Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral Combined Authority (Election of Mayor) Order 2016
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Lord Shipley
It is a very important issue, because there is a danger that the majority party will, in reality, be responsible for the appointment of the independent chair. We are seeking reassurance that, if the Nolan procedures are to be followed, they require an open procedure, not simply a council or the leaders in a combined authority making a decision on which member of the minority parties is to be appointed as independent chair.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
We did discuss this and agreed that that should be the case. It would make a mockery of the process if there was any appearance or evidence of bias of that kind. If it would be helpful, I will write to noble Lords from the Committee to outline the process and will place a copy in the Library.
The noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked me how Liverpool is conducting its consultation. It is on the regional combined authority website and is being promoted locally. It started on 24 June this year and the closing date is 5 August, so the noble Lord has time to respond.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, asked for examples of resources being made available, in this case to Tees Valley. I understand that Tees Valley Combined Authority’s single pot provides an assurance framework for £226 million of flexible Section 31 grant funding with a confirmed five-year profile. He made the point—as he often does—about local authorities having to make ever more efficiency savings and asked how they would have enough capacity to deliver some of the things being devolved down. It is envisaged that local growth will in many ways—particularly if you look at things like the devolution of health and social care—be a big saving to the public purse and ultimately help in local authorities’ budgets. However, these are all things that are being devolved down that local authorities would not have had previously. So I am very confident that local authorities will see themselves in a better, not a worse, position. He also asked about business rates and he is right: we are currently consulting on the future of business rates and we have made it clear that there will continue to be some form of top-up and tariff. However, I think that a date for decision is yet to be determined, but I shall let him know when it is. I am assuming that it will be by the end of this year.
The noble Lord, Lord Watts, asked what the Government are doing to ensure that the mayoral system is not open to corruption, which I think is a very good question in the context of some of the things that we have seen previously in local authorities. Not only will there be rigorous scrutiny arrangements—which never existed in the 1980s—as provided by the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act, but there will be requirements for transparency; that is, meetings in public, which again did not exist back in the 1980s and were not introduced in local authorities until relatively recently. Moreover, conduct requirements, which we did not have back in the day—things like declarations of interest—will apply to combined authorities. I hope that gives the noble Lord some comfort.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, asked about the PCC and fire functions. It is for local areas to propose where they think it would be efficient and effective for the mayor to take on PCC and fire functions. In terms of the new Prime Minister and her previous keenness for fire functions, I really do not know. I have been asked a lot about what the new Prime Minister thinks and I really do not know. I am sure all will be revealed in the next few days.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords and my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes for speaking to this amendment, which would allow local authorities to go beyond cost recovery. We currently work with the Town and Country Planning Act and the Local Government Act 2003, which places a duty on authorities, requiring them to ensure that, taking one year with another, any income derived from planning fees or fees from discretionary services does not exceed the cost of providing the service. However, what cost recovery means in practice in terms of fee levels and increases could vary widely. I am deeply concerned that this amendment, and another we will debate later, have no protections or safeguards to prevent local authorities setting excessive and unreasonable fees, leaving the potential for substantial increases in fees for applicants. My noble friend Lord Porter outlined some of the snags in this approach. Although noble Lords might argue about recovering costs, where is the protection for applicants so that they are not simply funding a highly inefficient service, as he said? Without safeguards for applicants, this amendment, and the one we will debate later, are flawed. There are real technical challenges with the amendments we are debating. That said, it has been interesting to hear noble Lords’ comments, so I shall go into further detail about some of the issues raised.
I appreciate the strength of feeling on this issue, particularly from my noble friend Lady Gardner. It is easy to be seduced into thinking that resource and performance challenges in planning departments can be resolved by localising fee setting. The arguments for and against local fee setting are more complex and nuanced than has been suggested. However, to give carte blanche to local authorities to recoup whatever their costs, whether or not they are efficient, cannot be right. This is why we want to test and learn from different approaches to fee setting to better understand how we can secure well-resourced and top-performing planning departments.
I shall set out why I am not convinced that allowing local planning authorities to set their own planning fee levels at this time is the answer to resourcing challenges. Local authorities have told us, supported by some evidence from the NAO, that there have been disproportionate cuts to planning services since 2010. Such local decisions suggest that additional income from local fee setting may not necessarily make its way into planning services, particularly against the backdrop of local government arguing for, and gaining, reductions in ring-fenced budgets and income. Local planning authorities are monopoly providers of planning services in their area, which does not provide much incentive to innovate, reduce costs and provide the most efficient and effective service. Local fee setting could compound this because it enables planning authorities to pass on their costs to applicants, despite any inefficiencies in their planning service. Fees could rise in a way that dissuades small or medium-sized developers from undertaking developments. Local authorities tell us that resource pressures are most acute in small development schemes, and fees for this type of development could rise proportionately the most significantly. While local authorities have transformed many of their services, they have been slower to transform their planning services. Those that have introduced new ways of delivering planning services have shown that performance can be improved and costs reduced.
We have set out three proposals for tackling resource pressures in planning departments. First, we have consulted on increasing national fees in line with inflation since the last fee increase in 2012 for those authorities that are performing well, with annual increases thereafter also linked to inflation and performance. We have also proposed testing the provision of greater flexibility in fee setting, on top of our proposals for national increases in fees linked to inflation, where local areas come forward with ambitious plans for reforms and improved performance. This could mean some limited, localised fee setting in a few areas or small additional increases in fees above inflation. This approach will allow us to test and better understand whether fee flexibility directly linked to service reform and performance can secure better planning services for communities and developers alike. We want to introduce pilots to test competition in the processing of planning applications. We think that the market might work best where service providers are free to set their own fees so we are minded, subject to consultation, to enable authorities in pilot areas to set their own fee levels.
Section 303 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 allows the Secretary of State to provide, in regulations, that local planning authorities can set their own level of fees up to cost recovery. We already have the powers to enable local fee setting, but handing local planning authorities a blank cheque in this way does not guarantee a better-resourced planning department or incentivise authorities to drive down their costs. This is why we want to test the approaches that we are developing to tackle resourcing pressures in local planning authorities.
I have already set out that there are legislative provisions that prevent authorities from going beyond cost recovery. Additionally, the Government’s guidance on handling public funds, entitled Managing Public Money, states that charges and fees, such as those for planning applications, should be set at cost recovery so that the Government do not profit at the expense of applicants. The proposed amendment also does not have any safeguards—for example, to prevent local planning authorities from profiting from fees set at excessive levels that could dissuade applicants, particularly smaller ones, from bringing forward development—or any requirement on authorities to consult on fee proposals. I feel very strongly that it is up to local authorities to determine how fees are used and that the income generated from planning fees remains with the council.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, before the Minister sits down, I just want to say that we will be returning to this issue next Monday, as the issue of pilots and testing is in a later set of amendments. There is one under my name to be debated then. Does the Minister accept that local planning authorities are not recovering their costs now and does she believe, in principle, that they should be entitled to do so?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, although there has been the ability for fees to go up in line with inflation, there is a general acceptance of the anecdotal evidence from local planning authorities that their costs are not being met, but we have to marry that up with performance and efficiency.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I know that we are going to come back to this next week but, before the noble Baroness sits down, can she confirm that, when we have all these reviews, she does not envisage a situation where we end up with the local authority being able to charge one set of fees for a planning application, while a lot more could be paid to another provider who could also do it but at a more expensive cost? I think that it would be totally wrong to allow there to be two levels of fees—you could have the council charging a fee but allow some other provider to do the same job for a larger fee.
Lord Shipley
Before the noble Lord sits down—that is actually the subject of the amendment that I shall be moving next Monday.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, what we are discussing at the moment are fees that go beyond cost recovery. I am talking about efficient and effective local planning—
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I am just giving a brief overview and shall now move on to the amendments. They were introductory remarks—scene-setting, if you like—and I shall now speak to Amendments 102C, 102D and 102E. I may have been a little premature in some of my remarks, but they were intended to be helpful; I am sorry if it is felt that I have been a little ahead of myself.
I am keen to touch on the merits of permission in principle and to set out the amendments that the Government are making today. However, I shall turn first to the amendments tabled and comments made by the noble Lords, Lord Beecham and Lord Kennedy, that would restrict the granting of permission in principle.
Although I understand why the noble Lords have returned with the amendments, I must set out why we cannot accept them. First, and most importantly, Amendment 102D would limit the granting of permission in principle to brownfield land, as my noble friend Lord Lansley said. During the passage of this Bill, the Government have been consistently clear that permission in principle is a measure that aims to strengthen the local plan-led system and ensure that development takes place on sites that people want to see built. The amendment therefore represents an unnecessary restriction on the Government’s desire to bring forward development where it is considered to be appropriate locally.
In Committee, I gave strong assurances that the choice about where to grant permission in principle would be a local one, guided by local policy and the NPPF. To put it very clearly, restricting the granting of permission in principle to brownfield sites would remove the ability for local authorities to grant permission in principle to other sites that they considered perfectly suitable for housing-led development, in line with local and national policy. The amendment would remove local discretion and severely limit the usefulness of the measure.
Secondly, Amendments 102C and 102E would limit the type of development suitable for a grant of permission in principle to “housing led” development. We have been consistently clear that we intend permission in principle to be limited to housing-led development and will specify this in secondary legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, referring to the DPRRC report, brought up a pertinent point and asked whether PIP could be granted for other uses. I have never sought to mislead the House, and I do not think that the noble Lord was suggesting that I was, but that we have been consistently clear that PIP is for housing-led development and that will continue to be the case under this Government. Clearly, we cannot hold future Governments to account, but we have made it clear that this is the Government’s intention. One of the DPRRC’s concerns was “What about future Governments?”, but this Government are absolutely clear that this will continue to be their intention.
Lord Shipley
Given what the Minister has just said about the measure being for housing-led development, does that mean that the Government are accepting Amendment 102C, which would simply insert the words “housing led”?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I am afraid it does not, because the amendments limit the type of development suitable for granting of permission in principle to housing-led. We intend it to be housing-led and will specify that in secondary legislation.
Lord Shipley
Can I be clear that the secondary legislation will be via the affirmative procedure rather than the negative procedure?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I can absolutely confirm that to the noble Lord.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I can confirm today that it is the Government’s intention to have housing-led development. As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, because the question of what “housing-led” might be is under consultation, I urge caution in placing such a definition in the Bill at this stage. We can put a suitable definition into secondary legislation.
