Lord Tope
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(13 years ago)
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Lord Bichard
My Lords, in speaking to this group of amendments, I draw attention to my own Amendment 10. I rise mainly to pay tribute to and thank the Minister for the constructive and very helpful way in which she has entered into discussions following the amendment that I tabled on Report, together with the noble Lords, Lord Tope, Lord Newton and Lord Filkin. Unfortunately, the noble Lords, Lord Filkin and Lord Newton, for very good reasons, cannot be here tonight, but they both specifically asked me whether they could be included in the thanks for the constructive approach that has been taken.
I shall not waste the time of the House by running over the ground that the Minister has already covered. I think we now have a package that is much better as a result of all our efforts, and this is now a very important part of the infrastructure of local government. As the noble Baroness knows, simply for the sake of clarity and comprehensiveness, I would have liked to have had a specific reference in the Bill to the power to suspend from a committee. However, I am grateful to her for having referred specifically to the powers that already exist, and I think that that, too, will help to clarify the situation. Therefore, all in all, I am very grateful for the help that she has provided. I know that sometimes she has had to act in the face of considerable opposition. I shall go no further than that, but I think that we have reached a place with which I feel content and, again, to save the time of the House, that means that I shall not be moving my Amendment 10.
Lord Tope
My Lords, I follow my noble friend with a small “f”—the noble Lord, Lord Bichard. As he said, we moved a number of amendments at an earlier stage of the Bill and I, too, pay tribute to the Minister for listening so carefully and for taking so seriously the points that we made. The apologies of my noble friend Lord Newton have already been given, but I specifically undertook not only to give his apologies—a hospital appointment prevents his being here—but to pass on his warm thanks to the Minister. Those thanks are perhaps not so much for the extent to which she has moved but for the extent to which she has been able to move those close to her during the proceedings here.
I think that we have moved a very long way from the position that we were in in Committee, when the person replying on the Front Bench said that standards were a matter for local discretion. I am probably one of the greatest localists in your Lordships’ House, but I thought at the time, and feel very strongly now, that if there is one thing that should not be left to local discretion, it is standards in public life. We have got to the point that we have now reached because in the past there has been rather too much discretion over standards in public life.
I am very pleased that we are going to have a mandatory code—or, rather, that it is going to be mandatory to have a code—but I am a little sad that its minimum provisions are not to be the same throughout the country. I think that in reality they will be the same throughout the country, because my expectation is that the great majority of local authorities will simply keep the code that they all already have. My concern relates to what I hope will be a tiny minority of councils that decide not to keep the code that they now have, and it relates more particularly to why they make that decision and in what way they might change it. That leads me to ask the Minister whether there will be any form of monitoring, whether by her department or by the Local Government Association, so that we know what changes are happening throughout the country. There may well be some that are a cause for concern. What we do about them may be another matter, but we should at least know about them.
The noble Lord, Lord Bichard, has already told us that he will not be moving his amendment, but my other concern is that councils now have, and will retain, the power as a sanction, if necessary, either to remove councillors from certain committees or sub-committees or simply not to appoint them. Will that also apply to outside bodies, as all councils appoint councillors as their representatives on outside bodies? Will they now also be able to remove a councillor from an outside body to which the council has appointed him or her?
Many councils, including my own, also have local committees or area committees that are constituted and stated in the council’s constitution to comprise all the councillors elected for that area. Presumably there is a power now to remove them from that area committee. Is that the case, and how does that fit with the constitution of the council, which says that all councillors representing that area have a right to be on that committee?
My other concern is about the form of monitoring—I do not mean imposition, but monitoring—there will be to let us know what is happening under the new regime. I certainly am grateful to the Minister for moving us so far on this, but quite a number of us are still concerned about this issue and feel that we are not there yet—well, we are there but this is not perfection and we may well have to return to the issue in the years to come after a number of high profile cases.
