Local Government Finance Bill

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hanham]

This is a group of very minor amendments to tidy up the Bill. The amendments introduce nothing new. They are consequential on amendments accepted on Report in your Lordships’ House and correct or insert references to new provisions inserted on Report as appropriate. I hope that, with that explanation, noble Lords will be happy to accept them.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, I take the opportunity offered by these government amendments to Schedule 1 to raise the issue that I have been pursuing throughout the course of this legislation, which I discussed with the Minister last Thursday, and to seek clarification at this last stage of the Bill. I declared all my interests at the previous stages of the Bill and they remain the same.

I shall not rehearse the arguments that we have already heard in this House. I am grateful to the Minister for her time at the meeting on Thursday. I also thank Sporta, SEUK, my noble friend Lord McKenzie and the noble Lord, Lord Best, for coming along to the meeting and lending their support and great expertise. I was also able to inform the Minister that the noble Lords, Lord Shipley, Lord Tope, Lord Adebowale, Lord Mawson, Lord True and Lord Smith, sent their apologies. I thank the Minister and her team for the letter which she sent to me and copied to all those concerned.

I am sure that noble Lords and others are very pleased that, at last, the Government seem to recognise a problem which the political parties, the Cross-Benchers and all the organisations concerned with community-based charities and mutuals have articulated for months. Sporta, in particular, has been active in doing most of the leg-work research and in meeting officials during the summer. However, it is a matter of regret that the Government have decided not to take action on the concerns of a wide range of local community organisations with charitable status during the course of the Bill.

In her letter to me the Minister referred to, “the persuasive arguments that you and your advisers have used”. However, she also said that the department would need to see evidence of the problem. I think the fact that all the leaders and ex-leaders of councils in this Chamber and all the organisations concerned at community level are clear that there is a problem should be persuasive. However, all is not lost. The Minister also informed us that a way of addressing the issue is provided by the amendments that were brought forward on Report specifically with enterprise zones in mind. The Minister’s letter gives a broad assurance that, “the same powers could be used in respect of other reliefs such as charitable relief”. The Minister will not be surprised to learn that what I am seeking today is confirmation of that and that the powers can apply to the central funding of all mandatory reliefs given by all local authorities to charitable organisations, should we be able to persuade the Government of the rightness of this decision in the next year.

I would also welcome confirmation from the Government that they will open their doors to the evidence which the many charitable bodies associated with this cause will work hard to gather over the next period and that they will assist the main representatives of these bodies to understand how and when to present this evidence to the department. Indeed, can a specific mechanism be offered to do this? I would also like to take this opportunity to encourage local authorities to co-operate in supplying evidence of the effect of the legislation on their decisions as regards the formation or expanded use—or otherwise—of local charitable organisations. Indeed, I intend to raise this issue with the Local Government Association. This is especially necessary if, as is feared, such decisions are taken with negative effect at an early stage in the consideration of options.

In the year of the Olympics, the Paralympics and the big society, we are concerned about the impact that these changes might have on sport and exercise for the disabled, the less able, the old, working mothers—everybody, actually. I know of no one in the sport and leisure field who has welcomed these proposals. Indeed, Social Enterprise UK has written to the Cabinet Office about the policy clash produced by these proposals and advised the Minister on why the Bill could have a damaging effect.

We suspect that the impact of these proposals will be damaging for the future of theatres and museums outside London; in other words, there will be fewer of them at local level. Social Enterprise UK believes that, as time moves on, this policy could have a chilling effect on new proposals in the Localism Act for the right to bid and the right to challenge community facilities by local charities, so a great deal is at stake. I thank the Minister for her help with this and for the meeting and the letter. I hope that she will feel able to reassure me that arguments will be heard at an early stage and that adjustments will be considered before too much damage is done.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, so far as the government amendments are concerned, I understand them to be consequential and to correct other parts of the Bill. I am grateful for the short briefing note that the Bill team gave us. I have no problems with these amendments.

As for the contribution by my noble friend Lady Thornton, I, too, thank the Minister for her engagement and the engagement of the team, and particularly for facilitating the meeting last week. I hope the Government will be able to put on the record the assurance that was given at that meeting, particularly as it concerns the prospects of dealing with the matter through secondary legislation, once the Government become convinced, as I hope they will be, that we do not need to amend primary legislation.