Bill as it stands, but such matters as may be under consideration—echoing the current practice in local authorities, which can look forward as well as back. Amendment 37B applies this principle to mayoral combined authorities.

Amendment 39AA would require the guidance by the Secretary of State, which again is provided for in the Bill, on the functions of overview and scrutiny committees to be approved by the affirmative procedure.

Amendment 39C is a probing amendment to seek an explanation of the Secretary of State’s extraordinary assumption of the role of determining who may or may not chair an overview and scrutiny committee or be a scrutiny officer. It is remarkable that, in an allegedly devolutionary Bill, the Secretary of State should arrogate such a power as to prescribe who might or might not perform those functions.

Amendment 40A probes the Secretary of State’s power to make orders as to the publication of reports, recommendations and disclosure of information to the overview and scrutiny committee. Given that the Local Government Act 1972 already allows councils to go into private session if this should be required, subject to advance notice and public challenge, why do the Government not simply extend those provisions of the 1972 Act to overview and scrutiny committees?

Amendment 40B would require the affirmative procedure to be applied to orders relating to the membership and structure of overview and scrutiny committees, thereby ensuring continuing parliamentary scrutiny over the process. I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, we have tabled Amendments 41 and 42. I will not add to what the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has said, but I subscribe to the views he has expressed.

Our amendments in this group relate to the membership of the overview and scrutiny committee. We said in the first day of Committee that we did not want to create one-party states, so we have been seeking ways in which we can propose amendments that will deliver that outcome. This is to take the proportion of votes cast for each political party at the most recent local government election for the combined authority’s constituent councils.

The reason why this matters is that, if you take seats only won under the first-past-the-post system, one particular party in most of the areas currently subject to or considering combined authorities would absolutely dominate the overview and scrutiny committee—indeed, the Conservative Party has very few seats in northern cities—so this would not be good for the democratic process. I think that the overview and scrutiny committees ought to have a significant number of opposition members and that that should be calculated on the basis of votes cast in the last election, rather than on the number of seats that they win under first past the post.

In terms of the chair, there are a number of examples in local government where scrutiny committees are chaired by a councillor who is a member of the opposition. That principle should extend to the combined authority. Amendment 42 says that the chair of such a committee must be a member of a political party other than the party of the mayor of the combined authority.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Beecham]

That is welcome, and I am certainly prepared to withdraw my amendment. I have to say that I am not overimpressed with at least one of the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, relating to the percentage vote of parties that may well achieve no membership at all of the local authorities they have contested but will somehow appear on the combined authority. Of course, that general view is consistent with the proposals that the Liberal Democrats made for the composition of your Lordships’ House, about which I suspect we will hear very little for the next few years.

[Lord Shipley]

You could actually have a minimum threshold of, say, 5% of the vote, which would remove some of the objections that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has.

[Lord Beecham]

It would not, because 5% of the vote across an area may produce absolutely no councillors elected to those authorities at all; their only role in local government would then be to be appointed to the combined authority. That seems a ludicrous outcome. However, the noble Lord and I have been on good terms for virtually the whole evening and I would not like him to go away feeling too disappointed.

We will see what happens on Report, but I look forward to the discussions with the Minister on those matters which she has indicated are subject to further consideration. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, Amendment 37A is ultimately of some importance. It seeks to establish an audit committee for authorities created under the provisions of the Bill. I cannot claim to be as well qualified in respect of matters of audit as my noble friend Lord McKenzie, a former partner in PwC and a former leader of Luton Council, in which latter capacity he was presumably an auditee rather than an auditor, but I have served for a number of years as a member of Newcastle’s audit committee, which is politically balanced, with an independent chairman who is not a member of the council and two other independent members.

Given the potential role of the combined authorities, part of whose raison d’être will of course be to achieve economies of scale and ensure the most effective use of resources devolved by government departments and public bodies, something akin to a local version of the Public Accounts Committee would be a highly desirable addition to the role of overview and scrutiny, especially if independently chaired. The amendment sets out a job description which should facilitate proper oversight of the combined authorities’ management and governance. It is not unduly prescriptive and I would personally welcome the inclusion of additional independent members who might be drawn from business, academia or the third sector.

Again without going so far as to lay down a requirement, I hope that the combined authorities would eventually adopt a process of peer review across their whole field of operations. This has proved its worth in the local government world and would usefully augment whatever procedures are adopted in relation to this amendment.

It would be interesting to learn what the Government have in mind for assessing their own relationships with combined authorities and the workings of the partnerships between government, public bodies and the combined authorities collectively. In any event, I urge the Minister to consider sympathetically the proposal for an audit committee, preferably one that is independently chaired, because the role is not quite the same as that of an overview and scrutiny committee. I serve on both types of body in my own authority. They have different roles and I think it is critical, given the importance of the subject matter and the amount of money that will be spent, that there should be that function embedded in the new system. I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, in broad terms I very strongly support Amendment 37A. I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, talked in terms of the Public Accounts Committee, which is slightly different from a committee that will simply review and scrutinise the authority’s financial affairs. It is actually about the efficient and effective use of public money, and one of the objectives of devolution is to ensure that local areas spend money more appropriately so that the spending is more effective in the outcomes it achieves. That has to be audited in some way. The only way that that can be done is in something like a public accounts committee for the area of the combined authority. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will look at that suggestion as I think that it would help enormously, first, in ensuring that the Government’s objectives are being delivered but, secondly, in giving the public confidence in the expenditure of the money that they are paying for through taxation.

Transfer of Tribunal Functions (Mobile Homes Act 2013 and Miscellaneous Amendments) Order 2014

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Monday 16th June 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I declare that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association and a former council leader. Therefore, I have a keen interest in all aspects of local government matters.

I would like to ask about the level of fees to be charged rather than the transfer of jurisdiction, which is what the order is mainly about. My query relates to paragraph 7.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which states:

“The normal policy is that fees should be set at a level to recover no more than the full cost of providing the service”

I agree with that; that is the correct policy. However, will the Minister clarify whether the definition of full cost actually is full cost in this instance? It is a fee level of £155. Has that fee level been set to include a contribution to a council’s overheads rather than just being the recovery of the immediate direct cost?

I raise this because I think that it is an issue of principle. When I was a council leader, I discovered that in many instances, particularly in the regulatory and licensing areas, fees and charges were not, in fact, related to the total cost that a council incurred. That total cost includes its overheads for its premises, heating, lighting and so on. Too often fees were set to cover the cost of undertaking the immediate work involved. I seek assurance from the Minister that the total cost to a local authority has been included in paragraph 7.2 in setting the fee at £155.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I must follow the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, in declaring an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and as a former leader of the same council for, if I may say so, quite a bit longer than the noble Lord. I have a certain sympathy with his view on this order to the extent that we are talking essentially about commercial organisations bearing the cost. The implication behind the noble Lord’s question is clear enough: is this a sufficient amount? If it were to fall on the occupier of a mobile home, I would be somewhat concerned about that. If the intention is that it should fall on the owner of the site as a commercial proposition, I think he makes a significant point. I am glad that he has made it because my only reservation about this order would have been to point to the split infinitive in the Explanatory Note.

Local Audit and Accountability Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I will add a brief comment about this, because from the perspective of the general public it is a very important issue. I understand that the Secretary of State has made a statement, published in the Local Government Chronicle, that a change will be effected in two years’ time. However, we need to be a bit clearer about what this might mean because of the rights of people to know what statutory notices are being placed that they might be interested in.

As I understand it, newspapers can still be used, which I welcome because newspapers in many parts of the country still have a role in publishing statutory notices. However, that will become a matter for a local council to decide. Let us also note that in the second part of this amendment my noble friend Lord Tope is saying that a local authority has to use a means of publicity that will bring it to the attention of the greatest number of people in the area. I hope no local authority thinks that that means it need not advertise on local lampposts and notice boards. If you are going to get to the greatest number of people, using local lampposts is a very effective means of achieving that.

I think the Secretary of State was quoted as saying that he prefers websites to be used in future. However, I will make three proposals to the Minister that might be thought about when the time comes to issue guidance. It is very easy for information to be lost on websites. There has to be a link to statutory notices from a council’s main page, and the website has to be easy to navigate to get the information off it. I also ask the Government to introduce an automatic postcode search facility so that someone who wants to inquire, as they do on a planning matter, can input a postcode, as they can in most local authorities, and get a straightforward list of current planning applications in that area. I propose that the same thing should happen for statutory notices.

