Lord McKenzie of Luton
Main Page: Lord McKenzie of Luton (Labour - Life peer)Assets of Community Value (England) Regulations 2012
Lord McKenzie of Luton Excerpts
Lord True
My Lords, my noble friend anticipates one of the things that I was going to ask in relation to non-parished areas. I was not intending to intervene. I endorse what was said by my noble friend Lord Gardiner and other colleagues. I welcome the efforts that my noble friend Lady Hanham has made to reduce some of the worst threats, as some of us perceived them in the debates on the Localism Bill. The stripping down of the proposal to the essentials, at least in terms of those assets to which it might apply, is very welcome. None the less, declaring an interest as leader of a local authority, in some circumstances, local authorities could find themselves as piggy in the middle in operating this process with a community group on one side and the landowner on the other. We simply do not know how onerous these duties are going to be. Some local authorities find it hard to determine planning applications in eight weeks. There are figures of eight weeks and six weeks in here.
We are adjured to make further major savings in local government spending—we are debating this on the Local Government Finance Bill—to which I have no objection, but as we go forward I hope my noble friend will give a firm assurance that she will be careful of the burdens that are imposed on local authorities in administering the system because the paradox we are living with is that in the planning system we have had a massive simplification, in theory, of the planning system nationwide but on the other hand we are creating extraordinarily complex structures, such as some of those coming out of the Localism Act. In these quite complex regulations, we are having regulations to decomplicate them and take some of the other things out. This world will take a little time to settle down. I think we will all try to make it work. Localism is important, and we do want to protect assets of local importance, but I hope that my noble friend will resist the blandishments of the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, to tighten up even further the requirements on local authorities to respond.
One has to live with the art of the possible. Local authorities will, within the resources available, try to make this work, but in some circumstances, all the appeals systems, the registers and all the things that have to be done will take time and it may even require the recruiting of new local authority staff in some areas where this thing takes off. With that rider, I associate myself with the remarks of other noble Lords and thank my noble friend for the time and attention she has given to avoiding some of the potential abuses of the system as originally designed.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her very full explanation of these regulations. They relate to legislation that we support, as my noble friend Lady Thornton said, and we wish them to work effectively. A policy to assist local community groups and to preserve buildings or land of importance to their communities and social well-being is clearly important. It is of course not a right to buy, nor is there any obligation on the owner to sell.
As my noble friend and other noble Lords have said, this is a very complex piece of primary legislation, as are the regulations before us. It is to be hoped that that complexity will not deter engagement. There will inevitably be complexity around issues relating to land law and charity law. To a certain extent that is unavoidable, but I hope that some simplified guidance will come out. The noble Lord, Lord True, said it is quite difficult to gauge how onerous the duties on local authorities will be in practice.
A number of noble Lords posed a series of specific questions, and I await the Minister’s answers with some interest. In fact, I wanted to ask some questions myself. The first relates to the right to nominate. The regulations and the Explanatory Memorandum state that a neighbourhood forum is included among those who can nominate. Does that right extend to a neighbourhood forum that is designated as a business area?
Paragraph 7.14 of the Explanatory Memorandum refers to the powers relating to the fact that non-community nominations have not been used. Perhaps the Minister can remind us of what the intent of including such a possibility in the legislation was and why it is not being taken up.
I should also like to understand a little better the exemptions for disposals by one body corporate to another. Specifically, is a disposal of the shareholding of a group company into which an asset has been transferred a relevant disposal for the purpose of these provisions? Clearly if that was not the case, there is a gaping hole in the legislation.
A number of noble Lords touched upon compensation issues. It is clear that the claim for compensation is rightly limited to delay wholly caused by delay under the Act, but if there are joint causes for the delay, assuming that one can apportion the effect of those joint causes, is the part attributable to the delay caused by the Act still capable of compensation; or would the fact that there is another contributory factor, even if the value of it can be stripped out, deny that compensation?
I want also to make sure that I understood what happens as regards the difference between a freeholder and a leaseholder. As I understand it, if there is a freeholder and a leaseholder, the ownership of a lease that was originally granted for 25 years would be deemed to be that of the leaseholder, because one would look to have one owner for the purposes of the operation of these provisions. If that is right, what would be the position on the grant of a new 25-year lease at the point of expiry of the original lease? Would that be a disposal? How does that work under these provisions?
The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee recites the one-off and ongoing costs, and other noble Lords have referred to that. We have an assurance that those costs are going to be met by DCLG, at least during the course of this spending review. I do not know whether that means that it definitely will not under the new spending review or whether we simply have to wait and see what that review entails. I will be interested in the Minister’s answer on that point.
This is something that we want to see work and we are supportive of the Government in seeking that, but there are a number of technical issues here on which we need to be satisfied that we are not opening up easy routes out of the application of this legislation that the wise, or at least the well advised, will take every opportunity to use.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their interest in the regulations. I am particularly grateful for the kind remarks that have been made about them; the Localism Act is certainly one that I will recall for many years as one where we made as much difference in this House as was made anywhere.
There have been a number of quite technical questions, so let me see if I can deal with at least some of them. The costs of the referendums will be new burdens, so until 2015 they will be supported by the Government. The Government are committed to meeting the new burdens on local authorities, and have set aside up to £50 million to 2015 to meet those costs. It is right that we ensure that those referendums take place. I beg the Committee’s pardon, that is wrong; I shall start again.
Regarding my noble friend Lord Cathcart’s question about the use of “non-ancillary”, we talked about this quite a lot during the process of the Act. It has been decided that it is up to the local authority to determine whether the use of building land is non-ancillary. It is the local authority’s job to put these regulations into effect and to be the guiding light. The local authority knows its own area, its own people and its own tensions so we believe that it should do this, and of course first it has to establish whether the building or other land meets the definition of an asset of community value.
On his question about what is meant by “recent past”—here we go. This could be a very interesting and long discussion. Once again, this is something that we discussed during the process of the Act. How long is a piece of string? My definition of “recent past” would be reasonably short and my definition of “not recent past” quite lengthy. However, I am not defining this; local authorities once again are going to be in the position of defining it. Any normal logic would suggest that “recent” would not be 20 years or, probably, even 10 years, but further than that I will not go; I am not going to be committed in future to having said that it was five years, because I have not done so. I see the rationale behind what my noble friend was trying to adduce, but I do not think that we can give a definition of that. However, anyone who looks up “recent” in the dictionary will quickly get an answer to what “recent” is meant to be.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Will the Minister deal with the issue around intergroup transfers and the extent to which parcelling an asset in a company and selling the shares is caught as a relevant disposal?
Baroness Hanham
That is pretty technical. May I write to the noble Lord about it? It is more technical than I can deal with today.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I am very happy to have a letter, although I think that we touched on this during the passage of the Bill.