I am well aware that there has been some misinformation about granting development involving fracking and other types of development for permission in principle. I hope that the government amendment tabled today that will prohibit granting permission in principle for development related to the,
“winning and working of materials”,
reassures noble Lords in that regard. With that, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Shipley
Will the Minister just clarify something? The forthcoming group of Government amendments do not mention the word “housing” at all. Have I read them correctly? We have been asked to wait to consider the next set of government amendments, but I do not think that they are relevant to this situation.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I hope that noble Lords will feel that they are relevant. With that, as I say, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford(8 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I think the noble Baroness will understand, reasonably, that as a Minister I cannot hold the will of future Governments to account at this Dispatch Box. I can set out only what this Government intend to do and I hope she will take it in good faith. I have confirmed that it will not be used to raise additional income.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and other noble Lords have asked what I am bringing back at Third Reading. If noble Lords look ahead to Amendment 64A, I will indicate my intention to return to the issue of one-for-one replacements at Third Reading. I will give more detail on that when we get to that amendment, if noble Lords will indulge me. I am sure we will debate it fully in due course.
A number of noble Lords have made the valid point that not enough houses have been built in this country. I do not think we will get into who it is attributable to this afternoon, but the fact stands: we have not built enough houses and we are now at a critical point. I think all noble Lords will support the intention of producing more houses of different tenures for this country’s residents to live in.
I turn to Amendment 61A, which would remove Clause 67 from the Bill. This clause will require councils to make a payment to the Secretary of State that represents an estimate of the market value of a local authority’s higher value houses that are expected to become vacant. Needless to say, it is a clause that is vital for us to deliver the policy. I have already explained to your Lordships’ House how the payments will work and I will not test your Lordships’ patience by repeating myself.
It is right that local authorities should sell their higher-value vacant housing so that value locked up in these properties can be released and used to fund right-to-buy discounts for housing association tenants and to fund the delivery of additional homes. The clause’s principles are clear and in line with commitments made in the Government’s manifesto. Should this amendment be accepted, I think the other place will be likely to overturn that decision. With this in mind, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, will feel free to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, before the Minister sits down, may I press her on the letter she issued just before 3 pm today? The letter is about high-value assets and therefore the sale of local authority homes. The statement does not say that those homes, in the form of that tenure, will be replaced one for one. It simply says:
“I am clear that we should be building at least one new affordable home for each dwelling that is sold”.
Because a starter home is defined earlier in the Bill as an affordable home, on the sale of a high-value council home that was for rent it could be replaced by a starter home for sale. That is the issue I tried to get at when I followed the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Porter. If I interpreted correctly what he said, he thought that local authorities were to be allowed to keep the money to build a one-for-one replacement. What the Minister is now saying in this letter, as I interpret it, is that starter homes are in fact being counted as an affordable home replacement for the high-value sale, which means that there is a loss to the social rented sector. I heard the Minister say that we will look at this further on Amendment 64A but I hope she understands that there is a major issue of principle here because a number of us in your Lordships’ House believe that we have to defend social housing for rent.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I hope I can reassure the noble Lord. The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, and I had a discussion about this and I hope he will be reassured when we get to Amendment 64A that we as a Government understand that there are different types of tenure required in different local authorities. The demographics and the need might change and we totally recognise this. That is what I intend to work towards for Third Reading, so I hope noble Lords are reassured by that.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)
My Lords, if Amendment 92HB is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 92J to 92M inclusive for reasons of pre-emption.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for his comments on Amendment 92HB. The Government have been clear from the beginning that they consider the qualifying documents capable of granting permission in principle to be limited to development plan documents, neighbourhood plans and brownfield registers. But I agree that it might provide more certainty and assurances to the industry and the key stakeholders to go further and specify these documents in the Bill in the way the noble Lord has proposed. I am happy to take the issue away and look at how we can draft an appropriate government amendment on Report that carefully sets out the documents that are capable of granting permission in principle. With these firm assurances, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
On Amendment 92M, it is extremely important that the wording in the definition of “qualifying document” in new Section 59A(2)(d) remains. This enables permission in principle to be granted for the particulars of the development set out in a site allocation. We currently intend that these prescribed particulars will be limited to use, location and amount of development, and a qualifying document must include that detail if the site is to benefit from the grant of a permission in principle. We are currently consulting on the matters that can be granted permission in principle and will be setting these out in secondary legislation. With those comments, I ask the noble Lord not to press this amendment.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I am grateful for the Minister’s reassurance on the matter and look forward to learning more when we get to Report. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, my name is attached to Amendment 80A, but I fully subscribe to the points that have been made so far about Amendment 80. A range of issues is involved and the Government would do well to think very carefully about that. I will come back to that in a moment.
On the assumption that HMRC has a role, Amendment 80A simply says that,
“an arms-length management organisation, tenant management organisation or local housing company wholly owned by its local authority which is managing social housing”
should also be counted in terms of being bodies which can receive information from HMRC. It is not clear in the Bill so far that that is the case. I suspect that is an oversight, but I look forward to the Minister’s confirmation that that indeed is the case.
There is, however, a broader issue about the role of HMRC. There is the role of third parties getting access to private information and the control of that. That has been very well put by noble Lords in this grouping so far. However, there is another one which I think has to be looked at very carefully. That is how the information flows from HMRC in the first place, the reason being that with tax returns, for example, it may be straightforward for many individuals but for some, perhaps self-employed people, it may not be, and people have to file tax returns months after the tax year, so there could be significant levels of fluctuation in people’s income.
We have heard all the arguments around this, of peaks and troughs during the year and so on. A lot of thought needs to be given to this issue about the security of data and the bureaucracy that is being created. We heard in the last group about reimbursement of costs to local authorities for the work they have to undertake. Of course, there are ways of getting round this—a number have been suggested. I hope the Minister will take very seriously the fact that we do not want to create an enormous bureaucratic structure to deal with this when there are simpler methods to achieve the objective.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, I am sure that all noble Lords will be pleased that this is a smaller group than those we debated earlier. It concerns the role of HMRC in relation to data sharing on income.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, asked if we had consulted with HMRC and the Information Commission. I can confirm that we have.
I will start by outlining the purpose of Clause 81. The power has been taken to enable data sharing between Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and local authorities if it is necessary to verify the income details provided by tenants. This could be achieved directly between HMRC and local authorities, or the Government could choose to set up a body to make the transfer of data simpler. Noble Lords have raised concerns about private companies using income from tenants for purposes other than verification. I can reassure noble Lords that there is no intention to share the details of tenants directly between Government and private companies.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
Can I check if I am yet again speaking to amendments that we have not got to? Amendment 82GAE is in this group. Would noble Lords like to discuss it or withdraw it?
Lord Shipley
Will the Minister be really clear about guidelines? This is about regulations and guidelines. I am now looking at the policy fact sheet, which the department published. It makes it clear that there is going to be a single set of regulations for these measures, that is, the phasing out of lifetime tenancies. However, the regulations will be subject to the affirmative not the negative procedure. Could the Minister confirm that fact? It then says that the regulations will be developed in discussion with local authorities and the regulations and provisions in the Bill will come into force early next year. That, therefore, is early 2017. It is therefore easy to share the guidelines that will be written because there is from now approximately 10 months for those guidelines to be shared.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
Would noble Lords like to hear it tonight or on Thursday? I am not going to waste any more time on this; I will finish my comments where I should have finished them and say to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, that when I have guidance, I will be happy to share it with him.
Lord Shipley
What I am trying to get at is that if the regulations have to come to your Lordships’ House under the affirmative procedure, will she explain the guidelines at that point rather than keeping them separate from the regulations?
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I am very pleased to have the movement that the Minister has announced. Perhaps I can make one further suggestion, because I am still not entirely clear what the timing of all this is, because, as I recall, last Thursday, the Minister said that we would not have further information about regulation on aspects of the Bill until after Royal Assent. To pursue the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, there is an issue about the Government’s plan to use the negative procedure, as opposed to the affirmative procedure, in secondary legislation. I draw the Minister’s attention to the two reports by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which had a lot to say on that. If the negative procedure is used and if the working group comes up with proposals which post-date Royal Assent, that makes it very difficult for the House to make any changes to the Bill. Therefore, accompanying the proposal to have a working group I hope that the Minister can now at least think with colleagues about how the strong criticisms of the committee about overuse of the negative procedure can be addressed.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I will bear the noble Lord’s point in mind. It has just come to me that I may have sent that list to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, last week, so it may be in his post pile today.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I said earlier that I wanted to comment on Amendment 81 when it had been spoken to. It is part of Clause 84, and therefore Clause 84 stand part is relevant. This is a very important issue. The noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, referred to pages seven, eight and nine of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s report. I do not seek to repeat what the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has said, but I hope that the Minister will have a clear reply because, as the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee says in paragraph 37:
“It could be viewed as a form of taxation because it enables the regulations to require local housing authorities to make payments to the Secretary of State in respect of ‘any estimated increase in rental income because of the regulations’”.
It goes on to say that the memorandum of explanation that it received,
“gives only the barest explanation or justification for this power; indeed, it seeks to dismiss this highly important provision as ‘quasi-technical’.… The intended meaning of that expression wholly eludes us, and the House may wish to ask the Minister for an explanation”.
We have asked for this. Given that this has been available since 5 February, clearly the Government have time now to respond through the Minister’s reply as to how they plan to deal with that matter.
In paragraph 38, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee says:
“The Henry VIII power in Clause 83(4) will be subject to the affirmative procedure. Otherwise, the negative procedure applies to regulations made under all the other powers in this group of clauses. The justification in the memorandum is that the negative procedure follows ‘a clear policy framework that has been set in Clause 78 and the related clauses of the primary legislation’….We strongly disagree with the suggestion that the clauses in question offer anything like a clear enough statement of discernible policy to justify the delegation, far less the negative procedure”.
I want it to be clearly understood by the Minister that this is a very serious matter. I hope and anticipate that she will be able to give a full explanation of why this clause has been worded in this way.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, before I turn to the amendments I want to outline the Government’s latest position on the policy for high-income social tenants, which I outlined in a letter late last week. I hope this will address some of the concerns from noble Lords, particularly those who have stated their opposition to the policy and the clauses in the Bill.
I recognise and share the concern about the level of detail that has been brought forward with regard to our policy for high-income social tenants. My priority over the past few weeks has been to finalise key aspects in order to give that detail. This is particularly important, as the greater part of the policy will be set out in secondary legislation. Although I do not have regulations to share with noble Lords today, I am able to set out a significant amount of detail about what will be included in those regulations.
I am clear that secondary legislation is necessary for this policy, as we need the ability to keep the policy under review and bring forward changes in future based on a thorough review of the effectiveness of the policy and its impact. I am sure that that will be supported.
