Localism Bill

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

We could be forgiven for thinking that the Government have, all on their own, discovered community empowerment and social action. I just want to place it on the record, right at the outset, that not only I but many Labour Members have for years embraced the ideas of giving individuals and communities greater power over their own lives. That is why hundreds of local authorities up and down the country are doing participatory budgeting, why the transfer of assets has got off the ground and is now happening, why councils are responding to petitions and why the social enterprise and mutuals sector is growing. This Government are not the first to have these ideas.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Surely my right hon. Friend is not going to miss off that long list antisocial behaviour orders, which this Government are seeking to do away with.

[Hazel Blears]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. Not for a moment would I seek to miss out something that I believe has been of great assistance in empowering local communities. Success has many parents and the Bill contains some things that I support, but I want to make one central point this evening: I believe that there is a deep schism at the heart of the Government between those people who genuinely believe in this agenda and want to make the most of the skills and talents of local people, and those who see it as a convenient step in an intense political strategy to shrink the state, slash costs and provide respectability for the transfer of assets from the public sector, possibly into the private sector, using the guise of social enterprise as a respectable halfway house.

I have great concerns about that. The Secretary of State for Health is on the record as saying that what he regards as social enterprise is anything other than the public sector. That is a very wide definition, and I say to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whom I am pleased to see in his place, that I would welcome the Minister giving a cast-iron commitment in his summing up. I would like the Minister to confirm that, under the expressions of interest part of the Bill, the Secretary of State will not be using his order-making powers to change the framework to allow commercial organisations simply to bid to run services and take over assets, and that there will be a genuine commitment to real social enterprise, with asset locks, stewardship and community ownership at its heart. It is vital that we get that on the record.

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[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

There have been a large number of philosophical speeches from hon. Members on both sides of the House, but I want to talk specifically about clauses 124 and 125. I want to ask the Secretary of State and Members of all parties to consider whether we want to change 40 years of homelessness legislation and give local authorities the power to discharge their duty to homeless families to the private sector, whether or not the family accepts that option.

In response to “Cathy Come Home” in the late 1960s and early 1970s, parts of all our communities rose as one—irrespective of the party that they supported—to say that local authorities needed a framework for vulnerable homeless families. No longer could councils of all political persuasions ignore families in housing need. At the same time, we saw the rise of one of the greatest acts of localism since Victorian times: the formation of housing associations, principally through Church and faith-based groups that wanted to do their bit to contribute to dealing with homelessness.

Is it right that we should let go of one of the fundamental tenets of our homelessness legislation, which is to discharge the duty to provide accommodation that families can afford? Private sector accommodation in south London is certainly not affordable to the vast majority of homeless families.

[Barry Gardiner]

My hon. Friend has been assiduously in the Chamber all afternoon, so she might not have seen the front page of today’s Evening Standard, which, for the first time, talks of people being found sleeping in rubbish bins in London.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

That would be a shocking spectacle and I cannot imagine that any person in this House would find it acceptable.

We must consider the consequences of our actions. Private sector accommodation is, for most families, completely unaffordable. Most families who approach local authorities as homeless are young families at the start of their family life and with the lowest earning potential that they are likely to have in their lifetime. They will have to go on to housing benefit, so we will make families who could otherwise afford to pay their way welfare-dependent. We are saying to families, “You will be on housing benefit and if you try to better your life—if you take the extra day’s work or the promotion—you will lose so much housing benefit that it will not be worth your while.”

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[Dr Whitehead]

I do agree with that difference. Also, however, if the agency is not there in order to make those changes, if there is not the necessary financial devolution, and if there is the current extent of cuts to local government services, then many of the aims and wishes for devolution of power to local government are meaningless. The Bill provides for no financial devolution away from the current system of considerable centralism as regards council tax raising, and the Secretary of State has the power to change any figures that the local authority comes up with in the way that it defines council tax.

Localism means ensuring that decisions are made at the right level. Under the Bill, there appear to be two types of decision on planning—the neighbourhood decision or the national decision, with nothing in between. The truth about localism is that decisions do not always have to be taken at the very lowest level, but they should be taken at the appropriate level. I, for one, want to live in a sustainable community. I want my waste to be dealt with efficiently and my transport to be run efficiently. All those things involve decisions planning and operation that are larger than local. Bearing in mind that the regional spatial plans and the national plans have been removed for everything but national infrastructure proposals, unless the Bill contains effective measures that enable effective co-operation to take place between local authorities, that gap will exist, and I am afraid that people will come to regret it in future years.

[Barry Gardiner]

Does my hon. Friend agree that in order to resolve that issue it is important that the Bill should have a presumption in favour of sustainable development within the national planning framework?