Other than that, the world is changing around us. While I quite like to read statutory notices in newspapers, I understand the need to move with the times as long as the interests of the general public are protected and information is not hidden from them when lampposts, newspapers and the web could all be used in relevant ways as decided by local authorities.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, far be it from me to seek to mediate between the coalition parties on this matter, although of course I cannot resist the temptation to do so.

The noble Lord’s proposition is in many ways sensible. Even under the present law, councils certainly have the right to advertise in ways additional to publication in newspapers if they choose. Eventually, no doubt, that will become pretty much par for the course. The Government could facilitate the process by at least reviewing now rather than at some definite point in the future the list of items that have to be publicised, because frankly it is ridiculous. Planning matters are clearly important. However, when it comes to dog control orders or their revocation, the licensing of buskers, charges for street trading licences, abandoned shopping trolleys and charges for public baths and wash-houses, one wonders whether a formal statutory notice of any kind is desired. It is certainly not required, and certainly not in paid publications.

If the Minister were to indicate that the Government will address this matter—it is not that complicated; after all, there are only eight or nine pages of these things to work through—a sensible accommodation could be achieved that still leaves a statutory requirement for publication in newspapers. That should remain as part of a new framework, given that not everyone can look at the website, and there will at least be the opportunity to read a printed version. I hope that that would alleviate some of the concerns of the Local Government Association and, indeed, of the noble Lords who have already spoken. It would not be acceptable for the Government simply to reject the Motion and do nothing about this ridiculous list of notices that have to be published in a paid-for publication at the present time. A gesture from the Government in that respect, other than the normal gesture that one tends to get metaphorically across the Dispatch Box, would be helpful.

Local Audit and Accountability Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Monday 15th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, this amendment refers to the Government’s proposal—which, again, was not subjected to scrutiny by the draft Bill committee—to introduce, effectively, an element of retrospection into the question of whether a referendum should be held. The Bill affects councils that have set council taxes for 2013-14 that would have been excessive if the clause becomes law, by virtue of the change that the Government are imposing in relation to levies by other organisations. Fortunately, it turns out that only a small number of authorities would be affected by the Government’s proposals. Those authorities are Wandsworth—an authority well known to the noble Baroness and other noble Lords—Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport and Tameside. There is clearly a clutch around the Greater Manchester area, which presumably relates to some joint organisation in that area which collects a levy. Why Wandsworth should be affected, I really cannot say, although that does not really matter.

In Committee, the Minister indicated that councils had been notified by, I think, 31 January, that this might happen. However, that is a very late stage in the budget-making process, and it would have been very difficult at that stage to have reduced their council tax to the level which, if the Government were to apply the new rules, would have been operative. I repeat that the problem is not about the council’s own budget, it is about the levy imposed by other organisations. Had it been a precepting authority, the precepting authority itself could have had to call and finance a referendum on its own budget.

Many of us are extremely unhappy about the whole concept of these compulsory referendums, which of course do not apply when the Government increase taxes, with a considerably greater effect on the household budget than a corresponding increase in council tax. A 2% VAT increase takes a lot more out of people’s pockets than a 2%, or even slightly higher, council tax increase. Be that as it may, the effect is curiously different between a levying body and a precepting body; a levying body simply passes the cost on. The total amount of money is not enormous and would seem to amount to some £7.3 million. If the councils had been able to reduce their council tax to match the levy that they have had to impose, that would have been the cost to them, to be taken out of services. Nevertheless, it is a significant encroachment and, of course, if that were now to trigger a referendum—because the referendum limit becomes lower in future and councils may feel that they have to go for one—the cost of that, across these authorities, is likely to be pretty much the amount of the total levy across all those authorities. It is a bizarre situation. Given that it is now clear that it applies only to a very small number of authorities, in one particular cluster—in what, by the look of it, must be the special circumstances of Greater Manchester—I hope that the Government will reconsider this matter.

I suppose the Government do not have to apply the provisions of the Bill. If they do not want to amend the Bill and they want to reserve the power, so be it, but I strongly urge the Minister to think again about imposing this. It is wrong in principle, and it is an unnecessary reaction to what turns out in any event to have been a pretty small problem in terms of the number of authorities and the cash affected. It would be a statesmanlike move on the part of the Government to accept that perhaps, in the circumstances, they rather overreacted, fearing worse than has actually transpired, and to indicate that at the very least they would reconsider whether to proceed with the implementation of the clause, if they insist on its standing part of the Bill. I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 43, and will be brief. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. I think it is bad policy to backdate the definition of an excessive council tax rise so that it includes a levy from April 2013. I understand that in January this year letters were sent out to local authorities suggesting that the Government might take this course of action. I will say two things about that. The first is that it is simply not enough notice. Council tax-setting takes much longer than just a few weeks. There is a requirement that council tax is effectively set by the beginning of March, so that bills can be sent out. In my view, given the lengthy periods of consultation that local authorities are required to undertake, a period of six months would have been more reasonable.

My second reason for objecting to the Bill as it stands is that one should have respect for the law at the time at which the law is applied. I believe that councils and levying authorities abided by the law at the time. As the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, quite rightly pointed out, it is a comparatively small problem. Retrospective change, whether or not there was a warning, seems to me to be wrong in principle, and should therefore be resisted. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said that he felt that the Government were overreacting. I concur with that, because I believe that it is an overreaction to backdate in the way the Government propose.

Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Wednesday 10th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I express my full support for the speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer. The amendment is about getting TIF written into the Bill as a financial lever that can generate growth. All the international experience suggests that other countries are well used to using it.

I fully understand the need to ensure that investment and borrowing are responsibly undertaken and I have no desire to see problems arise such as have occurred in Spain with excess local authority and regional spending. However, localism in England has to mean trusting people with power and enabling them to manage their own investment and their own risk. As long as schemes meet the regulations, are genuinely additional and would not otherwise take place, the number of schemes should not be limited by central government, hence our full support for Amendment 71 which gives effect to that.

One of the amendments makes clear reference to tax increment financing, as opposed to there being no reference to those words at all. There is also an amendment that gives greater flexibility in start dates for schemes. Absolutely crucial, however, is the question of self-funding expenditure that complies with accounting standards, and the fact that it ought to be exempt from the public expenditure control framework because its impact on the deficit would be neutral, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, has pointed out. In other words, there is a need to drive long-term growth through tax increment financing rather than through something that counts as an in-year spending decision, as long as it has been exempted from the public expenditure control framework. It seems that the Treasury has regarded infrastructure funded by TIF 2 as part of the local authority self-financed expenditure limits, which contrasts with the policy being followed for enterprise zones, which does not count, even though both mechanisms borrow against future business rate income over 25 years.

This is all about growth. We urgently want everyone to have responsibility for driving growth. This Bill says a lot about devolving business rates to local authorities. However, actually empowering and enabling local authorities to manage investment on the basis of future business rate income, but over a long period of time as opposed to a short one, is a vehicle that will enable growth levels to be enhanced. I hope very much that the Minister will agree with us that we need to do a little more now to promote tax increment financing as a vehicle for growth.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I warmly endorse the amendments moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, and supported by my fellow Newcastle councillor—ex-Newcastle councillor, I should say now—the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. The noble Baroness is quite right to point out that for all the potential of this scheme, the amount that the Government have decided to allocate to it is, frankly, pitiful. I think that the figure is £150 million. During the mayoral referendum campaigns, which took place earlier this year, much was made of the prospect of city deals for the eight authorities that were subjected to a referendum, and the prospect of tax increment financing was dangled in front of them. However, only three authorities, I think, have now been awarded tax increment financing arrangements. Newcastle, I am pleased to say, has secured I think £90 million of the £250 million, but only two other authorities have been brought in. That is a fairly minimal impact overall.

We have just been treated to the noise of fireworks, which reminded me rather of the spectacular opening of the Olympic Games and the wonderful display there, which of course cost £29 million. That is 20% of the total that is going to be allocated for tax increment financing—for one evening’s entertainment, however wonderful. There has to be something wrong with the Government’s priorities when they afford only £150 million to an imaginative scheme that should incentivise growth. This is a good way to promote growth quickly. As the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, implied, infrastructure investment, which is of course what tax increment finance would essentially be directed to, can take place relatively quickly. It can generate growth in its own terms and blazes the trail for more substantial growth over a period.

