Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great honour for me to follow my noble friend and to thank her for an extraordinarily moving and well-judged maiden speech. She is one of the bravest politicians I know; she called out the scourge of anti-Semitism, which threatened to corrode parts of my party when Jeremy Corbyn was leader. Time after time, she exposed anti-Semitism and suffered abuse and threats as a result. She would not be intimidated or silenced. Under Keir Starmer’s leadership, my party has dealt decisively with this, but it would not have been possible without the courage of my noble friend and others. I am delighted to salute her today for this.

My noble friend also brings huge experience of the city of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire and the West Midlands. As she said in her powerful speech, what a contrast between the Government’s claims and the reality of the legislation before us. We are promised in the Bill that we will see devolved power, reduced inequality across the country, a boost to productivity, pay and jobs, an improved planning system and better environmental outcomes—yet, when we look at the Bill, what do we see? We see inappropriate and extensive use of executive powers through Henry VIII clauses, delegation as opposed to the devolving of powers, and what delegation is on offer seems conditional on promoting mayors and combined authorities. There is no new money for levelling up, little protection for the environment, and the concession made to nimby Conservative MPs in the Commons has rendered the 300,000 target for new homes unenforceable and unrealistic. The evidence for that is clear in the comments made by building companies only days ago that they are reducing their estimates for new starts immediately.

On sustainability, huge opportunities are being missed, the Chris Skidmore Net Zero Review published last week states:

“The Review is also clear that there must be more place-based, locally led action on net zero.”


It calls for the Government to

“empower people and places to deliver”,

noting that this will lead to

“more local support but will deliver better economic outcomes”.

Our planning system could have been a huge lever for contributing positively to net zero and environmental targets but, as far as I can see, the Bill skates over this.

As for levelling up, we are not seeing much of this in the industrial heartlands of our country, in the West Midlands, where we are performing at 10% below pre-Covid levels in economic activity. The unemployment rate in the West Midlands for August to October 2022 was 4.9% compared to the UK average of 3.7%. As over 10% of jobs in the West Midlands were in the manufacturing sector compared to 7% nationally, one would have thought that the West Midlands would have been a priority area. Yet public spending in the West Midlands in 2021 was £12,841 per person, compared with £15,490 in London. Ministers continually ignore the needs of the Midlands.

I say to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds that if he thinks that travelling from Leeds to Manchester is slow on the railways, he should try going from Birmingham to Leicester. Unfortunately, in the programme for scaled-up railway improvements in the West Midlands and East Midlands, there is nothing for the Birmingham to Leicester route.

On devolution, this is a Government who have spent the last 13 years continually centralising power, not just in Whitehall but in Ministers through the use of secondary legislation, to give them an extraordinary addition to their powers. Even when devolution is proposed—actually it is not devolution, it is delegation—it is often conditional, and depending on the adoption of a mayoral or combined authority system. Where is the radical skills agenda that needs to be devolved to local level? What about finance for the transport infrastructure and transport operations? I listened very carefully to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Carlisle on the links between health and what the Bill is trying to do. Why are we not seeing a transfer of responsibility for aspects of the NHS, as we have seen in Greater Manchester?

The more one looks at the Bill, the more it seems focused on sucking up powers from local authorities. How else does one explain Clause 57, which would allow local authority functions to be conferred on a mayor without the consent of all the local authorities within a combined authority area? I agree with the District Councils’ Network, which argues that devolved arrangements should be firmly rooted in the principle of subsidiarity so that the right decisions on delivery are made at the right level. Or take Clause 58, which my noble friend Lord Bach will speak more extensively on, which removes the requirement for the consent of all councils of a combined authority for the transfer of police and crime commissioner functions to a combined authority mayor—why? Could it be because, on 6 May 2021 the people of the West Midlands voted for a Labour police and crime commissioner but the Conservative mayor, Mr Andy Street, had wanted to be his own police commissioner? The constituent local authorities would not agree. Instead of respecting the views of those local authorities in the West Midlands, as well as of the electorate, who voted for Simon Foster to be the police and crime commissioner, the Government want to allow Mr Street to single-handedly abolish our right in the West Midlands to vote for a democratically elected and directly accountable police and crime commissioner. I hope we will remove that clause and Clause 57 from the Bill.

Despite all the Minister’s puff, the Bill provides little devolution or regeneration, no levelling up, huge environmental risk and insufficient affordable housing.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 13th March 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

89: After Clause 16, insert the following new Clause—
“Reports on transfer of NHS responsibilities to local government(1) A Minister of the Crown must prepare reports on proposals for the transfer of NHS functions to local authorities, combined metropolitan authorities, combined county authorities, and mayors as established under sections 15 to 20 of the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016 (combined and local authorities). (2) The first report in relation to subsection (1) must be made within 12 months of the passing of this Act.(3) Subsequent reports in relation to subsection (1) must be made at 24-month intervals following publication of the first report.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and another in this location in the name of Lord Hunt of Kings Heath are probing amendments designed to explore the Government’s commitment to transferring NHS responsibilities to local government as envisaged in the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I have a number of amendments in this group, which ranges very far and wide; at points, it is difficult to know what connects one with another. However, I suppose that they all have something to do with functions to be devolved to local government, which I guess is good enough.

I have tabled three amendments in the group and have added my name to the Clause 59 stand part debate in the name of my noble friend Lord Bach. My first two amendments, Amendments 89 and 90, are very much probing amendments designed to get a feel from the Government as to whether they have any intention of extending the “Devo Manchester” arrangements in relation to the NHS to other parts of the country. I have long believed that local government should have a greater role in the National Health Service. When the NHS was set up in 1948, there had been a huge debate in the Attlee Government as to whether the new NHS should be part of local government or not. In fact, there was a great argument between Nye Bevan and Herbert Morrison. Herbert Morrison, who had been the leader of the London County Council, which had been the largest hospital authority in the world before the war, argued for local government, while Bevan said that he thought that it would be a second-rate, patchy service. He obviously won the argument, although, by the early 1950s, he had changed his mind. Of course, when he introduced the NHS Bill—in this Chamber, of course—he talked about the NHS being a national service, but he stated that most of the decisions would be made locally through hospital management committees. He also made the memorable quote that when a bucket of slops is kicked over in Merthyr Tydfil, its echoes should sound in the Palace of Westminster. I suppose he was expressing the great tension about the NHS, which is that, for all the efforts to try to run it locally, the centre has continually sucked up powers and has attempted the impossible: to run this massive service through a Whitehall system of targets and other methods to try to bring the service into line.

There have been various attempts to break out from that. I was part of a ministerial team led by Alan Milburn that brought in foundation trusts as an attempt, on the providers’ side, to get much greater local ownership. The problem was that, once Alan Milburn left office, there was no one else to champion the concept, because at heart the Department of Health was very unwilling to let go. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley—whom I always tempt into these debates if I can—tried another approach with the establishment of NHS England as a quasi-independent body, again to try to take some of the decision-making away from Ministers and Whitehall. However, I suggest that, post the noble Lord, the appetite for it among his successors was pretty limited.

So we are left with a service that is under great pressure at the moment. We see Ministers scrambling around announcing plan after plan to try to recover it, and, frankly, that is not the way—I almost said, “That ain’t the way to run a railway”, but perhaps that is not quite right for those of us who travel by Avanti on a frequent basis, as the noble Lord said. When George Osborne reached an agreement with Manchester City Council—without, I think, NHS England knowing anything about it—that Greater Manchester would be given powers, in essence, to co-ordinate the running of the NHS in Greater Manchester, I thought that it had great potential.

Rather like for many initiatives, once Mr Osborne moved on it seems that the appetite in Whitehall for developing this idea fell by the wayside. I really wanted to use my first two amendments to probe the Government on whether they can confirm that, in fact, there is no intention to replicate what is happening in Manchester and that they now see integrated care systems as the way forward. If that is the case, the point I make to the Minister is that all the indicators are that local government is being treated as a very junior partner within those integrated care systems.

I want to pray in aid some very good work by the County Councils Network, which will not be so pleased with me when we come back to the issue of district councils in a few weeks’ time. I pay great tribute to its work looking at current experience of working with the NHS. It found some great examples of partnerships but the conclusion of its work is that integrated care systems

“simply do not feel like a paradigm shift towards delivering truly local priorities based on local engagement, and the question remains as to whether they are ‘joint’ endeavours or NHS bodies with some local government participation.”

Noble Lords who took part in debates on the then Health and Care Bill will remember that we spent many happy hours debating these very points and were assured by the Government that they saw local government as full partners within the integrated care systems. But the reality is that particularly the integrated care boards which commission NHS services are seen to operate primarily to tackle immediate NHS issues rather than address local priorities. The County Councils Network concludes across three themes of its research that:

“Accountability structures for ICBs … lead to NHSE and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and not to local organisations”—


surprise, surprise—that

“Regular directives from ‘the centre’ … require senior ICB leadership to focus on immediate NHS operational issues”,


another surprise; and that there is also

“a ‘command and control’ culture that jars with collaboration and local political leadership”.

That also is a great surprise.

The County Councils Network makes a number of suggestions for improving the involvement of local government. Essentially, it argues that the department of health and NHS England

“need to fundamentally review the levels of centrally mandated activity and targets in policies and funding requirements, particularly in shared policy areas, to ensure that they are consistent with the principle of locally driven strategies.”

I hope the Minister will respond positively to it. If, as I suspect, the Government are not prepared to go down the “Devo Manchester” route, despite some encouraging signs about what it is beginning to achieve, then I think they have to show—as this is essentially a local government Bill—that local government is going to have a greater involvement in the NHS and healthcare in the future. Anyone looking at the challenges we face in health at the moment and the inequalities surely must conclude that, unless we get to grips with chronic ill health and the need to promote a much stronger preventive approach, this will not happen without full participation of local government. That is the only way we can possibly get through the crisis that our health service faces.

Let me move on to a different issue. I come to Clause 58 where, it seems to me, the Government are essentially saying, “You can have devolution, but only on our terms and by adopting this model of directly elected mayors”. I have just heard the Minister comment on this, but why the obsession with directly elected mayors, I do not know. Clause 58 typifies this. At the moment, Part 6 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 provides for public authority functions to be conferred on to a combined authority subject to various requirements about authorities locally consenting. Such functions can then be exercisable by the combined authority or by the mayor personally.

