Localism Bill

Lord True Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newton of Braintree]

My Lords, before I say anything else, I should probably declare an interest, which I hope that I do not have to declare every time, which is that my wife is a former chairman of Braintree District Council and currently the cabinet member for planning and strategy. I hasten to add that, on this subject, we have not considered our views together, and I am not expressing her opinions—as I do on everything else, of course.

This is an unusual occasion for me. I do not usually find myself tempted to my feet by my noble friend, who is historically rather more robust than I am. I am normally seen as being on the softer side of the party. I have every sympathy what he just said. I will not elaborate, therefore, but I add a second heretical view, which is that, from what I have heard so far today—and I have reservations about parts of the Bill—we are in danger with all these definitional clauses of creating a pure lawyers’ paradise in which every decision is capable of endless judicial review to determine what these meaningless words mean. I do not encourage that.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the leader of a local authority in London. I also thank my noble friend for her earlier comments on shadow mayors, which were extremely welcome. I do not want to come between my noble friends Lord Greaves and Lord Lawson, but I express concern about the way in which the amendment, with its merits or otherwise, is framed. Here, I follow the remarks of my noble friend Lord Newton of Braintree.

The amendment as framed, which requires a local authority to exercise the power, is applied to the core general power of competence at the start of the Bill. That means that everything done by any local authority under the Bill may be subjected to the tests. Many of the tests are desirable—I certainly do not go as far as my noble friend Lord Lawson in his comments on sustainable development, which is in principle an admirable objective—but I fear that, if the amendment is applied to the Bill in general terms, the willingness to use the general power of competence may be tainted by fear of legal action. The fundamental point that I hope that we will pursue is, as I said at Second Reading, that we should do nothing to limit the power of general competence or to discourage local authorities from employing it.

It is a worthy try by my noble friend Lord Greaves, but I hope that if he wants to return to this important principle, it should not, for the reasons expressed by my noble friend Lord Newton, be applied to this part of the Bill.