It is fair to ask how the legislation will be used in the first place. Before I turn to that, I remind the Committee of the Government’s reasons for introducing the policy. The 2015 Budget set out that households in social housing on incomes of £30,000 or above nationally and £40,000 or above in London would be required to pay a higher amount of rent if their current rent was below the market value. It is simply not right that social tenants continue to benefit from lower rates of rent as their income rises when households in the private sector on comparable income levels do not have this luxury. Households in the private sector on those kinds of incomes would, in many cases, be expected to pay the market rent. This is fundamentally unfair when it is those same taxpayers who are contributing to the lower rents enjoyed by tenants on similar incomes in the social sector. The position cannot continue.
Many taxpayers will be surprised to learn that there are more than 40,000 households in the social sector on annual household incomes of over £50,000 a year who are continuing to benefit from taxpayer-funded lower rents. Of course, that figure is at the top end of the household income scale, and we recognise that there are far more social households in receipt of incomes between £30,000 and £40,000 a year. We have always recognised that we must not damage the incentive to keep and find work, as the noble Lord, Lord Foster, says, and I know this important aim will be shared by many in the Committee. Households earning above £30,000 should be able to contribute a little more towards their housing costs, and it is on that basis that we consulted in October 2015 on a proposal for a taper to ensure that rents would increase gradually above the proposed income thresholds.
There was a strong level of support for the proposed taper, with just under 90% of respondents to the question supporting the proposal. I am pleased to be able to confirm to the Committee that the Government will be introducing a taper, and we will use regulations to set out the design of the taper. There are a number of ways in which this could be done. For example, a taper set at 20% would mean an extra 20% in rent for every £1 earned above the income threshold. A taper set at 10% would mean an extra 10% in rent for every £1 earned above the threshold. Both examples would mean that, for households just above the starting income thresholds, the rent rise would be a few pounds each week, not the doubling of rental payments that has been a prominent accusation in recent weeks. I am sure the Government’s confirmation of the taper will provide some reassurance to members of those households who have been worried that rents will jump straight to market rental values.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I thank noble Lords for their words, particularly my noble friend, given that I have not been here for 11 of the past 13 years. This is a very complex Bill and how to proceed with or without some of the secondary legislation that goes with it is quite new territory for me. As the Bill is so necessarily complicated, I imagine that with it will go an awful lot of secondary legislation. I will definitely commit—I have already promised and I do not intend to break my promises—to the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, that that timetable will be with noble Lords in the next week or so. That is on the record now: the timetable of secondary legislation will be with noble Lords in the next week or so.
In defence of myself, in a sense, and certainly of officials, I make a plea to noble Lords to avail themselves of some of the technical briefings that are going on as the Bill proceeds. They are incredibly useful for getting some of the detail. I know most noble Lords here have attended the briefings, but please continue to do so.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, perhaps the Minister could tell me when the next set will be. I thought the technical briefings had come to an end. I attended at least three and, I have to say, they were profoundly unuseful for the very reason that we are aware of across your Lordships’ House: virtually no question we ask can be answered because nobody who is an official knows the answer to it.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I have asked for additional briefings to be provided over the next week or so, until we come to the Recess, and I will be attending them. They might help me; I certainly hope they will help noble Lords. It is very helpful for me to be there and to understand what sort of issues noble Lords are bringing up. I totally accept that I committed to giving that timeline, and it will be with noble Lords in the next week or so.
I have met each political group within your Lordships’ House; I hope that noble Lords have found that helpful. Some points that noble Lords bring up in debate definitely inform government thinking, because this House has more local government leaders and representatives in it—and experts on the Cross Benches—than the other place. Therefore, this House will be very helpful in informing the Government.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, in that sort of situation, I would imagine that the local authority has a number of options available to it, including the use of capital reserves, or indeed borrowing if it wished to. Alternatively, of course, private sector developers could build housing. A number of options are open to councils in bringing forward more houses within the local authority area, including the retention of a portion of the receipts in order to deliver new homes.
Lord Shipley
A moment ago, the Minister talked about vacant homes, and I really would like to be clear whether the Minister is talking about vacant homes or surplus homes. Is there a clear definition that we can have on the record of what a vacant home is and what a surplus home is?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, when I talked about vacant as opposed to surplus, we were talking about assets that were surplus in terms of government but vacant in terms of local authority homes. Vacant, in my mind, means empty, but there will be more detail later defining at what point a property becomes empty.
Lord Shipley
If a vacant home is a home which is empty, for how long does it have to be empty and can a local authority say that that empty home is actually required but just happens temporarily to be empty?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
That is precisely the point I am making. We will be defining what empty—that is, vacant—means in due course in the dreaded regulations.
The Government will be able to ensure that under these agreements local authorities will, as I have said, use the receipts efficiently to deliver as many new homes as possible. Where they have an agreement, we want local authorities to have discretion about how the new housing can meet the needs of their local community, rather than being constrained in primary legislation to replacing the housing they sell with homes of the same tenure. Just to help my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes, tenure refers to the type of housing, such as shared ownership. I know people use the word differently in different contexts.
I have just received an answer to the vacant homes point. A home is vacant when a tenancy granted by the local authority has come to an end, as defined in Clause 77.
Lord Shipley
So it is clear that a vacant home simply means that a tenancy has been given up and that, as a consequence, there is a vacancy. However, it may never be empty, because a tenant might move out and another tenant might move in the very same day. In that case, of course, it may well be that that vacant home is not a surplus home.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
When I used the term surplus, I meant surplus assets that government might seek to dispose of, and I gave the example of King’s Cross. For local authorities, vacant referred very much to housing.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, what is absolutely certain is that this is precisely what we will be consulting local authorities on. That is why both the conversations in your Lordships’ House and those with local authorities will be so important in making these determinations.
Lord Shipley
We are here on day five in Committee on the Bill and the Government are still part-way through a consultation. Would the Minister not agree with me that it would have been much better if the Government had acted sooner and had the information ready for consideration in Committee?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I can confirm that your Lordships’ frustration is equally felt by me.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, regarding whether the Chancellor benefits, my point is that this will be of benefit to tenants if their rents reduce. It will make a difference to a lot of tenants.
The noble Lord, Lord Horam, asked why we do not raise the local authority borrowing cap so that councils may borrow more. This was mentioned time and again during the consultation process leading up to the local government finance settlement. We listened to the authorities and £221 million of additional borrowing was allocated to 36 councils in England. That will support around 3,000 new affordable homes.
The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, asked whether right-to-acquire tenants would have the right to buy under the voluntary deal. Minimum eligibility has yet to be determined for the main voluntary right-to-buy scheme, but we are currently working closely with the NHF and housing associations on the implementation of the agreement. For the pilot, it has been set at a minimum of 10 years, as the noble Lord will know.
The noble Lord, Lord Tope, asked what “high value” will be set at, which is a very pertinent question. Will it be at market price? I am aware, as noble Lords have pointed out, that it is important for the legislation but has yet to be set. The definition will be informed by the data that I have talked about, which we are collecting from local authorities and the market value survey. Although we have had some information on house prices and local authority stock across the country, we felt it was important to update this information as it will be pivotal to establishing how much individual authorities will have to pay. As noble Lords will know, the definition of high value will be set out in regulations—I hear a groan going up across the House as I speak. We are currently giving careful consideration to the fairest and best way to set that definition. In doing so, to address the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, we will have regard to factors such as property size and geographic location. I genuinely welcome any further thoughts that noble Lords may have on this point.
The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, talked about investment in social housing being short term. We are doubling our investment in housing over this Parliament to more than £20 billion over the next five years. This is the largest housing programme by any Government since the 1970s. Under it, there will be 100,000 affordable homes to rent and 400,000 affordable homes.
The noble Lord, Lord Tope, talked about this as a levy, a tax that does not relate to the actual sale of high-value vacant stock. Local authorities prefer the use of a formula to determine payment to basing payments on actual sales. It will give local authorities greater certainty and predictability, which will help them better to manage their finances, and it will provide greater flexibility for them to choose what property they sell to make the payments.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, talked about his red line issue. This is part of our wider efforts to help anyone who works hard and wants to get on the property ladder to do so. I understand his concern over the links between the two policies, but it is important to remember that receipts from these sales will be used to fund the building of more homes by housing associations and local authorities, to increase overall housing supply all over the country, so that we reduce the regional imbalance of housing supply—an issue raised by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton.
Lord Shipley
I just want the Minister to understand the importance of this policy. Our red line is the compulsory or forced sale of high-value council homes when there is a need for them in the locality. That is the red line. The fact that part of the receipts might be used to build a replacement or support the purchase by the tenant of a housing association property is secondary to the issue of a local authority having the power to decide whether there is a need for that property. I hope that the Minister understands the importance of that.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I understand what the noble Lord says, and if there is particular need in an area for a specific type of housing, it is within the local authority’s gift to issue the money, as opposed to selling the property. The whole point is about increasing the housing stock across different tenures and different parts of the country.
Finally, to address a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, about stock transfer, the policy will affect the 165 councils that own housing and operate a housing revenue account—the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, helped here, and he is absolutely correct.
Affordable Housing
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Lord Shipley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their definition of affordable housing.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, our definition of affordable housing for planning purposes is set out in annexe 2 to the National Planning Policy Framework. We recently consulted on our proposals for specific changes to national planning policy, including broadening the definition of affordable housing, to expand the range of low-cost housing opportunities for those aspiring to own their new home.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply, but can she explain to the House why it is that the Government persist in defining homes, including starter homes, as affordable when they are clearly unaffordable to very large numbers of households on medium and low incomes?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, affordable homes are 20% below market values, and our new starter homes, as I have recently demonstrated in the Chamber, will cost about £145,000 outside London, so will be well within the affordability range for many first-time buyers, but there is a range of other products for people to purchase, should they wish, such as shared ownership schemes.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
For all the reasons I have outlined, because of the gap in the market. However, if people find it more difficult to move on, I would question whether long-term restrictions would benefit future occupiers. Allowing first-time buyers to benefit from a genuine discount will increase the vibrancy of the housing market, while the next generation of first-time buyers will benefit from new starter homes coming through the planning system in years to come.
Those homes will provide first-time buyers with the opportunity to move up as their family grows—as the noble Baroness said—or their circumstances change. We are consulting on the five-year restriction for affirmative regulations shortly, and will consider all responses carefully.
Our proposals would prevent starter homes being sold on the open market at full market value for a period of five years after they were first purchased by a first-time buyer. We believe this is important to ensure that starter homes are sold to those who are genuinely committed to living in an area and not to those who would simply wish to sell to secure financial uplift. We want to be clear that a starter home could be sold during the first five years of occupation—that point relates to the question of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie—but it could be sold on only at 80% of market value to a qualifying first-time buyer. Therefore no money moves anywhere during this period. After that time, the property may be sold at full market value. This proposal will be set out in affirmative regulations following consultation.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, could the Minister please explain who would be responsible for assessing market value?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, as I said this morning, we would expect an independent valuation to take place. That would be the fairest way to do things. A number of noble Lords have mentioned that this afternoon.