My last point is to welcome the lengths to which Ministers have now moved in the appointment of an independent person and in trying to ensure as far as possible that that person is genuinely independent and open. That independent person now plays an even more important role, in effect being the right of appeal—the only appeal that a councillor has—against what he may well feel is the unfair victimisation by a council with a heavy one-party majority, whatever the party, of someone who is a thorn in the flesh but is not necessarily doing anything improper. Again, it is important that the independent person, as far as it is ever possible, is upheld to be genuinely independent.
I join others in very much paying tribute to the Minister. I know from other sources how hard she has had to work at times to persuade more reluctant colleagues of the necessity to move in this direction. I congratulate her on her persuasive powers and the success that she has achieved. As my colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, said, we do not have all that we want but we have a lot more than we thought we would get at an earlier stage in the Bill, and I am grateful for that.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I want to raise a specific issue, but first to declare an interest as a councillor and one-time member of a standards committee. I welcome the amendments because they move us towards a system that is proportionate, will protect the right to free speech, give confidence to the general public, be fair to an individual councillor and should prevent party-political prejudice leading to unjustifiable and unreasonable decisions. The introduction of the independent person—or at least one independent person—seems to me to be a major help in enabling us to abolish the Standards Board for England so that matters can be dealt with locally and we can remove the need for a national referral system.
My one remaining doubt is on how the decisions on allegations will be made. That relates to subsection (3). The Minister said that all local authorities would have to have a form of process for investigating and determining matters relating to breaches of the code of conduct but it is for them to decide what those processes should be. I hope that guidance will be given requiring a local authority to have a formal committee structure to achieve this. Otherwise, it is not clear how that will be delivered. If there is to be a formal committee structure, in my view it should be chaired by an independent person but not necessarily the same one who is the independent person referred to in other subsections. In addition to having an independent chair, there will be independent members, as now, along with sitting councillors. Then the whole council will be able to decide on any suspension from committees that might be recommended.
I believe that because it is extremely important to avoid any perception or possibility of party-political bias in reaching a decision. Standards committees with independent members seems to be a means of preventing what may appear to the general public to be party-political decisions being made. Therefore, pursuing independence at a local level through the independent person and independent members of standards committees is extremely important.
Lord Tope
My Lords, neither the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, nor the noble Lord, Lord True, were Members of your Lordships’ House when some of us spent many happy hours—hours and hours—dealing with what I think was the first part of what was then the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill. We argued for hours about petitions and petition schemes. I recall my noble friend Lord Greaves—who I think I have just managed to shut up for a few moments—actually bringing in some petitions to his council so that we could see that they are rather different from petitions that come to Parliament in their general layout and form.
We had a very listening Minister then who listened and indeed made many amendments to what was proposed, but we were still left with pages of prescription about how councils should collect, receive and deal with petitions. We heard that most councils did not have such a scheme. What actually emerged, and it was a legitimate criticism, was not that most councils did not have a scheme but that most councils had not thought to put it on their website, which of course they should, but that is rather different from saying that councils do not receive or deal with petitions.
I have much sympathy with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said in moving his amendment. The crucial difference between us is that I believe he was talking about good practice and I do not believe, especially in a Localism Bill, that it is for your Lordships’ House to be prescribing in legislation what should be disseminated as good practice. I still bear the scars of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill, and that, I am afraid, tempers very considerably the sympathy with which I listen to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I will just add a few brief things. My noble friend reminds me of one or two things which I had thankfully forgotten about. I was trying to remember how many amendments I actually put to this chapter of that Bill when it came. That is also something I had forgotten about, which is something that happens.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, quite rightly said that councils have to welcome and encourage petitions. But what is really important is the seriousness with which they treat them and deal with them when they come. You can set up as many bureaucratic, complex, legalistic schemes as you like, but if people do not treat the petitions seriously it is just going through the motions and wasting time and energy. If people treat petitions seriously you do not need a complex, bureaucratic, top-down—and, I have to say, pretty patronising—piece of legislation like Chapter 2 of Part 1 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. I note with some wry amusement that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, is desperately trying to hang on to this classic piece of new Labour nonsense, which frankly has not improved the situation of petitions in any council in the country. Those who take them seriously, take them seriously; those who do not, do not.
