Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord True and Lord Shipley

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, I must also declare an interest as leader of a London local council that is a planning authority and as a member of the leaders committee of London Councils, but I should make it clear that I in no way speak on behalf of London Councils.

I shall not follow the Second Reading or clause stand part tone of the debate because I think the noble Lord, Lord Best, has summed up rather well the mood of the Committee on this. My noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding made a very wide-ranging speech which cited a series of people with great acronyms and of great importance, including a professor, saying that the planning system is a great economic drag on the country and we must do something. One could say such things of employment law, health and safety, transport regulations or any number of things. It is not in itself an argument to remove elements of a system. The question that we must ask in this Committee is whether the remedies are proportionate, whether their administration is going to be objective and whether, overall, they will be conducive to the public good. I actually think that some of the things in the Bill answer that test positively and a number, as I said at Second Reading, resoundingly negatively. We must find the balance in Committee.

I must apologise to your Lordships in advance that I will be limited in the time that I can be present in the Committee, which may come as welcome news to some. I have a council meeting this evening. Doubtless I shall pass the scoutmaster’s hut on the way to the council meeting—that was something for the chairman of my party to note. I will also be unable to participate in Committee sittings next week. I apologise to your Lordships and to the Minister for that. I know the Minister will be listening courteously, as she always does, to everything said.

I want to make a relatively narrow point on important amendments that my noble friend Lord Tope and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, have tabled. We will come on to discuss the criteria in the next group. The point that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, made about the criteria is accurate. I made the same point at Second Reading. It is not enough for a current Minister to say, “I will only use these criteria”—which we have not yet seen—“for a limited number of purposes”. A future Minister given extraordinarily wide powers by your Lordships could use them in a very different way. I am sure that is something that we will examine later as we proceed. As Committees of your Lordships’ House have said, greater defences need to be built into the system.

I also think that a period of notice is a useful and important defence to build into the system, not only for the reasons that have been cited. I am not going into the question of whether it should be 18 months or 12 months or of what it should be, but what the noble Lord, Lord Tope, has put before us is a very important point, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, said. That period is a safety margin in which a local authority can improve, but it is also a brake on precipitate action by the Secretary of State. It may be that I can be disabused by the Minister either now or on Report, but it looks as though the Secretary of State can just pop up, presumably on the basis of the criteria that we will have seen by Report, and say, “Toytown Borough Council, you are hereby designated”, and the next day a developer can whack in an application to the Secretary of State and, heigh-ho, off we go, everybody is happy, particularly the developer. It may be that in existing law and in the Bill there are things that prevent that, but if that can happen, there is a great moral hazard in any Executive having this sort of power. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, used a phrase: he said that people might “game the system”. I do not know whether that is true, but I dare day that there are ways in which you could game a system to make it look as though a local authority was not performing well.

I am slightly more worried that somebody might play the system and say, “We are having terrible trouble with these people”. Perhaps they would go along to the Treasury or some other place and say, “Well, Toytown Borough Council is not performing. It needs to be designated”. Somewhere—I would prefer via Parliament by law, in either primary or secondary legislation—there should be some brake on the moral hazard of the Executive saying, “We are designating these people, and we are going to do it tomorrow”.

That is another potentially useful aspect of time. When we have a planning application before us, we have to put online all the representations that are made. Where will be the representations that are privately being made to Ministers about bad authorities? Will they be placed online by the department as they are submitted, prior to the Secretary of State making his decision? I do not know, but I think that this aspect of potential designation should be considered. A pause, a warning, or a period in which the Secretary of State can be challenged to justify the action he proposes to take, beforehand as well as afterwards, would be useful.

There is a case for Clause 1. I do not agree with those who would like to see no long-stop power. However, the line of argument which the noble Lord, Lord Tope, has opened up is very fruitful. It would be good for local authorities and the planning system, and it might be good for future Governments as well.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I agree entirely with my noble friend Lord True and support the four amendments in this group.

The report of the Select Committee on the Constitution, published on 18 January, refers to Clause 1 being,

“a novel provision in the context of town and country planning”.

“Novel” might mean “new”, but it might also mean, “very different and therefore very important”; I think that it is meant to be the latter. It is novel and, as a consequence, it must be properly understood. A centralised form of front-line decision making is being introduced at the expense of localism, as the Select Committee has made clear. I do not find that good. In particular, I draw your Lordships’ attention to the fact that there would be no appeals system other than judicial review to a decision taken by the Planning Inspectorate. In the context of democratic control of decision making, simply to pass a decision without the right of appeal to the Planning Inspectorate is not right.

