Localism Bill

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Shipley]

133ZA: Clause 69, page 58, line 27, leave out “may” and insert “should”

[Lord Shipley]

I shall also speak to Amendment 133ZB and I shall be very brief, because a number of the issues that I would have raised were raised earlier in amendments on this section. It is interesting that in this chapter, which has four pages, the Secretary of State is mentioned 19 times. It seems very odd that in a Bill about localism, the Secretary of State has to have 19 separate possible roles. My amendment is simply about how the timing and consideration of expressions of interest could be progressed. Put simply, relevant authorities would have to specify when these would be.

It seems to me that local government can be trusted to do more things for itself. Given that councils will have a power of general competence under this Bill, we might consider allowing them to prove that they are generally competent to do things for themselves and do not need the constant intervention of the Secretary of State in a whole range of ways which do not support the principle of localism. There is a key principle here: this is an example of where the powers of the Secretary of State could simply be written out of the Bill and local authorities could be given a responsibility for defining when expressions of interest could come in and when the authority would then consider them. As a consequence, the role of the Secretary of State and a considerable number of the 19 separate roles of the Secretary of State in this four-page chapter could be reduced.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I have two amendments in this group, Amendments 133ZC and 133ZE. They are all about the maximum and minimum periods by which local authorities have to deal with expressions of interest and the rules and regulations that the Secretary of State will be able to make in relation to those. I can only underline what my noble friend Lord Shipley has just said.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I agree with much of what my noble friend Lord Greaves has said. This is about the issue of competence. A power of general competence implies that people are able to do things because they are competent to do them, but for local authorities there is a separate meaning for “competence”, which is the ability to do it. Local authorities have the ability to do it; maybe some do not but many do. Those that do not will have to grow in the role to enable them to do so. However, a four-page chapter in which the words “Secretary of State” are mentioned 19 times should not be part and parcel of a Localism Bill. I hope that between now and Report that further thought will be given to this and that someone somewhere might attempt to remove some of these mentions of the Secretary of State so that the words appear only where they really need to. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 133ZA withdrawn.