Lord True
Main Page: Lord True (Conservative - Life peer)
Lord True
My Lords, it is with a great sense of humility that I rise to address your Lordships. For nearly 13 years, until last May, I had the privilege of serving in this House in the office of the Leader of the Opposition and assisting the work of the usual channels. For that opportunity, I must thank the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, and my noble friend Lord Strathclyde. They were both remarkably kind to me, and occasionally they even made the eccentric mistake of repeating to your Lordships something I had recommended them to say. I toyed with the idea of allowing my noble friend the Leader of the House to get his own back by asking him for advice on my own speech, but the risk was too great that noble Lords would recognise his own choice phrases.
One of my earlier perceptions of this House was formed 20 years ago in Downing Street at those regular morning meetings, often quite impatient, when the then Leader of the House came to explain to the then Prime Minister how your Lordships had ventured to vote against legislation that always seemed at the time something without which not only the Government but the entire universe would collapse. I rather suspect those meetings are still going on. But when I came to work here in 1997, I soon found that what, from the standpoint of the Executive, were seen as the capricious actions of your Lordships' House were usually rooted in common sense and deep humanity. In short, the more I listened to this House, the more I learned. I did not always agree, but I grew to respect this place beyond almost any other I have ever known, and then hold it with equally great affection.
I could not be more grateful for the kindness with which I was received, back then, and again when, to my surprise, I returned as a Member earlier this year, not only by your Lordships on all sides of the House but by the staff of this House, many of whom with my service here I am proud to count not only as old colleagues but old friends.
I spoke a moment ago of this House's common sense and deep humanity. That, of course, brings me to the subject of this debate, and my noble friend Lady Newlove, whom I warmly thank for introducing it and allowing me to speak. It is daunting to follow her; I agreed with every word that she said. She will forgive me if I do not follow entirely on the subject only of anti-social behaviour, because what she said applies to so many other areas of life. In the way that she has turned a savage, personal loss into a commitment and prospectus for common good, my noble friend exemplifies the qualities of common sense and humanity—and how much we need those as we survey the shards of a society which is in all too many places broken but which the noble Baroness inspires us to believe can be built again. I believe that it will be built again if those in authority truly listen to the calls that my noble friend brings to us to help people take small steps to big ends.
I have the privilege to be leader of a local authority, the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It is in many ways a comfortable authority, where some of the issues set out in this report might seem less pressing than they are elsewhere. Yet I believe that many of my noble friend's ideas are as relevant in prosperous areas as they are in poorer ones. Anti-social behaviour and crime, as she said, respect no borough boundaries, and anxiety, alienation and disengagement know no economic frontiers. In my view, it is the urgent calling of all of us, in whatever capacity in politics, to join in the task of rebuilding broken bridges of trust and confidence between politics, public bodies and the citizen. We need to remember, as my noble friend reminds us, who are the employees and who are the employers in the relationship between public bodies and those we are elected or appointed to serve.
As my noble friend's report eloquently tells us, bureaucracy, complex language and slow responses deter active communities and community action. Perhaps I may give a small example from last month's uplifting national coming together, the royal wedding. Shortly after we were elected to office in Richmond, I enjoyed that horrible moment—which many of your Lordships who have been in office will well remember—of being rung up by my press office to be told that, quite unexpectedly, we were being targeted by a national newspaper. We were being cited as the local authority most restrictive of street parties, with the highest insurance requirements, the most prescriptive rules on street signs and so on. Be there so much as a whiff of a sizzling sausage in the streets of Richmond, the report suggested, and Councillor True’s enforcers would be down on you, probably dressed in uniform.
I did what any worried politician under fire does—I called for a report, courageously. That report told me that, in all essence, the story was true. It was not that my predecessors or the council officers had wanted it, but simply that a well-meaning climate of risk aversion, health and safety first and written policies on almost everything had led to an accretion of complexities in rules and regulations, which no one had ever sat down and planned or even really wanted. The response was obvious—to scrap most of those rules. We simplified the rules for approval, with the result that what had been targeted as the most restrictive council in England ended up hosting more street parties on 29 April than any other. How much I agree, then, with what the noble Baroness says in chapter 5 of her report about providing services on the public’s terms and about simplifying processes. I also find her idea of a general power of competence for local residents highly compelling.
However, I believe that local authorities can and should be catalysts to the creation of active communities. The will is there—I do not believe the cynics. Last year we asked people in our borough to define for themselves their own communities and say which things they most valued and which they most wanted to change in their own area, and cynics said that only a few hundred people would respond. In fact, getting on for 14,000 people did, and we are now following that up with a process of public meetings and plans that cover the 14 different self-selected communities which local people chose. Predictably, their priorities are different. Some are concerned about crime, some about school places, some about improving open spaces, some about losing their high-street shops and some about parking. We must accept that different areas have different priorities and be ready to implement different solutions.
Top-down, one-size-fits-all, town-hall-knows-best has had its day; I welcome that, as I know that people on all sides of politics do. However, I agree with my noble friend in her report that that does not mean sitting back and waiting for things to happen bottom-up. We need to go out and meet people in the middle. Helping active communities to plan and create a better future is just as much about creating and defending the spirit of place, which is what I think local authorities must do; and it is infinitely more rewarding than creating the umpteenth centralised strategy document and calling in the PR men to sell it to those who have had no say at all in writing it in the first place. The role of local authorities evolves, but I am sure that they have a constructive role in meeting the challenges that my noble friend’s report lays down.
I will not trouble your Lordships further on this occasion. However, I must conclude by saying that I do believe that there is an immense opportunity for the creation of community enterprise. When I looked, coming here today, for example, at the hideous scarring of our urban railway lines by graffiti put up by those selfishly intent on imposing their identity, or their vile gang's identity, on public space, I asked myself, “Is there not scope for creating a great enterprise to remove this blight from our lives? Would not hundreds of young people wish to be involved in doing that?”. I am certain that there is, and we should take that challenge, with support, to Network Rail.
There are myriad things, great and small, that people, once allowed across the barriers marked “health and safety” or “risk”, could and will do for themselves. My noble friend’s inspiring report points us along this road. Along with many other local authority leaders, I look forward to helping her achieve her vision across our country, in all regions, whether rich or poor, and in other areas of policy, as well as in the crucial war on anti-social behaviour in which she so powerfully calls us to engage.