Our consultation will provide the best opportunity to test our proposals with the sector, including developers and lenders. We need to wait for the outcome to ensure that post-sale restrictions can work well in practice. Introducing tapered discounts over such a long period is complicated and including them in the Bill would limit the flexibility to make adjustments to the way they work in practice if necessary.
On Amendment 40, I assure noble Lords that it is not our intention to allow those people who buy a starter home to become buy-to-let landlords. We will ensure that letting restrictions are included in our regulations. The aim is to provide a place to live in, not a place for absentee landlords to profit from.
Unfortunately, restrictions to any legislation will not prevent gaming at the local level, but I assure noble Lords that we are working with builders, lenders and local government on the best possible mechanism. We will consult on the details for the regulations in a technical consultation to be published shortly.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
No, my Lords, I was simply giving an example of a couple who work and who are on the average wage. Every single case is different; I was simply giving an average scenario. We can make all sorts of different assumptions—for example, about a scenario where one person works in the household and they earn £50,000, and so on—but I was simply giving the example of an average working couple.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, this might help the Minister. I think it is the case that the Government’s figures on what is a median income, and therefore the affordability of a starter home, are different from the figures given by a number of the other agencies—for example, Shelter—that are giving evidence to those engaged in this debate. It would be very helpful if the Minister could, before Report, write to noble Lords who have been engaged in this debate with a clear explanation of the figures which the Government are using to sustain their case.
Housing: Affordable Housing
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Shipley
Before the Minister sits down, can I thank her for her reply? I hope that two things will be explained in writing. The first relates to the figures quoted from the National Housing Federation, the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, Savills and Shelter. I believe those figures to be true. If the Government have had discussions with any of those organisations, or feel that other figures are correct, it would really help the Committee to know exactly the Government’s view of them. At the moment, I think all those figures are correct. If they have had discussions, could we know about them?
Secondly, will the Minister respond specifically on the issue of high-value council properties? I understand that there will be, either through regulation or perhaps in the Bill, some clarification about what “high value” actually means. I draw it to her attention that, by their very nature, larger homes tend to have a higher value and that larger homes are appropriate for larger families. Of course we understand that they will be sold only when not occupied, but if we end up with four-bedroom —or even more—properties being sold, it will help nobody.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Lord makes a good point. We would not want to get rid of all the four and five-bedroom high-value assets in an authority—meaning there would be no houses of that kind—so we have definitely thought about that. As for our discussions with Savills and others, I am certainly happy to write to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate and place a copy of the letter in the Library.
Housing: New Build
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My noble friend raises the important issue for the housing industry of both brickies and bricks. The Government have been very mindful of that: the DCLG and BIS are working with the Construction Leadership Council to review what skills the industry needs. The research that my noble friend mentions shows that more than 100,000 new jobs were created in England in the past year. We want to go further than that and encourage people who want to go into the industry to be able to do so, in line with our other ambition of creating 3 million apprentices by 2020.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that, on the Government’s own estimate, household formation is increasing by 200,000 every year, and that 137,000 starts in 2015 do not even meet that requirement, never mind dealing with the current housing crisis, which will require around 300,000 homes to be built over the next few years? Does she regard 137,000 starts as a good start in meeting the Government’s objective of 1 million new homes in this Parliament?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I do regard it as a good start. As the noble Lord says, we are committed to 1 million new homes by 2021. That is why the Government have put in such a huge amount of money and doubled the budget for housebuilding over this Parliament to £20 billion, which will include all types of tenure and build.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
Amendments C1 and 8ZA relate to the same issue, so I shall address them together. Amendment C1 would remove Clause 13(3) from the Bill and replace it with a provision listing the offences that constitute banning order offences, namely,
“unlawful eviction of a tenant; or … failure to comply with an improvement notice in relation to property conditions”,
and would require that regulations to amend the list be subject to affirmative resolutions.
Amendment 8ZA would amend Clause 22, and would require financial penalty guidance to be laid in draft before Parliament, and not brought into force without an affirmative procedure resolution of each House.
We propose to define banning order offences in secondary legislation, as this will give us the flexibility to amend the list of banning order offences in the light of experience, as my noble friend Lord Deben said. As he has also requested in terms of certainty, we are sympathetic to that and we will consider it further.
Clause 13(4) explains what matters may be taken into consideration when setting out in regulations what are banning order offences. Banning order offences are likely to include a serious offence, where an offender has been convicted in the Crown Court of an offence involving fraud, drugs, sexual assault or violence that is committed in, or in relation to, a property that is owned or managed by the offender, or which involves, or was perpetrated against, persons occupying such a property. A banning order offence also includes any serious offence involving violence against the tenant by the landlord or property agent, and serious breaches of housing legislation.
We are planning to publish the secondary regulations in draft and will consult on these in the autumn before they are laid before the House. These will all be existing offences that already have serious consequences for those who are convicted. We are introducing civil penalties as an alternative to prosecution, and these will be available for certain serious breaches of housing legislation. The guidance for local authorities will be procedural and will provide advice on when it may be appropriate to issue a civil penalty rather than prosecute, together with advice on what might be the appropriate level of penalties.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, asked about the right of appeal for civil penalties. The landlord will have a right to appeal against a civil penalty to a First-tier Tribunal and can either cancel or decrease the penalty. Several noble Lords have brought up the DPRRC and its recommendations on the delegated powers in the Bill, including those highlighted in these amendments. I can confirm to noble Lords that we will consider the committee’s recommendations and respond in Committee if possible, but certainly before Report. I hope that, with those comments, the noble Lord will feel content to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Shipley (LD)
Before the Minister sits down, can I confirm my understanding of what she has said about secondary legislation? There was a request earlier that a draft of the secondary legislation should be made available to this House before Report. Yet I understood the Minister to say that there would be a draft of the secondary legislation in the autumn, which is clearly not before the Report stage. This is an extremely important matter, so can the Minister confirm exactly what the Government plan to do?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I thank the noble Lord for seeking that clarification. I said that we were planning to publish the regulations and consult on them in the autumn. If I can get any detail on them before then, I shall do so.
Local Government Finance
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I think that that will be in place for 2019 and it will be based on wide consultation with local authorities.
The noble Lord also asked why the council tax freeze grant was going. For many local authorities, the council tax freeze grant was a mixed blessing, because, while councils received it, it would also put their baseline down the following year. So many local authorities are pleased in many ways not to be dealing with the freeze grant but having far more control of their own destinies.
The noble Lord asked also about the Independent Living Fund. That will continue to be a separate grant made available to local authorities.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement. I should declare that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I welcome the four years of the settlement period. The decision by the Secretary of State to extend the consultation to October is the right one. Will the Minister confirm that underlying that four-year settlement is an expectation by the Government that council tax will rise by up to 4% a year, each year, for the period of this settlement? Secondly, in issuing a Statement of this kind, I wonder whether greater care might be taken with words. It says that a four-year settlement is better for generating efficiency savings, but it is not just about efficiency savings. There is rising demand and there are rising costs, of which the living wage is one.
On the extra £3.5 billion that is going to be available for social care by 2019-20, £1.5 billion of that will be from the better care fund. What more can be said about how the better care fund is going to be distributed and, indeed, whether it could be distributed starting earlier? The point is that some councils are under exceedingly great pressure on the matter and need to have support earlier—and we need to ensure that the distribution reflects that need.
We welcome the extra help that is being given to rural areas. Will the Minister confirm that that is real, extra money for the whole of the settlement period and will not in the future be simply a transfer from other parts of local government, particularly the urban areas?
Finally, on the issue of business rates, as we move to 100% retention, there is an issue about those places less able to raise money from business rates because they grow more slowly than others. It is good that there is going to be a two-year transition period, but what is going to happen after that? I hope that the consultation that was announced in the other place a little while ago is going to be a genuine one that will end up with a revision of the formula for central government support. The Statement reminds us that all local government spending is going to be,
“funded by local resources, not central grant”,
and says that there will be a consultation to determine the transition to 100% business rates retention. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, talked about this. The implication is that the transition is going to be a great deal longer than two years. Will the Minister comment on that?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I thank the noble Lord for raising some important points. His first question was about the four-year settlement and whether there was an assumption of council tax rises. We are not making any assumptions about what councils might want to do; in those figures we are making an assumption of CPI plus 2%.
The noble Lord asked about the better care fund and how it might be distributed. It is intended to benefit most those with the lowest tax bases, so that it is fairly distributed and helps the places most dependent on central government grant. The better care fund is distributed to take into account additional income that could be raised through council tax.
Did the noble Lord have another question?
Lord Shipley
It was about business rates and the two-year transition and how the consultation will be done to reflect needs.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The Government are quite clear that the consultation will be done to reflect needs. The transitional fund is designed entirely to meet some of the pressures of getting through the period to 2018-19 that councils were talking to us about.
Flooding: Relief Effort
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
Boom, boom, my Lords. He acts as a co-ordinator of what is being done and if anything in addition needs to be done in supporting those areas in managing the relief operation.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, there is a suggestion that the Government are now considering applying to the EU Solidarity Fund after all. Would the Minister agree that it would make sense to do so, since there would be a net financial gain to the United Kingdom?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, we are considering all forms of support, not at all ruling out using the EU Solidarity Fund, but in considering whether to use that fund, it is important to note how long it would take for the funding to be received and what ultimate cost/benefit it would bring, given that it would not actually bring additional funding.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I think I had better quickly break up the fight. When is the right time to have the debate on the franchise? It is most certainly not in a devolution Bill, in the House of Lords, when the House of Commons has voted decisively, on two occasions, to overturn this amendment. As for any arguments in addition to those I have already made, I have nothing much to add other than to back up the points that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, made at the previous stage of the Bill. The Electoral Commission has also voiced concern about this amendment. Other than that, I have nothing further to add. It is not the time, it is not the Bill and we are not the House to be deciding this.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I am very grateful for the contributions that we have had from a number of Members of the House. They have at least helped to inform our thinking. I listened very carefully to the Minister’s reply, which has not added much at all. I conclude two things. First, there was no indication in that reply that the confirmation by the Minister in the other place, James Wharton, in November, that it was undeniable that there is a debate to be had on the issue, will be acted on by the Government. I think that it should be.
Secondly, this House supported the lowering of the voting age when it last considered the matter as part of this Bill. I think it is for the House to decide whether it wishes to press the matter further. I hope that it will. It is very important that we should engage young people with the democratic process at an earlier age than 18, and I therefore beg leave to test the opinion of the House.
