Housing and Planning Bill

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

I hope very much that one thing that will arise from the initiative of the noble Lord, Lord True, in raising this issue is, as he suggests, that the Minister will say to us, “Yes, DCLG will take this up and look at it, and will look at the funding, not only of the Lee Valley Regional Park but of the three regional parks that are wholly or partly within the greater London area”. In that way we would get the funding on a basis that gives all of them—whatever form that funding takes—a secure and stable future, which Wandle Valley Regional Park certainly does not have at the moment.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, this is in danger of appearing to be a sort of “all our yesterdays” discussion as regards London boroughs. I was deeply tempted by the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord True, when he told me that it might render the Bill hybrid, which of course would consign all the other ridiculous provisions within it to some long drawn out and time-consuming purpose. However, that would be an inappropriate and churlish way to go forward.

I think, however, that the noble Lord, Lord True, has made a number of perhaps unfair assertions about the Lee Valley Regional Park. His big concern seems to be that this legislation was crafted back in 1966, and is no longer fit for purpose. I am afraid there is plenty of local government legislation going back many decades that looks at these issues. I recall discussions about the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority in the distant days when I was a local authority leader in London. I needed some convincing at that time that this was a worthwhile contribution for my borough to be making, even though we are slightly closer than either Richmond or Sutton. I am fascinated to discover that the residents of Sutton are less adventurous than the residents of Northern Ireland as far as visiting the jewels of north-east London is concerned.

I needed some convincing, and at that time it was difficult to defend the contribution the Lee Valley Regional Park made to the wider area, but the situation is very different now. The noble Lord, Lord True, cited all the major facilities that are now available for the people of London—he made that part of his argument; I thought it was part of the argument the other way—and, of course, the other counties and areas concerned. He is appalled at the cost of some of those facilities, yet at the same time he complains that the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority is not doing enough to recover costs and reduce the burden which falls on the precept levy.

Let us therefore be clear about this. In the past 30 years, we have seen the development of a series of major facilities—given a huge advantage by the 2012 London Olympics—in north-east London which serve not only that area but a much wider area beyond, and which are trying to recover their costs. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord True, is correct that, like all cross-local-authority initiatives, it could perhaps be managed more effectively to deliver even more benefits at less cost. But through the effort it is making to raise funds, it is trying to reduce the burden raised as part of the precept. That it has done successfully and in successive years by reducing the precept year on year. That is the sign of an organisation that is trying to move in the direction that it should. The efforts of the noble Lords, Lord True and, apparently, Lord Tope—rising from Sutton—to complain about this, are an attempt to undermine this process.

Therefore, we have to ask what precisely the preferred outcome is of the noble Lord, Lord True. He says he does not want the amendment to be passed as such, which is just as well as it would be deeply unworkable, given its impact and disrupting effect on finances. He says he wants a review but, presumably, the question is, what would be its terms of reference? The reality is that such collective provisions need to be funded collectively. If you are saying that, because the London Borough of Sutton or the London Borough of Richmond are geographically a bit remote from north-east London —of course, there are excellent transport arrangements, and if the citizens of those boroughs are not prepared to travel to north-east London, that is their loss—and that you are therefore going to undermine that collective support, you are creating some very dangerous precedents for other provisions which are resourced collectively.

The Minister will obviously not want to support this amendment because of the danger it would pose to the rest of the Bill—he would be quite right to allow the rest of the Bill to fall apart, but he probably will not wish to. I hope he will assure us that any review of the way the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority is to be funded would be based on accepting the idea that this facility serves a much wider area and deserves to be collectively funded across that area, rather than the cost falling on a very narrow number of riparian boroughs and authorities.