Localism Bill

David Rutley Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Hazel Blears]

Not by any stretch of the imagination could this Bill genuinely be said to be about empowerment. If people are to be given rights, they need the means to take up those rights. The Bill does not contain the back-up, support, funding and guidance necessary genuinely to give people the sense that they can take on these services.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Hazel Blears]

In a moment.

We are setting out for the worst of all possible worlds. We will raise expectations and then set people up to fail, thus setting this whole community empowerment agenda back years and years; I think there will be an awful lot of disappointed people. If we look at the pubs support package, we see now that no support is available. A community in my constituency wants to take over the Woolpack in Salford. These great local people need help with a business plan, finance and mentoring, but no support is available from this Government to enable them to take over that pub.

[Hazel Blears]

I will not give way.

I set out three tests last October, saying that if the Government met them, their localism and empowerment agenda would have my support. Those tests related to funding; having a proper framework for local government; and fairness. On funding, the Government have failed miserably. My local council faces cuts of £47 million, and 15% of those cuts are to come in the first year. Manchester city council faces cuts of £100 million, with 25% in the first year. Voluntary sector organisations face cuts of upwards of £3 billion, with a paltry £100 million transition fund. Whether for local government, voluntary organisations or community groups, the Government have failed entirely on funding.

My second test was about having a proper framework and a long-term partnership with community groups. What I have seen is councils in a headlong rush to divest themselves of responsibility, and they are dealing with big national organisations, not building the small community groups that really want to bid on this agenda. For example, the big national framework contracts for the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Work and Pensions are going not to small social enterprises or small local organisations but to big national companies. The people who are getting the DWP contracts in Greater Manchester are based in Leeds, Birmingham and Newcastle—so much for growing the small local sector.

My third test was about fairness. I am genuinely horrified at the unfairness of the cuts that have been put in place. They are particularly directed at the poorest neighbourhoods—the people who are eligible for area-based grant. They have seen those grants slashed completely, which is why the poorest areas have fared the worst. What is really needed on this agenda is funds. I moved a ten-minute rule Bill just a couple of weeks ago, proposing that instead of paying themselves bonuses bankers should enter into a long-term relationship with community groups to give them not only funding, but business expertise, support, mentoring and back-up. Again, I ask the Government whether they are prepared to support those measures. We need a commitment to true social enterprise and we need to ensure—

[David Rutley]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Hazel Blears]

No, I will not. Time is short.

When those enterprises are spun out into the social enterprise sector, we have to ensure that that does not happen on the back of people’s terms and conditions. I would welcome a commitment from the Government that when organisations take over, the conditions for the people who work in those enterprises will be maintained at the highest possible standards.

I recommend to the House an excellent example I have seen recently of a council empowering people, which is Lambeth’s co-operative council proposal. Across the country, 100 local authorities have signed up to the co-operative council idea, with citizenship-led commissioning, the transfer of assets, protection for employees and a safeguarding framework that safeguards equity so that we do not get the postcode lottery referred to by the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers). That example would be very worth while.

On this agenda, we need to ask some simple questions, but they are very revealing. What is the point of a general power of competence if there is no money to do anything to improve the community? What is the point of allowing people to bid to run services or take over assets when there is not the back-up and support to enable them to do that? Why involve local people in planning and at the same time abolish planning aid, which gave poorer communities the ability to raise issues, to have technical support and to play their proper part in the planning framework? I genuinely believe that these proposals are the worst of all worlds—raising people’s expectations and then dashing them in a pretty appalling way. There are many reasons why we cannot support the Bill this evening. The principle is right, but the way in which this Government propose to exercise it is utterly wrong. It is not community empowerment, but community demolition.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Bruce]

I have confidence in my local authority’s ability to make discerning decisions about the services required and, wherever possible, to take advantage of the excellent professional expertise that many local organisations and community groups now offer.

[David Rutley]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I know that she is very involved with the Crossroads Care charity and does an incredible amount of work in Congleton. In Macclesfield, the Bollington leisure centre is owned and run by the community, the Gawsworth village shop is owned by the community and the successful treacle market is run by the community. Is not that the way forward, rather than looking to state-based solutions every time, as the Opposition suggest?

[Fiona Bruce]

I so agree. The Bill provides mechanisms for greater partnership working and that, in turn, will help to release greater community energy.

The Bill sends out a signal to residents, community groups and local businesses that their views and contributions really matter—indeed, that they are invaluable if we are to enjoy the kind of local communities in which so many people whom we represent want to live. There is no other way for society to flourish, and everyone’s contribution matters. No insignificant person has ever been born. It is a signal that local residents need and, I believe, deserve to hear today.

I am particularly encouraged to see in the Bill the community right to challenge. The very fact of its inclusion will promote improved dialogue between residents’ groups and the local authorities that represent them. They includes groups such as Alsager Sports Partnership, representing a swathe of local residents most keen to have their voice heard about the use of the former Manchester Metropolitan university campus in my constituency as a community sports facility. The power to instigate a local referendum might also enable such a group to highlight the high level of public support for that proposal.

Small shops are essential to thriving communities. People want and value a busy high street and local employment, with the colour and character that they bring, together with the individual service and valued customer relationships that they provide. The measure enabling a local authority to demonstrate its local community’s support for such enterprises by providing a business-rate free period or discount is most welcome, especially at a time of such economic challenge for many local businesses.

As I said at the outset, this Bill is most importantly a catalyst. The proposals within it for greater public participation in local democracy, the expenditure of funds to be more representative of local priorities, and the release of the immense and often untapped contributions that voluntary, faith and community groups make in even greater measure than they already do, will happen only if we make them happen—if we, as elected representatives at national level, together with our colleague councillors and officers at local level, have a determination to communicate the provisions in the Bill and the opportunities that it offers clearly, effectively and convincingly to residents, businesses and community groups. We must work practically with them to make localism happen and to ensure that the signal in the Bill saying “You matter” is sent out to local residents, so that an opportunity to make a positive difference in our local communities is offered to all. Then people will see that under these proposals, real localism is there for the taking. In voting for the Bill, let us commit ourselves—