Hazel Blears
Main Page: Hazel Blears (Labour - Salford and Eccles)(13 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Pickles
I am surprised by the hon. Gentleman’s statement, because he and I have previous. When he was engaged in a respectable profession before returning to this House, I recall him advising me on these issues. His advice was that these things should not be absolute, and that the Secretary of State needs to retain residual powers just in case. He should not castigate me for taking the advice that he gave all those years ago— nice try.
Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
The Secretary of State said that the current power to do anything that is in the interests of economic, social or environmental well-being is too narrow and that his general power of competence will extend the ability of councils to take action. Will he give practical examples of issues that do not fall within economic, social or environmental well-being, on which councils will be able to act? I am sure that the House wants to be enlightened on how large the power is. Before the election, he said that he wanted to give councils the power to do anything other than raise taxation. Is that still his intention?
Mr Pickles
The right hon. Lady makes a reasonable point. She will be aware of problems with London authorities’ insurance, and the general power of competence will deal with those. However, the question is: what is the difference between the general power of competence and the general power of well-being? The truth is that there is not much difference, and we welcomed the intention to introduce the latter, but only about 17% of authorities have done so. The reason for that is the innate conservatism of those providing legal advice, so councils have tended to err on the side of not introducing it.
The reason why the general power of competence is so important is that it turns the determination requirements on their head. All those fun-loving guys who are involved in offering legal advice to local authorities, who are basically conservative, will now have to err on the side of permissiveness. That is a substantial change, and I would have thought that there would be no difference between the parties on that matter. I believe that a general power of competence is better than a general power of well-being, because the latter had to be invented as a concept whereas the former is well accepted by local authorities throughout the world, which understand exactly what it means.
The Bill will let councils decide the best way to organise themselves, whether through cities having mayors, through local council executives or through the committee system. On the subject of mayors, I am delighted to report to the House that Lord Adonis will begin a tour of 12 English cities, talking to local people about the prospect of having a mayor. I look forward to his report. The Government are grateful that that distinguished former Cabinet Minister is undertaking that important work.
Caroline Flint
We welcome the principle of greater involvement for local people in how their communities are developed. Broadly speaking, we support the transfer of powers and functions from unelected bodies to the Mayor of London—provided there are sufficient powers of oversight and scrutiny for the Greater London authority.
I am sad to say, however, that as a whole this Bill represents a massive missed opportunity. When reading it through, it is difficult not to be struck by the sense that, for all the agonised intellectualising of the Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), this Bill is little more than a rag-bag collection of press releases from Tory HQ. Giving local people and communities a greater say in and more control over the future of their local areas and building an open and less adversarial planning system is to be welcomed, but when the Secretary of State’s own Department estimates that neighbourhood plans could cost as much as £250,000, we remain to be convinced that those plans are anything more than a gimmick or a vehicle for those with the loudest voices and deepest pockets to impose their will on the rest of the community.
Hazel Blears
The Secretary of State purports to say that the planning system will be simpler and more open to local people. How does that square with his decision to abolish planning aid, which has provided tremendous support to people right across this country? Those with he loudest voices will continue to have the biggest say.
Caroline Flint
My right hon. Friend echoes the point made earlier in Communities and Local Government questions. Planning aid is one vehicle to enable communities that might not have architects, solicitors and accountants among them to engage in the process. It is worrying when people’s hopes are raised and then dashed when they are effectively unable to take part.
Mr Burrowes
I am grateful for that intervention. It is important to get the message across that this Bill is about giving power not only to the people but to elected representatives—a concern expressed by Opposition Members. We will see this across the board. It is important to recognise that, rather than take note of typical sceptics in the media. On 17 December, The Observer said of the Bill that
“the tendency for partisanship and strife will be great”,
while Planning talked about our entering
“a period in which planning discourse is dominated by sharp-elbowed, well-resourced, well-heeled busybodies”.
Indeed, around the same time, The Independent talked about “a Nimby’s charter”. What we need to do is recognise that the present circumstances are in need of reform. I take seriously the words of one of those in the vanguard—David Evans, the chief planner at West Dorset council, who said:
“The planning system of old was too complex, too prescriptive and too slow…Communities felt that planning wasn’t something for them, rather it was something done to them and as a result there was increasing concern from local residents that overdevelopment was affecting their neighbourhoods.”