In the debate in Committee the Minister prayed in aid the Office for Budget Responsibility as taking a view on these matters. I do not know on what basis that information was conveyed. It may be that the OBR has advised the Government—but the OBR does not take decisions in these matters.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, pointed out, it is for the Government to decide. On the face of it, it does not appear to be inconsistent with international practice. There has been some question about whether PFI arrangements should or should not be counted for those purposes—certainly, for many years, they were not—but the difference between this and PFI is that PFI was to cover public expenditure. To my mind, the only advantage of PFI arrangements was that they took it off the balance sheet internationally, as it were. It is not comparable when the whole thrust of the TIF proposal is to facilitate private sector development, with the beneficial effect that that would have on the economy. I hope that the Minister and the Government will look at this again and not seek reasons not to accept the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, but find ways to accept and develop it.

Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Thursday 5th July 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Shipley]

That would actually be a quicker way of proceeding.

I agree with the amendment moved by the noble Lord. The Localism Act was about devolving power and decentralising decision-making. This set of amendments makes it clear that there should be full consultation with local government before decisions are made. When decisions are made, that cannot just be about notifying those decisions but should clearly explain through consultation first but secondly explanation of the decision that has been made, particularly in a matter as complex as tariffs and top-ups. Thirdly, there has to be consultation on the detail not just on the general nature of things.

I hope that the Minister will take on board that feeling because the Localism Act has changed the balance of responsibility between central and local government. It would help enormously if it were not just left for the Secretary of State to have a set of powers whereby things can be announced but not actually explained.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I entirely support the amendment moved by my noble friend and supported by my erstwhile colleague on Newcastle City Council and fellow vice-president of the Local Government Association. It clearly makes sense, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said, it is clearly in the spirit of the Localism Act.

However, there is another aspect. The Government set much store on the proposals in relation to the business rate as part of an approach to incentivise and increase local investment by business, growing the local economy and all the rest of it. In that context, it would surely be sensible if, in addition to consulting local government perfectly properly on these topics, they also consulted business. That cannot be done at every local level by the Government and councils will no doubt continue to have discussions with their own local businesses. However, as I pointed out on our first Committee day when I quoted the London chambers report, some 53% of businesses believe that councils set the business rates now. So there is a certain amount of education to be done here. But at the national level, I would have thought it important for government to consult, particularly about that proportion of the business rate that is to be held centrally rather than devolved locally, because that clearly would be a matter of concern to the business community.

Without the necessity of moving anything formally, it would be helpful if the Minister could put on the record an intention that in any consultation about the business rate and the various elements, resets and proportions and so on, the Government will consult the business community as well as local government.

Localism Act 2011 (Consequential Amendments) Order 2012

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for the explanation of these two orders. I will speak to them both because, substantially, I have only one point to make.

I am particularly happy with the general power of competence applying to parish councils. It is absolutely right that clerks should be qualified and that there is a clear democratic mandate for the parish to undertake the general power of competence. But I have one question that relates to the duty to co-operate. I seek confirmation that there will be an application of the duty to co-operate.

One of the issues that arose when we discussed the Localism Bill was that neighbourhood planning had been addressed from a rural rather than an urban perspective. Of course it applies in both. Albeit that 1973 is a long time ago, the consequences of the policy in those days are broadly with us today. In rural areas, some parish councils were created to lie within what are now urban areas. My concern relates to a failure of a duty to co-operate between parish councils and the areas around them.

There could, for example, be a situation in which parishes have a neighbourhood plan but the adjacent non-parish area does not have a neighbourhood forum, or where a parish does not have a plan and the adjacent neighbourhood forum has been created and it does. Or there could be a situation where both the parish council and the adjacent neighbourhood forum could be contiguous and the plan of one would impact on the other. It is very important that where they both want to have a plan there is clear co-operation between the two.

There is a whole set of issues around whether urban neighbourhood councils or parish councils should be extended. That is for others to decide. But it is important, particularly in the context of the community infrastructure levy potentially applying, that a clear duty to co-operate should be imposed on parish councils and on other councils in exactly the same way that there is a duty to co-operate between neighbouring district councils.

In short, with a general power of competence, it is important that there is a general duty to co-operate as well. I simply seek the Minister's assurance that that is what is planned.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I am pleased to join two fellow north-easterners in the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, in reviewing these revisions. I certainly endorse their commending the extension of the general power of competence to parish councils.

I do, however, have questions about the detail of the proposals. I confine myself to the second instrument that the Minister proposes. My first question relates to the provision about the resolution, which will allow a council to proceed with the exercise of the general power. The council, having passed such a resolution, is able to continue to exercise that power until the next relevant annual meeting—even if, for example, it loses its clerk at some point during that period. I hesitate to say so, but parish councils do not have the highest reputation for stability in relationships between their own members or between members and clerks. They have been the source of vast numbers of complaints to the now abolished standards board. It is conceivable that a clerk, perhaps because of a disagreement or perhaps simply because he or she moves, leaves a parish council for the greater part of a four-year period. Yet the council could continue to exercise its general powers without the benefit of the kind of advice which, very sensibly, as the Minister outlined, can be secured through qualifications and training. Is it wise to allow for such a potentially long period?

There is also a transitional provision safeguarding those who have to deal with the parish council in those circumstances. I understand this. The Explanatory Memorandum states that the provision would ensure that councils,

“do not lose the incentive to continue to meet the conditions once they have initially become eligible. It also provides certainty for third parties in their dealings with parish councils as to the extent of a particular council’s powers”.

That is the point. It would seem to apply to not just existing projects but new projects to which a parish council, in between the appointment of clerks or resolutions, might embark upon. Is it all that sensible to make that provision? On similar lines, the Explanatory Memorandum points out that if a council does not pass at the “next relevant annual meeting”, for whatever reason, a resolution, either because it does not qualify through having a qualified clerk or because it changes its mind, an,

“activity that has been begun but not completed may be continued”.

I can see the logic of that, but I wonder about the word “completed”. Let us suppose, for example, that a parish council decides to undertake the maintenance of playing fields or provide a facility—it could be anything from a public convenience to meeting rooms or something of that kind. In that example, what does completing that project actually mean? If it is a contract, I can understand it; if it is not, I do not quite understand how it could be judged to be completed. Therefore, it would potentially seem that something could just continue indefinitely, even though the council has either become ineligible or does not pass a further resolution. There is a possibility for difficulties there.

The Explanatory Memorandum says:

“The Government’s expectation is that eligible parish councils will strive to fulfil the conditions at all times”.

That is in the motherhood-and-apple-pie part of the Explanatory Memorandum. If anything, what do the Government have in mind, preferably in conjunction with the National Association of Local Councils, to see that that expectation is fulfilled? I would hope that the national association would be helpful in supporting the Government’s expectation. Of course, not all councils are members of the national association; some have deliberately absented themselves from it, including some of the larger ones—unless they have rejoined since my time, when I was engaged with them on behalf of the LGA. So there is potentially an issue there as well.

There are two other points on which I seek clarification of the present position, or on whether the Government might be interested in pursuing them. The first, in a sense following the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, is whether the general power extends to councils combining for particular purposes. Would the power extend to allowing two neighbouring parish councils to set up something jointly in the way that councils in, for example, Greater Manchester have come together to do things together across the piece, serving a wider area than the individual parish? I assume that it is intended, but it would be as well perhaps to have that on the record.

Local Authorities (Conduct of Referendums) (England) Regulations 2012

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Monday 6th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

Would the noble Lord count a turnout of 18 per cent as a vindication of his position that there is a great public interest in this?

[Lord Shipley]

It is too low, but of course, local elections and leaders of councils are being elected in practice on similar numbers. So no, the point is not material. The fact is that the people of Salford have voted for an elected mayor. It is simply not the case that there is no apparent public support for elected mayors. I believe that we should test the public view. That was agreed as part of the Localism Act, and we should not regret that but should test the public opinion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Beecham]

I am not sure that that is right. However, in any event, irrespective of whether or not the Government have the power to require referendums—I think that they do, but I may be wrong—what the noble Baroness has said constitutes a pretty substantial disparagement of the record of her political colleagues in significant authorities not unadjacent to where we are debating these matters, among others. I find it rather strange that apparently only mayoral authorities are capable of delivering regeneration and economic prosperity. The case that has been advanced is that you need a mayor to make that progress. Frankly, I do not accept that. However, in general there is a continuing lack of evidence in support of the mayoral system. I say with all due respect to the noble Baroness that affirmation is not evidence.

