Sustainable Communities Act 2007

Greg Clark Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Turner, and it is a privilege to respond to the debate, which has been initiated by the hon. Member for Gower (Martin Caton). Throughout my time as an MP, and before then, he has been a passionate advocate for all things local and sustainable. Indeed, he was described to me just this morning—I know he will take this as the compliment that it was intended to be—as being the new David Drew, to whom he referred earlier.

The hon. Gentleman has the admiration of the House not only for helping to secure the passage of the Sustainable Communities Bill, which he did with the now Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), but for rightly keeping up the pressure on the Government to take the required action. I join him in paying tribute to the Local Works coalition, which has been absolutely indefatigable from beginning to end. It was a tortuous process to get the Bill passed, and it is quite right that he is taking a continuing interest in ensuring that the provisions are enacted.

In responding to the hon. Gentleman’s passionate speech, I would like to do three things. First, I reiterate my personal view of the importance of the Sustainable Communities Act 2007—indeed, the Government share that view. Secondly, I am pleased to say that I can give him substantial reassurances on the points he raised. I hope that that will also reassure people listening to the debate. Thirdly, I shall discuss how, in the next round, we can respond to some of the bureaucratic problems that have beset the process to ensure that we can address the issues more speedily in future.

I supported the Bill during its passage through Parliament. I regard the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 as one of the most important pieces of legislation to be enacted in the past decade. The principles established by the Act mean that local people have the right to know what is being spent and done on their behalf in their communities. Armed with that information, local people should have the right to suggest alternative ways of proceeding. Local people’s right to have their suggestions seriously considered, rather than rebuffed, is the essence of a new approach to government that is fundamental and will change how government is done. I am determined to ensure not only that we follow those principles in the decisions we make about the Act, but that such principles underpin the localism Bill that will shortly be introduced to the House. It should no longer be possible for people in authority to say to community groups and local community institutions, “You can’t do what you want to do just because we say so.” Such an approach is not terribly good parenting and it is certainly not good government. We need to move away from it once and for all.

On the hon. Gentleman’s particular concerns about the timetable, he is right that the first invitation was issued in October 2008. Some 301 submissions were received by the LGA in July 2009 and a short list of 199 was supplied just before Christmas, on 23 December 2009. I share his frustration. When we came into government, I was pleased to be appointed to the portfolio with responsibility for the Act. Frankly, I hoped to be able to pick up a substantial body of work that had been done from December to May and to find that things had been properly scrutinised and were ready to be enacted. My inheritance was that no decisions had been taken and no decisions were ready to take.

Although incoming Ministers do not have access to previous Ministers’ papers—and rightly so—my understanding was that only about a dozen of the proposals were minded to be introduced with any particular speed. I will be candid with hon. Members: that was a disappointment to me when I came into office. However, I was determined that we should not simply progress a select, hand-picked few proposals that might catch the eye of Ministers, but that we should take a comprehensive approach and adopt the demeanour of wanting to say yes, rather than trying to find reasons to say no. Far from there having been no negotiations with the LGA selector, I have, in fact, been through all the proposals with it. We have already agreed with the LGA selector on half the proposals.

[Martin Caton]

I have no doubt about the Minister’s commitment to localism, but I am a little worried that he says that there have been negotiations with the LGA. Openness and transparency are at the heart of the Bill, and the process by which the selector—the LGA—chose which measures it wanted to send on to the Minister was done openly in open meetings. He now informs me that there have been negotiations, but they have not been reported to anybody. They have certainly not been reported to those bodies and organisations that are the driving force behind making the Act work.

[Greg Clark]

In fact, the term “negotiations” is a misnomer because we found it easy to agree. There is positive volition on the part of the Government to say yes to as many of these proposals as we can. Within the next few weeks, I hope to be able to agree—I am meeting the chairman of the selector again next week—with the selector on all the proposals made under the Act. What the hon. Gentleman says is absolutely correct: if we are to move on to the next round—as, indeed, we will be doing—we ought to have dealt with the current proposals. I have been very careful and have personally gone through every proposal made—there are a lot of them and they consume much paper—and I hope to be able to give a positive response to about two thirds of the proposals selected by the selector. That relates to two thirds of all short-listed proposals. I hope that our response, which again I hope will be made soon, will be very positive.

My Department’s business plan commits us to making these decisions by the end of January 2011. That is our published commitment. As I say, it is a source of frustration that more preparatory work was not done by the previous Government. I do not want to make a party political point; it is more of an administrative point. It would have been nice not to have had to start from scratch on the matter but, in the time we have had, we have made pretty good progress. I would like to be in a position to make that announcement well before the published requirement of the end of January 2011. I would much prefer to be able to do it before the end of the year—before Christmas—and I will be pushing for that.