Local Government Finance
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement and declare my vice-presidency of the Local Government Association. One figure missing from the Minister’s Statement was the reduction by 24% of central government funding support for local government over the spending review period. When taking into account the forecasts of income raised locally by councils, the overall position is a 6.7% real terms reduction over those four years. However, that is of course a national figure and will be very different in individual authorities.
I remind the Minister that during the last Government, the National Audit Office consistently warned that the department needed to understand much better the impact of its decisions on local authority finances and services. The Public Accounts Committee, in a report two years ago entitled Financial Sustainability of Local Authorities, identified that while the department collected a significant amount of data from local government, it had not made clear how it would monitor councils’ ability to cope with funding changes. Then, in November last year, the head of the National Audit Office warned:
“The Department really needs to be better informed about the situation on the ground among local authorities across England, in a much more active way, in order to head off serious problems before they happen”.
Can the Minister say what the Government have done in response to the criticisms of both the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee?
Much has been made of the extra 2% on council tax to help maintain adult care services, and there has been an admission that different councils will raise different sums of money from that 2%. In London, for example, Newham will only be able to raise 4.1% of extra funding whereas Kingston upon Thames will have 11.3% extra. What has been done to equalise the cash available in the central allocation of grant to reflect this? I note that in the Statement, the Minister said there will be an allocation of £1.5 billion to complement the new precept and then went on to say,
“that is, more goes to councils that raise least from the precept”.
So far, so good, but does that mean that enough is going to those councils? Simply telling us that more is going to go to them is not sufficient. Will the Minister bear in mind that the total sum being made available falls well short of the £6 billion the Health Foundation estimated will be needed by 2020?
Much is being made of the fact that by the end of this Parliament, local government will keep all the revenue from business rates. I understand that there will be guarantees of continued comparable funding at current levels, but any growth will stay locally. One consequence of that is that poorer areas are likely to get poorer while richer areas, because they can keep an increase in business rates income, are likely to get richer. What is the Government’s policy on equalisation, given that there will be no more revenue support grant?
Finally, earlier this week we heard that inspection figures indicate that the number of children’s services departments rated inadequate outnumber those rated good. This was described by the Government as a failure of state provision, but the implication was that it was all the fault of local government. We have reached a tipping point whereby the availability of money matters, and the Government have an absolute obligation to meet National Audit Office criticisms of their lack of understanding of the consequences of their actions. Government cannot go on requiring councils to deliver more services to more people with less real cash. It is an impossible task; will the Minister care to admit it?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I thank both noble Lords. I have been busily jotting down notes and will try to respond to them as effectively as I can.
First, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for his gladness at seeing some certainty in the funding over the next few years. Perhaps I may address some of his concerns, particularly about the efficiencies that local government has had to make since 2010 and going forward. Nobody could deny that the efficiencies the public sector has had to make have been, by their nature, very difficult. Everybody in the public sector has had to bear the brunt of the need to reduce the deficit, and I commend local authorities for the work they have done over the last five years. They have been innovative and enterprising, and satisfaction with local authorities has been either maintained or improved.
The noble Lords, Lord Beecham and Lord Shipley, are absolutely right about the revenue support grant. It will reduce to virtually nothing by 2020 and the figure for this year shows a reduction, because of the increasing localisation of business rates. Local authorities now retain approximately 50% of their business rates and they will retain 100% by 2020. Mayoral areas will be able to increase their business rates in due course.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, talked about social care. A precept can be raised for social care which will be 2% above the 2% cap that triggers a referendum on council tax. The noble Lord may be interested to know that for Newcastle, this would mean £20.7 million by 2020.
The noble Lord also mentioned the comments of my noble friend Lord Porter. I am sure that in due course my noble friend will want to speak for himself. However, today he said:
“The government has listened to what councils said we need and has delivered. More independence to serve our communities, a fair financial settlement for all types of councils, more resources to help care for the elderly and the certainty of long-term budgets”.
That is really welcome and I wish that it had been in place when I was a leader. My noble friend went on to say:
“This settlement should mark the beginning of a new age of independence and responsibility for local councils. In local government we will make a success of it, building on the hard work of the last five years.
Councils will be in greater control of their own destiny. It is an exciting time to be a councillor and this reform gives us … the biggest chance for a generation to serve our residents in a way that we know best”.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, also asked about attendance allowance. We will be consulting on the devolution of that.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, talked about the concerns of the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee. Within local authorities there is a Section 151 officer who, every year during the budget process, comments on the sustainability or otherwise of a council’s budget. We believe that local authorities and local areas are best placed to know the dangers or otherwise of their future funding and, to my knowledge, no Section 151 officer has made an adverse statement on sustainability.
The noble Lord also asked about the £1.52 billion to complement the precept. The local authorities that are least able to raise the funding will be protected by a greater proportion of that £1.52 billion. I think that recognises, fairly, that those local authorities still have to provide social care. Local authority leaders have said to us that they need £2.9 billion. We will be providing £3.5 billion over the next few years, so I hope that gives the noble Lord some satisfaction.
The noble Lord also talked about poorer areas being likely to get poorer because of the RSG reducing to nothing by 2020. There will definitely be some form of equalisation. Councils such as Westminster raise well over £1 billion in business rates and other local authorities may see reductions. For the latter there will also be some sort of floor protection through business rate equalisation.
Devolution: England
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, in terms of accountability with government, clear expectations will be laid out in the agreement between combined authority areas that have devolutionary agreements and the Government. This Government have absolutely no intention of revisiting the assembly model. It was made very clear in Greater Manchester that when it agreed to have a mayor, it did not want another layer of government but an eleventh leader.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, could I remind the Minister of the very low turnout for the police and crime commissioner elections? That resulted in part from very poor public engagement with those elections. Does she fear, like I do, that there will be a similar problem of a lack of consultation and engagement with the electorate when it comes to elected mayors and that there may be a similarly very low turnout, which would not help the new structure?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I refer noble Lords back to the process in London. When we first had an elected mayor in London there was scepticism, to say the least, about how effective the London mayor might be and how popular it might be as a concept. Fast-forward some years from that process, and we find that people are fighting to get that nomination and it has become one of the most sought-after positions in the country.
Northern Powerhouse
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford(8 years, 12 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I am getting quite fond of the right reverend Prelate calling me “the noble Lord the Minister” and I take no offence whatever. He is absolutely right, and he has brought up the point about rural communities before. Of course, in many areas where we see devolution, we see rural communities. Most authorities—in Greater Manchester, for example—have rural areas such as Rochdale, Oldham, Stockport and even Trafford, so rural communities are very important. He is absolutely right to point out that they should not be left behind, and, with some of the strengthened powers that central government has given them, they should be able to achieve this.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, a recent BBC-commissioned survey showed that two-thirds of people in the north had either not heard of the northern powerhouse or knew nothing about it. Given the deep cuts to local council budgets expected tomorrow, does the Minister agree that it has become essential to produce a strategic investment plan for the northern powerhouse area in order to give the public confidence that the northern powerhouse is a reality?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, they might not have heard of the northern powerhouse but—as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves—they certainly will have felt the effects of it. In Yorkshire, for example, more jobs have been created than in the whole of France put together. As I also said to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, there has been, in the north-west, the highest employment growth, and in the north-east, the highest rate of business start-ups. Whether people label that as the northern powerhouse, or just say that life feels a bit better, they should certainly feel the benefits. In terms of a strategy, we have a simple one: to enable areas of the north to maximise their economic potential.
Northern Powerhouse: Lancashire
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I thank the right reverend Prelate and totally concur with his views about rural as well as urban being served by devolution and the northern powerhouse. Of course, there is the Cornwall deal, which is almost predominantly rural. However, I would not like noble Lords to forget about Greater Manchester—I am looking at the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, who has significant rural areas where he comes from—and Rochdale and Oldham. There are significant rural areas in Greater Manchester and that deal has now been done to their satisfaction
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, is the Government’s rail investment priority in the north of England HS2, HS3 between Manchester and Leeds or the electrification of the trans-Pennine route; or do they intend to do all these at the same time?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I do not think it would be logistically possible to do them all at the same time, given the passage of the hybrid Bills through the House of Commons. However, the Government, and certainly the localities the noble Lord speaks about, would say that they are all important and complement each other, and that local, regional and national transport—in terms of HS2—all add to their economic strength. To take a very local example, the investment in the Metrolink from Wythenshawe to Manchester Airport has opened up a whole new jobs market in an area of high employment need.
Right to Buy: Housing Associations
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, councils should effectively and efficiently use their resources. Where there is an increased need for housing across the country, it makes no sense for a local authority to keep high-value, vacant council houses when it could sell them to fund the building of new homes that will reflect its local housing need and increase overall housing supply. We want to work with both local authorities and local associations to ensure this one-for-one additional housing.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Answer. I am still unclear whether there is to be a requirement on local authorities to sell off their best housing to help pay for this policy. Will sheltered housing, which is protected under the right to buy for local authority sales, be treated similarly in the context of housing association right to buy? What is the Government’s target for net new homes for rent as a consequence of this policy?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, as I just said, where there is a need for housing across the country, it makes no sense at all for local authorities to keep hold of their high-value, vacant council houses. Selling such properties will mean more money to fund the building of new homes. That will better meet their local needs and some of the money will go to support housing association tenants to buy their own property. This is part of our wider effort to help anyone who works hard and wants to get on the property ladder to achieve their dream. We are legislating to require local housing authorities, as the noble Lord said, to pay the Secretary of State a sum in line with the anticipated receipt from the sale of high-value council housing, and councils will be able to retain some of the sale funds to support new housebuilding locally to increase the overall housing numbers in their area. We will announce more detail in due course, obviously through the housing Bill. In terms of our aspiration on affordable housing, our aim is to deliver—
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I am sorry. On sheltered housing, all the exemptions that apply currently will continue to do so.
Retail Sector: High Street
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford(9 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, the Government are providing real incentives for councils to support enterprise and economic growth. We have introduced the local retention of business rates, allowing councils to keep half the revenue from business rates. In this year alone, 362 authorities will retain an extra £544 million in business rates, and local authorities are protected against significant declines in business rate income through a safety net that guarantees income at 92.5% of baseline funding.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, business rates have risen by some 20% since 2010, at a time when the Government have held down other forms of taxation. Does the Minister agree that that is a very high increase? Given that the Government initiated in March a consultation on the reform of business rates and that consultation closed in June, will she confirm that they are still committed to the reform of business rates within the timescale for announcement in Budget 2016 that they set out a number of weeks ago?
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, we have a number of amendments in this group. During the debates on this Bill, we have tried from these Benches to emphasise the importance of legitimacy and accountability in this new tier of government. By legitimacy, I mean, first, a direct connection with the ballot box in the new structure and, secondly, the prevention of one-party states in which the same political party has control of the post of elected mayor, the nominated combined authority and the nominated overview and scrutiny committee. In Committee, we proposed direct election to the combined authorities, so that the mayor was not the only elected post, but this did not find favour. Now we have a group of amendments that concerns overview and scrutiny committees, which are very important—more important than they might have been, had some of the amendments that we debated in Committee been agreed.