But Clause 58 now amends the current provisions whereby all the local authorities covered by the function to be transferred have to agree. Under this clause, the mayor of a combined authority may make a request to the Secretary of State to make such an order. The mayor is required to consult the constituent councils of the combined authority before making the request and requires the mayor to include within such a request to the Secretary of State a statement that all the constituent councils agree to the making of this order or, if this statement cannot be made, the mayor’s rationale for proceeding. My reading is that, despite a constituent authority not giving consent, the Secretary of State can simply agree to the mayor’s request and override objections from constituent authorities. To me, that is a fundamental change from the current provision. It allows a mayor to act in an extremely high-handed way and is something that we should be very wary of.

For an example of high-handedness, Clause 59 really takes the biscuit. I suppose we should call it the Andy Street clause because it has been put in only because he was very miffed that his proposal to take on the functions of the police and crime commissioner in the West Midlands was turned down by the local authorities in that region, as they have every right to do. At the last elections in the West Midlands, Mr Street was elected mayor and a Labour candidate was elected police and crime commissioner. That was a democratic wish of people in the West Midlands, and for the mayor to come along and say, “Forget that. I want to be the police commissioner”, and the Government to come along with this clause and say they going to take the power to do that, is utterly unacceptable. I hope very much, when it comes to it, we will be able to take this wretched clause out of the Bill. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 91 to which I have added my name, and to Amendment 469 in the names of my noble friend Lady Pinnock and myself. I also want to express general support for the amendments in this very disparate group.

On Amendment 91, some noble Lords will be aware that I am also at the moment participating in debates on the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill and the retained EU law Bill. There are some overlapping issues, and one is the role of trade unions and the interaction between the powers of the UK Government and the powers of employers, including, of course, local government as employers.

Last week on the strikes Bill, I raised the issue of the powers of devolved Administrations. The Minister was unable to give assurances that the UK Government—who, by the way, on issues that are devolved are just the English Government—will not simply override the devolved Administrations. Applying that logic to this Bill, which purports to increase devolution within English local government, it is reasonable for us to ask what the status of trade unions within local government will be and whether the UK Government will seek to override English local authorities in the same way as they intend to override devolved Administrations. The lessons are similar in both Bills.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

This is the responsibility of the Department for Transport. I will be in touch with the relevant Minister to explain the Committee’s deep concern about the issue of bus services and say that an early solution to this would be considered appropriate by the Committee. I will also find out how long it will be before we get this strategy in place. I will write that at the end of the letter, which will go to all noble Lords in Committee. I hope that noble Lords will withdraw their amendments.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate. The Minister made an interesting comment at the end when she said that basically a lot of the services we are talking about are the responsibility of other government departments. That seems to me to go to the heart of one of the problems of this legislation: is it not about devolution at all. If it were really about devolution, the Government would have a concerted approach to widespread devolution, which of course would involve bus services. It is a ludicrous proposition that under this grand new devolution and regeneration system you cannot run your own buses.

On health, what the Minister said was helpful up to a point in that she said there is no legal impediment to what is happening in Greater Manchester being extended, but I do not see any drive whatever. What I see is her own department taking a depressingly narrow view of what local government should do instead of embracing the whole government machinery to say, “We are serious about this.”

The clarification on Clause 58 was very helpful, and I am very grateful to the Minister. On Clause 59, I am pretty speechless. I spoke for the Opposition when the concept of police commissioners was coming through. We opposed it. Frankly, I still have great reservations about the system. My noble friend was an excellent example but, my goodness me, the evidence of poor behaviour by some police and crime commissioners is legion. None the less, we were promised directly elected police commissioners, that the public would decide who was going to be the police commissioner and there would then be accountability through the ballot box, but it seems that this is not to apply now in a number of places. From what the Minister said, it seems that the principle of coterminosity applies to many parts of the country in terms of future mayors and police commissioner areas.

I shall make two points. You cannot exclude local authorities. They form the police and crime panel. They have a direct interest in the precept which is set and have to consult on it. It is a big move to get rid of the police and crime commissioner and simply give it to the mayor—we know the mayor will appoint a deputy and will not really be accountable because the mayor has got other things to do—without consulting the constituent local authorities which play an important role in this whole area, not just in sitting on the police and crime panel. If we are serious about wanting our criminal justice system to be more effective, the local authority has a pivotal role to play in working with the police at local level.

I urge my noble friend on the Front Bench to bring this back on Report because I believe we should take out this clause. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 89 withdrawn.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th March 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

125A: Clause 43, page 38, line 37, at end insert—
“(ba) a district council whose area is within the proposed area;”Member’s explanatory statement
This would add district councils to the list of local authorities who may prepare a proposal for the establishment of a CCA and to be able to submit such a proposal to the Secretary of State.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, we have had at least two debates so far on the role of non-metropolitan district councils within the new framework, and I want to return to this theme for my two amendments in this group.

My concern is that district councils are essentially being marginalised in the new arrangements and excluded from being a component part of new arrangements for combined county authorities. It seems that this is part of a government trend to want to create ever-larger units of local government, undermining local democracy and the local involvement of the public. I very much agreed the noble Lord, Lord Mann, on Monday when he spoke of a “mania” in government that bigger is automatically better when it comes to local government. That is of course reinforced by the desire of many London-based quangos, public authorities and pressure groups to limit the number of local authorities they have to deal with.

It has been argued by some that larger local authorities are more efficient, but I have seen scant evidence of this. The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, made a very telling intervention on the combined police and fire authorities, saying that so far, the four in question have performed poorly. I suspect that the main reason why Whitehall has always wanted to create larger local authorities is simply that it makes it easier for it to control local government.

Two weeks ago, in discussing his Amendment 71 to Clause 8, the noble Lord, Lord Foster, reminded the Committee why district councils are so important. They deliver 86 out of 137 essential local government services to some 22 million people, which is 40% of the population of England. They cover such things such as waste collection, street cleaning, housing, economic development, planning, leisure, recreation, and many others. They are also better known, more popular and more trusted than other tiers of government. I remind the noble Lord that years ago, when my own Government tried to introduce regional government, starting with a referendum in the north-east, one of the key reasons why it failed was that people did not want local district councils to be abolished.

Frankly, it was a bit to my surprise and with no little consternation that I realised in preparing for this debate that in two months’ time, I will celebrate the 50th anniversary of being elected a member of Oxford City Council, in May 1973. I was in good company, since my noble friend Lord Liddle, and the noble Lords, Lord Oakeshott, and Lord Patten, were similarly elected. My excitement at being elected a councillor at the age of 23 was tempered by the fact it was a shadow authority preparing to take over in 1974, when there was a major restructuring of local government. Oxford lost its county borough unitary status and became a second-tier authority, essentially subordinate to an enlarged county council that was mainly concerned with rural interests. For an international city of huge strategic importance, which I think the Chancellor emphasised again today, that was a bitter pill to swallow. It has made me very wary of a Whitehall/Westminster drive over the years to press for ever larger local government units, as evidenced by the Bill.

Our debates on district councils have so far been in relation to Clause 8(11) and the constitutional arrangements for combined county authorities, whereby non-unitary district councils are not to be classified as constituent councils. Two weeks ago, the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said she found it insulting that democratically elected district councils are to be aligned in the new arrangements with non-constituent bodies and put in the same category as local business groups, chambers of trade and trade union bodies, which, of course, are not elected by the public. On Monday, the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said he had come to the conclusion that district councils within a CCA area should become full members. My noble friend Baroness Hayman, speaking for the Opposition, said that district councils should be constituent, not non-constituent, members of a CCA to ensure they can play a full part in decision-making for their area. I think there is a growing consensus, at least in some parts of the House, that district councils need to have a greater stake in the new arrangements.

In referring to Clause 8, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, justified the Government’s exclusion of district councils by arguing that the model will provide the flexibility required for devolution to areas with two-tier local government and remove the risk of one or two district councils vetoing the wishes of the great majority for devolution. My understanding is that that has happened in only one place, which is scant evidence for excluding district councils completely from these new arrangements. The noble Earl went on to say that the Government expect the upper-tier local authorities with which they are agreeing devolution deals to work with their district councils. The problem is that it is entirely up to county councils whether they are going to embrace district councils officially.

Let me return to Monday’s debate and Amendment 155, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. Page 54 of the Bill states, remarkably, that non-constituent members of a combined authority can have a vote if the members of the combined authority agree to it. I take the noble Earl, Lord Howe, back to the example of Oxford, in response to which he said:

“it is entirely possible that a combined authority may have provided for an associate member—for example, a local business leader—" —[Official Report, 13/3/23; col. 1107.]

to have an input, and thereby a vote. He may not know it because he is so young—comparatively speaking—but up to 1974 the University of Oxford had two places on Oxford City Council, and it did appoint. Thinking of Oxfordshire in a new CCA arrangement, it is quite likely that the university will get a place as an associate member. Under these provisions, it could have a vote, and yet Oxford City Council would not. That is not justified.

In a sense, this debate is a bit of sideshow compared to the Clause 8 debate, but at least when it comes to the way applications can be made for the establishment of CCAs, surely district councils should have a formal right to play a part. Why not just give them the ability to make applications, or a recognised role in so doing? If the Government are serious about wanting a stronger incentive for districts, counties and unitaries to collaborate, surely this is one way to provide it. That is all my amendment asks for. It does not give them a veto; it says that, as elected statutory bodies, it is not unreasonable for them to be formally involved in the application process.

I hope that at the end of this Bill, we will have restored district councils to their rightful place as important local authorities with the right to participate and vote in CCAs, but also to play a part in the application process. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I think that my best course is to write to my noble friend on both issues. He is perfectly right that Clause 43(2)(e) refers to

“a combined authority the whole or any part of whose area is within the proposed area”

as being a body to which the section applies; that is to say, a body which may prepare a proposal for the establishment of a CCA for an area and submit that proposal to the Secretary of State. It would be wise of me to set down in writing the kinds of circumstances in which we envisage that particular geographic area playing a part in the formation of a CCA. On the questions my noble friend raised on economic prosperity boards, I again think it best that I should write to him.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, that the policy for CCA establishment and operation, as reflected in the Bill, neither belittles nor marginalises the important role played by district councils. When a CCA is formed, any district councils within its geographic radius will be important stakeholders—it is very hard to see how they could not be—albeit alongside many others. However, they cannot be a constituent member of a co-operative local government grouping whose membership is determined by reference to strategic functions and powers which are the primary province of upper-tier and unitary authorities. That is the logic.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been a very interesting debate; I am grateful to noble Lords who have taken part and to the Minister for his very careful response. At heart, I come back to the contributions from my noble friend Lady Taylor and the noble Lord, Lord Mann, on the importance of district councils to local democracy. It seems to me that there is a risk that they are ridden over roughshod in the Bill. I listened with care to what the Minister said at the end; it is interesting that he referred to them as being second-tier, but I am not sure that I accept that. I find that to be pejorative in itself. Housing, local planning and environmental health are not second-tier; they are the statutory body. There is a big risk here.