This is eight pages of primary legislation telling councils in great detail how to deal with petitions. I, along with my noble friend, pay tribute to the Minister at the time, the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, who listened to a great deal of what we had said—it was 12 pages of nonsense before we started, and between us we managed to persuade the civil servants and the powers that be in the then Government at least to take some of it out. As I told the noble Baroness at the time, if the Government simply want to tell councils to have a scheme for dealing with petitions that deals with them seriously, they could do so in half a page of legislation, not eight pages. I have been through this and reminded myself of the huge amount of nonsense in it. I will not detain—or should I say entertain—your Lordships’ House with any more of this tonight, but it really does deserve to go.
The one point that I will raise relates to Section 16 of the 2009 Act, which is the requirement to call officers to account. I do not know how often, if ever, this has been used since this part of the Act was commenced. At the time, we had a long debate, and in our view it was totally inappropriate for officers of the council to be hauled up and held to account before the public in this way. The people who should be held to account are the elected councillors: those who run the council and who have been elected by the people to be responsible and accountable to the people. Clearly, they will need support from officers, and if officers are not performing their jobs properly, the elected councillors are the ones who should take a grip of the situation and sort it out. That is a fundamental principle, in our view, but we could not persuade the Government at the time that that was the case. I am delighted that my noble friend Lord Shutt is, I assume, going to resist this amendment.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 60 and, in doing so, I welcome enormously the amendments tabled by the Minister on behalf of the Government. I warmly welcome what she has put forward concerning the preference for having things dealt with, if at all possible, locally and as soon as possible. If it does not do his future career a lot of harm, perhaps I may associate the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, with the thanks to the Government for moving on this. He cannot be in his place tonight but I am afraid that the two of us are at one in thanking the Government, which I think puts us both in very bad odour.
What the Government have done has been welcomed very widely. I know that the British and Irish Ombudsman Association has supported this final retention of a citizen’s right to direct access. Similarly, the National Housing Federation supports the line which enables MPs and councillors to be involved as the first route at the discretion of the complainant but allows the fallback position. Likewise, the Law Commission prefers a system where the complaints can go either through a local representative or to an ombudsman. I hope that the Government know that tenants are similarly very happy with the new amendments, under which they can either deal directly with their councillor or go to the ombudsman. The organisation Which? similarly prefers the choice of the local route but, if not, then the fallback position if for whatever reason the complainant does not want to involve their MP or councillor. As the Minister said, the reasons for that could well be a conflict of interest: the councillor may be the provider; the MP may already have heard the case in their surgery; or the MP may know the local council official involved. The only other reason that has been mentioned is that there could be a threat to the tenant’s privacy where there are issues that they would perhaps not want to share with an elected official. The only other point when somebody may want to go to the ombudsman, albeit after the delay, would be when an elected representative perhaps would be rarely accustomed to awarding redress and would not have the authority to enforce any award.
The way in which this has been tabled by the Government is to be greatly welcomed. It clarifies the current position of the Housing Ombudsman because the scheme requires complainants to have completed any internal complaints procedure with their own provider before going to the ombudsman. Only in very exceptional circumstances, such as oppression or something like unreasonable delay, would the Housing Ombudsman take a case before it had been through the provider’s in-house procedure. That is also helpful in the wording of the Government’s amendments. All the other organisations similarly take that line.
I am delighted that the wording allows local access or the fall back after eight weeks. It is only that that brings up my very small amendment. I have no difficulties with the idea of some delay after the internal procedure is over for the complainant to take stock and consider whether a complaint to the Housing Ombudsman is still justified, having heard the reasons for being turned down by the in-house procedure. Two months seems a little long, especially as the internal procedure that they would have already gone through could also have been a bit lengthy. My amendment would simply shave a fortnight off those eight weeks. The Government have moved a long way on this amendment and I hope they will go a little bit further. An extra 14 days would make this a particularly good final answer to the original amendment.