I am pleased that, following our debate in Committee, further, more detailed proposals have come forward from the Government. Some are welcome but some do not go far enough. Let me explain what I hope the Government will do. Our amendments would require the chair of an overview and scrutiny committee to be from a different political party from the mayor; that assumes that the mayor is a member of a political party. If that is not the case, the chair could be from any political party. An independent chair could work—we said that previously—but it would be better to have an opposition councillor who has been duly elected to their post as a councillor from within the combined authority area, not least because if one appoints an independent person it immediately raises the question of who appoints that independent person. To put it another way: how is independence guaranteed? The make-up of the overview and scrutiny committee also needs to reflect the number of seats held by each party in those local authorities making up the combined authority. Later, we have proposals on the electoral system that should be used so that the first past the post system does not encourage the development of a one-party state.
Our other amendments would also allow the committee to call in decisions made by the mayor and delay them—not for long—to allow further consideration when it is felt to be necessary. To do its job properly, an overview and scrutiny committee needs the power to call for information and to receive it. It will not be enough if the overview and scrutiny committees exist but are then prevented doing their job by a combined authority that prefers to keep things out of public scrutiny.
Amendments 35 and 37, which we support, would enable the overview and scrutiny committee to examine decisions before they are taken, rather than wait for a decision to be made; that is welcome. Amendment 34A, which I signed up to, would create an audit committee with an independent chair. I welcome that proposal as well. It is essential in this case that the chair is independent and appropriately qualified to do the job. In practice, it should cover the functions of a public accounts committee, an efficiency committee and a risk committee. This matters because the savings that could be achieved by public service reform and reducing duplication at a local level have been well established, but we now need to ensure that it all happens. The audit committee would be of significant help in delivering that objective.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, made mention of Amendment 41, and I will do likewise, with two questions for the Minister on that amendment. First, proposed new sub-paragraph (4A) states:
“An overview and scrutiny committee must publish details of how it proposes to exercise its powers in relation to the review and scrutiny of decisions made but not yet implemented”.
If the implementation period is very short, what power would an overview and scrutiny committee have under this measure to hold up a decision for further consideration? Secondly, and this is the point that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, raised when talking about proposed new sub-paragraph (4B), what is the objective in requiring an overview and scrutiny committee to,
“obtain the consent of the combined authority to the proposals and arrangements”?
I can see that there could be a situation in which the overview and scrutiny committee misses something, which would need to be put right by the combined authority. However, I certainly hope that this measure would not be used by members of a combined authority who do not wish to see the overview and scrutiny function work effectively. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments on that.
Finally, all our proposed amendments have a common purpose in wanting to ensure proper accountability for the devolution that is about to occur. I hope the Minister will agree that they should be included in the Bill.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Williams of Trafford)
My Lords, all these amendments are about overview and scrutiny and the accountability of combined authorities. Making overview and scrutiny as strong and effective as possible is a priority for us. I was pleased in Committee by how clear it was that this is a shared priority across this House. The government amendments reflect the discussions I had with noble Lords from across the House, and I am grateful to them all for the expertise and experience that they brought to the discussions. Effective scrutiny not only ensures better decision-taking by those exercising new devolved powers but can be the safeguard against one-party states developing, and so prevent the loss of public confidence in the process of devolution.
Before discussing the various substantive issues on overview and scrutiny that have been raised, I turn first to government Amendment 81, which provides that any orders made under the powers in the new Schedule 5A to the 2009 Act will be subject to the affirmative parliamentary procedure, rather than negative. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee recommended this, and we accept the recommendation.
Before turning to the detail of scrutiny arrangements, I shall address Amendment 34A, which would require the combined authority to appoint an audit committee and for that audit committee to have an independent chair. In the case of local authorities, and indeed in the case of such existing combined authorities as the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, the audit committee is appointed by the authority. Audit committees usually comprise senior non-executive members of the authority and, where this is the local choice, may also include one or more independent members. We recognise the importance of audit committees. The role of that committee in any authority includes supporting the authority’s chief financial officer, the Section 151 officer. It is an integral part of the financial controls and internal checks of the organisation.
Without this amendment, the approach would be to allow combined authorities to appoint, as they see fit, audit committees drawn from the membership of the authority and, where they consider appropriate, include independent members. I am sure that none of us wants unnecessary prescription. However, I can see the case for a combined authority, given its particular structure, which may or may not include a mayor, to be required to have an audit committee appointed by the authority. I can also see the case that it might be appropriate for such a committee to have one or more independent members. I am not persuaded that it would be right to prescribe in every circumstance that the chair of the committee should be an independent member. Accordingly, I am prepared to consider the issue further for Third Reading, have discussions with noble Lords and, if appropriate, return with an amendment on this at Third Reading.
I will return at the end to questions asked by noble Lords. Turning now to the substantive issues, I first address the question of call-in. Government Amendments 38, 41 and 49 and Amendments 39 and 40 relate to this. The government amendments aim to strengthen the power of call-in for overview and scrutiny committees of combined authorities. With these amendments, combined authorities and their overview and scrutiny committees will be able to set up and operate effective and proportionate call-in arrangements. These come into play when there is a real need, but equally they cannot become a mechanism for delaying or for impeding the efficient conduct of business. Crucially, the call-in arrangements in any authority will be a local matter for the authority and its scrutiny committees to decide and agree.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, for his comments; I certainly will go away and think about them. In making these amendments, we hoped that they would deliver the intention that both he and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, sought to achieve. No matter how the legislation is done, we could all point to examples where it is not quite perfect, no matter how good the intention and no matter how tight the legislation is—though I take the noble Lord’s point.
I turn, finally, to opposition Amendment 43, which seeks to give greater statutory force to the guidance about overview and scrutiny that may be issued under paragraph 2(9) of new Schedule 5A. As the Bill stands, that guidance is already statutory guidance in the sense that due regard must be given to it. I do not think that further statutory requirements about guidance would be right. As the House will appreciate, if the Secretary of State draws up any such guidance, he would of course want to seek the views of those who are expert in the field of overview and scrutiny.
I turn to some specific points and, first, to the point made by the noble Lords, Lord McKenzie of Luton and Lord Shipley, on why a combined authority should agree to the overview and scrutiny arrangements. It is important that scrutiny arrangements are agreed by the combined authority—though it need not be unanimous agreement—so that the authority embeds scrutiny into its arrangements and the culture of the organisation. It is certainly not a clause to be used to weaken arrangements; rather, it is to ensure a culture of scrutiny throughout the authority.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, can the Minister elucidate what happens if there is a stand-off because neither side agrees?
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, Amendment 75 is not one which we on these Benches can support. I declare an interest as an elected local councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham.
Although this amendment is concerned with elections to local councils in England, I mentioned in Committee that we had a referendum in 2011 on changing the voting system for elections to the House of Commons. That was wholly rejected and I have seen nothing following on from that result, or anything that has happened subsequently, which leads me to believe that the country wants to change the voting system for any elections. I also mentioned that we have got ourselves into a bit of a mess in recent years. We have managed to heap on voters a whole plethora of voting systems and that is not a good thing to do. I accept that, where a proportional system has been chosen, it should remain. However, I would like to see us use fewer systems.
I also referred to the fact that I thought that one of the worst systems was the supplementary vote system. I have observed many counts where people have only put a cross in the second column, which means that their vote is discounted. Therefore, I would like to see a reduction in the number of systems being used, and we certainly cannot support the amendment tonight.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, this amendment is about the voting system for local government elections in England and Wales. Like Amendment 73, it would introduce a fundamental change to these. As I explained in the case of the earlier amendment, we are clear that issues such as this need to be considered in a far wider context than this Bill. Even in terms of timescale, when STV was introduced in Scotland, the review of the 32 local authorities took two years, and clearly in England that would take much longer. Notwithstanding any of the arguments for or against the amendment, as I said in the previous amendment, this is not the Bill to be talking about changes to the franchise. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, pointed out, the people of this country said no to the alternative vote in 2011—I was one of the people who campaigned against it. Again, it is not the place of an unelected House to propose changes like this. Therefore, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, if it is not the role of your Lordships’ House to scrutinise legislation, it is hard to see on what basis this Bill has started in this House. If your Lordships are not permitted to move amendments or to discuss matters of direct concern about one-party states being created in combined authority areas across a number of parts of England, then I think it is the responsibility of your Lordships’ House to be able to do so.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, raised a number of objections. We mentioned Scotland, and the truth is that if it still had a first past the post electoral system in local elections, the Labour Party would have been wiped out in Scotland at that level as well. I do not argue that that is in the interests of our democracy; nor do I argue that it is in the interests of our democracy that there are no Conservative councillors in a number of our northern cities. This is not good for democracy. The only way that you can solve the problem is for someone to take an initiative.
I am reconciled to the fact that the two big parties in this country do not want change, because it suits them not to have change—at least, it does in England and Wales. Actually, however, we have a higher responsibility. We operate now in a world of multi-party politics. It is wrong that votes are not equal and that one-party states can be created through the first past the post electoral system. That is what the Government are perpetuating, and it is entirely appropriate for your Lordships’ House to take a view on that. I wish to test the opinion of the House.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, if a local area agreed a process with government and it was done through a parliamentary process, that local area would then have to go back to Parliament in some way and say that the local electors did not wish to have this any more. I am not going to stand here and prescribe a particular set of circumstances in which a particular area may not wish what it had agreed with government to continue to be the case. Having agreed it through a parliamentary process, it would have to go back through that parliamentary process and explain why the local electors no longer wished for it to be the case.
The noble Baroness, Lady Janke, talked about predetermined grants in envelopes. As I say, I have spent the entire Bill demonstrating that this is not the case. Nothing is predetermined. That has caused confusion in some ways in that there has been constant pushback on me to prescribe, and we are not prescribing. I hope that with these explanations the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Shipley
The Minister said two separate things. The first was that it was for local areas to come up with proposals for devolution and the Government were keen to hear what those were. Secondly, she said that to have major powers devolved requires a mayor, and she gave Greater Manchester as an example. Does the Minister have a list of the powers that can be devolved without an elected mayor and those that can be devolved only if there is an elected mayor? It seems absolutely central to this issue because at the moment it is not clear—certainly not to me and, I suspect, others in your Lordships’ House—exactly what the Government’s offer is.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I do not and will not have a list. As I have said repeatedly, what powers are devolved will be up to agreement between local areas and the Secretary of State.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 10 and 13 in this group. Broadly speaking, whereas the amendments moved by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, are about securing the approval of the combined authorities, ours require the approval of the overview and scrutiny committee. As we said in Committee, it is much better for that committee to do it, for three reasons. First, it is independent of the mayor and of the combined authority. Secondly, it can be objective and can hold a hearing in public to assess the suitability of a proposed person, thus giving real effect to the principles of scrutiny. Thirdly, it can satisfy itself that the person selected can represent the interests of all parts of its combined authority area, which can sometimes be very large.