I turn to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. He gives as a reason for supporting elected mayors that there are to be police commissioners. In November people will have the opportunity of buying one and getting one free because there will be two votes on the same day. But, of course, it will not be free; it will presumably be double the cost. If there is a mayoral referendum, that will cost roughly £250,000 and there will be separate costs for the police commissioner elections, which would also clock up to the same figure in individual authorities. If they are buying two, they will have to pay for two. They do not get one free.

Why the existence of a police commissioner should make it all the more desirable to have an elected mayor, I do not understand. But then few people understand why we should have police commissioners in the first place, including quite a lot of Members on the government Benches in this House and in the other place. Certainly it is not understood by the Prime Minister’s favourite police officer, Mr Bratton, whom he wanted to appoint as Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who could not understand why the American system should be imported into this country.

The noble Lord also welcomed the powers to be given to elected mayors but without explaining why only elected mayors should get them. In fact, it is not only elected mayors who are likely to get them because discussions are going on with other authorities. There is an interesting development around Greater Manchester with the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities, which is not predicated on the existence of a mayor either from Manchester or the area as a whole.

I must tease the noble Lord somewhat. It is only a few months since he and I were jointly discussing how we might campaign together against the idea of an elected mayor. This gives rise to the Paul Daniels question. Your Lordships will remember the magician and television personality Paul Daniels and his attractive young wife. She was asked: “What is it about balding millionaire Paul Daniels that persuaded you to marry him?”. I gently put to the noble Lord, “What is it Lord Shipley, recently appointed government adviser on cities, that has led you to change your mind about elected mayors?”.

[Lord Shipley]

I have read a lot of the research evidence in that context as a large amount of research has been done on the role of elected mayors. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said that a number of countries in Europe do not have our system and that you cannot build an elected mayoral system on to our democratic system of local government. I do not agree. I have read research produced by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and I have read the report of the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, and Terry Leahy on Liverpool and Merseyside. There is also the Warwick commission on elected mayors. There is a body of research demonstrating that you could have stronger economic growth by having a stronger governance system. I remind the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, that he was talking to me about the importance of campaigning against elected mayors. I was not talking to him about that.

[Lord Beecham]

I do not recall the conversation being as one sided as that, but I shall allow the noble Lord to get away with his disavowal of those discussions. I was really only teasing him.

The issue is not who exercises the powers but what the powers are. They do not have to be conferred on a single individual with all the disadvantages to which I referred. Experience around the world is extremely variable. There are appointed mayors, as in Holland. The Labour Party, as I told the Grand Committee, once sent people to see the mayoral system in Holland without realising they were appointed rather than elected—not untypical. There are elected mayors. There is the Barcelona model. There are mayors in jail, as the noble Lord, Lord Tope, rightly said. There are mayors who are very successful. There are leaders of councils in both categories no doubt as well. The crucial thing about economic development is having the necessary powers and being able to co-operate with other authorities. In that context, of course, that opportunity has been rather dismantled by the abolition of regional development agencies and the lack of a proper system for ensuring co-operation.

However, we are where we are. I will certainly be campaigning against an elected mayor in my own authority. I shall be happy to quote the noble Lord, Lord Tope, in support of a bipartisan approach. I look forward to seeing the noble Baroness campaigning up and down the country in Conservative authorities—while we still have Conservative authorities—for referendums and elected mayors too. That is something she has not yet found time to do. Perhaps she has not really had the inclination, but maybe that will follow after May. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford. It addresses a question that is crucial for the success of legal aid advice at local level. The question is how the Ministry of Justice can deliver its legal aid budget cuts of £130 million out of £250 million while still delivering an effective system of support for legal aid. After a lot of thought, I have concluded that a centralised system of contract procurement is not likely to work well. It would mean high overheads and poor flexibility at a time when a significant number of third-sector providers will be forced to close because of lack of finance, with the consequence of problems that could be sorted out early not being sorted out, and a greater cost to the public purse.

We should note that the Legal Services Commission has very high costs. It spends £120 million on administration. After the cuts, with the new director of legal aid casework, the amount spent on administration is likely still to be around £120 million. That figure is very high. Of course, it includes criminal legal aid, but this has barely been cut at all. However, at local level, the budget cuts will be very significant. They will be in exactly the places that require a seamless service that will enable clients with problems that cut across agencies to benefit from integrated support.

I have a potential solution. I am grateful to Citizens Advice for its suggestion of how we might solve the problem. Could the Legal Services Commission, or its successor body, be moved from centre stage? Could, say, £20 million be reallocated from its administrative budget—which would thereby be reduced to £80 million —to front-line funding based on local legal advice partnerships that would map local advice needs, share back-office services and be based on clear professional standards? There would have to be—

[Lord Beecham]

Do I take it that the noble Lord is referring to £20 million a year rather than a one-off payment of £20 million?

[Lord Shipley]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. I do mean £20 million a year from the recurrent cost to provide for those local partnerships. There would have to be a co-ordinating charity, but that should be possible.

In a short debate on citizens advice bureaux on 8 December, I talked around this point and said that there was capacity at a local level to help the Government to solve the problem. Of course, all of this would be in the spirit of localism. The Government have just enacted the Localism Bill. The Localism Act has as its basic principle the principle that far more should be devolved from the centre to local areas.

The first part of the amendment simply gives the Lord Chancellor discretion to permit transfers from the legal aid budget to other funding streams for the provision of advice on issues to which Schedule 1 does not apply. The second part facilitates a cheaper delivery model based on local partnerships. On a practical level, it is important to note that it would be a waste of resources if legal aid clients could not receive holistic advice. There could also be many cases at the margins of situations covered by Schedule 1, and we should note the Legal Services Commission's response to the Green Paper, which highlighted the problem of boundary issues and warned that,

“the administration costs of considering such cases could erode the revenue savings that the Ministry of Justice has committed itself to”.

I think this suggests that we ought to do some further work between consideration in Committee and Report and that we should not lose the opportunity to engage with finding a solution to this problem. I hope that the Minister will understand that in moving this amendment, we are trying to be helpful. There are suggestions that this approach, or one like it, could work very well. I hope that in his reply the Minister will say that he is willing to engage in further discussions prior to Report.

Localism Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 84 I shall also speak to Amendments 86 to 90. These all relate to the standards of accommodation and repairing obligations. Amendment 84 will ensure that all tenants and other occupiers of housing with short terms have the benefit of repairing obligations. The Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 provides that the implied repairing obligations set out in its Section 11 only apply to leases of less than seven years. This Bill proposes to apply that Section 11 to secure and assured fixed-term tenancies of more than seven years to take account of the fact that the new, flexible tenancies may be granted for longer than seven years. The proposed new clause in my Amendment 84 gives all the tenants of all short leases of less than 21 years the benefit of implied repairing obligations, so this amendment is important.

Amendment 86 relates to the same Act, which currently provides that those who have previously held a lease for more than seven years and who have not previously had the benefit of the repairing obligations by landlords will still not gain the benefit of such obligations if they renew their lease with one of less than seven years. There seems to be no justification for excluding any short leases from the repairing obligations, which should surely apply to new short leases, irrespective of what length the previous lease was. This amendment would achieve that result.

Amendment 87 would make landlords responsible for repairing furniture, fixtures, fittings and appliances in furnished lettings. Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 implies repairing obligations into all leases of less than seven years in those granted since 24 October 1961. They are required to,

“repair the structure and exterior of the dwelling-house”,

and,

“to keep in repair and proper working order the installations in the dwelling-house for the supply of water, gas and electricity and for sanitation”.

However, it makes no provision in relation to any furniture, fixtures, fittings or appliances provided by landlords in respect of furnished dwellings, such as beds, sofas, cookers, fridges and so on.

Although most people would expect landlords to be responsible for the furniture and fittings that they have supplied in furnished dwellings, few tenancy agreements—even those of social landlords—impose any specific repairing obligations in this respect. Most furnished lettings are granted by private landlords whose tenancy agreements often make no reference to repairing obligations at all. However, where there is any such reference it is usually only one to the terms implied by Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. In the absence of any specific term in the tenancy agreement covering furniture and so on, there is no obligation upon a landlord to repair or keep in working order the furniture or fittings that she or he has supplied. It is sometimes possible to argue for an implied term to make the landlord liable to repair in this situation, but this leaves the position uncertain and unnecessarily complicated in this regard.

The proposed amendment would ensure that the legal responsibility for furniture, fittings, fixtures and appliances in furnished tenancies falls where it should lie: namely, upon landlords. Given that furnished tenancies are usually short term, it is completely unrealistic to expect tenants to carry out such repairs themselves. These repairing obligations should fall on the landlord, not the tenant. This amendment would ensure that this was the case.

