Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton]

My Lords, in speaking about this centralising Bill, I suppose that my qualification is that when I was leader of the Labour Party on Cambridge City Council and I was in Moscow in 1972, I was described as a leader of the Cambridge soviet. I have an alternative qualification: I declare that I helped to set up an environmental consulting company in Cambridge. It was interesting to hear about Cambridge earlier from another speaker.

When considering legislation on social, environmental and economic issues, it is reasonable to consider whether it is bringing us closer to or further from countries that are evidently very successful in those fields. The UK has no peer in the fields of humour and creativity, as I saw in the Christmas pantomime “Norwichababa”, and as we saw in yesterday at No. 10; indeed, the UK is now exporting pantomime, so that is one area of economic growth. However, I think that most people will acknowledge that we have something to learn from other European countries. They have rigorous planning, preservation of the countryside through strong local control and sufficient high-quality housing—anyone who has been a city councillor visiting council accommodation in Germany is somewhat humiliated. I would say, though, that over the past 20 years housing standards in Britain and Germany have become closer. The other feature of those countries is that there are small industries all over the country, including in natural areas, and that is also developing in this country. Furthermore, I should add that all those countries with admirable economic and social policies are working within EU rules and regulations.

As many noble Lords have commented, the UK is facing the problems of a lack of housing and a lack of finance for housing. We have also seen that many of the regional projects that began in the previous decade were stopped, to the protests of many industries, when the present Government began to abandon the regional development authorities. The support of this by the Lib Dems, who had many of their own councillors and regional officials involved in those development agencies, was most surprising—I never could understand that.

The other feature of those countries, particularly Germany, is worker representation on the boards. One of the most important features of the supervisory boards is that the workers have an interest in the preservation of the companies. Those companies have not been bought up and sold like chips on a gambling board, as we have experienced in the UK. We have a long way to go to get that kind of management.

The real problem for developing our economy—as has been made plain over and over again by the CBI and the Institute of Directors—is that there has been a complete lack of decisiveness about major infrastructure projects. We could now be having a third runway at Heathrow; we could be having toll roads. We need many more of these fundamental measures and every day that we do not have them we lose our competitiveness to other countries. When the Prime Minister talks about competitiveness, he just has to listen to what the CBI is saying.

However, the Government have pushed ahead on energy and the further energy developments in the Bill are to be welcomed. The fact that we now have permission to develop a big nuclear power station in Somerset is a very important development.

What else does this Bill propose? First, it proposes a reduction of local planning powers, which many noble Lords from all sides of the House have commented on. I hope the House of Lords will be able to vote on this, as in the other place, and that the decision will be different.

However, some of the most important developments in the UK, as pointed out by a Lib Dem colleague talking about Cambridge, were done through local planning. The development of Cambridge’s high-tech society was an extraordinary case of the local council changing its mind and working with local universities and industry.

Equally, there have been other developments that could not be done by local planning. We have had Acts of Parliament to develop, for example, Felixstowe docks or some of the processes in London. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, was quite correct to say that there are certain things that local councils do not have a big enough power to do. It really requires a concept that combines localism with a national view. That is what we have been struggling with this afternoon.

One of the aspects that has not perhaps been covered is the localism developed in Denmark, which has pioneered the economic involvement of communities in controversial developments. It completely transformed the way they considered energy developments. There is an element of that in the UK with local participation in housing developments. We have been talking about that much this afternoon. In Denmark, for example, there is local participation in many other projects. In many other areas of the continent there is local investment, which means that there is tremendous commitment to develop local businesses. Again that is somewhat lacking here. We had that with our regional development authorities but, for reasons that I do not understand, they have gone—of course they are supported by the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, but his views and the Prime Minister’s are not completely consistent.

In the past, the UK has been a Mecca for planners and Governments from all over the world to see how we have combined industrial growth with the preservation of our natural environment. The way in which national parks manage to have the natural environment, local businesses and local housing is a global model. There are people who are worried about Clause 8 of the Bill. It is very important that we continue that tradition. Some of our major national parks are very close to the centres of great industry. One of the attractions for world-class engineers who go to work at Rolls-Royce is that Derby is very close to the Peak District, which is an untrammelled and marvellous national park. Other countries also have major manufacturing centres close to great parks. Manaus in Brazil, home to its main electronics centre, is close to the forest environment of Amazonia.

I have a nice example of the small industries in our national parks. I once sat next to a lady on a British Airways aeroplane. When we got to the stage of eating cupcakes, as we were flying over her village, she said, “We make them down there”. Those kinds of small-scale industries are very important. The Government and all parties believe that they should be expanded.

A strange feature of the Bill is that, although it has to do with economic growth, housing, infrastructure and the environment, there is no mention of or reference to the economic value of the environment. This is now a standard concept in government; the White Paper refers to it. The Prime Minister now refers to the fact that gross national product is not the primary definition of growth: it has to include the environment. The recent Secretary of State at Defra referred to this natural capital. Since, perhaps, not all noble Lords know about this, a document developed by the NGO Globe, of which I am a vice-president, has been put in the Library. I recommend that noble Lords do a little homework on that, particularly the people in DCLG devising the Bill, or perhaps read the speeches of Ministers in other departments.

The last part of the Bill, in Clause 27, is equally perverse in going against the spirit of many successfully run businesses. The Government seem to be amplifying occasional problems and producing a complex solution with implications that have not been foreseen. Can the Minister say what kinds of complications there are, and give examples of where the approach in Clause 27 has been tried as a pilot? I thought that the Government wanted to reduce red tape, and maybe reduce just slightly the income of lawyers dealing with complications in government. I was obviously wrong. This is a new jamboree for all of them. Furthermore, now it is even a jamboree for the tax lawyers. All I can say, as the director of a small company in Cambridge where the staff have regular maternal and paternal leave—it is an unusual software company, with 70% women—is that current human resources management is complicated enough. This is just another problem and will add costs to small companies where these issues are important. The Minister has been asked many things, but we have not heard what the costs of legal challenges are likely to be as a result of this new legislation.

In summary, the Government are quite right to emphasise the need to invest in infrastructure and housing, and to maintain their commitment to national parks and the natural environment. Both are needed to grow the economy and to develop communities. However, the Government’s determination to reduce local involvement through this clumsy legislation has to be resisted. There are so many successful business developments involving local business and local organisations—and, dare one say it, local political parties. However, there are exceptional situations that we all recognise, in which national projects have to be planned on a national basis. Special measures such as parliamentary Acts are possible, but the Bill needs great changes if it is to be supported in this House and in the country. Of course, lawyers and tax advisers will love the Bill as it is. It will give them a field day.