Localism Bill

Baroness Primarolo Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Stunell)]

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 14.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Lords amendments 15 to 49 and 95 to 111.

Lords amendment 112, and amendment (a) thereto.

Lords amendments 235, 248, 256, 261, 263 to 333, 404 to 413 and 441.

[Andrew Stunell]

As my right hon. Friend the Minister eloquently set out in respect of the last string of amendments, the Government believe that we need to decentralise power to local communities. I think that is now a shared all-party analysis, that the days of top-down control should be removed and that we should move to bottom-up control.

For the last 30 or 40 years—my right hon. Friend suggested perhaps for the last 100 years—there has been gathering frustration at the way in which local communities and local councils have had their decision making taken away from them and their power denuded, and, particularly for those in local government, how they have increasingly faced a situation in which everything they did was either compulsory or prohibited with no scope for local discretion or for taking account of local circumstances, local needs, local resources or, indeed, local opinion.

The communities that local authorities have served have had the role of angry bystanders, whereby things were simply done to them, imposed on them or dumped on them—not done by them, decided by them or, least of all, chosen and delivered by them. This Bill marks a huge cultural change not just for those local communities and local councils, but for those in Westminster, and perhaps even more for those in Whitehall. We need to change that culture: it is a long overdue change, and this Bill makes a start on achieving it.

I am encouraged by the fact that the criticism of Opposition Members is now that we are not going far or fast enough, when, in fact, over the last 13 years, they made the problem worse, not better. We look forward greatly to their co-operation in this place—as it was so willingly offered in the other place—so that we can improve the Bill, make it even more localist, and deliver for local communities and local councils.