That is my experience.
Mr Burrowes
No, I will not give way. The right hon. Lady had her opportunity in government, so I will continue.
When my residents go to their planning committee, what they often see—sadly—is a lack of meaningful engagement. They are squeezed into a five-minute deputation to have their voice heard. The process is often based around the negative—about what people can try to keep hold of for their community—rather than on engaging people from the beginning in shaping communities as part of a neighbourhood plan. Yes, there may be those with sharp elbows, but we are increasingly seeing those who are dispossessed but who want a louder voice.
Let me quote Mark Eaton of the BBC, who is not always a supporter of the Government. He said that this Bill
“may well amount to the biggest change to grass-roots politics in England since universal suffrage.”
He recognises, as do others, that the Bill gives real power back to communities, and it is based on pounds, shillings and pence. For example, the community infrastructure levy will provide an opportunity properly to ensure that money is in the hands of local communities so that they can make and shape their areas. It is about empowering communities, whether it be in the most important power of competence, in the community right to buy or in the neighbourhood plan. Whether they are referred to as “easy Councils” or “John Lewis councils”, diversity in provision will be important.
It will be important to look at the details of the Bill, such as those relating to business involvement. Questions can be asked about where the businesses are in the neighbourhood plan. One need only look at the local growth White Paper, which recognises that every local authority will be able to put in the foundations for local economic growth. As I see in my high streets—the lifeblood of my Enfield community—businesses will have a crucial role to play.
It is important to allow communities to be able to question, for example, the prospect of an A and E closure, such as at Chase Farm, opening up the decision to the community by way of a referendum. Greater transparency is important—at last, Transport for London will have a degree of transparency, matched by that of local communities. That is what is needed for our communities.
We need to be bold; we need to ensure innovation, efficiency and diversity. We also need to recognise and give three cheers to local activists, whether they be sharp-elbowed or not. These are people who for too long have been shut out from decisions in the community and decisions in local authorities. They should be able to help to challenge and shape their communities. We have often referred to the need to shout out, “Power to the people”. At long last, we can ensure that we deliver that rallying cry through the Bill.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
Let me begin by saying that, given the state in which the Labour party left the country, it is preposterous to use the word “shameful” about a Bill of this nature, whether or not it does everything that the Government claim that it does. Let us have a sensible debate.
I welcome this important Bill. I welcome the sentiments behind it and the purpose that has led two parties to work together, believing in decentralisation, and I welcome much of its substance. Let me say in particular—in the regrettably short time that I have been allowed—how delighted my constituents and I are about the abolition of regional spatial strategies, which I have already mentioned. However—just as the Secretary of State returns to the Chamber—I must record the disappointment that I share with local communities about the indication that the planning system will continue to allow developers an automatic and unlimited right of appeal, while not allowing communities even a limited right. I urge Ministers to think again.
In the very short time available to me, I wish to point out, as chair of the all-party parliamentary save the pub group, that the Bill will clearly have an impact on pubs. At present, planning law gives pubs virtually no protection, and communities have virtually no say over their future.
Hazel Blears
The hon. Gentleman has a good record of promoting community pubs. Does he support the Government’s decision to abolish the £4.3 million programme introduced by the last Government to help people to take over and support their local pubs?
Greg Mulholland
I would support any measure that helped pubs, but, as the right hon. Lady knows full well, that was one of the disgraceful blank cheques written in the dying days of a Labour Government who were trying desperately to cling to power, and people saw through it. Let me now make some sensible comments about the issue. I think that Members in all parts of the House recognise not only the legal but the moral ownership of pubs by local communities.
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.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that an additional element in a community takeover of assets is its having the agency to do so and the resources even to get near those assets in the first place? Does she think that the Bill fulfils the promise of communities taking over assets in a way that that might be possible, bearing in mind the finances involved?
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.
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—
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.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
There speaks the authentic dinosaur aspect of the Labour party—class war. The view of the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) is that those who want to do the best for their local community are middle class and sharp elbowed. It is sad that the Opposition amendment is so churlish, so grudging and lacking in any coherent alternative. Within its historical context, the Bill is both radical and transformative of local government, and I think that it stands comparison with some of the greatest legislation of the past 200 years, including the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, the Public Health Acts 1872 and 1875, and the Housing Act 1980, as it will make significant changes in the balance between local government and central Government. It is a reversal of Labour’s ratcheting, centralising tendency, which we have seen with the tsars, the guidance, the strategy, the inspections and the audits, which have traduced the best aspects of local government over the years.