In a sense we debated this in Committee, and I listened carefully to the Minister’s answer at the time. I am not convinced that it is right to give the powers of what could appear to be patronage to a single individual. Nor am I convinced that the members of a combined authority, who were appointed as opposed to being directly elected to it, should simply be given the power to decide or to agree who the deputy should be. I would be much happier if we had an independent process which the overview and scrutiny process would look after. I therefore look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the point about how you ensure that those who hold very senior, responsible jobs, which are very well remunerated, can maintain the confidence of the general public.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, these amendments are all about requiring members of the combined authority or overview and scrutiny committee to be involved in actions which are, quite rightly, those of the elected mayor.
I will first speak to Amendment 11, which would insert the requirement that the combined authority must consent to functions of the combined authority being exercised by the mayor. I do not disagree with what the amendment seeks to achieve. There are a number of circumstances in which an order could be made to make a function of the combined authority exercisable only by the mayor. Our intention is that in all circumstances the combined authority must give consent—or, if this is at the initial stage of setting up the combined authority, the constituent councils must do so.
First, when an order is made to create the post of mayor and transfer powers to the combined authority, in this circumstance nothing can happen without the consent of the combined authority or the local councils involved. Clearly, consent would not be given if the order proposed to give a mayor powers with which the councils or combined authority were not content. Secondly, when an order is made to transfer further powers to a combined authority, similarly, such an order would require consent from all the local councils.
Finally, and notwithstanding our intention, I accept that there could be, at least in theory, a subsequent order to make an existing function of the combined authority a function exercisable only by the mayor. We are ready to accept that any such lacuna in the legislation should be addressed and we are minded to accept this amendment. However, the drafting will need further consideration and, if noble Lords will allow, I will come back to it at Third Reading.
Amendments 9 and 10 would require the mayor to obtain the consent of the combined authority or, in the case of Amendment 10, the overview and scrutiny committee before appointing the deputy mayor. For mayoral governance to be effective, the mayor and the deputy mayor must be able to work together and the mayor must have confidence in his or her deputy. Moreover, the mayor’s choice of deputy mayor is very restricted. As provided for in the Bill, the deputy mayor must be a member of the combined authority, so the mayor is already choosing from a small group of people.
In practice, a mayor will consult some of or all the members of a combined authority about a deputy mayoral appointment, but it would be wrong for the members of the combined authority or the overview and scrutiny committee to have the ultimate say over who the deputy mayor is. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, talked about Greater Manchester and he is absolutely correct that that is an interim arrangement.
The mayor, with a clear mandate, needs to be able to have the say over who among the members of the combined authority will be the deputy and who will assist him or her in delivering what he or she has promised the voters. Giving the combined authority or overview and scrutiny committee the final say as to whether a person can or cannot be the deputy opens up the possibility of appointments which would hinder the mayor and prevent the mayor and deputy working together effectively and smoothly for a common purpose. These amendments are therefore not a sensible check or balance on the exercise of executive functions and I invite noble Lords not to press them.
Amendments 12, 13 and 14 would require a mayor to consult the combined authority or, in the case of Amendment 13, the overview and scrutiny committee before delegating a general function to the deputy mayor, another member or an officer. The provisions in the Bill relating to delegation align with the policy for a local authority mayor or leader, who may arrange for the discharge of functions by members of the executive or officers of the authority. Although the mayor may delegate functions, he or she remains accountable for any actions taken and is accountable directly to the electorate.
I understand the thoughts behind these amendments—that is, to ensure that a mayor is indeed effectively and transparently held to account and that, while there is the capacity for strong executive action, equally the right checks and balances are in place to give confidence in that respect and ensure accountability. However, such checks and balances will not be delivered if executive and non-executive actions are confused by involving the members of the combined authority in decisions such as how the mayor performs his or her role.
Later, we will discuss the appropriate strong and transparent overview and scrutiny to ensure sensible and robust checks and balances on the actions of the mayor and the combined authority. It is entirely right that the mayor is held to account, but he or she must also be able to deliver effectively on the commitments made to the electorate, and these amendments could be severely detrimental to that. With those explanations, I hope that noble Lords will agree not to press their amendments.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, there is an informal process for discussions and there is a formal process. If something was written down in an email, it would, barring some restrictions on access to information, be disclosable under a freedom of information request.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, and in particular to my noble friend Lord Scriven for pointing out the importance of the Freedom of Information Act and its provisions in this respect.
I share some of the concerns of the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley of Knighton and Lord Heseltine. I understand exactly the points that are being made. However, the Secretary of State would, as part of this amendment should it succeed, be able to state in regulations how this would be managed.
This is an extremely important issue. This amendment is not asking for commercially sensitive matters to be revealed when it would not be in the public interest to do so or for informal day-to-day meetings with officers to be included. We are saying that the Secretary of State should recognise that the accountability of an elected mayor does matter. The Secretary of State should therefore regulate to ensure proper access to meetings and information to avoid a slide into greater secrecy in decision-making.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, said that the same rules should apply as for local government—if I recall correctly what he said. I understand that perspective, but we are talking about a single elected person. There is no precedent for the scale of the roles to which they are about to be elected, for the reason that existing mayors in some of our cities and towns have more limited powers. Here, there is to be significant devolution of power from central government across Whitehall and Westminster. There is not even the scrutiny system that is provided within London through the GLA—and we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, earlier about how the London system does not work terribly well. So I am still very concerned by this situation.
The public right of access to meetings and information must not be diminished as a consequence of this Bill. That is the risk that the Bill introduces. As a consequence of that, I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have all made interesting points this evening. On Amendment 44F, I can confirm that there is nothing at all which would prevent a local authority from working in partnership or collaborating with other authorities in its area, or across other areas. Indeed, the Government encourage collaborative working as an integral part of providing better services for local people and providing value for money for local taxpayers. However, we do not see that it is necessary for the Secretary of State to provide for any such collaborative working by order. It is for local authorities to enter into partnerships where they consider that it would be mutually beneficial and provide value for money for the taxpayer, and it is not necessary for such arrangements to be established in statute.
Amendment 44G seeks to insert a new paragraph into Clause 10(1), requiring the Secretary of State to have regard to the need to reflect the identities and interests of local communities and to secure effective and convenient local government. In response to the debate we have just had on this, and the number of interesting points that have been raised, I hope that it may be helpful to noble Lords if I set out briefly how we envisage that the Government may use the powers being taken under Clause 10 in support of any proposals that are submitted to us in the context of devolution deals.
The regulations in Clause 10 are not themselves about creating new governance structures, for example creating new unitary councils or merging councils. Rather, the regulations are about modifying the processes in particular cases. An example would be enabling, in the case of a particular deal, the processes for establishing new governance arrangements to be fast-tracked if all the councils involved consent. The processes for establishing unitary councils and merging councils are currently set out in Part 1 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. It may be that a bespoke devolution deal is agreed with an area which involves changing the governance arrangements in the area in a way that results in a move to more unitary structures, perhaps also involving some merging of authorities.
All the councils involved have agreed these changes. Furthermore, all these changes will have been developed as part of the discussions, negotiations, and engagement by councils with their areas, which have led to the development and finalisation of the deal. With the deal agreed, all will want to see it implemented as quickly as practicable. The regulations under Clause 10 can help fast-track the processes. These regulations can modify the application of the 2007 Act processes for bringing about these governance changes in the particular circumstances of this agreed devolution deal. Such regulations, which would require the approval of both Houses of Parliament, can be made only with the consent of the local authorities to whom they apply.
However, we do not see these regulations bringing into play different fundamental principles underpinning the Secretary of State’s consideration of matters as provided for by the existing statutory processes for making governance changes. We see them modifying such processes, such as the processes in the 2007 Act which I have mentioned in the example I have just described. Where the processes of governance change involve the Secretary of State being required to have regard, for example, to the need to reflect the identities and interests of local communities, and to secure effective and convenient local government, this will continue to be the case. Accordingly, the amendment proposed is not necessary and I would hope that, given this explanation, the noble Lord will agree to withdraw it.
Amendments 44H, 44J, 44K and 44L appear to envisage a situation in which a change to unitary governance arrangements is supported by the local authorities that have agreed that such restructuring should form part of a devolution deal, and in relation to which the Secretary of State would then make regulations, but they cannot agree on the detail of such restructuring. In these circumstances, it provides that the Secretary of State may nevertheless make regulations, either with the consent of the principal authorities to whom the regulations are to apply; or after consideration of any demonstration of support from key organisations and citizens in the affected area; or, where provided, on the advice of the Local Government Boundary Commission for England. On the face of it, this amendment would provide the Secretary of State with some flexibility to determine the arrangements to be put in place where these cannot be agreed by the affected council, and to do so by drawing more widely on the views of others within the authorities or, indeed, other bodies.
However, this is to suggest that it is the Secretary of State himself who in some circumstances should be determining the aspects of the devolution deal. In reality, and as we have discussed, the process that we are putting in place and the flexibilities we seek to provide are all focused on ensuring that any proposals for a devolution deal put to the Government, and which may or may not include structural change, are negotiated and agreed with the Government by all the councils concerned. The purpose of any subsequent regulations made by the Secretary of State is to implement the proposals that have been agreed as quickly and effectively as is practicable and with the consent of the local authorities to which those regulations would apply. It is not the role of the Secretary of State to use the regulations he makes to paper over any cracks or to impose any kind of solution that does not reflect the deal that has been agreed.
At this point, I say that I have a lot of sympathy for the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. I can see exactly the problems to which he is referring. In a way, it is a test of the leadership in that area to agree. To amend that in some way undermines the whole process of devolution and the fact that this is an enabling Bill. I think that we had a corridor conversation at one point, and I am very happy to talk to the noble Lord on a one-to-one basis—if he was running Cumbria, he might have sorted something out by now because he seemed to have it absolutely right on how to do it. However, it does have to be locally led, but I am very happy to sit down with him and perhaps discuss some of the issues and see whether there are other mechanisms by which Cumbria’s ambitions could be realised.