[Dr Whitehead]

Indeed, I completely agree. There should be such a presumption in the Bill and there should be considerable strengthening of the requirement to co-operate between local authorities, because the requirement in the Bill merely means that people have to talk to each other a bit.

If we are really localists in what we are doing, it is essential to get the different levels of planning right. It is not just about a neighbourhood decision or a national decision, but about getting the decision right in terms of what it means. If we come back to this House in a few years’ time having not built the houses and not given ourselves sufficient capacity to deal with this new era of waste and resource management, and if we have found that some of the decisions that we have taken at very local level mean that we have moved away from our climate change targets instead of making the necessary concerted effort to move towards them, we will seriously live to regret that gap in the Bill.

At the very least, we should ensure that this Bill is not enacted until a national planning framework is in place and the national planning statements have been discussed and sorted out by this House. The Bill must sit in a proper framework that means that local, regional and national planning work together for the benefit of the people who stand to gain most at local level.

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[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Bill draws two important aspirations of the Government into conflict. The Government have said that they want to be the most decentralising Government ever, and that they want to be the greenest. Those two aspirations are difficult to reconcile. To meet the renewables obligation and keep the lights on in the United Kingdom, the Government will have to deliver £200 billion of investment in energy infrastructure in just nine years. To meet their obligations under the waste directive, they will have to deliver up to £20 billion of investment in plant and equipment for new waste and recycling infrastructure in the same period.

Of course, it is right that local people have a say in local planning issues. However, the flaw in the Bill is that it peddles a myth that thousands of decisions taken by atomised local communities up and down the country will somehow amount to a coherent vision for the national and regional infrastructure that we all require. There is a false parallel between the responsibilities of elected parish councillors and Government Ministers. Parish councillors and the people who may constitute neighbourhood forums have an obligation to secure the best outcomes for their local community. Their vision is rightly limited to the immediate boundaries of their neighbourhood; so should be also their powers. Clause 90 specifies a duty on local councils to co-operate on the planning of sustainable development. I welcome that, but there is no obligation on them to co-operate positively to bring about sustainable development infrastructure.

The Government must take a wider purview. To relinquish that responsibility is not to devolve decisions about strategic infrastructure to local neighbourhoods, but to ensure that no one takes those decisions. It is not devolution of power, but abrogation of responsibility. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) spoke eloquently of the inequalities that may result in housing and the provision of other services across the country as a result of the Bill.

[Dr Whitehead]

Does my hon. Friend accept that the cumulative impact of the proposals on sustainability must inevitably be considered outside particular areas? Does he propose that a mechanism be placed in the Bill to reconcile local decision making, the duty to co-operate and the cumulative impact of the developments on sustainability?

[Barry Gardiner]

That is exactly what I propose.

My hon. Friend the Member for Islington North made a powerful point about the inequalities that will accrue across the country, but my point is different. The failure of Government to take strategic decisions will not simply result in inequality, but will be to the detriment of us all. Regional strategies were abolished by the Secretary of State. A duty to co-operate is no substitute.

The national planning framework must provide a clear direction to councils to enable a network of energy and waste management sites and facilities. Such a direction should not be left to secondary legislation. The Government should introduce in the Bill a presumption in favour of sustainable development that accords with the national planning framework. The Bill will create uncertainty in the business plans of those who want to invest in our country’s infrastructure. That will be as devastating a block on development as the increased voice for those whom outsiders sometimes call nimbys.

The Bill suggests that a neighbourhood forum could be constituted by as few as three individuals, and that such individuals need not live in the area. Does the Secretary of State not think that giving membership to those who merely want to live in the area is, even by his standards, a rather slack criterion?

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s focus on and work for sustainable development, but does he not accept that local people are capable of making decisions about their own interest in and desire for sustainable development, consistent with the can-do approach of the Bill?

[Barry Gardiner]

Of course it is perfectly possible for individuals and local communities to consider sustainable development needs, but it is not possible, and indeed not right, that within our democratic structure those decisions should be devolved to such a level. We need strategic planning on a national basis, and that cannot be provided by parish councillors.

[Neil Carmichael]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Barry Gardiner]

I will not give way further, because time is short and other Members wish to contribute.

The delays of up to 12 months in even holding a referendum on planning issues will introduce a new blight of delay into the process. Such delays can be fatal to major development plans, yet a referendum could be triggered by just 5% of the local population. I pray that the dangers that I believe are inherent in the Bill will not come back to haunt the Government.

In six or seven years, as the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) said, 30% of our energy provision will come off stream, which is a large gap to fill. The Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), said earlier in Communities and Local Government questions that the Bill would be about enabling people to resist development in their area through the neighbourhood plan. How sad, how tragic, that that is the Government’s stated intention. I pray that they will not live to regret this Bill in government, because I pray that in six or seven years they will no longer be in office.