I have experience as a member of Birmingham City Council, where we had metropolitan counties and metropolitan district councils. To call Birmingham City Council second-tier to the then West Midlands County Council would have been greeted with absolute horror. I know that the powers were slightly different, because the met districts had more powers than the non-met districts, but the principle still arises.

I take what the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, said— I understand the point about leverage and economic development—but the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, is surely right in saying that the district councils’ own responsibility in terms of the preparation of development plans means that, tactically if nothing else, they need to have a seat at the table. The trouble with being associates is that it really does not convey the importance that the district councils have.

I also sympathise with the noble Lord, Lord Mann, when he talked about geographically incoherent CCAs—surely, he is right. I am afraid that I have to refer back again to 1974: the proposals were made during the Heath Government, when Peter Walker was the Environment Secretary, but it fell to the 1974 Labour Government to preside over the new arrangements.

Do noble Lords remember Avon County Council, Humberside County Council and Hereford and Worcester? They were hated because people did not accept that they were coherent authorities. Put Worcestershire and Herefordshire together and you begin to see some of the problems: these CCAs are very artificial architecture, are they not, really? We will see these large units that will appear so remote from the public. The argument here is that at the very least, surely, we should make sure that the non-met district councils have a proper role and seat at the place. There have been a number of amendments and debates, and I think that between now and Report we have to find a way to signify that district councils are important. Having said that, it has been a good debate and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 125A withdrawn.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (CB)]

My Lords, this amendment adds a new clause after Clause 77 and amends Section 67 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. It deals with constitutional arrangements of statutory bodies consequential on electoral changes. In essence, it provides for an order to be made to alter the constitutional arrangements of a statutory body if required as a consequence of an electoral change, and the order can be made under the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. The important thing is that the statutory body itself would be able to make such an order.

I will briefly give some illustrative explanation as to why this is required. The amendment deals with an old constitutional anomaly that can arise when boundaries are redrawn following Electoral Commission reports. One such example is the case of local ward boundary changes for Malvern Hills District Council and the consequential impact on the Malvern Hills Trust, which has elected conservators and is charged with protecting and managing the Malvern Hills and the surrounding commons. The Boundary Commission has changed the Malvern Hills District Council ward boundaries. As a result we will have two wards, with some residents who can vote for conservators and pay the levy while others cannot. This is not an ideal situation, and will probably be subject to judicial review and legal challenge for the returning officer as a consequence. This amendment would allow for the changes to be brought about by the Malvern Hills Trust, and it would bring its boundaries in line with the district lines.

In moving this amendment, I declare an interest: I am a resident of Malvern Hills District Council, and my late father-in-law was a Malvern Hills conservator.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness. The Malvern Hills are of course an outstanding place of beauty in the West Midlands, and it is important that the trust is allowed to do its job as effectively as possible. This is yet another example of the way in which the Boundary Commission has been forced do its work, because of the constraints put upon it, where it goes across natural boundaries. In the case that the noble Baroness raised, the management of the Malvern Hills Trust is vital. It is also clearly important that residents have confidence in the arrangements of the trust and in the fairness of any levies they may have to pay. I hope that the Minister may be prepared to take a look at this and possibly come back on Report with a sympathetic response.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful. The problem has a wider resonance than the Malvern Hills Trust, although that is important. Coterminosity of local government and parliamentary boundaries is important, as is coterminosity of local government and National Health Service boundaries and, in this case, of the integrated care boards. If the Minister has any influence in other government departments, I ask her to impress on them the significance of residents who may be split between integrated care boards, like residents where I live in the Kirklees district of West Yorkshire, who are now being moved into a new Wakefield parliamentary constituency. This creates more problems than we sometimes recognise. Coterminosity and looking at the local implications of the lines we draw on a map are important and ought to be done only following detailed consultation with local people.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Scott of Bybrook) (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 178C and 509ZA, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart of Edgbaston, seek to enable any statutory body to amend by order its constitutional arrangements consequential on an electoral changes order made under Part 3 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. That legislation enables the Local Government Boundary Commission for England to implement by order recommendations for changes to an area’s electoral arrangements.

I am aware of the specific case at the moment where such a statutory body, the Malvern Hills Trust, considers that the new warding arrangements established by an electoral review order in respect of Malvern Hills District Council is incompatible with its constitutional and governance arrangements as provided for in several private Acts dating back to 1884. It is understandably concerned that such changes might raise questions about the ongoing legality of its constitutional and governance arrangements, and it wishes for something that it can address itself in a timely way.

I fully understand why the Malvern Hills Trust might wish to be granted powers to alter the constitutional or governance arrangements to ensure that they remain lawful and relevant to changing circumstances. However, I regret that we cannot support the amendments to the Bill. While they have the intention to resolve a specific local constitutional issue, the amendments are of general application to any statutory body affected by an electoral review carried out under Part 3 of the 2009 Act. In a practical sense, it is difficult for us to estimate how many bodies may be affected and wish to pass orders of this sort, or the impact on parliamentary time in dealing with them.

As drafted, the amendments would allow for secondary legislation to make amendments to primary legislation using the negative resolution procedure—the lower level of parliamentary scrutiny—and we do not think that this is appropriate. If the amendments were redrafted so that the orders were subject to the affirmative procedure, the potential would remain for significant impact on parliamentary business and on getting vital government business done.

More fundamentally, we cannot accept that it is right or prudent for the Bill to contain provision to allow for non-governmental bodies to be able to make orders that would amend primary legislation, as is the intention of the amendments. That must rightly be the role of government Ministers, except in exceptional circumstances, as with the Local Government Boundary Commission for England.

The commission is a parliamentary body accountable to the Speaker’s Committee. Such powers are appropriate in the case of the commission, given its status and vital independent role in ensuring fairness and confidence in the local government electoral system. Even if the scope of the amendment were narrowed so that any order could be made only by the Secretary of State, I am afraid that we could not accept it. While I understand that the purpose is to have a provision of general application, the concept used of the statutory body seems to be unclear. For example, does the definition of a statutory body include a local authority? On the face of it, this seems to be the case. If this is so, introducing this new provision would potentially create—

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I understand the Minister’s response, which seems to come in heavy on what is a pretty small objective. If it is difficult to do in this way, what could her department do to sort it out?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

If the noble Lord can wait one minute, I shall say what the Government are prepared to do.

For all these reasons, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment—but the Government have been talking to senior officials of the trust to understand the issues that they face as a result of the electoral changes order. We have discussed various options that they can pursue, which include the Charity Commission making a scheme under Section 73 of the Charities Act 2011 and for the trust itself to pursue a private Bill to make the amendments that it thinks necessary. We are also exploring whether the Secretary of State has the vires to make an order in consequence of an electoral changes order, to amend or modify primary legislation, such as the Malvern Hills Act 1924. So we are working with the group. In realisation of that, I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak next as I have an amendment in this group. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, for his excellent speech on his amendments and for meeting with me and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, to discuss the Bill. I was pleased that he mentioned Peers for the Planet; I am not yet a member of that group but I will be a very enthusiastic joiner. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has greatly encouraged me in that respect.

The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, spoke about giving local authorities the tools that they need. That is also an important part of my Amendment 179A in this group, which I will speak to. The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, referred to the Skidmore review and the Climate Change Committee’s work—which are both crucial to his and my amendments in this group—and to having a net-zero test running through the planning system. That is absolutely crucial, and now is the opportunity to do just that.

We have spoken before about the fact that there are some key strategic omissions from the Bill. Ensuring that climate change is fundamentally enshrined in law in the planning process is one of the most critical. My amendment is designed to address this too, by including it as one of the key purposes of the planning process. Over 80% of councils have now declared a climate emergency, with a pledge to net zero sitting alongside that, so surely it is time that the Government and legislation caught up and helped provide the tools to do that. The amendments in this group are designed to set out: first, an overall purpose for the planning process; secondly, to make absolutely sure that that includes the sustainability of all development; and, thirdly, to ensure that every individual development proposal is assessed to ensure that it is part of the solution to climate change, not adding to the problem.

As far back as November 2021, the Local Government Association commissioned a wide-ranging report to show how critical the local contribution to climate change could be. There are many important contributions recorded in that report, including one from Richard Blyth, head of policy at the Royal Town Planning Institute, who said:

“Collectively local activity and investment (for example on housing, infrastructure, water management) will only contribute positively to the ambition to leave the environment in a better state if there is a shared spatial framework for improving local environments”.


He pointed out that the Environment Act could take this only so far, but some of the measures it contained risked adding to the piecemeal landscape of environmental plans without clear directions for economic decision-making. The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, referred to the piecemeal approach that results from some of the provisions in the Environment Act. The only way of ensuring that a holistic approach is taken to environmental issues is to ensure that all the relevant issues are built into local plans and considered for each development, whether that is water, flooding, soil, air quality, transport, access to open spaces, biodiversity, energy, waste or the whole-life carbon impact of buildings. These should all be part of the consideration of planning.

Net zero can be achieved only if decarbonisation happens in every place, everywhere across the country. These amendments would incorporate in the Bill plans for an overarching clause that would do just that. At the moment, if the overarching framework of the national management development plan, whatever it contains in relation to net zero—I am probably not the only one in this Committee who fears that this will be nowhere near ambitious enough in response to the climate emergency—does not have a corresponding network of local plans setting out clearly how development will take a radically new and ambitious approach to this, we will, I fear, continue to move at the current snail’s pace.

Local plans also need to reflect the needs of mitigation of climate change. In a paper from the University of Strathclyde by Dr Hawker and Dr Wade, they say:

“In particular, local planning decisions around land use and infrastructure must be made with acknowledgement of their implications for living with climate change. For example, increasing green spaces can support drainage in urban areas, helping to alleviate future flood risks”.


We have seen some magnificent examples in recent years—for example, pocket parks in high streets, which help with flooding issues—but they are by no means common enough yet. Local authorities often hold large building portfolios, including social housing. If they can be supported with long-term future funding, they can take action now to ensure that properties are energy efficient and much more cost effective for residents.