Amendment 88 would ensure that all tenants can live in housing that does not injure the occupier’s health. Again, it refers to the same Landlord and Tenant Act and the same obligations. The courts have decided that the obligation to repair arises only where there is disrepair—namely, where there has been deterioration from some former condition. As such, the obligation to repair does not usually cover design defects. However, sometimes unhealthy housing conditions arise not from disrepair but from design defects. The most common example is condensation dampness which occurs as a result of the construction of a dwelling house; namely, through inadequate insulation, ventilation and/or heating, and not because of any disrepair to the structure or the installations supplied. The point is extremely important because currently tenants living in unhealthy conditions which arise as a result of design defects are unable to take any civil action to ensure that these conditions are rectified. While it may be possible for tenants to take action in the magistrates’ courts under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, no public funding is available to take such cases. Local authorities can also bring proceedings under the 1990 Act but, of course, are unable to bring proceedings against themselves.

Amendment 88 would enable tenants to take civil proceedings in order to make their landlords rectify design defects which render the premises injurious to the health of the occupiers. It seems only right in the 21st century that tenants of residential accommodation should expect to live in accommodation that does not injure their health and should be able to take steps to rectify the defects giving rise to these conditions whatever the cause. In relation to the installations in a dwelling house, tenants are already able to take civil action to rectify design defects which result in the specified installations not being in proper working order. They should also be able to take action when the defects affect, or will affect, their health.

The public spending implications of this are not great because the decent homes standard has improved the public housing stock. The main benefit of this amendment would be private tenants of rogue landlords, where the worst of the housing stock now rests. Indeed, giving such tenants a private remedy could reduce public spending because it would take some of the pressure off hard-pressed local authorities, which have the job of enforcing the housing standards in the Housing Act 2004, and could also provide savings to the National Health Service. The current necessity to draw a distinction between disrepair and design defects, as opposed to simply concentrating on the effects on the occupier, makes the law in relation to repairs unnecessarily complicated and results in the need for expert evidence on the cause of the problems. Removal of the distinction would greatly simplify the law in relation to disrepair. This proposal would therefore benefit not just those tenants who are presently living in unhealthy housing conditions but the civil justice system as well.

Amendment 89 would make landlords responsible for the repair of installations for ventilation, particularly extractor fans. The Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, as currently enacted, makes no provision in relation to installations for ventilation, save in respect of windows. Lack of ventilation is a common cause of condensation dampness in dwelling houses and is often prejudicial to health. Over the years many properties have been fitted with extractor fans in order to combat this problem. However, there is presently no obligation on landlords to keep such installations in repair or proper working order unless this is expressly provided for in the tenancy agreement. Few tenancy agreements, even those of social landlords, make specific reference to extractor fans, with the result that tenants have no remedies when extractor fans break down or do not work properly. Given that extractor fans are usually fitted by landlords, the responsibility for repairing them should fall on the landlord, not the tenant. This amendment would ensure that this was the case.

Finally, Amendment 90 seeks to ensure that all tenants and other occupiers of housing can live in housing that is fit for its purpose. In 1996, the Law Commission recommended that, subject to certain exceptions, an implied term of fitness should be imposed on all tenancies of less than seven years. This proposed new clause goes a little further in that it would apply the term not only to tenancies but to licences. It seems only right that any occupant of residential accommodation should be able to expect accommodation that is free from damp and has natural lighting, ventilation, a water supply and other basic facilities for sanitation and the cooking of food. At present, the other main repairing obligation in Section 11 of the 1985 Act is confined to matters of disrepair. Therefore, if a property is unfit in the respects mentioned above because, for example, of design defects, the occupier has no remedy. That cannot be right. A house with no damp-proof course could be rendered so damp as to cause the tenant pneumonia but there would be nothing in the tenancy agreement to compel a landlord to install one. On the other hand, if there was a damp-proof course in place that had failed through disrepair the tenant would have a contractual remedy. That is an absurd anomaly.

Public spending implications again are not great because a decent home standard has improved the public housing stock. Again, the main benefit of this amendment will be private tenants of rogue landlords, where the worst of the housing stock now rests. Indeed, giving such tenants a private remedy could reduce public spending because it would take some of the pressure from local authorities who have the job of enforcing housing standards in the Housing Act 2004.

In the recess, my noble friend the Minister replied to me following Committee stage. I should like to pursue a sentence in the letter that I received because it caused me some concern. I am sure that that was unintended but we need to clarify the record. In terms of repairing obligations on landlords, the letter states that,

“where there is no evidence to the contrary I am not prepared to increase burdens on landlords with the attendant risks for growth in the sector”.

It is inevitable that the private rented sector will grow but I am puzzled by what I would regard as the basic standards of accommodation, with basic attention to repair and maintenance of properties and enabling people who are tenants to live in accommodation that is fit for purpose. I do not see that as a risk for the sector. People have a right to expect a basic standard of accommodation and I hope very much that my noble friend will put my mind at rest and confirm that there should be applied a basic standard that needs to be delivered through amendments to the law. At present, too many private sector rented accommodation units are falling through the legislation that currently exists because it has not been modernised—well, in the past 25 years—to a standard that would reflect current modern needs.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, Newcastle is once again united. We are even more united now than we were under the previous Administration. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, on tabling these amendments and equally congratulate those who have briefed him so thoroughly with the material that he has brought to your Lordships’ House today. He has highlighted an important area of the national housing debate which has been subordinated in recent times to the simple question of household numbers, housebuilding and the long queue of people denied access to accommodation, including first-time buyers and their problems. Much of the emphasis has been simply around numbers and the owner-occupied sector.

The real problems addressed by the noble Lord’s amendments are to be found essentially in the private rented sector, which has received insufficient attention for many years under Governments of both parties, with the result that, as the noble Lord pointed out, far too many people are living in unsatisfactory accommodation. We are living in a letters’ market, as it were. Demand for rented accommodation is going up all the time and obviously property numbers are not going up to match. Reputable organisations are anticipating additional problems when changes in housing benefit come in, and already there is some indication that private landlords are reluctant to let to housing benefit tenants. There is huge pressure within this sector. As the noble Lord pointed out, that sector has much the highest rate of disrepair and the least degree of modernisation through to decent home standards. Therefore, there is a huge need for concentration on these problems. The very basic matters to which the noble Lord referred must be an essential part of the responsibility of any landlord.

There will be a slight irony if the Government resist the amendment. If the exterior of a property was at issue, Town and Country Planning Acts would apply. Owners can be made to tidy up the outside of their property, and even paint it, whatever the length of tenure or even if it is owner-occupied; but when it comes to the inside, as the noble Lord pointed out, these powers do not exist for far too many properties. Therefore, there is nothing wrong in principle with imposing obligations on owners—in this case, renting owners—because they are applicable to all owners as far as concerns the property exterior. One might have thought that, from the point of view of safety and health, the interior is more important. It is perfectly logical that legislation should be amended in the way proposed by the noble Lord.

I will sound a cautionary note. The noble Lord referred to the availability of civil proceedings once the measures pass into law. Again, I remind noble Lords that access to the courts by this group of potential litigants is likely to be affected by the pending changes to legal aid. If current proposals go through, only under exceptional circumstances will legal aid be available to assist tenants in enforcing repair obligations of this kind. Perhaps that should be borne in mind in future debates. I hope that the noble Lord and his colleagues will join Members on all sides of your Lordships' House in investigating those steps very thoroughly, because these matters are not divisible. If we are looking at the housing situation holistically, we must look not only at obligations but also at methods of enforcement. The noble Lord touched on them. We must be sure that those methods remain available to the people who will need them.

I hope that the Minister will respond sympathetically to the suggestions contained in the amendments. I represent an area that has a significant private rented accommodation sector. There are a number of very poor landlords and a licensing scheme that is beginning to have some impact. I hope that that experience, which is reflected in many places, will be improved by the Government giving fair wind to the noble Lord's proposals.

Localism Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Monday 5th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 8 I shall also speak to Amendment 20. Amendment 8 would restore the requirement that any offer of private sector rented accommodation must be reasonable for a homeless household to accept. For clarity, the amendment would simply restore the law to its current position, which is why it refers to the deletion of a clause.

At present, local authorities must be satisfied that accommodation offered to homeless households is “reasonable to accept”. The Bill as drafted removes this requirement. However, the condition is important because “reasonable to accept” is distinct from suitability. It covers cases where a property may be defined as suitable in law by its condition, location and affordability but where there may be wider reasons for a household to turn down the offer. It has been used to challenge through the courts an offer of housing in an area where there had been racial harassment. It could apply equally in cases of domestic violence.

