Local Government Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill

Barbara Keeley Excerpts

Friday 18th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

I have a few points to make and questions to ask. The Minister may be able to respond to some of them.

One question is whether measures such as this are “localist” or “centralist”. While we have been dealing with the Localism Bill, what I have considered to be sensible amendments and suggestions have been rejected by Ministers on the grounds that they would impose burdens and extra costs on local authorities. We must be careful not to do that in this Bill. Has the Bill a centralist aspect, and should that be avoided? Perhaps the Minister will tell me what he thinks.

Another question is whether the proposed measures could be contained in guidance rather than a Bill which, potentially, imposes burdens on local authorities. Given that the Localism Bill confers 142 order-making powers on the Secretary of State, it would be surprising if there were not some way of incorporating this Bill’s provisions in them.

Clause 2(1) requires a local authority to

“provide the event organiser with written notification of the decision”

to ban or impose restrictions on an event

“on the day on which the decision is taken.”

I find that rather peculiar. In my experience of local government, we hold our meetings in the evenings. It does not strike me as feasible to require a local authority to give written notification on the day on which a decision is taken. It is just a question of wording. I think that some reasonably short time should be specified instead.

[Mr Chope]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Barbara Keeley]

It might be more helpful if the hon. Gentleman allowed me to run through my questions first.

Clause 1(3) uses the word “unreasonably” in relation to decisions to ban on the grounds of health and safety. It also appears in the Bill’s long title. The question of what is reasonable and what is unreasonable is a tricky one, although I think we all recognise that, over time, some silly decisions have been taken. The hon. Gentleman cited some of them. Anyone whose event is banned for any reason will feel that the decision was unreasonable, and I fear that burdens would be imposed on local authorities if every decision were challenged.

Clause 2(3) requires a review to be completed

“within two weeks of the request being received”.

Again, I am concerned about the possibly unnecessary extra burdens that that might impose on local authorities. A good event organiser would tend to seek permission for an event a long time before organising it. In my locality, such events as triathlons and marathons are often organised a year in advance.

We hear many stories about decisions that are taken for health and safety reasons, but I think it important for us not to denigrate health and safety entirely. At the time of the Young report on health and safety, a TUC health and safety officer, Hugh Robertson, said:

“For sure, silly things are sometimes done in the name of health and safety and the behaviour of some claims firms can be reprehensible. But the real health and safety scandal in the UK is the 20,000 people who die each year due to injury or diseases linked to their work. A serious review of health and safety would put far more emphasis on dealing with this avoidable death and suffering.”

I think it important for us to bear that in mind.

We have heard about firework displays being abandoned and pancake-tossing races being restricted, but let me make a serious point. On Sunday morning I was at a schools rugby tournament watching my nephew playing for Glasgow Academicals. He and his team played very well, but one of the boys suffered a broken leg in the game. That schools tournament was being held at a ground with proper facilities, and an ambulance safely transported the injured young player. He was able to rejoin his team with his leg in plaster, and be a hero on the way home. We must bear in mind, however, that there can be terrible injuries in rugby matches. This match was being played by 11-year-olds, and they were engaging in contested scrums. If a young person were to suffer a serious neck injury, for example, we would not want them to be a long way from medical help with no suitable transport or paramedics to deal with it. In some sporting events, such as fast contact sports or those involving water, there can be terrible injuries, and there must be a sensible consideration of health and safety to ensure that any such injuries are dealt with properly.

I ask the Minister and the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) to address the concerns I have raised and the points I made about localism and centralism.

--- Later in debate ---

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend should be under no illusion that we are a fundamentally deregulatory coalition Government who are keen to sweep away burdens. We want to allow people to break free, particularly in their own communities, in order to put on street parties or to change their communities through things such as neighbourhood plans. The direct answer is that we will implement the recommendations in a variety of ways, including through the Localism Bill, which has been referred to. The Bill takes forward many of Lord Young’s ideas and concepts, including through neighbourhood plans, which will allow neighbourhoods to come together and describe the kind of place that they want to be. That cannot necessarily be blocked by the town hall. Suddenly, we will find that there is the flexibility to do many more things.

[Barbara Keeley]

I would not want this discussion to pass without saying something in defence of my local council. Hon. Members are very unfortunate in their experiences of local councils. Salford city council runs a lot of large community events, so it must be very different. It runs proms in the park, Christmas ice skating and many firework displays. We are obviously not as risk averse in my neck of the woods as those other places. I have found that the factor that does get in the way of events such as triathlons and charity fundraising runs, which I am very interested in, is clashes with TV football schedules, and I would be grateful if the Minister commented on that. If Manchester United are scheduled to be on TV at 3 pm, one can forget about a fun run. What is a council meant to do when the police say, “You can’t have your run and this football match”?

[Grant Shapps]

Again, the police and the local authority have a legitimate role in, for example, crowd management and in ensuring that events go off smoothly. The hon. Lady mentioned her authority, so I will take the liberty of mentioning mine. Welwyn Hatfield council generally does a superb job on this sort of thing. It allows fun runs and each year there is a festival called Kaleidoscope, which now attracts upwards of 10,000 people. It started as a small, grass-roots, neighbourhood festival and has grown into something much larger. I pay tribute to the many local authorities that get this right. Of course, they do have to make judgments, along with the police and other authorities, about the safety of each individual event.

--- Later in debate ---

[Grant Shapps]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend again. His intervention demonstrates that there is quite a bit more work to be done before we all feel that sufficient procedures are in place and that the ombudsman would not overstep into a role of judgment on health and safety grounds, which I think would be taking things too far.

In the few minutes remaining, I wish to address some of the other comments that have been made. The hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South was interested to discover how we thought the Bill fitted with the idea of localism. I know that she has gained good experience—or at least experience—from the Localism Bill Committee, and that she has examined the matter carefully. We believe that localism can flourish only if we put a framework in place. If we say to people, “Just go and do whatever you want”, but there are no rules, no framework and no guidance—nothing in place at all, not even a skeleton—that is not a route to localism. The natural order would regain control and local authorities and central Government would revert to type.

We need to put limitations in place, and the Bill is in that spirit and is intended to do exactly that. It is intended to put in place a degree of control, with the possibility that citizens will have power over their local authorities rather than the other way around.

[Barbara Keeley]

I am fascinated to hear that the Minister thinks we should have frameworks. Perhaps he would like to tell me—it might be slightly out of context, but he has brought us on to this point—why we do not have a national planning policy framework when we do have legislation that will bring in neighbourhood plans. If neighbourhood plans can be linked to the Localism Bill, that will be important, but that Bill has almost reached Report without having a framework in it.

[Grant Shapps]

I do not want to try your patience by taking us too far off the subject of the local government ombudsman, Mr Deputy Speaker, but the simple answer is that we will have a national planning framework. It will be consulted on by the summer, and it will be put in place as precisely what Members are arguing for this afternoon—a framework within which everyone can operate fairly.

There is certainly a lot that is good about the Bill that we are discussing today. The intentions behind it are certainly in the right direction, but my concern is that we have not yet gone far enough for it. We have not had the opportunity to work out how the local government ombudsman would make the decisions set out in the Bill, particularly if it had a quasi-adjudicatory role, which I think it almost certainly would.