At Second Reading in the other place, the Secretary of State’s contention was that proposals in the Bill would strengthen environmental protection. He explained that a National Planning Policy Framework document would be published in July—that is July last year—setting out how environmental outcomes were to be driven. As far as I know, that document has not yet been published by the department. So, while we await specific policies on specific aspects of tackling environmental outcomes, fundamentally writing climate change into both development planning and mitigation measures for the planning system of the future is the only way of ensuring that they reach every part of the UK. If we do not do so in this Bill, we will have missed a huge opportunity to align the planning system with the climate change goals that should be right at its heart.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendments 179 and 271 from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale. I thank him very much for bringing them to your Lordships’ Committee. I will make three quick points.

First, I do not understand why the Government are not using this Bill as a vehicle to embed the approaches that they have signed up to on net zero and climate change targets more generally. Surely this is the ideal legislation to ensure that our planning system supports what the Government say they wish to do.

Secondly, the noble Lord quite rightly mentioned the Skidmore review, which is very telling, and we have also heard from the Climate Change Committee. However, the National Audit Office’s report should not be ignored. It said that

“there are serious weaknesses in central government’s approach to working with local authorities on decarbonisation, stemming from a lack of clarity over local authorities’ overall roles, piecemeal funding, and diffuse accountabilities”.

The Government need to listen to the National Audit Office, because that is based on its expertise in monitoring and evaluating what local authorities are doing and the confrontations they are having on some of these issues due to flaws in the current local planning system and arrangements.

Thirdly, my background is mainly in health, and there is no doubt that unlocking economic growth through planning reform, as was highlighted in the net zero review, could achieve real health benefits by fully aligning our planning system with climate change and nature targets. The point has been made by the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change, which says that a healthy neighbourhood can also be a powerful levelling-up tool, leading to better mental and physical health and well-being outcomes through active travel, social connectivity and access to green spaces. Statistics published by the UN only a few days ago show that life expectancy in this country has deteriorated dramatically in comparison with many other countries since the 1950s. We were then one of the top countries for life expectancy; now we are in danger of dropping out of the top 30.

There is such a persuasive argument for tying in strong public preventive health with what must be done on climate change and net zero. Surely the planning system is one of the most powerful levers that we can use to make it happen. I hope we will come back to this very important matter on Report.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, but am also attracted to others in this group. I note what the noble Baroness said about the synergy of the amendments in this group, which relate to health, housing and energy efficiency, and I think that is quite true. I declare my interests as set out in the register and note that I am also a member of Peers for the Planet.

The amendment in my name and in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Foster of Bath and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, is not overly prescriptive. It simply requires the Government to set out details of how buildings can be decarbonised and become more energy efficient. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has set out, this can be achieved in a variety of ways. It is for the Government to set out the precise trajectory, but it is important that that trajectory is set.

Your Lordships have debated similar amendments to other Bills, as the noble Baroness has said. There might be an element of Groundhog Day, certainly for the Minister; but I think there is an element of Groundhog Day for the rest of us as well, because it is normally met with the cry of either “It is already being done”—which I think is open to question—or “It does not need to be done”, which is certainly open to question. I hope, therefore, that we can, ahead of Report, agree some constructive moves on how we can improve some of the oldest housing stock in Europe; the need to update and enhance that housing stock is very clear.

The benefits of fixing the old and leaking properties are not limited to simply helping people with their bills, although it will of course do that. It is not simply a question of creating more jobs in the green economy, although it would do that too. It is also, in an increasingly unstable world, with geopolitical complexities that we see every day, important that we modify our buildings, that they become more energy efficient and that we are able to be more energy self-sufficient. Also, as has been noted by the noble Baroness, we are looking at this in terms of pressure on public resources. This will enable the Government and the country to spend less on subsidising people’s energy bills if those bills come down. So it is a win-win in just about every situation.

Homes with good insulation, a heat pump and solar panels will pay 60% of the average UK energy bill. That is a considerable achievement and something that we should be looking to do. We need progress in the area. The Government should demonstrate leadership in this area at a time when we have seen leadership fail elsewhere, notably in the United States when President Trump withdrew the US from the Paris climate change agreement. That now has been rectified by the current President, but there is every need for action internationally on climate change. There is a pressing imperative for us to do more. So I hope the Government will accept this amendment—certainly the spirit of this amendment—and sit down and discuss how we can achieve things, not just on this amendment but on others in this group. I lend my support to the noble Baroness’s amendment.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group. I particularly want to speak to Amendments 241 and 504GF, which essentially seek to embrace the planning system within wider health and well-being and health-inequality policies. I hope that the noble Earl will be able to be positive in his response.

I must say that the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, rather took me back when he mentioned Herbert Manzoni, who was city engineer in Birmingham from 1935 to 1963.When I became a councillor in Birmingham in 1980, I was reliably informed in the induction programme that the Manzoni plans were kept in the safe in the city engineer’s office, and that policy on roads in the city continued to be dictated not by the political control of the city council but by what Manzoni had drawn in his plans.

I have seen academic arguments that suggest that, by the late 1970s, the city had started to change; but I think it was actually in the 1990s when the proposals to bypass Kings Heath/Moseley with a huge dual carriageway, along the lines of the Aston Expressway, were defeated by a group of people, including my wife Selina Stewart, called Birmingham United Against the Motorway Plans. When the noble Lord described the kind of neighbourhood that he thought we would all want to live in, he was, of course, describing Kings Heath as is, as a result of that campaign. Later in the year, of course, we will see the reopening of Kings Heath railway station, which will be the pièce de resistance of the wonderful community that I live in, in the most beautiful city in this country.

I want to make three points just to echo what the noble Lord, Lord Young, said. We know that the scale of health inequalities in this country is frighteningly large. The work produced by Oxford University and the London School of Tropical Medicine last week showed that, in 1952, the UK had one of the best life-expectancy records of any country. We have now slipped down to the low 20s, and the widening gap between the poorest and the richest people is really quite frightening and extraordinary. In the context of a levelling-up Bill, surely we have to focus on it.

Secondly, we know that local authorities have long had a tradition of seeking to improve public health. Prior to 1974, they were the principal public health bodies; from 2012, they resumed that position. During Covid, the directors of public health in particular showed their mettle when they had to take some very tough decisions at the local level.

Various mechanisms enable local authorities to influence health: health and well-being boards and, under the new arrangements of the integrated care system, integrated care partnerships. Those are all designed to give local government more say in the direction of health and, by definition, in dealing with health inequalities. The issue is whether they have enough beef: do they have the levers to make their potential influence felt? We obviously know their role in planning, air quality, the environment, leisure and various other facets. We know that they can have a really important role for health, but so far that influence has been patchy. We are seeking here to put some levers in place to use the planning system to enhance the promotion of good public health and tackling health inequalities.

There will be discussions between now and Report because it is clear that warmer homes comes within that wider context. In the end, I hope the House can assert itself to ensure that, within the planning system and guidance, a reflection on the need for planning to contribute to overall health will be part of local authorities’ responsibilities in the future.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in the group and will speak briefly in favour of Amendments 188 and 241, on reducing health inequalities and improving well-being. These excellent amendments pick up the theme of Amendment 28, ably spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, and to which I added my name. All of these amendments emphasise the importance of walkable neighbourhoods and safe walking and cycling routes in nature to improve health and well-being, which is one of the themes of this debate.

I declare an interest as a member of the South Downs National Park Authority, which is collaborating with local health providers and volunteers to encourage not only disadvantaged groups but individuals with specific health challenges to make better use of the downs.

There is an increasing body of evidence to show that access to nature and green spaces has a positive impact on health and well-being outcomes. It can help to address a range of mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety and loneliness. The Government themselves have accepted the health benefits of access to nature in pursuing the idea of social prescribing pilots, which also have the benefit of cutting back on expensive and often ineffective drug prescriptions. The NHS has supported social prescribing being rolled out on a local basis, but this can work only if there are the facilities and infrastructure to expand access to nature and walking therapies. These amendments would enable joined-up government policies, in a way that is all too often lacking. That would require local planning authorities to have special regard to the desirability of 20-minute neighbourhoods and access to nature.

This is not just an issue of health outcomes; it is also fundamental for inequalities. In her earlier contribution, the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, quoted a Public Health England report which says that

“the most affluent 20% of wards in England have five times the amount of parks or general green space compared with the most deprived 10% of wards”.

We know that those living in the poorest and most nature-depleted areas also suffer the impact of premature death and illness from air pollution.

There is an urgent need to rescue abandoned and neglected community areas to recreate green space and plant more trees. There is also a need to create green pathways and networks that can lead out to larger areas of green parks and waterways. We should encourage communities’ rights to reclaim unused and derelict land for microparks and growing spaces to feed their neighbourhoods. This should be built into the planning system in the way that these amendments require, and I very much hope that the Minister will feel able to support them. If the Government do not feel able to provide that support today, I hope that the noble Lords, Lord Crisp and Lord Young, will return to this on Report.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 11th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I have a number of amendments in this group, as do other noble Lords. I shall talk your Lordships’ House through why I felt we needed to put these amendments down.

First, let us look at my Amendments 25, 27 and 53. Our concerns are around the fact that the Government seem to view devolution settlements as evolutionary. Although we do not necessarily object to them refining these agreements over time, our concern is that, if they are going to refine them and the settlements are going to evolve, clearly they need to be changed both for the benefit of and with the consent of the local communities that will be affected by any changes. If we look at what is in this part of the Bill and what it does, we see that it adjusts the mechanisms affecting when changes to combined authorities can be made. With my amendments, I am trying to ensure that due process is applied at all times to such changes.

I want to look at one particular area of concern, which involves a change that could be immediate and will be able to be exercised through these powers if they are put into statute: the potential addition of Warwickshire to the West Midlands combined authority. This could be done shortly ahead of the next election for the mayor of the region in May next year. Our concern is that it could happen shortly ahead of an election without proper agreement with the community and wider authorities. Because of that, I have tabled Amendments 25, 27 and 53.

My Amendment 25 states:

“The Secretary of State must consult, and have regard to advice provided by, the Boundary Commission for England regarding the boundaries of a CCA when making regulations under subsection (1)”.


My Amendment 27 says the same—it is just placed in a further, appropriate part of the Bill—whereas, if noble Lords look at my Amendment 53, they will see that it looks at another part of the Bill and aims to ensure that

“the Secretary of State has consulted, and had regard to advice provided by, the Boundary Commission for England”.