Amendment 20 seeks to define the suitability criteria for private sector rented accommodation offered to homeless households. It was previously tabled in Committee and would define suitability criteria for private rented accommodation in which homeless households are placed under the changes to the homelessness duties proposed in the Bill. It sets out important safeguards around physical standards, management, location and affordability. The Government have accepted some of the concerns raised about these issues at previous stages of the Bill, and have said that they are prepared to use order-making powers to set standards on physical condition and property management. Those are indeed very welcome. However, the Government have still not fully addressed the concerns around affordability and location.

Let me address examples of why an environment might not prevent accommodation being objectively considered as suitable but would, if an applicant were housed there, have a detrimental effect on that applicant. Examples include the risk of threats of racial harassment or violence by individuals unknown to the applicant, or a risk to the welfare of the applicant where the accommodation offered is in a neighbourhood associated with drug use or dealing and the applicant is a recovering drug addict. There may be a perceived risk of harassment or violence from individuals known to the applicant, such as a violent ex-partner whose relatives, friends or associates live in the neighbourhood.

There have been such legal cases; I draw attention to one in particular. A family refused an offer, arguing that it was unreasonable for them to accept the accommodation, even though it was suitable in terms of what was in it, because, when viewing the flat, they and their children had suffered racist abuse from people living nearby. That case went to the Court of Appeal, which considered that the flat may have qualified as suitable in its size, location and so on, but that the council should have gone on to consider the wider question of whether it was reasonable for the family to accept it in light of the intimidation. The court stressed that suitability and “reasonable to accept”, while overlapping terms, are different concepts. The requirement of “reasonable to accept” does not apply to temporary accommodation, but only to offers that are intended to discharge the authority’s homelessness duty completely. It is a serious issue and I am concerned.

In an ideal world I would be opposed to the removal of choice from homeless people by allowing local housing authorities to discharge their homelessness duty via an offer of private rented accommodation without the applicant’s consent. However, I recognise the general problem of supply and that more than three-quarters of local authorities, when responding to the Government’s consultation, said that they welcomed the proposed change and would use it. If local housing authorities are potentially able to discharge their main duty with one offer of private rented accommodation, it becomes much more important that this offer is suitable to meet the needs of the household.

The Government have recognised that physical and management standards are important and have outlined them in the statement that the Minister placed in the Library recently. However, I do not think that we have been told what the draft regulations will say. As the protection of homeless households is such an important issue, and given the absence of draft regulations, should we not include definitions of suitability in the Bill, particularly physical and management standards? The statement in the Library does not address the vital issues of affordability and location. The assurances given by the Minister in Committee that the local authority must by law consider the applicant’s financial resources and the total cost of accommodation in determining whether the accommodation is suitable will do nothing to tighten the affordability aspect of the suitability definition.

There seem to be no reassurances on location. Once an authority has considered the applicant’s financial resources in assessing family income and expenses, it can still take its own view of what is affordable when deciding where to place a family, as long as it can show that it has had regard to the guidance—or, to put it another way, local authorities are advised that a household’s residual income should not fall below subsistence level. However, a local authority is able to depart from this guidance as long as it can prove that it has been considered. It would be much better if this were included in the Bill. The proposed new clause would include in the Bill certain specific criteria in relation to the affordability of accommodation and its location. These tend to be the most important factors in any offer of accommodation. This will prove to be a very important issue as homelessness continues to rise and local authorities have less accommodation to offer to those who are homeless and potentially homeless.

In addition to the affordability and location of the accommodation, we should consider the management of standards, who is renting out the accommodation, what processes they follow in managing their accommodation and whether it meets the standards of decency and reasonableness that I am sure all your Lordships would expect. I have further amendments concerning standards of accommodation in the private rented sector. I do not want to discuss them now but it is important that we define the quality of the accommodation, minimum physical standards and management standards better than we do at present. We should also take greater account of affordability and location. I hope very much that the Minister will agree to look further at this issue. People should not feel that the making of a single offer on the part of the local authority means that it has fulfilled its legal obligation towards them and that they should therefore take it up. I have great doubts about this issue but I still hope that the Government will understand that they have to do a little more than what is outlined in the note that has been placed in the House of Lords’ Library.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I wonder whether I can tempt the Minister—probably not—to answer the point I made on a previous amendment about the applicability of offers made outside the area of the local authority that is determining the issue of homelessness. It is a question of suitability in this context. Perhaps she could enlighten us on that aspect when she replies.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I add my voice to those who support this amendment because I see it as a critical part of the necessary checks and balances on the powers of the commissioner. I say that for two reasons. First, the acting commissioner could be in post for eight to nine months—that is, for up to six months as permitted in the Bill, together with the period during which a replacement is elected. Frankly, to have an unelected acting commissioner for that length of time is unacceptable as they will set the budget and the precept. Although there is a veto on the precept, nevertheless they will be responsible for making the proposal on the precept and they will make a decision about the budget. All those functions should be undertaken by people who have been elected as opposed to people who have not been elected.

Secondly, the commissioner will have appointed the staff member to their substantial post. The only power that the panel will have is over which staff member is nominated, although they have to bear in mind the advice given to them by the commissioner who is incapacitated. I regard this as an absolutely fundamental issue. The panel must be able to appoint from among its own members. Between now and the next stages of the Bill, I very much hope that my noble friend the Minister will make clear to colleagues in the other place that this matter is of fundamental concern to a large number of Members of your Lordships' House.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I correct my noble friend Lord Hunt, who has underestimated the extent of the precept as a percentage of the local council tax, which would fall potentially to the acting commissioner to levy. It is 11 per cent in England and 15.5 per cent in Wales—even greater than my noble friend indicated. I respectfully suggest that there is potentially an equal underestimate in relation to the period of vacancy. As I read the Bill, the six-month period after which a vacancy would have to be declared and a new election take place, which would add to the length of time in any event, arises in connection with incapacity. However, there are other grounds on which a vacancy might arise. In particular, there is the possibility of a police and crime commissioner being suspended. That could conceivably take an even longer period to resolve, so there is the potential for this position to be filled by a second-hand appointee, as it were, for a long period. Of course, the whole rationale of the proposal for police commissioners—flawed in the opinion of many, certainly on this side of the House—is that it is necessary to have somebody who is elected and who has a direct mandate for the purposes of exercising the functions that the Bill confers on the holder of the office.

There will be no such democratic element in the event that the procedure currently in the Bill is enacted. There would be no democratic mandate of any kind—direct or indirect. It is intolerable that that should be the case when within the police and crime panel, there will be people with a mandate—not the complete mandate—that will be claimed for the police and crime commissioner in as much as he or she will be elected for the whole force area. There will at least be some democratic mandate for those elected local councillors who will constitute the majority of members of the police and crime panel. In those circumstances I can see no argument for allowing—indeed requiring—the appointment of somebody who has no mandate when there are those available within the structure who would have at least some mandate.

I hope that the Government will think again. The noble Baroness was unlike her old self, if I may say so, at the beginning of this debate when her rather surprisingly peremptory statements were made. I would like to see her return to what your Lordships might think is the much more acceptable Browning version.

Localism Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Thursday 7th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, in a number of respects, not least in that I think the Government are on the right lines. Some aspects of procedure and process—how this may be delivered—might need to be looked at before Report. I wanted to give some examples from my personal experience of where this legislation could well help to protect a community asset.

This is not entirely about pubs and post offices, but let me give an example of what can happen with a pub. Let us say that a pub is owned by a national, private sector organisation and is closed down. It is sold on the open market but, when research is done with a small advert in a newspaper over the summer, it is knocked down by the purchaser, and the community has no power under planning law to prevent it being knocked down. There is then an application for a change of use, but the criteria for change of use alter because the building no longer exists. It is treated and deemed to be a brownfield site. As a consequence, different planning law pertains and new planning permission for a change of use is much easier to obtain.

My second example is more hypothetical, but it reflects a concern that I have about the financial viability of sports clubs, which often find themselves in financial difficulties and needing to do things to protect their position. This might involve a merger, for example, or moving to a new site. There is an issue about whether land used for a sporting purpose should be considered, before it is sold, for permanent use as a sporting provision. Of course, planning law and the zoning of land help in that respect, but are not the entire story. There has to be a right to give a community the power, if the sports club is going to move, to say whether some greater community interest should be considered whereby a trust could be formed to perpetuate sporting recreational activity on that site.