I was then particularly concerned by paragraph 10 of the Select Committee report, which is important and says:

“We have consistently expressed the view that executive assurances about how statutory powers will be exercised are no firm basis on which to legislate. Constitutionally speaking, they are no proper substitute for clarity in the statutory provision”.

The Select Committee concludes:

“In our view, the Government’s own policy intention of designation under clause 1 only in exceptional cases”—

as Ministers have been making clear—

“should be made clear on the face of the bill. The House may also wish to consider whether the criteria and procedures for making or revoking a designation should be set out in secondary legislation”.

I think I have concluded that in both cases they should and I very much hope that shortly we will hear confirmation that the Minister at least will look at this question again. The Government’s aim should be never to use their powers.

Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between Lord True and Lord Shipley

Tuesday 16th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I first declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. This is a helpful debate. I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, that this is not a time for political tactics. That is because it is a time to help those most in need.

Last week the Deputy Prime Minister stated that as we have to tighten our belts and,

“as we have to make more savings as a country … you start at the top and work your way down, not the other way round”.

I agree with him that those who are poor should be protected. The reason I give my full support to the noble Lord, Lord Best, is that his amendment does that: it protects the poor far better than the Bill does.

We are about to enter the third year of a council tax freeze for most councils, amounting to a 9% reduction in real terms over that period. The Government have paid more than £2 billion to keep council tax bills down. Rightly, this has been widely welcomed by council tax payers—but it is causing higher cuts now because the sums granted to local councils this year and next are for one year only. The baseline is not built up. Crucially, this has meant that those with high incomes, living in a high-band property, have benefited in cash terms much more than others.

Today, around 750,000 people work but get council tax benefit. They get it because their income is low. However, in future a very large number of them could have to pay between £3 and £5 a week because of benefit loss, while higher earners will have no increase at all. As proposed, this will be a regressive step on the working-age poor and it has to be wrong. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Best, provides a solution.

We have heard that the £100 million transitional grant is welcome, but it is also the case that the 8.5% cap is underfunded for some councils, which will have to make other cuts to deliver it—and it is only one-year money. We have heard about empty and second homes and that the Government have argued that a 100% levy on empty and second homes could meet the 10% cut they have imposed—except that, with rising demand, it is not a 10% cut but nearer 12.5%. The truth is that whereas some councils can make up the difference on empty and second homes, many councils simply do not have enough empty and second homes to make up the loss, even if they do charge 100%.

The evidence collected by the Local Government Association demonstrates this. More than 100 councils are now in this position and the vast majority of schemes propose to introduce a minimum payment for working-age claimants. Half propose to set the minimum payment at 20% or more, about another quarter propose to set it between 10% and 20%, and the £100 million announced yesterday will make little practical difference because of rising demand.

A deliverable, fair solution is needed which can be introduced with minimum loss to any individual. That solution is to give councils the option to reduce the single-person discount from 25% to 20% while maintaining a pensioner’s current entitlement. It costs the Government nothing. It costs single people very little: just £1 per week for those in bands A and B and just over £2 per week for those in the top two bands. Given the council tax freeze over the past three years, for most of these people these sums seem modest.

The noble Lord, Lord Bichard, raised an issue of principle about localism. Despite ostensibly being localist—having passed the Localism Act and decided that council tax benefit would not be part of universal credit but would be devolved to councils—surely it should follow that policy on exemptions to discounts should be localised too. Too often the Government seem to want to prescribe and proscribe when localism means giving away power and responsibility. We are ending up with part localism, whereby the Government choose some bits that they want to regulate but not others and leave crucial issues unresolved, such as a definition of “vulnerability”.

We have heard that local government is united: all parties on the Local Government Association have signed up to this amendment. The chair of the Local Government Association, Sir Merrick Cockell, said in June:

“The poorest regions and the most vulnerable people will be hardest hit by this cut unless the Government offers councils more flexibility over all forms of council tax discount. It is the only way that councils can ensure that the greatly reduced funding for council tax benefit is targeted at the local people who need it most”.

Would single parents be better off or worse off under the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Best? They would be better off. Seventy per cent of lone parents are in the bottom two income deciles. They could lose a little from the reduction in the discount to 20% but they would lose far more if they have to pay 20% of the overall charge, albeit 8.5% in year one.

There will be a clear impact on child poverty. In a letter to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, in July, the Minister said:

“Local authorities should design localised council tax schemes in a way that best suits local circumstances and consideration should be given to child poverty in the local area”.