I know that we have discussed this issue. I thanked the Minister for her time either last week or the week before—I cannot remember when—when we discussed it previously. However, because the Boundary Commission has a responsibility to review parliamentary constituencies —I know that the argument from officials was that my amendment does not necessarily apply in this case because it looks just at county or district boundaries that already exist and are already agreed, for example— we feel that, because of the potential implications of boundaries being expanded by a mayor to suit their next election, this is something that should be supplemented. There should be this additional role for the Boundary Commission in such cases so that there cannot be any questions, concerns or even accusations of gerrymandering where that may not be the case; we just think that it would add an extra layer of security and transparency to any changes in this area.

My Amendment 35, which is also in this group, would insert a new clause:

“Mayors for CCA Areas: boundaries”.


The amendment says:

“Within one year of the day on which this Act is passed, a Minister … must publish a report of a consultation on the boundaries of each Mayor for a CCA Area … The report must also include a criteria which must be fulfilled for any future expansions of boundaries”.


Also, and this comes back to the point I have just made:

“The criteria must include that the extension is not being made for political advantage”.


This is something that we are concerned about.

We are trying to really stress the point here that any additions and changes to boundaries should not be motivated or be able to be motivated by any political purpose. We know that concerns have been raised that this may be the case in the West Midlands, for example. It is extremely important that the Government heed these concerns in order that people can have the greatest confidence possible in any changes to boundaries and powers that will be brought in with the proposed legislation.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, has Amendments 37 to 39 in this group. They all look to do a similar thing: to remove Clauses 40 to 42 to avoid confusion about the number of different mayoral titles that are possible. I genuinely think he has a bit of a point here. I find that many members of the general public get confused about what councillors do and what we all do. When I was a Member of Parliament—other noble Lords may have had the same experience—I was told to go and sort my councillors out. There is not necessarily a huge amount of understanding about local government and government structures. I have some sympathy with what the noble Lord is trying to do here to make it as simple as possible.

I now want to look at Amendment 52 in the name of my noble friend Lord Hunt, my Amendment 53, as I mentioned earlier, and Amendment 53A, the new amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Hunt to which I have added my name. I will leave my noble friend to go into the detail of this, but we strongly support what he is trying to achieve with this amendment and strongly support his concerns here.

I hope that I have been clear to the Minister about exactly what our concerns are. I think that they could be resolved with discussion, but these are genuine concerns about the way the boundaries may potentially be manipulated and we think that the Government should take them very seriously. I beg to move.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, as my noble friend said, I have two amendments. Amendment 52

“would prevent the Secretary of State making amendments to the membership of a combined authority in a 12 month period running up to a mayoral election, which could have the effect of altering the prospects of a sitting or proposed mayor being elected or re-elected”.

Amendment 53A puts some

“additional requirements which must be satisfied before local government areas are added to an existing Combined Authority within nine months of Royal Assent”.

Obviously, it is late and noble Lords wish to prepare for tomorrow, so I am not going to speak at length, as I could do on this. I just want to make two or three points. This is all about the Government’s deplorable efforts basically to gerrymander the boundary of the West Midlands Combined Authority. So much does the current Tory incumbent, Andy Street, suspect defeat in ten months’ time that he has conspired with Michael Gove to shoehorn Warwickshire, a shire county, into the metropolitan combined authority. If this happened to Wiltshire, for instance, I know exactly what the noble Baroness would be thinking. The sole purpose, of course, is to try to improve his fortunes at the 2024 election. He has similar designs on some of the other shire counties in the West Midlands. He will not be stopping there; he wants to be police commissioner as well, and we will come on to that later.

This is being done over the next 12 weeks, so there is scant time for consultation, and no time for full consideration of the impact on the district council and certainly not on the public, who I doubt wish to have their lives run from Birmingham. Nor do I think it will be successful, because the most likely outcome is a Labour mayor running Warwickshire and the West Midlands. Noble Lords might think that I would welcome that, but I have principled objections to using legislation in this way—basically, to protect a sole political incumbent. I particularly object to this happening without the agreement of the existing constituent members of the combined authority. For me, such power vested in one person damages our democracy, undermines the trust on which the combined authority was established and surely risks threatening its future success.

One of the things I find the most objectionable is the haste in which this is being done. A paper going to Warwickshire County Council’s cabinet meeting tomorrow indicates this. The council has to rush into a governance review, followed by publication of a scheme that would contain details of the proposed expanded area of the West Midlands Combined Authority; its proposed membership, voting and other constitutional arrangements; its proposed functions; the way it will be funded; and any property, rights and liabilities that would be transferred to the extended combined authority.

A public consultation has to be undertaken. If the Secretary of State then decides to proceed, an order will have to be made which would expand the area of the combined authority and provide for the election of a mayor. This all has to be done incredibly quickly. Ministers have told the county council that it must be in a position to do all that and submit an application in early October. Allowing for August and the summer break, what sort of consultation is likely by early October? I suggest, a very scanty one.

In this paper, the council openly admits that it may require consideration of urgent decisions being made during the process; in other words, the consultation is a sham, because the decision has already been made. So much is unknown, not least the financial consequences; so the cabinet paper airily says that what this means financially for Warwickshire in the context of the current West Midlands devolution deal and the being-discussed West Midlands deeper devolution deal would need to be worked up in negotiation with the Government. So that will not be sorted out any time soon, and the public in Warwickshire will have no idea at all about the financial implications; nor will the non-metropolitan district councils in Warwickshire have any idea what it means for them, or of the financial consequences.

The paper that I have read is mistaken. It says in paragraph 2.7:

“A change in membership status to ‘constituent member’ for Warwickshire County Council”


—in other words, Warwickshire coming in means it becomes a constituent member of the combined authority—

“would also have implications for the five District and Borough Councils in the County who would automatically be admitted as constituent members”

of the combined authority. The paper goes on to say:

“It is recognised that the level of financial contribution as a constituent member could be challenging for the District and Borough Councils and if levied at the current ‘constituent member’ level would mean Warwickshire Councils as a whole contributing a disproportionate amount compared to other members”.


Well, that would be a matter of concern. I am sure that this, if successful, would have financial consequences for the non-metropolitan district councils. But the paper is wrong. Again, in paragraph 4.16, it says that district councils will be constituent members of the combined authority.

I take the Minister back to our debates on district councils. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, made it clear that

“the combined county authority is a new institutional model made up of upper-tier local authorities only. Only two-tier county councils and unitary councils can be constituent members of a CCA”.—[Official Report, 27/2/23; col. 111.]

I suspect that this error was made in the rush to produce all this paper, but a district council in Warwickshire would be left very uncertain about what all this means.

We can see a proud, independent and delightful county, Warwickshire—I am a member of Warwickshire County Cricket Club—being more and more absorbed into the West Midlands Combined Authority, where urban interests are bound to dominate. Do the people of Warwickshire really want this? Do other shire counties and the people in them want it? I very much doubt it.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I have learned a lot in the last 10 minutes. I did not know all of that detail.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

There is more.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

Well, I just hope the Minister might be able to put our minds at rest. The word “gerrymandering” springs to mind. I sincerely hope the Minister can allay any concerns we might have about that. I think the words “sham consultation” were used. I hope the Minister will be able to put our minds at rest on that. It might be helpful if she just said that there was no truth in these rumours at all and that there will not be any overfast consultation on this matter.

That leads me to say that, although I am not a signatory to Amendment 53A, I very much support it. I hope the Minister will be able to explain a little more what the Government’s thinking is on that. However, I am a signatory to Amendment 52. This is all related; there is a serious issue to address. Had I realised that this was going on when I signed Amendment 52, I would have signed Amendment 53A as well.

I have three amendments in this group, Amendments 37 to 39, which would all do the same thing. I will keep this very short because I have no intention of pressing anything to a vote, but I am still surprised that the Government have these clauses in the Bill. I have never understood them. Those of us who have been in combined authorities or have worked in or around them, sometimes with mayors, know that the public have got used to the title “mayor”. I want to eliminate these clauses because the titles that the Government propose as options are confusing to the general public. The reason given comes at line 25 of page 35 of the Bill, which says that the CCA can consider having a title that it feels is more appropriate than other titles that are offered as options,

“having regard to the title of other public office holders in the area of the CCA”.

I recall the Minister explaining in Committee that that was because there were other public officeholders called “mayor”: the mayor of a county, or a lord mayor. Those areas that have been working with the mayoral model for a combined authority for some time have got used to it.

I find the alternative titles offered in Clause 40 confusing. The mayor could become a “county commissioner”, which is used in other countries but is not part of British constitutional thinking. They could be a “county governor”. Of course, if these are combined counties, presumably they would be the governor of two counties. Equally, you could have a “governor” without their being a “county governor”. I find this very confusing.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, perhaps Mr Street could be called the Governor-General?

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

Governor-General of the West Midlands—there, my Lords, is a thought. We are now starting to laugh, and I think there is a danger here that the general public will just not understand what all these titles are for. I would immediately say a school governor, a prison governor or the governor of a US state. We can think of various possibilities, but a governor of a combined county? I really do not think that fits with the structure of local and subregional government that we are talking about.

Under Clause 40(2)(c) the title could be “elected leader”. This is very strange, because councils have leaders and those leaders are elected—so I am not clear what the difference is between the “elected leader” of a CCA and the leader of a council. The constituency may be different: that is, it is the whole electorate for the mayor, but for the leader it is the councillors of that council who have to vote to elect that person as the leader of the council as well as leader of the group. This is getting too confusing.

The next thing could well be that if a mayoral CCA is entitled to call its mayor something else, can other combined authorities that have been in existence for a number of years change the title of their mayor? I just do not know why we are going down this road at all. I just say all that to the Minister. There may be something that I have not thought of that she can alleviate my concerns with, but I just wish that this clause and the associated clauses would just go away. It is not something that I want a vote on; I just hope that I will not have to stand up when the statutory instrument comes through for the creation of a CCA and ask why it is that the name has altered to something like a “county commissioner”, which the general public do not comprehend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

It is more complex than that. It is not a referendum but a consultation. Therefore, there will be many views for, against, in the middle and all over the place, but he will obviously have to take account of views. If everyone said they did not want something, I am sure the Secretary of State would take note of that; it is part of those tests.

The main focus of the Local Government Boundary Commission for England, which the noble Baroness brought up, is a rolling programme of electoral reviews of local authorities; this is where its skills and experience mainly lie. It would not be appropriate to consult it on the proposed boundaries of CCAs and CAs. The requirement for public consultation and statutory tests for regulations provide, we believe, sufficient protection that further consultation is unnecessary. For these reasons, I hope the noble Baroness will not press her amendments.