A third example is government-owned land or buildings. This is not just about privately owned buildings. What about a cricket pitch on open space that is within the purview of a government building, such as a National Health Service building? Planning law currently protects that. One of my great fears is that it becomes easy, when finance is difficult, to suggest that the solution to that finance problem would be to sell off more land and that, to secure a reasonable price, it needs to be sold off for housing or some other purpose with a commercial outcome, which then generates a large sum of money for that government department. The community has to have some general right to intervene to protect that open space, above and beyond the rights bestowed by the planning system.

Another real-life example involved Ministry of Defence buildings for the Territorial Army next to a large secondary high school on a constrained site. The school needed further land, ideally for expansion, because it was too tightly constrained for the growth that it needed. It was in the community's interest that the school should expand, but it was clearly in the Ministry of Defence’s interest to secure the largest income it could from the sale of the buildings and land. That was a housing use issue. We are then up against the difference in values between what one government department is prepared to pay to another. Nothing in current legislation says that one government department must give another the right to buy at a price lower than open market value—in this case, for housing development. This is a problem because the community's interest is not in the housing development—that may be in the MoD's interest—but in that of the children being educated in our schools.

[Lord Beecham]

Would the noble Lord not agree that it is most important to deal with that problem because it is a right to bid, not a right to buy?

[Lord Shipley]

I fully understand that the Bill does not deal with precisely that problem, but I am trying to give the community's point of view on what it worries about, such as controlling the assets that it perceives to be of community value in its area.

There is a further general issue with council-owned buildings: whether councils should have an automatic power to sell buildings that they own prior to testing community interest in running a building, such as a loss-making facility. With everyone's good intentions, I am sure that is what councils would do under the Bill. However, a register of those buildings would make councils ensure that they behaved reasonably in protecting community assets that local people might want to use. The development of community trusts and facilities whereby people in a neighbourhood can get together and form a community interest company trust is in the public interest. Put simply, there is a lot of discussion to have on the Bill between this stage and Report, but this debate is not simply about pubs and post offices. I agree entirely with the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, that we have to think much more widely about what is in the public interest.

Localism Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I want to add a word from the perspective of English core cities. The proposals around tax increment financing put by the eight largest English cities to Government three to four years ago have gradually been working their way through a number of committees, particularly in the Treasury. In the past 12 months added impetus has been given to tax increment financing. I hope that what my noble friend Lady Kramer is proposing here does not cause any delay to the move forward with the Government’s proposals because tax increment financing is urgently needed to enable cities, in particular, and all councils to be able to borrow against future business rate income growth. At present local councils have the power to borrow prudentially, but prudential borrowing requires there to be an income stream guaranteed to enable that borrowing to proceed. Tax increment financing enables borrowing to be made against future growth and projections of that business rate income, as my noble friend Lady Kramer rightly pointed out.

These are not separate issues and they can sit happily together but we are looking for some clarity from Government that tax increment financing as a principle will go ahead as speedily as the Deputy Prime Minister announced that it would last year. Local authorities are waiting for the powers to be implemented and it could well be a further 18 months to two years before those powers come forward. They are urgently needed. Otherwise infrastructure funding that requires a capital investment based on borrowing on the markets needs to be progressed. Without it that investment will not take place. I look forward to my noble friend the Minister clarifying the speed with which tax increment financing can be introduced and how then that proposal lies with this proposal in the name of my noble friend Lady Kramer.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, is quite right to refer to the support for the principle from the core cities and also, in general, from the Local Government Association. I endorse that. To help me understand the implications of this measure, can the Minister refer back to the point that she raised about this being more acceptable to business ratepayers because they will benefit from the projects that are being financed through this mechanism as opposed to something like Crossrail where they may not have done? This does not necessarily constitute an objection to the proposal, but I wonder whether that is right. The rates are borne by the occupier of business premises. The value effectively goes to the owner and they are not necessarily the same. We have had over many years in local government finance the position where property owners contribute little to the regeneration of cities and the like. The financial burden falls on the tenants through the rents and they also pay the rates. I wonder whether she is not being a little optimistic in assuming that the occupiers of premises that may benefit from these developments will be as enthusiastic as she might suppose, although, as I say, that does not vitiate the validity of the proposal as a means of financing investment.

Localism Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Thursday 23rd June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, the amendment touches on the question of transparency and the openness to the public of meetings. It seeks to reflect what I understand to be the present position, which is that meetings are open unless council committees or executives decide to exclude the press and public, usually on grounds of confidentiality. This might be commercial confidentiality or sensitive staff issues and the like. The amendments in my name create a presumption that the meetings will be open to the public unless there are good reasons for not having them as such. Those reasons clearly would have to be enunciated. It is difficult to find a form of words that fully meets the case. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, will speak to his amendments, which import the term “necessarily”. However, the question then arises of how one defines what is necessary. There is no simple answer, but it is important to have the presumption in the Bill if we can get it, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister in due course.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 53, 54 and 55 in my name. Each is a probing amendment to get confirmation from the Minister that there will be no deterioration in the access of the general public, the press and opposition councillors to meetings and to information. I seek that reassurance because, as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, says, it is quite difficult to get the right wording. The overriding intention must be that there should be no deterioration in what currently pertains in local government for individuals—the public, the media or other councillors—seeking access to meetings and information. The Bill confers an awful lot of powers on the Secretary of State to make decisions in that area. I understand why that is, but I would be more comfortable if it was absolutely clear to the general public that there will be no diminution in their access to information and meetings.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Monday 6th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I wish to comment on the amendments in this group standing in the names of my noble friend Lady Hamwee and myself. Amendment 124 is a preliminary amendment relating to the situation in Wales. I will not speak about that situation, and the amendments relating to that, as my noble friend Lady Randerson will do so. I wish to raise a broader issue relating to the discussion we have had so far about the nature of the panels, the number of members on them and their proportionality. Once the Committee stage is completed and before Report a number of issues will need to be discussed in detail.

I am not convinced that every panel needs to be the same size. It is proposed that there should be 15 members on a police and crime panel, but geography, population and other factors need to be taken into account. There may need to be lower and higher numbers of members in certain cases. I have a real difficulty with the proposal in Amendment 122AB that a police and crime commissioner could be appointed by a majority vote of a police and crime panel, which under this amendment would have 15 members, as a majority vote implies that eight people could appoint the police and crime commissioner. This will be a very powerful, highly paid and responsible job. I do not think that we should allow eight people to make an appointment of that kind. I would much prefer a directly elected police commissioner than one who might be appointed on the votes of eight people. A number of issues in Amendment 124A then become clearer. It proposes that each police and crime panel should have 15 members, but six of those will be,

“independent members to be co-opted by the panel”.

Therefore, the amendment implies that the panel will have only nine members, and that five of the nine can co-opt the six independent members. This concentrates and centralises power too much. At a time when we are trying to disperse power and make those who are elected to posts more accountable, I do not think that that proposal will work. Indeed, I assume that Nolan principles should apply in appointments of this kind. Therefore, there is a discussion to be had about what the powers of the panel members might be, how many there should be, who they represent, and how that will be done.

As regards having a discussion prior to Report about how proportionality will be delivered, broadly speaking proportionality on joint boards and police authorities can work reasonably well. However, it may not work reasonably well. It depends whether people want it to work well. There is a very strong argument for saying that proportionality in this case should depend not on the numbers of councillors by political grouping within the police authority area but rather on votes cast at the previous general election. There are a number of ways of doing this but it is very important that there is public support for the way in which the panels are constructed because if there is no public support it will make life very difficult for the chief constable, the commissioner, the panels themselves, the partnerships and the local authorities. At the heart of all this, the amendments carry a real risk of building single-party political control into the structure. One of the great benefits of the current structure, of which I am a strong supporter, is that it is a plural structure which enables everyone to work together with a common objective in their geographical area.

Amendment 127 seeks to ensure that,

“each relevant local authority has at least one of its councillors as a member of the panel”.

I believe that is very important. There is a discussion to be had about the nature of district councils, county councils, unitary councils and single-tier councils—whether they have only one or two members, high populations or more members than others. The amendment is a statement of our intent that,

“each relevant local authority has at least one of its councillors as a member of the panel”.

There may be a case for saying that in this situation district councils should give way to county councils but we need to discuss that.