I agree entirely with the Minister that council tax schemes should be designed in a way that best suits local circumstances, but it begs the question of how the impact on child poverty should be considered. The noble Lord, Lord Best, has produced the answer. His amendment would require a modest reduction in the single person’s discount for non-pensioners and would then prevent a further, larger burden being placed on the poor.

My final point relates to income tax gain and council tax loss. The Government have done excellent work in removing low-income earners from income tax by raising the threshold before tax needs to be paid, and another tranche of this will occur in April next year. I am still puzzled as to why they are proposing that some of the very same low earners should have to pay more council tax as a consequence of the Bill. From the perspective of the recipient, it amounts to giving with one hand and taking away with the other.

I hope the amendment will pass. It is fair, deliverable and prevents the introduction of a regressive tax. It reflects the experience from the poll tax days. As I have said, all parties on the LGA are signed up to this amendment and I hope that all in your Lordships’ House will be signed up to it too.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I declare an interest: I am not a vice-president of the Local Government Association, and after the remarks that I am about to make, I am unlikely to be invited to become one because I intend to challenge the unanimity that we have had so far on the amendment.

I pay tribute to the Local Government Association for the work that it has done on the Bill. On this issue, however, I think that it is wrong. I also disagree with a considerable number of my fellow council leaders, including Conservative council leaders, who see this proposal as a kind of 5th Cavalry which is coming over the hill to deal with a problem that, as I have repeatedly said in the House from Second Reading onwards, should not have arisen in the first place. I have lately been described by people inside the Government—or my authority has been described—as a “serial offender”, so I am sure that my noble friend on the Front Bench will be surprised to hear me speaking in this way. I am part of the serial offences, but I also think that, in policy terms, the construction of this Bill is unwise

My old grandmother always told me that two wrongs, as noble Lords know, do not make a right. What is proposed here is effectively a new tax—a broadening of the tax base and an increase in council tax. The amendment proposes that to address a problem which should be addressed, we should challenge the central structure of the council tax as it was first conceived. I can go down memory lane as well, because I was deputy head of the policy unit in No. 10 when John Major formed his Government. At that time, one of the things that we had to do was wrestle with the legacy of the community charge, the poll tax. We had another legacy in our minds at that time—the rates. I have not heard the word “rates” mentioned in this debate but the existence of the rates was thought by many to be a profound injustice. That is how the Government of Margaret Thatcher got into conceiving the solution of the community charge.

One of the central principles agreed across the political spectrum when council tax was created was that the perceived injustice in the rates—that everyone paid the same; that single persons had to pay the same as everyone else—should be addressed. Masquerading under the guise of flexibility, this proposal detracts from that central principle. There is nothing in the amendment about 20% or saying that some can do it, or whatever. As Amendment 98B is written, it is a licence to tax. It is a licence for any local authority. My noble friend Lord Tope said that it is an opening shot in a negotiation. If my noble friends on the Lib Dem Back Benches want to propose a further property tax—in effect, an increase in council tax for every person and household in the country—then, given the time interval in the transitional arrangements, we can have that debate inside the coalition and inside the country. However, I do not know of any public debate about the principle of removing the single-person discount.

It was right that the anomaly in the rates should have been addressed, and addressed well, in the council tax, and I would defend the principle—and it should be defended centrally—that was established in 1992. If we pass the amendment, it will mean a broadening of the tax base. We have heard that this tax is easy to collect. My goodness, yes, of course it is—and I am afraid that some local authorities will think they are quids in. The figures from my finance director show that if we were allowed to get rid of the discount in my local authority, we could cash in £8.5 million. I would not do it but, given the powers in this amendment, will every local authority say, “No, we will restrain ourselves. We will take only the little bit needed to offset the other elements in the Bill that the Government have brought forward”? No, single-person households across the country could suddenly find themselves facing an increase in council tax which no party ever put to them in a manifesto, and no party ever put to them as a point of principle. Perhaps it is because I was involved in the original design of council tax that I do not think we can resile from this principle so lightly.

I do not wish to trespass too much on the time of noble Lords but I am the first person to put the opposing case in reply to five other noble Lords. There has been talk about helping the poor but, as I understand it, the single-person discount goes primarily to low-band households, those in bands A to D. From memory, I think that the percentage might be as high as 90%. I have no doubt that the Minister has the figures. It is not a question of the Rolls-Royce classes suddenly having to stump up an extra bob; council tax increases will be experienced by many. If the discount was abolished in band D in my own authority, it would cost those who are affected £6.40 a week. We are a high-tax authority because we are poorly funded centrally. Even at 20%, however, it would be £1 a week. That is not a negligible sum. Even in my leafy authority, of the 23,000-plus people who would lose the discount as the amendment threatens, 14,000 live in households in bands A to D—and we are rather heavy on higher band households. I would counsel against the easy view that adopting this amendment would help the poor. We might find instead that it hits them.

