Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Greg Clark and Hazel Blears

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I will indeed commend that ambition. It is appropriate that the enterprise partnership that brings together Birmingham and Solihull has the great good fortune to be led by Andy Street, the managing director of John Lewis and one of the country’s most admired business people. It is fantastic that he is devoting his time to helping the local economy to grow and providing that private sector leadership, which is in marked contrast to the regional development agencies that we had in the past, presided over by governors-general such as the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown).

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

The social economy is becoming an increasingly important driver of innovation and growth. We have 75,000 social enterprises in this country, employing 1 million people, and one in four businesses in the European Union is now a social business. Will the Minister commit in his conversations about city deals and about local enterprise and growth to ensure that social enterprises and the social economy are at the heart of that drive to reinvigorate the regions of this country?

[Greg Clark]

I certainly will. I completely agree with the right hon. Lady. I recall going to Brighton to sign the Brighton city deal in a social enterprise—a hub for start-up tech businesses, brought together by the voluntary and social enterprise sector, that is thriving. Part of the deal was to expand it. That is a model to which I hope other places in the country will aspire.

Localism Bill

Debate between Greg Clark and Hazel Blears

Monday 17th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The process we are engaged in gives a lot of power to local authorities, but, equally, imposes obligations on them to share their power with communities. That is the right approach.

The Opposition’s response, as expressed in the right hon. Lady’s speech, represents a split—they have not made up their minds. The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) said that there was a schism in the Government. Far from it! We are emphatic about the need for the Bill. However, there is a schism in the Labour party because it is advancing two arguments: that the Bill is secret centralisation and that the powers that the Secretary of State is taking represent a covert attempt to recentralise—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) applauds. Other hon. Members, however, argued that this is a charter for dangerous nimbyism. Which is it? Is it that the Labour party does not trust local people to take decisions on their own behalf, or is it that it fears that Whitehall will lose power? It must make up its mind. Does it just fear any change, does it fear local choice, or does it fear any challenge by the powerless to the powerful?

[Hazel Blears]

Will the Minister take this opportunity to give an unequivocal confirmation that, as far as the expression of interest and the community right to challenge are concerned, he will not change the regulatory framework to enable commercial organisations to take over those services and to run them for private profit, and that the regulations will continue to require a community interest and a not-for-profit basis?

[Greg Clark]

The Bill was drafted deliberately to express that. This is a community right to challenge to allow community organisations to do something that Labour, during 13 years in government, failed to do, which is to let them have the chance to deliver services.

Let me refer to some of the speeches made by right hon. and hon. Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) brought his considerable experience in local government to bear. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), my hon. Friends the Members for Carlisle (John Stevenson), for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), for Crawley (Henry Smith), for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti), for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris), for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray), and for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), and the hon. Members for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) and for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Chair of the Communities and Local Government Committee, made passionate speeches about local government. They should not be concerned about the Secretary of State’s powers. The key power is the general power of competence. We thought very carefully about whether it was right to set out pages and pages of restrictions in the Bill on that general power of competence. We concluded that the better thing—the more empowering thing—was to change completely the default, so that the powers that a local authority wants to take should be available to it, and it should not have to go through pages of guidance on the Bill. We think that that is the right approach. I look forward to the scrutiny from the Select Committee, but that is the approach that we took.

One of the other powers states that if a council is in danger of becoming insolvent, it is reasonable for the Secretary of State to suspend the requirement to have a referendum for a council tax increase to cover that. Therefore, the Committee, when it scrutinises the Bill, will find that it is content with that.