Amendments 136 and 137 concern who can be a co-opted member of the panel. I do not think that a directly elected mayor of a local authority covered by the police area should be able to be co-opted to the panel—they should actually be on it. There is a fundamental issue here. We should add the proviso that a directly elected mayor cannot be co-opted to the panel because it should surely be assumed that they are members of it, otherwise there will be friction and that is one of the things that we are trying to avoid in the Bill.

[Lord Beecham]

Perhaps the noble Lord will bear in mind that there may be elected mayors in one authority in a metropolitan area, but not in others. Would that not promote friction between the authority with the mayor and those that have an elected leader?

[Lord Shipley]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for his intervention, because that is absolutely true. Insufficient work has been done on the impact of having an elected mayor in some cities but not in a whole police area. Of course, the boundaries in London are coterminous, but they are not coterminous in the larger urban areas in the rest of England. That is a potential problem. I take the noble Lord’s point. How the situation can be properly addressed, should there be a mayor, has to be talked through.

As to Amendment 137, the Bill states that a local authority member is excluded from being co-opted. I think that the opposite will prove to be the case. There may well be a need for a local authority member to be co-opted, perhaps to demonstrate political balance but, more likely, to demonstrate diversity or geographical interest. Preventing a local authority member who has not been directly appointed by the local authority from being a member of the panel is a potential mistake.

Finally, Amendment 138 states that:

“Panel arrangements may not include provisions for the approval of any member other than by that member’s nominating authority”.

This simply makes it clear that the power of appointment should lie with a member’s nominating authority.

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Beecham

Monday 28th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, in the coalition lexicon, there is a six-letter word missing: it is the word “region”. It has been banished by Mr Pickles, and the use of it has been banished from PCTs by the Department of Health. Of course it is true, as my noble friend Lady Royall has implied, that there is a variable geometry about regions. They are not all the same: some are regarded as too big—one thinks perhaps of the south-east, where a predecessor television programme to “Strictly Come Dancing” was called “Come Dancing”. Some of your Lordships may recall that then “Home Counties North” and “Home Counties South” were regarded as appropriate areas. Perhaps that might have been better than a single RDA for the south-east. Nevertheless, many of the RDAs have performed extremely well. If there were uncertainty about some of them, the question arises: why abolish all when there may be a very strong case for keeping some, if not all?

Nearly a year ago, Vincent Cable came to the north-east in his first few weeks as Secretary of State, and he declared his belief that the north-east was,

“one region where business support through a regional agency is both necessary and appreciated”.

He was right about that, but he subsequently went on to propose the abolition of that agency. In any case, he understates the case.

Consider the report on the RDAs from the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills. It found evidence of effective intervention in the face of economic shocks and strongly endorsed the RDAs’ role because they,

“improved the understanding of local economies and their connections with businesses … They were also able to catalyse delivery of infrastructure … and took a strategic approach to planning decisions”.

It thought that some RDAs were, perhaps, too big to profit from local engagement, but it made it clear that,

“policies were far from being applied on a blanket basis within regions”.

Interestingly, the CBI recorded 66 per cent support for continuing regional co-ordination via the LEPs, if they were to be the new mechanism—and especially strong support in the Midlands and the north. Even in areas where the number of local enterprise partnerships was great, it saw the need for an overarching structure. The Select Committee recommended that regional groupings should be recognised where a clear wish was expressed. It also expressed a concern that inward investment and tackling economic shocks would be inadequate without local knowledge and support, as my noble friend has said, when functions were translated to Whitehall. This has been compounded by the proposed abolition of Government Offices for the Regions providing critical intelligence and contact from within the regions to government. Accordingly, the Select Committee recommended that government should devolve powers to regional structures where there was clear evidence of good management of resources.

A back-handed compliment was paid to the Government’s policy from one witness to the Select Committee, who said:

“One good thing that the Westminster Government has done is to abolish regional development agencies in England”,

removing significant competition from the market. That witness was Dr Brian Gibbons, who is Minister for Economic Development in the Welsh Assembly. He clearly took the view—indeed he expressed it—that the Government’s decision presented Wales with a significant opportunity at the expense of the English regions.

The Federation of Small Businesses said that the local enterprise partnerships should have the capacity to address all the issues impacting on development, including transport, planning and housing at a strategic level, tourism, the low carbon agenda and skills and training. But that long list begs the question of the scale of the organisation to carry out those functions and the resources it will need. The organisations that will take the place of the RDAs are the local enterprise partnerships and, as my noble friend has said, they will not have responsibility for significant areas of policy including the ERDF. They will be expected to work with government, whatever that is supposed to mean, on investment priorities, transport infrastructure, the regional growth funds and getting the jobless back to work. Again, there is the question of scale: you will have, as we have in the north-east, at least two organisations, perhaps with an overarching body as well. In other parts of the country there are none, in some there are numerous: how will these work together at the strategic level as opposed to the very local level?

Of course, as my noble friend has pointed out, the funding is very limited: £1.4 billion over three years is very little more than what the Secretary of State himself described as the “trifling” figure—I think that was the word—of £1 billion that was originally proposed. The committee was also concerned about the not-so-local knowledge, about the assets and about the potential for a massive success or failure if the debts were not adequately resourced. Of course, they are not being resourced: they will have no funding and no powers. As I have said previously in this Chamber, they are in danger of being penniless, powerless and pointless. That is a real risk.

There are serious questions to be asked about assets. The Government’s plan is for the assets to be used to pursue economic development benefits through transferring assets to appropriate hosts. They qualify that promise, which on the face of it looks reasonable, by reference to the need to deliver maximum value on public sector investment in the context of deficit reduction. There is therefore a clear implication that the assets will be realised to meet that agenda. There is also a clear implication that that might lead to early disposal.

I have not had the advantage of reading the entire text because Wikipedia has not yet published it. I have seen only a redacted copy of the submission made by One North East, the agency with which I am most familiar, on the proposal for assets disposal. Interestingly, it is proposed to sell some at market value to local authorities. How local authorities are supposed to fund the acquisition of those assets in the present circumstances is beyond me. Some will eventually be put on the market for open market disposal, with an interim period of management by local authorities. Again, at a time of local authority cuts, where will the capacity exist to manage this estate? Similar difficulties arise in relation to intellectual property. There are no fewer than seven pages on that in the submission, including an interestingly little-known scheme called JEREMIE, which is spelt somewhat differently from the convention. It is to do with finance for business and has been extremely successful in the north-east.

What we have here is really an irony. This Government, above all, look to the private sector to lead and to make good the deficiencies in the economy. The RDAs, which they are about to abolish, are heavily engaged with the private sector. They are private-sector-led bodies, and yet they apparently cannot be trusted with economic development in the regions.

The proposals in the Bill bear all the hallmarks of a rush to misjudgment, like so many of the measures that the Government have brought forward. We have seen examples this very day of second thoughts having occurred. I hope that the Government will listen to their natural supporters, if you will, in the private sector, in business and across parties in parts of the country; and will pause, reflect and reconsider proposals that threaten to damage the economic recovery that is essential but seriously at risk in many regions.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, for much of the period since the Second World War—and indeed before—Governments have pursued some form of English regional policy. There have been several initiatives: regional Ministers in some or all regions; development corporations; development companies; and a variety of government office structures, so that Whitehall could be represented properly across all parts of England. Policies have been chopped and changed, but they have been clarified in recent years—first by the creation of the development agencies in the English regions, and secondly by the strengthening of government offices so that all Whitehall departments were housed in a single government office. The system was far from perfect and led to some unnecessary bureaucracy. There was a lack of democratic accountability within the regions. However, the system had one overriding virtue; it was regionally based and gave a clear and firm focus for each region in England that had previously been lacking.

Some regions did not like the structure because they did not feel that their region really existed as an entity. The south-east is the most obvious example. Others, such as parts of the south-west, felt distant from their RDA and government office. Perhaps it was a mistake by the previous Government to create an RDA in each region. Indeed, it is hard to see, in terms of strategic regeneration, why the south-east needed a development agency at all. However, that is history. What is not history is the decision to abolish all English RDAs.

In the north, people have identified with their RDA to a much greater extent than in the south. Maybe this is a function of the northern regions being further from London and the levers of power. It also reflects the greater needs of those regions, which require government intervention for the ultimate benefit of the UK as a whole. The decision to abolish the RDAs and government offices in the south-east may have been broadly popular but it is most certainly not a popular decision in my own region—the north-east. I declare my interest as a board member of One North East since 2005. There is a constitutional issue here, too. Why do Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London have substantial devolved powers, some of which are set to increase, at the very same time that the English regions are being further centralised within London-based structures?