I may be wrong or I may be right, but taking away a central core of the structure of council tax is a major switch in tax policy. In effect, it would represent a return to the old rates system without public debate. For my part, I could not support that principle without much further and deeper debate than the remaining stages of the Bill will allow.

Assets of Community Value (England) Regulations 2012

Debate between Lord True and Lord Shipley

Monday 23rd July 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Shipley]

I shall follow on from the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, on the rights of voluntary and community bodies not just to nominate assets for listing but to convert themselves into a community interest group. My understanding of the regulations—the Minister explained this very clearly—is that voluntary and community bodies can nominate assets for listing and that those bodies will include parish councils and can include unincorporated local organisations with at least 21 individual members who are on the local electoral register.

The regulations require a community interest group which can bid to be a charity, a company limited by guarantee that does not distribute profits, an industrial and provident society or a community interest company. Voluntary community groups are going to have to convert themselves into community interest groups to bid and sometimes the timescale could be very tight. I wonder what help the Government plan to give, or to advise local authorities to give, to enable the regulations and the principles behind the Localism Act to happen reasonably easily and to make it more straightforward than it otherwise would be for a voluntary or community group to bid successfully and to manage the outcome of that successful bid.

I noticed in the regulations that it is estimated that some 700 assets will be listed each year and that 94 assets may be bid for each year. It is not clear where those numbers came from, but they clearly have some credibility. I understand that where there is a parish council, there is a structure in place. My concern is where there is not a parish council or where the body that wants to bid is not the parish council but is another voluntary or community group. How do we make sure that people are enabled to make a success of this legislation when there is an extra hurdle from nominating a building or a piece of land to an asset register to the point where that group can then take over the running of that building?

[Lord True]

My Lords, my noble friend anticipates one of the things that I was going to ask in relation to non-parished areas. I was not intending to intervene. I endorse what was said by my noble friend Lord Gardiner and other colleagues. I welcome the efforts that my noble friend Lady Hanham has made to reduce some of the worst threats, as some of us perceived them in the debates on the Localism Bill. The stripping down of the proposal to the essentials, at least in terms of those assets to which it might apply, is very welcome. None the less, declaring an interest as leader of a local authority, in some circumstances, local authorities could find themselves as piggy in the middle in operating this process with a community group on one side and the landowner on the other. We simply do not know how onerous these duties are going to be. Some local authorities find it hard to determine planning applications in eight weeks. There are figures of eight weeks and six weeks in here.

We are adjured to make further major savings in local government spending—we are debating this on the Local Government Finance Bill—to which I have no objection, but as we go forward I hope my noble friend will give a firm assurance that she will be careful of the burdens that are imposed on local authorities in administering the system because the paradox we are living with is that in the planning system we have had a massive simplification, in theory, of the planning system nationwide but on the other hand we are creating extraordinarily complex structures, such as some of those coming out of the Localism Act. In these quite complex regulations, we are having regulations to decomplicate them and take some of the other things out. This world will take a little time to settle down. I think we will all try to make it work. Localism is important, and we do want to protect assets of local importance, but I hope that my noble friend will resist the blandishments of the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, to tighten up even further the requirements on local authorities to respond.

One has to live with the art of the possible. Local authorities will, within the resources available, try to make this work, but in some circumstances, all the appeals systems, the registers and all the things that have to be done will take time and it may even require the recruiting of new local authority staff in some areas where this thing takes off. With that rider, I associate myself with the remarks of other noble Lords and thank my noble friend for the time and attention she has given to avoiding some of the potential abuses of the system as originally designed.

Localism Bill

Debate between Lord True and Lord Shipley

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I shall speak specifically to Amendment 148ADBA because it is another aspect of the problem that we have identified about parish councils and the area in which they can sit in relation to a neighbourhood plan. This amendment would remove the restriction on a parish council being part of a neighbourhood area where the rest of that neighbourhood area is unparished.

Parish councils in urban areas have existed since local government reorganisation in the early 1970s, and they can lie within wards of a local authority but may not cover the whole of that ward. As it stands, the Bill prevents such a parished area working with the unparished area when it wants to, to produce a single neighbourhood plan. This amendment simply solves that problem. However, there is a better solution, which is to turn the unparished areas with neighbourhood forums into parish councils. That would give a democratic legitimacy to neighbourhood planning which is then based on the ballot box.