The Bill has a coherent philosophy, because in the aspects that speak to the big society it tackles something that Labour never did—the issue of capital inadequacy and capital inequality. Labour presided over a widening of the gap between the richest and poorest 10% in its 13 years in power, because it did nothing about the ownership of capital, which the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), the expert on Engels, no doubt knows much about.
The Bill also puts forward a significant commitment to mutualism at the same time as it heralds a civic renewal of local government through our commitment to localism. The New Local Government Network—I have the privilege of serving on its management body—sets some key challenges for the legislation. Is it about a coherent localism, and will it link together coherently as a strategy for policy making and political decision making for citizens? Yes, it is coherent as a philosophy because within the context of GP commissioning, the integration of public health, local enterprise partnerships, directly elected police commissioners, and school and welfare reform, it sits as a coherent strategy for the future.
Hazel Blears
Does the hon. Gentleman support limiting the expressions of interest to be made by communities to run services to organisations that have a social purpose? Does he also support the regulations not being changed in future by the Secretary of State to include commercial organisations that would seek to make a profit?
Mr Jackson
The big society is about empowering local people to make decisions at local level. It should be seen not as lots of disparate, discrete initiatives at local level, but within the context of the Bill’s provisions. I see the general power of competence, for example, as a key unlocking a huge amount of progressive development by local authorities. The New Local Government Network specifically praised the general power of competence and said:
“This represents both a significant philosophical shift towards local democracy and a practical transfer of power to the local level.”
That is something that Labour never did in its 13 years of power, although it promised to do so in its 1997 manifesto.
The other important issue—unfortunately, one cannot look in detail at the 406 pages of the Bill and its 201 clauses and 24 schedules in five minutes—is whether it is permissive, as opposed to prescriptive, as an approach to local government? On any objective test it is an extremely permissive piece of legislation. The general power of competence will give local authorities autonomy by unlocking accelerated development zones, tax increment financing, asset-backed vehicles and real estate investment trusts.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
To describe the Bill as one of the great historical Bills put before the House is to take historical hyperbole to new heights. It is ludicrous. There are more than 100 caveats on the powers that are devolved to local government, and the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members who keep on about the joy that they have from the freedom for their local authorities will be back in the Chamber in two or three years complaining that the fire standards are worse in Dorset than they are in Warwickshire, that homeless people are more generously treated than they are in Bristol and so on.
National Government have a responsibility to ensure that there are some national standards in what is done. It is important that Government Members understand that. In addition, since 80% of all local government expenditure comes directly from central Government, the freedoms associated with the Bill are more than a little bit limited.
Hazel Blears
My hon. Friend makes a good point about the possible inequity of services in different parts of the country. Is he aware that, as a result of the cuts to local government funding currently taking place, in many areas social care is being denied to people with moderate needs and going only to those with critical care needs? Does he regard that as a good effect of localism?
Jeremy Corbyn
That is an effect of localism. That is why national standards, particularly in areas such as social care, access to pre-school education, and education in general, are so important for everyone in our society. People should be cautious of what they wish for from the Bill.
The Secretary of State, in introducing the Bill in a particularly inept and rather unsensible speech, went on to describe how Islington was not going to develop a nuclear bomb. That got a good laugh, I am sure, but it was a particularly silly thing to say. His Government are cutting £300 million from Islington’s budget over the next four years. We are one of the poorest boroughs in London and we come in the top eight poorest communities in the whole country, with high levels of homelessness, high levels of dependency and relatively high levels of unemployment. A newly elected Labour local authority has taken over from the Liberal Democrats, who spent most of their time in control of Islington council on a fire sale of valuable local authority properties. So they have form in how they behave towards local government and local authorities.
My main concern in respect of the Bill and in general is about housing. The legislation enacted at the time of the first world war, and the Public Health and National Health Service Acts of the post-war Labour Government have done more than anything else in this country to eliminate bad housing and homelessness. The Bill destroys that thread of public provision of good quality housing at an economic and affordable rent. Instead, it requires local authorities to force people into unregulated, expensive, badly managed, badly maintained housing provided by private sector landlords.
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.