Amendments 37 to 39 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, seek to remove Clauses 40 to 42, which set out the process to allow the mayor of a CCA to change to a locally appropriate title that resonates with local stakeholders. Some areas are reluctant to adopt a mayor governance model as they feel the word “mayor” would be confusing and inappropriate for their area, preventing access to a strong devolution deal.

We had this discussion in Committee. There are many areas in this country where every town in a county, or even a district, will have a local mayor. That has been an issue for some authorities when they look into a CCA for the future. The noble Lord talked about directly elected leaders. Some authorities have said to us that they would prefer to call the person who leads—doing the same job as a mayor in a county authority—a “directly elected leader”. It is just a name; the job itself is the same.

To minimise confusion, the clauses include the protection of a shortlist of possible titles—it does not have to be used; it just gives some ideas—as well as a mechanism for areas to use any other title they choose, providing they have regard to other public officeholders’ titles in the area of that authority. We are trying to give as much local flexibility as possible to allow for local circumstances, so that the name of the directly elected person to lead that combined authority is the best name to use in that area.

Amendment 52, also in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, regarding the timing of an order changing a combined authority’s area, would add further inflexibility to the process. An MCA can be expanded only at the time of a mayoral election, for reasons of democratic accountability; those affected by the mayor’s decisions will have had the opportunity to take part in that mayor’s election. Consequently, it can already be several years between an area expressing an interest in joining an MCA and such expansion coming into force. Introducing additional inflexibility would impede and potentially further delay—

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I will not delay the House for long but, with the greatest respect, this was a twinkle in the eye of Mayor Street a few months ago when the Wolverhampton Express & Star reported it. People in Warwickshire were innocently going about their own business, then along came Mr Gove to put pressure on them to make this application. The Minister is indulging in a fantasy that this is somehow driven by Warwickshire people desperate to join the West Midlands.

I joke about Wiltshire but the Minister will know about the sensitivities of shire counties and their relationship with urban metropolitan districts, which I well understand. My noble friend Lady Anderson’s Staffordshire would be another case in point; it would not wish to be ruled, in a sense, from Birmingham. It really is too much: the rules are being changed to allow for one gerrymander, in a foolish attempt to save Mr Street’s political career. That really will not do.

I am not going to go on because we have two other groups. In the next—

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

We are finishing at the end of this group.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

Sorry, I know that, but we are going to have further debates on this because the amendments have been split between groups eight, nine and 10. That is why I will sit down.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Report stage
Thursday 13th July 2023 Lords Chamber

I do not understand what that means. They can work “positively” alongside the CCA as an associate member. The question is whether they should have a vote. I submit to the Government yet again the view that they should not have a vote and that the only people who should have a vote are the full members of the CCA. I beg to move.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much support the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, particularly about the district council situation. Noble Lords might recall that in Committee I raised the issue of Oxfordshire and Oxford City Council, of which I used to be a member, which would be a non-constituent member of the combined authority, but Oxford University could be invited to come in as a participating member under this thing, and that does not seem right.

The noble Lord also kindly mentioned my Amendment 51, which is related to my Amendment 53A, which we debated on Tuesday, albeit to a rather limited audience; the formal taking of the amendment comes up later. My Amendment 51 would retain the right of members of a combined authority to give their consent to a change in the membership of the combined authority. Currently, Clause 51, quite extraordinarily, takes that away from the members of a combined authority so that members of a current combined authority have no say whatever in whether the boundaries of that combined authority should be extended and a new member brought in, despite the consequences for the combined authority.

This takes us back to the West Midlands, I am afraid, because we know why this is being done. This is being done to gerrymander the boundaries of the West Midlands Combined Authority to give Andy Street, the Tory mayor, a chance of being re-elected next May, and the Minister tabled late amendments to make this easier. This is being done over 12 weeks. The cabinet paper to Warwickshire County Council, which I think was discussed this week, makes it clear that in order for this to be rushed through, it must undertake a governance review and publish a scheme with details of the proposed expanded area of the West Midlands Combined Authority and its membership, voting and other constitutional arrangements, functions and the way it would be funded. A public consultation also has to be undertaken—in August, essentially, because Ministers have told the county council that to meet the deadline for the May election an application must be submitted in early October. The paper to the council cabinet openly admits that this

“may require … urgent decisions being made during the process”;

in other words, the consultation is a sham because we know that the decision has already been made in the Minister’s department. So much is unknown, not least the financial consequences for Warwickshire. Indeed, what about the impact on the existing members of the combined authority, who have no say whatever in whether this should happen because of the Bill before us today?

On Tuesday, the Minister very kindly said that the Bill is a bottom-up process, but this decision has already been made. So why is her boss intensely engaged with the county council to persuade it to do it? Can she answer that question? Can she also tell me whether the MPs in Warwickshire have been consulted? One would have thought that when considering something as dramatic as putting Warwickshire into the West Midlands Combined Authority the Government might have asked all the MPs what they thought about it. I do not think that has happened.

I love Warwickshire. I live quite close to it, as the Minister knows. It is a delightful county. Do the people of Warwickshire really want to be absorbed into an urban combined authority? Do they really want a mayor situated in Birmingham to have such a key influence on their affairs? Indeed, the same could be said for Shropshire, where, again, I think Mayor Street seems to be very interested. I do not think so. I do not think the shire counties in the West Midlands want this, and we should change the Bill to make sure that it cannot happen without the consent of combined authority members as they are.

--- Later in debate ---

Any proposal to expand an area of a combined authority comes from the local area. It must make a strong case that doing so will deliver real benefits to the local area and include a public consultation within it. Before making regulations to change the area, the Secretary of State must consider that doing so is likely to lead to an improvement in the economic, social and environmental well-being of some or all of those who live or work in the area, and have regard for securing effective and convenient local government, reflecting the identities and interests of local communities. This provision still requires the triple lock of consent: from the local area via the mayor and the submission to the Secretary of State, including a public consultation; the Secretary of State, on behalf of the Government; and parliamentary approval for laying the legislation enacting any such changes.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to make two points. The Minister said that this is not about gerrymandering. I suspect he would say that, wouldn’t he? I am a resident of Birmingham, and Birmingham City Council is a huge local authority—a member of the West Midlands Combined Authority. Do we not get any say at all in whether the boundaries should be extended to Warwickshire? Surely the current constituent authorities have a legitimate role in consenting to the boundaries being extended.

The second point is that the amendment I referred to, government Amendment 34, allows work to be done in relation to this in advance of Royal Assent—which is a highly unusual move, I suggest.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

I simply remind the noble Lord, in answer to his first point, that there has to be a public consultation. That is when the views of all interested parties can be taken into account. Retaining the present arrangements, which I guess the noble Lord would like to do, could mean that the expansion of a combined authority—where the evidence shows that would be likely to improve outcomes across the proposed whole new area—could end up being vetoed by one existing constituent council if the combined authority’s local constitution requires unanimous agreement from its members on this matter. That could happen, irrespective of support from the potential new member, the mayor and the great majority of constituent councils.

I hope the noble Lord appreciates why these provisions are framed as they are. I know that he believes there is an underlying malign motive. Again, I emphatically repudiate that idea. The current regime acts as a barrier to the expansion of an existing combined authority, even when there is a clear economic rationale in favour of it. The Bill will make it less difficult for combined authorities to expand into more complete and stronger economic geographies. For that reason, I ask him not to press his amendment when it is reached.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, my Amendment 36 is designed to provide clarity over the future relationships, roles and responsibilities of elected mayors and police and crime commissioners. The number of elected regional mayors has grown in recent years, and the Government clearly want to create more. At the same time, it also appears that the Bill’s proposals will allow these mayors to take over, rather than run alongside, the role of PCCs. Is it the Government’s intention to gradually phase out the elected PCCs?

This matters, of course, because policing has never been under more scrutiny and public confidence in some forces is, unfortunately, at rock bottom. Although PCCs do not have operational control over local forces, being watchdogs rather than police chiefs, the hiring and firing of chief constables is among their powers. Some mayors would quite like those powers for themselves, so may seek a mandate to take them when they are next up for election. We know that the next PCC and mayoral elections are due in 2024—next year—and that there are already strong feelings in some areas as to who should have the job of holding the police to account.

Current legislation allows for a CCA mayor to apply to become the PCC, first, if the majority of their constituent councils agree and, secondly, following any consultation. The Bill removes those conditions, even the need to consult. Clearly, consultation should be essential for a change as big as this.

In Committee, the Minister said that

“councils do not deliver any of the services required by the PCC. That is the job of the local police. Therefore, there is no crossover in that way”.—[Official Report, 13/3/23; col. 1143.]

There was concern about that statement at the time. As my noble friend Lady Taylor and others said, this is simply not the case. Councils look at anti-social behaviour; they look at domestic abuse work with their police colleagues. They have issues related to local area policing. Councils set priorities with local policing teams and deliver services jointly to address these priorities. District councils have a community safety plan, a committee and a chair, with constant interaction between the PCC’s office and the councils, including the county council.

To say that there is no crossover between councils and PCCs is, we believe, a false argument to justify what is planned as a simple takeover of functions. I say this to make it clear that we support the amendments in this group in the name of my noble friend Lord Bach, Amendments 54 and 307A, which I understand are to be spoken to by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. I also assure my noble friend Lord Hunt that if he wishes to push his Amendment 53A to a vote, he will have our support.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Hayman. My noble friend Lord Bach is addressing a memorial meeting in Leicestershire for the late chief constable with whom he worked very closely as police and crime commissioner.

To bring it back to my local patch, my concern is that Clause 59 means that the Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands Combined Authority can become the police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands Police whenever he wants, without consultation or an open debate about the consequences for the West Midlands. That is a local example of what my noble friend Lady Hayman has just described. I recognise that a mayor can become a police and crime commissioner if he or she has general support, as I think has happened in Manchester and West Yorkshire, but in the West Midlands that support has not been forthcoming. The local authorities did not agree to it.

We have got used to voting for a police and crime commissioner. As it happens, it has been for a Labour one each time—most recently in May 2021, on the very same day that we voted for a Conservative mayor. There is no suggestion that the two postholders cannot work well together. Both were elected. I do not understand what the argument for change is. What is the argument for essentially nullifying the result of an election if it does not seem to suit one party?