The solution to this problem lies in the public services White Paper published last week. Within that, there are a set of proposals in relation to the creation of neighbourhood councils in urban areas. I noted what my noble friend the Minister said about unparished neighbourhood forums being a pragmatic solution. The difficulty is that I do not think that pragmatism goes far enough. There has to be a democratic legitimacy to neighbourhood planning, which is based on “one person, one vote” and the right to express that view.

A referendum will not be sufficient to do that because the people helping to make decisions should have a democratic base. The solution to that problem lies within the public services White Paper. It would be enormously helpful if in the next few months the aims of the Government in relation to that White Paper and neighbourhood councils could be brought together with this Bill to produce an outcome which enables unparished urban areas to have a parish council structure.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I have three amendments in this group. They are all deigned to build greater flexibility into the Bill and make it operate more in line with the real meaning of localism as I see it and with the opinions of local people, particularly in urban areas. New Section 61G(1)(a), to be inserted in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 by Schedule 9, allows an authority to designate a neighbourhood area only where a would-be neighbourhood forum or parish council has asked for it. That is cumbersome and restrictive.

My Amendment 148ADA would allow a local authority simply to ask local people what they consider their neighbourhood areas to be and to designate them themselves. To quote the Bill, why do they need to wait for a,

“body which is … capable of being, designated as a neighbourhood forum”,

to ask for it? Surely a local authority can do that.

Localism Bill

Debate between Lord True and Lord Shipley

Thursday 23rd June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, this group of amendments relates to scrutiny. In my view, scrutiny is best achieved by a committee system. A committee system is better at delivering good decisions than a scrutiny system which scrutinises those decisions after they have been made. In other words, you scrutinise as you go.

This is a probing amendment. As we do not have a voting system for local government in England based on proportional representation, some councils can have very large majorities held by one party. This may not be reflected in the votes that were cast but is very often reflected in the number of seats that are won. Good scrutiny requires constant challenge. Scrutiny committees are proportional in their overall membership but it would be advantageous for them to be chaired by a member of the authority’s largest opposition party.

Members of your Lordships' House are aware that I am a councillor in Newcastle upon Tyne. In 2004, when my party took control of Newcastle City Council, we altered the system to ensure that the Labour opposition chaired all our scrutiny committees. I am pleased to say that this year, when control of Newcastle reverted—temporarily, at least—to the Labour Party, chairmanship of the scrutiny committees passed to the Liberal Democrat opposition. Public scrutiny and public confidence in the system of local government would be improved if scrutiny committees were chaired by opposition councillors. That does not mean that a scrutiny committee has to be proportional in any regard other than the number of seats held by each party. However, public confidence in the system would be improved if the person constructing the agendas was an elected councillor of a party other than the one that was in control of the council. I beg to move.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I understand where the noble Lord is coming from but there are obvious difficulties with the amendment quite apart from whether or not it is tending towards prescription. For example, I recall a not very happy election in 1986 when I was one of three members of my party on our local authority—

Localism Bill

Debate between Lord True and Lord Shipley

Monday 20th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I support the amendment. It is important that we understand the important role that ITAs and PTEs have in those metropolitan areas. I come from one of those areas. We have always had joint board arrangements, of which fire and rescue has been one, and there have been others. The ITA, and the PTE as part of the ITA, needs to have similar powers at least to fire and rescue authorities, although it is better to have a complete power of general competence. Perhaps I may give an example. The Government are keen to have smart-card operations across the country by 2014. That is being led by PTEs in the areas where PTEs have been directly financed. However, three councils—Nottingham, Leicester and Bristol—do not have PTEs, although they are financed for smart-card ticketing and supported by the PTEs from those other urban areas. Unless the Bill is amended those PTEs will not have a power of general competence, whereas the other areas will, as will those three councils. I think that there will be some complications in procurement policy unless that issue is addressed. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s views on the situation because, as things stand, there appears to be an anomaly.

[Lord True]

My Lords, it could be that my attention wandered a little, in which case I apologise to the noble Lord. Looking at his amendment, it appears to me that a number of the powers conferred on the Secretary of State by this amendment are precisely the powers which the noble Lord was arguing earlier should be removed or struck down in relation to local authorities. Perhaps the noble Lord could reassure me where the party opposite is because new Section 98C is a twin of Clause 5, which we were discussing earlier, and new Section 98D is a twin of Clause 7, which we were also discussing earlier. Perhaps the noble Lord would explain where the party opposite lies in relation to local authorities and ITAs.