[Martin Caton]

What the Minister is saying is very welcome indeed. I would just like to challenge him on two things. He is being a little unfair on Ministers in the previous Government. Obviously he has not seen the papers, but I think considerable progress was made—although admittedly that was initially on, as he says, about a dozen projects. More importantly, is he saying that we will have the announcement on the projects before the end of this year?

[Greg Clark]

That is my intention. I should reiterate that our public commitment is to making the decisions by 31 January 2011, but I am doing everything I can to bring that forward. If we can make the decision before the end of the year—before Christmas even—that is what I would like to do. I am personally working with my officials and with the LGA selector to try to do that. In any event, the published self-imposed deadline of 31 January is a backstop, but I would like to use best endeavours to bring that forward.

In response to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) on the subsequent invitation for the next round, I would like to make a simultaneous announcement on the arrangements for the next round of submissions from community groups across the country. It is not a one-off exercise, but the beginning of a different way of approaching government, and I am absolutely determined to build on it and go further. We want to do that as soon as possible, and certainly before we are obliged to do so.

[Rehman Chishti]

What proposals are there to ensure that more proposals come forward from community groups and citizens, rather than simply from councils?

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend touches on an important point. I pay tribute to the selector panel and, in particular, to Councillor Keith Mitchell, who has put a great deal of effort and personal commitment into scrutinising the measures and putting them forward. Here we get on to the wider agenda, because the principle embodied in the 2007 Act is that communities of all descriptions, including, but not exclusively, local government, should have access to the machinery of government so that they can unblock the barriers that prevent them doing what they could do. I want to look at how we can extend that.

One of my earliest impressions when I became a Minister was that I had access to a wide range of talented people in the Department who are there to help turn ideas into reality and policy ideas into law. However, my view, which I suspect those hon. Members present share, is that the best ideas are not the exclusive preserve of Ministers, or even of senior officials, in Whitehall, but actually come from people in communities. It seems to me, therefore, that the support and advice that Ministers have access to ought also to be available to people in communities. That is a commitment that I have made and am working on so that we can, almost literally, turn government upside down in the Department, to make help and support available to people in communities, rather than being exclusively for Ministers to help them get things done. After all, if Ministers need help in overcoming some of the barriers, goodness knows that people in communities will, too.

I have established a team that we refer to as “barrier busters”. During the last Communities and Local Government questions, I extended an invitation to Members who have examples of burdens, rules, regulations and barriers that are standing in the way of local action, and which only central Government are able to remove, to contact the Department so that we can give them access to people who can help them to look at the regulations and the law or to bang heads together in Whitehall if that is necessary. We will not always succeed, but we will certainly do the best we can to achieve that.

The opportunity in the next round is to make access to our “bureaucracy busters” more widely available across the country and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham suggested, to see whether we can ensure that we do not need to wait for a long time before acting on good requests. If something is a good idea, we should get on with it.

By coincidence, I happened to have a meeting with Local Works and my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner this morning to discuss how we can really build on the ambitions and the early success of the Act to go ever further and better in future. I hope that we can make some improvements to the system that will make the Act even more effective in the months ahead.

[Martin Caton]

I welcome the invitation to visit the bureaucracy busters. On the theme of consulting Members of Parliament, if it proves that the Minister cannot deliver the accelerated timetable that he clearly hopes to deliver, would he be prepared to meet a cross-party delegation of Members to discuss how we move forward?

[Greg Clark]

I do not need to make it contingent on that eventuality: I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman at any time and with any colleagues who have a contribution to make. MPs are leaders in their communities and have experience and knowledge, as he has in spades, about some of the obstacles we need to overcome, so I would be happy to meet him and other colleagues in the weeks ahead. Our formal commitment, which I ought to respect, is to make a decision by the end of January, but I will do everything in my power to make that earlier.

The approach embodied in the 2007 Act that local and specific approaches to problems can provide lessons on how things can be done better by other communities, not only in that area, but across the country—possibly around the world—is a powerful way of thinking about government. It is about helping with the specifics, learning the lessons and then taking practical action. I am determined that our response will respect the spirit of the Act and indeed will imbue our whole approach to government. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving us the opportunity to discuss the matter today and hope that all Members, and everyone who has given their time, effort and commitment to the process, will shortly see that there is an even greater prospect of success in the future than we have heard today.

Question put and agreed to.