This is compounded by Amendment 307, which allows the West Midlands mayor to take on PCC powers on Royal Assent—this could happen in September. What is the rush? If the Government are determined to go ahead with this clause, surely it should be done in a seemly and orderly fashion?

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this amendment is really important for democratic overview of policing in a combined authority area. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, has said, West Yorkshire already has a mayor and a non-elected police and crime commissioner, because the arrangement for West Yorkshire—sadly, in my view—was that the two roles would be combined. The elected Mayor of West Yorkshire is therefore also responsible as police and crime commissioner. The consequence of combining those two roles has been that the Mayor of West Yorkshire was able to appoint a police and crime commissioner for West Yorkshire.

The whole concept of police and crime commissioners was that there would be democratic accountability for the oversight of policing in a police service area. In West Yorkshire and other places, I think including Manchester, that democratic accountability has disappeared because the mayors in those places—I live in West Yorkshire so I know the situation well—have appointed people they know as police and crime commissioner.

That is no reflection on or criticism of the job that that individual does, but it is a criticism of the lack of democratic accountability. If the oversight of police and crime in a very large area—2.5 million people—is given to an appointed person and the electorate cannot vote them out of office, there is something fundamentally wrong with the system. That is why Amendment 54 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bach, and introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is so important. The Government have gone in the wrong direction on this one. If we are to have police and crime commissioners, they need to be elected, as they are everywhere else in the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

No. I hate to bring up the West Midlands—I know the noble Lord opposite will be very pleased that I am—but the Mayor of the West Midlands has a choice: he can either agree to pursue the expansion to include Warwickshire, which has its own PCC, so he could no longer take the PCC role, or he can take the PCC role and therefore not Warwickshire. That is the reality of what we are doing. I hope I have explained that.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

I think that is right, because you cannot be PCC over two police forces; I fully understand that. What I would say is that if I were in Warwickshire, I would think, “At some point, they will merge West Midlands Police with Warwickshire”. That is just an option for the future, but the Minister is absolutely right about the fact that the mayor cannot oversee two forces.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I hope I have clarified that point. What happens in the future happens in the future; we are talking about this Bill, and the Bill does not change that at all. As I said, the levelling up White Paper set out the Government’s aspiration for, where policing and combined authority boundaries align, combined authority mayors to take the lead on public safety and take on the role of the PCC—and to take steps to remove the barriers to more CA mayors taking on PCC functions.

In an area where a devolution deal is agreed and the policing and CA boundaries are not coterminous, the Government wish to encourage close co-operation between the combined authority mayor and the PCC. While it is important for the area to shape exactly what strong partnership looks like in practice, one way of achieving this would be to use the non-constituent or associate membership model being established via provisions in the Bill. This could allow the PCC a seat at the table and allow the combined authority to confer voting rights on the PCC on matters relevant to public safety. The information and clarifications sought by this amendment are, we believe, already available, and we do not agree that there is any need for a further statement.

I turn to Amendment 54. Clause 59 amends the existing provisions concerning the local consent requirements for the combined authority mayors to take on the functions of a PCC. This reflects that this transfer is merely a process whereby functions are transferred from one directly elected person to another, without any implications for the local authorities in the area. Clause 59 maintains the triple-lock model for conferring functions. That triple lock is that any transfer or conferral of powers needs local consent, the agreement of the Secretary of State and approval by Parliament.

The change which Clause 59 makes is that in future, local consent will be given simply by the mayor, who is democratically accountable across the whole area. The transfer of PCC functions to a mayor in no way diminishes the role of local government in community safety. The local authority’s role in community safety partnerships remains the same and the police and crime panel will still exist, being responsible for scrutinising the mayor as the PCC in the same way it scrutinised the PCC.

A mayor having PCC functions will, we believe, be able more successfully to pursue their other ambitions and secure better overall outcomes for their community. A deputy mayor for policing and crime is appointed who can take on certain day-to-day responsibilities for this role, ensuring that the mayor can continue to focus on all their other priorities. The Government are clear that we expect mayors to discuss any proposal seeking a transfer of a PCC function with their combined authority in advance of submitting a request for such a transfer to government. This is in line with the existing expectation that mayors seek the views of the relevant PCC, whose consent is not required in legislation.

There is evidence of the considerable benefits that a mayor having PCC functions brings. For example, in Greater Manchester, following Greater Manchester Police’s escalation to “Engage” by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services, and the resignation of its former chief constable, the mayor appointed a new chief constable to develop and lead the force’s transformation programme, the result of which has been to ensure that the force focuses on getting the basics right and improving outcomes for the region. Under the leadership of the chief constable and with oversight and support from the mayor, Greater Manchester Police is now responding faster to emergency calls, and the number of open investigations has halved since 2021, and the inspectorate released the force from “Engage” in October 2022 on the strength of the confidence in its improvement trajectory. The Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, was clear that he, as the PCC for Greater Manchester, was accountable if things did not improve and that he should be held to account at the ballot box.

And finally, my Lords—although I think that says it all—government Amendment 307 provides for early commencement of Clause 59, which would allow for the statutory requirements that enable a transfer of PCC functions to CA mayors to be undertaken from the date of Royal Assent. This will enable the timely implementation of secondary legislation required for PCC function transfers to mayors to take place in time for the May 2024 elections.

The Government’s intention is to align as far as possible with the Gould principle relating to electoral management, which would suggest that any statutory instruments transferring PCC functions to mayors for May 2024 should be laid six months ahead of the elections in early November to provide notice to candidates, the electorate and the electoral administrations of any changes. It is for these reasons that the Government are unable to accept Amendment 307A proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Bach. It would time out any PCC transfers in time for mayoral combined authority elections in 2024 where there is a local desire for this.

I hope that noble Lords will feel able to accept the early commencement amendment for Clause 59 and that, following these explanations, the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

53A: Clause 57, page 49, line 15, at end insert—
“(3AB) An order under this section, laid within nine months of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 being passed, which adds a local government area to an existing area of a mayoral combined authority may be made only if—(a) the relevant council in relation to the local government area consents,(b) the mayor for the area of the combined authority consents, (c) the combined authority consents,(d) the statement of a consultation with the residents of the local government area asking their views on the order has been laid before each House of Parliament, and(e) the Secretary of State has consulted, and had regard to advice provided by, the Boundary Commission for England.”Member's explanatory statement
This adds additional requirements which must be satisfied before local government areas are added to an existing Combined Authority within nine months of Royal Assent. This follows reports that areas may be added to the West Midlands Combined Authority prior to the 2024 Mayoral Election.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 4th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to the three amendments about healthy homes in my name in this group: Amendments 191A, 191B and 286. I support other amendments in this group; in particular, Amendment 198, which, like these amendments, links health and housing, and much of what I will say is also very relevant to that amendment.

I am very grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Young of Cookham, Lord Blunkett and Lord Stunell, for adding their names, and more generally to noble Lords across your Lordships’ House who have supported these amendments. I am also very grateful to the TCPA, which has supported me with these amendments; there is also a considerable campaign of support for them outside which it has created, including among builders, developers and insurers, all of whom recognise that action is needed.

I am also very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, with whom we have had two meetings, but sadly without any progress being made. I wait to hear what may be said later.

In describing these amendments, I will also explain why they are very different from the Government’s existing and planned policy. I make a point of this because the Government have consistently stated that these amendments are not necessary as they are already covered by existing or planned policy. However, these differences start with the recognition of the vital link between housing and health and well-being. They are intimately connected issues. Noble Lords will be very well aware of these connections and the problems—for example, of damp, cold, mould, air pollution, safety and more—when poor housing has caused deaths, illnesses and accidents. We need think only of the poor child in Rochdale who died from mould or the child in London who died from air pollution in their homes.

It is also important to remember to mention the mental health issues caused by poor, insecure, overcrowded housing and living in homes and neighbourhoods that are vulnerable to crime. I know that noble Lords debating the amendment of my noble friend Lady Willis will have much more to say about this, and particularly inequalities. It is the poorest people in the poorest neighbourhoods who are worst affected, and that is a very fitting topic for a levelling-up Bill.

Noble Lords will also be aware of the great strides earlier Governments made in understanding the relationship between health and housing and tackling them together, from Victorian times onwards—slum clearances over the ages, but also the great campaign of “Homes for Heroes” after the First World War. People recognised those important links, yet today, there is virtually nothing about health in planning and, if there is, it is about healthcare. The links between health, well-being and planning are simply not addressed. That is why Amendment 191A states:

“The Secretary of State must promote a comprehensive regulatory framework for planning and the built environment designed to secure … the physical, mental and social health and well-being of the people of England, and ... healthy homes and neighbourhoods”.


This does three very important things. It places health and well-being firmly at the heart of planning for the built environment; stresses the links between an individual’s health and the neighbourhood in which they live; and provides a clear aim for the whole planning and regulatory system. All three are important.

I recognise that this is a substantial strategic change in the approach to planning and regulation which, if adopted, will have a positive impact on the quality of housing and neighbourhoods, should reduce the likelihood of new slums being created and truly help to level up. It will also have a positive financial benefit by reducing the massive cost of poor housing to, for example, the NHS. I will not labour this point, but it is in the many billions of pounds. The respected Building Research Establishment estimates that it is £135 billion over 30 years. Of course, there is all the human cost of poor housing and huge cost to other sectors of the economy. In summary, there is a real choice here between carrying on as before and making a determined effort to create good housing for the citizens of this country that is fit for the future.

I turn for a moment to standards and quality. I imagine that all noble Lords are well aware of the poor standard of some recent developments, mainly but not exclusively those created through permitted development rights. We can see that existing arrangements have not stopped that, and new policies will lack the teeth to make it happen. Amendment 191A refers to the Secretary of State being responsible for creating

“a system of standards that promotes and”,

importantly, “secures healthy homes”. The system of standards covers 11 areas, which are linked concerns about individuals and the community. They bring health and environment and health and security issues together. Importantly, in Amendment 191B, it is the Secretary of State who is held to account by Parliament for delivery, by the mechanisms in the amendments.

We are not writing the policy; we are making sure it is delivered everywhere. We set out those principles to be followed which need to be enshrined in law; we have deliberately left the Secretary of State with space to define the standards, which will obviously change over time, and the methods they use to deliver them. We are not trying to rewrite government policy here; we are trying to enact legislation.