Lord Tope
My Lords, as the noble Baroness has just said, the Minister has moved a long way since we last debated this. We all accepted the strong desirability of resolving these matters locally whenever possible, but we realised during or even before that debate that it had an unintended consequence of giving the designated person the right of veto. I do not think that that was what the Government intended and I am pleased that they have recognised that, and that it has been removed. Once again, I thank the Minister for not only listening but for acting. At this late hour at this very late stage of the Bill I do not propose to debate further whether it should be six or eight weeks. I am just glad that we have got to where we have.
Lord Best
Once again the House of Lords consideration of this Bill has led to a really sensible change to the legislation. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, alongside the noble Lord, Lord Newton—I have supported these amendments all the way—on persuading the Minister who I know has handled this with great distinction. On behalf of all the organisations which have been extremely worried about this and all the people whose complaints will now be better handled, I thank the Minister very much.
Lord Tope
My Lords, perhaps I may take this opportunity to echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Best, at the beginning of his moving the amendment and echo also the words of my noble friend Lord Greaves in thanking very much the Ministers and the Bill team for the very constructive way in which this Bill’s very lengthy process has been approached. As I understand it, we are now sending something like 100 pages of amendments back to the Commons. What is more notable is that all those amendments have been passed without the need for a vote; in other words, we have truly reached consensus. Of course, like all consensus, it has not achieved everything that each of us would have wished but, without any doubt, we are sending back a very much better Bill than the one we received back in June.
Tribute has also been paid to the opposition Front Bench. I do not know whether the noble Lords, Lord McKenzie and Lord Beecham, had any further hopes for their future careers but, should anyone read the late-night proceedings in Hansard, we have probably now effectively ended their prospects. I pay tribute to them for the constructive way in which they have approached the Bill. It reflects a view with which all of us started; that we were here not to play games or to score points off each other—some of us have known each other quite long enough to know exactly how to score points if we were so minded—but for the genuine interests of better local government and local democracy, which I think we have achieved.
My final thanks are to the Liberal Democrat team on this Bench. Recently, my noble friend Lord Greaves in private referred to my role as being that of team manager. By being the team manager I have been very much more fortunate than much better known team managers in having, certainly, an all-star team but without the all-star egos and tantrums that go with it. I put on record my thanks to my colleagues for the very effective way in which we have approached this Bill, and to the Minister for listening to the good advice that my all-star team has offered and for being so willing so often to take that advice.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, this is the last time I shall speak on the Bill. Perhaps I may start by expressing support for the noble Lord, Lord Best, and his inquiries. I hope that he will receive the confirmations that he sought, certainly on the basis of the helpful background note that we received from the Government today, which confirms that proceeding via development plan documents and local development orders would obviate the need for referendums.
I should like to offer my thanks to several people. Certainly, I thank the Bill Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, and her team, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, and the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, who has gone on to other things. I know what hard work it can be working on a Bill and what a tremendous amount of effort has been put in. It has been a listening team, which has boded well for the outcome of the Bill. I thank also the noble Lord, Lord Tope, the manager, and his team, who have had a tremendous input into the Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Tope, made the point that a substantial number of changes have been made to the Bill. I have not worked on a Bill that has changed quite so much during its passage through your Lordships’ House. That has been due to the power of the contributions around the Chamber. It has not been the Opposition particularly or any particular group. The Government have listened to the voices of experience and common sense. Certainly, the Cross-Benchers have played their full part and I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Best, in particular. I think that we all look up to him on housing matters. I thank my team and I offer big thanks also to the Bill team. Particularly at this stage of the proceedings there are a lot of last-minute amendments in order to try to get everything in shape for the conclusion of the Bill. The team has worked very hard and has always been receptive to inquiries that we have made. This has been a really good exercise in scrutiny of what, frankly, was not a great piece of legislation when it arrived in this place. It goes back to the other place in much better form. I am not quite sure how it will find the time to deal with all the amendments but I wish it well.