Since Committee, the Government have proposed the extension of permitted development rights to embrace sites in countryside areas, farms, national parks and hotels. This makes these amendments even more necessary. We need the health and well-being focus, the coherence and the standards as a counterbalance: a free-for-all will not help the public or the economy. As the APPG on homelessness said even before that extension was proposed, PDR can provide extra needed housing, but it needs to be done well, which is why that cross-party group supports these amendments.

Let me touch on costs. I imagine that some noble Lords will be thinking, “Doesn’t this cost a great deal of money?” I am not talking about the difference between lower-cost and higher-cost houses, I am talking about the difference between lower-cost housing and housing that is simply not fit for purpose. The analogy I use is the MOT. The MOT dictates whether or not a car is fit to be on our roads. If we have such a test for our cars, we also need to ensure that our housing is fit to be on our streets.

I have so far talked about the extraordinary opportunity cost of not addressing these issues. If we do not address them, we are condemning a lot of people to poor housing. But let us look at it from the other side for a moment: from the point of view of opportunity, and homes for heroes, if you like. Who have these homes been built for? There is opportunity here if people have a secure home, a secure base from which to operate, space for children to do their homework, where they are not spending all their time worrying about repairs and everything else. This is about life chances. It is not just about housing affecting health and well-being; it affects people’s life chances in the long term.

These are powerful arguments, and I wait to hear how the Government are going to respond. However, I should say at this point that I expect to take this to a vote, because I want His Majesty’s Government to think again and engage with the arguments about health, well-being and standards. They have not done so thus far, but it is very important that they do. I beg to move.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 198 in my name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London.

The noble Baroness, Lady Willis, very much regrets that she is unable to be present, for unavoidable reasons, and has therefore asked me to speak to her amendment. In essence, it would ensure that the planning system is contributing to the levelling-up agenda by designing the places people need to thrive and contributing to a general health and well-being objective. Let me say here that I entirely endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, with his great experience, said. This amendment is entirely consistent with and complementary to his, and I am glad that he will press his to a Division.

I should say that my interest in this came from the particular issue of health inequality, but it is active travel on which I will focus. Subsection (4) of Amendment 198, to which local planning authorities or, as the case may be, the Secretary of State would have to have regard, emphasises some of the points the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, is making:

“ensuring that key destinations such as essential shops, schools, parks and open spaces, health facilities and public transport services are in safe and convenient proximity on foot to homes … facilitating access to these key destinations and creating opportunities for everyone to be physically active by improving existing, and creating new, walking and cycling routes and networks … increasing access to high-quality green infrastructure … ensuring a supply of housing which is affordable … and meets”

health, accessibility and well-being needs. That is entirely consistent with what both the Government and the Opposition would think of when they talk of health and well-being.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

198: After Clause 94, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty to reduce health inequalities and improve well-being(1) For the purposes of this section “the general health and well-being objective” is the reduction of health inequalities and the improvement of well-being through the exercise of planning functions in relation to England.(2) A local planning authority must ensure that the development plan for their area includes policies designed to secure that the development and use of land contribute to the general health and well-being objective.(3) In considering whether to grant planning permission or permission in principle and related approvals, a local planning authority or, as the case may be, the Secretary of State must ensure the decision is consistent with achieving the general health and well-being objective.(4) In complying with this section, a local planning authority or, as the case may be, the Secretary of State must have special regard to the desirability of—(a) ensuring that key destinations such as essential shops, schools, parks and open spaces, health facilities and public transport services are in safe and convenient proximity on foot to homes;(b) facilitating access to these key destinations and creating opportunities for everyone to be physically active by improving existing, and creating new, walking and cycling routes and networks;(c) increasing access to high-quality green infra-structure;(d) ensuring a supply of housing which is affordable to and meets the health, accessibility and well-being needs of people who live in the local planning authority's area.”Member's explanatory statement
This new Clause would create a requirement for local planning authorities to include policies in their development plans which contribute to a new general health and well-being objective. It requires local planning authorities and the Secretary of State to ensure consistency with this objective when deciding whether to grant planning permission or permission in principle and related approvals, such as reserved matters.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, on Monday we debated this amendment, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, who is unavoidably detained. The amendment proposes a duty to reduce health inequalities and improve well-being through the exercise of planning functions. I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for his response, in which he put his faith in the National Planning Policy Framework, but I do not think that this goes far enough. I wish to test the opinion of the House.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 13th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I am a non-smoker. I have never smoked. I have absolutely no intention of smoking. But I would point out to my noble friend on the Front Bench something on which I imagine he is well briefed. Local authorities already have the powers at their discretion to regulate smoking in licensed premises and on pavements outside pubs, bars and restaurants with exterior tables and seating. My noble friend who spoke earlier has been in local government, as have I. The powers are there already. In my judgment, it is for the local people to decide—not for some all-embracing Government above to dictate. There is no need for further central government legislation. The licence holder is already legally required to make sensible provision for seating where smoking is not permitted.

The noble Baroness who spoke earlier said, “Well it’s logical, if it’s banned internally then obviously you ban it externally”. May I suggest to the noble Baroness that external smoke is totally different? It dissipates far quicker outside than it does inside. Outside, it ends up becoming highly diluted and disappears into the atmosphere very quickly. Having said that, it is right that licence holders should remember to ask people to behave properly in the interests of those seating nearby, particularly children.

Frankly, this Bill should not be used as a back-door route to try to ban smoking in public places. We would be threatening pubs and cafés that, if they did not ban smoking outside their premises, they would be refused a licence. That would be thoroughly disproportionate.

As far as I know, my Government have no plan to ban outdoor smoking. It has rejected similar amendments in the past. Excessive regulation could even lead to some pub closures and job losses. This would be to no one’s benefit. Again, as a non-smoker, I find encouragement that the figures for people who smoke seem to go down every year. We should think back to what it was like in the 1970s. Would we have thought that the policies we have implemented would have achieved the current rate? Last year, 13.3% of the population were smoking; on the latest figures, this is down to 12.7%. So the reduction is there—it is happening—and certainly, to use this particular Bill to interfere with what local authorities want to do in their own area is, in my view, totally wrong.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I too support the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond. I am now caring for my mother and am a grandfather to very young grandchildren, so I have renewed my acquaintance with the problem, as he said, of seeking to go from A to B when there are so many obstacles in the way. His amendments go to the heart of the problem by recognising that pavements are for people to walk on.

I am also delighted to support the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and other noble Lords in their amendment. I disagree wholeheartedly with the noble Lord, Lord Naseby. First, I do think that the health gain from this measure would be considerable. We are behind the curve in reaching the smoke-free target. Secondly, I disagree with him about the dissipation of smoke. Anyone who has had to walk past pubs where people are smoking outside would say it does not dissipate quickly enough. Thirdly, I do not think it would harm the pub trade; I think it would enhance it because, frankly, going through a fog to get into a pub is not very attractive at all.

On a more general point, the noble Lord, Lord Young, made it clear that he saw this as a popular public measure. I totally agree. I was a member of the Cabinet committee which basically tore up our 2005 manifesto because it was not strong enough. The result of that very rare rebellion by a Cabinet committee led to the ban on smoking in public places. And it was proved right—it was very popular and very effective.

I also recall moving the amendment on banning smoking in cars where children are present. That was overwhelmingly popular. When it went back to the Commons, the Government agreed. So many of their own Back-Benchers supported it because they had had such a lot of strong messages.

I have no doubt whatever that this will be a very positive and popular measure. I hope that the noble Earl will be able to say something positive about it.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this may be the fourth occasion in the House on which I have debated pavement licensing. There is obviously a reason for that; we have not got the regulations quite right. As the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, raised in his amendment, there is a natural conflict between the use of the public highway as an extension of a licensed premises, restaurant or café, and the use of it by the public to get from A to B. I totally agree. At the very earliest iteration of these regulations about pavement licensing, both he and I proposed that barriers ought to be in place to restrict the use of the highway so there would be plenty of room for pedestrians and those in wheelchairs or pushing buggies to get through safely. I am still concerned that that regulation is not part of the licence for use of the public highway.

The second important issue is about smoke free. All I will say is this: it needs to be smoke free. This is a health issue. We need to take every opportunity we can to ensure that there are no opportunities for people who do not wish to inhale somebody else’s smoke to do so. I agree with all noble Lords—bar one—who have spoken on this issue.

Lastly, I will repeat the question that I have raised before. If we are permitting businesses to use the public highway, will the local authority that has to maintain the public highway have the right to require a rent for its use? This would enable continued good maintenance of pavements for people.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 23rd October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe (Con)]

The House will have heard the noble Baroness’s comments, but I draw the distinction between the roles of the two kinds of committee.

Incidentally, the amendment would open up the possibility of councils moving to an entirely remote model of council meetings—something that noble Lords perhaps should ask themselves whether they would favour. My noble friend will doubtless have noted that the Government’s majority in the other place when the amendment was put to the vote was very substantial.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, how far would the noble Earl take this principle in relation to public bodies? I am a member of the GMC. We meet half in person and half remotely. Many other national bodies, some in receipt of government funding and others independent like the GMC, operate in the same way. Would his department say that the principle he is enunciating should be extended throughout the public sector? If not, why not? I do not understand the logic of the Government’s position.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, we have been over this issue almost ad infinitum in Committee. We are not in Committee anymore; we are at Lords consideration of Commons amendments. I hope the noble Lord would agree that we are past the stage of arguing the niceties in the way he invites me to do.

Finally, in his Motion ZE1, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, seeks to insist on his original amendment. I can only reiterate the points in my opening that PCC powers would transfer to an elected mayor only after that individual has become democratically accountable at a local level. The example he sought to cite as a fait accompli is nothing of the kind, for the simple reason that there needs to be an election before the Mayor of the West Midlands could hope to become a PCC. If the transfer is to happen in the West Midlands, the mayor could exercise the PCC functions only if elected to do so at the next election, so there is no compromise of the democratic mandate of the elected mayor to exercise the functions. The choice of who would exercise the PCC functions in the West Midlands would remain in the hands of the people of the West Midlands if the transfer were to happen.

Commencement at Royal Assent enables the Government to adhere as closely as they can to the Gould principle of electoral management, whereby any changes to elections should aim to be made with at least six months’ notice. As the noble Lord knows, the Government wish these provisions to have legal effect in time for the local elections in May next year. His amendment would frustrate that policy intention. I hope he will forgive my pointing it out, but doubtless he will have noticed that the Government’s majority on this issue in the other place was very substantial: 153. I hope that on reflection he will be content to accept the assurances I have given and will not move his amendment in lieu.