Amendment 45A seeks to delete the provisions in the Bill providing that any regulations made under this clause are not to be considered to be hybrid. This approach of disapplying the hybridity processes from secondary legislation that makes provision about particular areas is well precedented. Our aim, as I have explained to the House, is to agree bespoke devolution deals with particular areas. To do this, we envisage following a process that begins with the Government having conversations with areas about their proposals, their ambitions and the aspirations of their communities. Through these conversations, agreement will be reached between the Government and an area on the deal; that is, the agreement about the powers and budgets to be devolved to the area and about the governance arrangements to be put in place to support these powers being confirmed on the area. Strictly, of course, those arrangements will be with the democratically elected representatives of that area. In developing their proposals and reaching agreement, those representatives will engage with businesses, communities and local people in that area; in short, they will engage with those who will be affected by and will benefit from the devolution deal.
The parliamentary process is to provide Parliament with the opportunity to agree or, if it sees fit, reject the devolution deal that the Government and an area have concluded. Parliament will have before it in the Explanatory Memorandums details of the devolution deal that the secondary legislation under consideration is seeking to implement. As I said in debates last week, I am prepared to consider whether it might be appropriate for further information to be made available about any devolution deal under consideration. In these ways, Parliament will have available to it all the information it needs to reach a decision on the secondary legislation, and those affected by the legislation will, through the local deal-negotiating processes, be able to make the inputs they may wish to the deal. There is thus no need in the case of these instruments to apply the hybrid procedures.
Further, and as we have discussed in previous debates, once the negotiation of any devolution deal has been concluded, we are anxious to ensure that the proposals can be implemented quickly and to the benefit of all concerned. The hybridity process would delay the delivery of those benefits. I hope that the noble Lords will agree not to press this amendment.
Amendment 48B would insert a new clause placing a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to provide a report to Parliament on the involvement of communities and local electors in the process of devolving power from central government to local and combined authorities. I completely agree that devolution proposals should show how communities will be engaged. However, the important thing here is not putting in place a tick-box requirement in legislation. Instead, the key issue is how central and local government work together to make sure that all deals include agreement on how power and responsibility will be shared with communities and individuals to mutual advantage. As with other aspects of a bottom-up exercise, obviously we would welcome applications from areas with ideas for incentives for this as part of any deal. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, talked about the importance of counties; naturally we would love to hear from counties.
We believe that devolution to neighbourhoods can deliver better outcomes and more efficient services in many cases. We are aware of lots of examples of neighbourhoods and parishes taking on services. Cornwall, for example, has set out a framework for devolution to town and parish councils and community groups. We will be actively asking how local authorities will work with communities and neighbourhoods in delivering devolved services, and I have asked my officials to work with places in developing further ways to incentivise this.
There are already mechanisms—for example, parliamentary Questions and debates—by which Parliament can call Ministers to account. The secondary legislation to complement each deal will be scrutinised by both Houses of Parliament and approved by them. This is a process that involves a detailed Explanatory Memorandum being laid before Parliament.
A process for evaluating the progress on deals will be discussed with each area on a case-by-case basis. For example, as part of its devolution deal, Greater Manchester will be required to put in place an extensive programme of evaluation, agreed by the Treasury. Evaluations will be public documents, available to all Members of the House. Accordingly, I do not believe that it is necessary to place a statutory duty as per these amendments.
I have a final point in response to the noble Lord, Lord Woolmer, who made a crucial point about wider endorsement by the public. While this is not the London mayor, and Greater Manchester and Cornwall are not London, I see the London mayor as an example of where, as time has gone on, not only has the mayor been better understood by the public but the engagement of both Mayor Livingstone and Mayor Johnson with the people of London has enhanced that role and made it a very compelling one. In previous years it was a question of, “Who will we get to stand as mayor?”, but it has now become an attractive and competitive thing to do—witness the number of people from all parties who are putting themselves forward for it. I take the noble Lord’s point, and I do not think we should forget it in these discussions.
With these explanations and assurances, I hope that the noble Lord will feel content to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her response to Amendment 44F, and in particular for her reassurance that collaborative working arrangements between a rural area and a combined-authority urban area would not be impossible if an amendment was not approved as part of the Bill.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, for giving a very good example of what I was talking about relating to the transport corridor between north Cumbria and the north-east of England. We just need to be certain that we do not need statutory arrangements in place with a combined authority in the north-east that would enable, or make it easier for, the north of Cumbria to engage with that.
Mention was made, I think by the Minister, of the work of Cornwall. Tribute should be paid to Cornwall not only for what it has done with its governance structure—it is now a unitary council—but for the way in which it has moved forward with the devolution agenda. I hope that in the course of the next few years other areas will see that as something that can be followed. I welcome the debate that we have had on this and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I have to say that I regard this amendment as somewhat unreal. I had the pleasure of working in three places during the recent general election: first, in my own authority of Newcastle; secondly, in the only seat that Labour retained in Scotland, clearly thanks to my superhuman efforts; and thirdly, in Stockton-on-Tees. The relevance of the last is that more posters were exhibited in Stockton-on-Tees for the Thornaby Independent Association than there were for all the other political parties put together; it is an association for the Thornaby part of the constituency.
The notion that electors are committed to the structures which have been created over time is somewhat fanciful. The good residents of Clara Street, in the ward of Benwell in the west end of Newcastle, which I have represented for approximately a fortnight longer than the Minister has graced this earth—that is, dare I say it, just under 50 years—are not consumed with interest in the governance structures of the local authority. I shall use the phrase again: it is quite unreal. Of course they talk of nothing else but the constitution of council committees in my ward and other places. What the amendment seeks to do is prescribe that, in some undefined way, the Secretary of State has to be satisfied that local government electors have been “properly consulted”, whatever that means, on the details of the procedures laid out in Clause 10. The clause covers the governance arrangements of local authorities, their constitution and membership, and the structural and boundary arrangements in relation to them. It goes on to state,
“‘governance arrangements’ means the executive arrangements, committee system or prescribed arrangements operated by a local authority under Part 1A of the Local Government Act 2000”.
In those 48 years, I have not had a single question addressed to me by a constituent on any of these matters. It may be that I am in an unusual position, but I suspect not. It may be that the constituents of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, in another part of Newcastle where he was a long-serving councillor, were somewhat more engaged with the minutiae of governance structures, but I am somewhat sceptical that that occurred even then. What is suggested in the amendment is effectively undefined and unworkable, and it is not something we can support. I regret to say that when the Minister, as I expect she will, says that it is not necessary or that she does not understand it, or possibly both, I will concur with her entirely.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I am sorry to hear that the noble Lord will regret that we concur; we quite often concur. It is not at all unreasonable to consider that, as the elected representatives of those areas seeking devolutions work up their proposals, they will have considered carefully what the communities, local people and businesses in their areas want and expect. It is not at all unreasonable to believe that those elected representatives will have thought deeply about how to implement the proposals they are seeking, what those proposals will mean for those areas, and how those proposals will affect the local people who live or work in those areas. We can be confident that local representatives have ensured that they have engaged with their communities and their electorate to whatever degree, and in whatever manner, they judge necessary in respect of the many different elements that may be in the proposals they put to the Secretary of State.
In these unprecedented processes to deliver devolution, it is not right that we start inserting detailed requirements about the Secretary of State having to second-guess those democratically elected locally, or to be required to form a view as to whether, in his opinion, those democratically elected local representatives have acted as they should. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw this amendment.
Lord Shipley
I am grateful for the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. I will say two things in response. First, perhaps he would like to have a conversation with the noble Lord, Lord Woolmer, who took a very different view a moment ago about the importance of consulting local people. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Woolmer. If you want a government structure to stand the test of time with public support, the public has to be engaged at an early stage rather than a later stage. The second point I make to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, is that some combined authorities are now undertaking the very same consultations that I was talking about. Indeed, the one very close to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, in the north-east of England is undertaking a public consultation about future governance arrangements. I welcome that. It is hugely helpful that it does.
We will reflect on what has been said and possibly come back with something on Report, but for the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, the amendment aims to help drive forward positive progress on devolution within England. It says that the Secretary of State should,
“lay before each House of Parliament each year a report about devolution”.
It suggests that:
“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision for an Independent Commission or Advisory Board”,
to undertake a review and perform an advisory role in assessing at a national level and across Whitehall what has been achieved.
Broadly speaking, the amendment derives from the conclusions of the City Growth Commission, which established five progress tests on devolution in England—the first on funding, the second on Civil Service and parliamentary reform, the third on partnerships, the fourth on speed and direction of travel and the fifth on cities’ capacity. The aim of our amendment is to help the process and the aims that the City Growth Commission put in place. I beg to move.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, this is an enabling Bill to put in place the primary legislative framework for the devolution of powers and budgets in England to boost local growth in England. Devolution in Wales is to be subject to separate legislation which the Government are committed to bringing before the House. The question of the devolution of powers to areas within Wales will largely be a matter for the Welsh Government and the National Assembly for Wales.
More fundamentally, as we discussed in earlier debates on this Bill, while it is important that Parliament should be able to question and hold the Government to account both on their pursuit of devolution and decentralisation and on the progress being made in those areas which have agreed devolution deals, a statutory requirement on the Secretary of State to report annually is not necessary. There are already mechanisms by which Parliament can ask Ministers to account for anything within their remit. These are opportunities that both noble Lords and Members of the other place take regularly.
A process for evaluating the progress of devolution deals will be discussed with each area on a case-by-case basis. For example, as part of its devolution deal, Greater Manchester will be required to put in place an extensive programme of evaluation agreed by the Treasury. There will be public documents available to all with an interest in the area on the progress it is making. Accordingly, it is not necessary to place statutory duties on the Secretary of State, which would be a duplication of a well-tried process.
With that explanation, I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her response. We will look carefully at what she has said and consider whether there is a need to pursue this matter further on Report. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, we debated this previously in earlier debates. Amendment 47 would amend the Representation of the People Act 1983 to provide that all local elections in England and Wales would be by single transferable vote.
For the single transferable vote system to function effectively, multi-member electoral areas would be required. As many existing electoral areas in England have only one councillor representing them—for example, nearly all county councils—it would require a review of local government electoral areas in England by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England. It could therefore not be introduced, even if it were desirable, within any short timescale. It would also cost more and take longer to achieve a result because of the more complicated count processes.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, asked me to list the myriad electoral systems. The Mayor of London is elected by the supplementary vote system. European elections use the d’Hondt system of PR and local government is first past the post. That is three that I can name; I am sure that there are more. But I hope that on the basis of this short debate, the noble Lord will feel content to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I listened to the very brief response from the Minister. This will be an issue that we will want to come back to on Report. I find it difficult to understand why this is deemed a step too far in England and Wales when it is not a step too far in Scotland and has proved to be an enormous success. There are occasions when we should learn from the Scottish experience, for example with participation rates, an abolition of uncontested elections and an end to one-party domination. Of course, in the context of first past the post at parliamentary level, we have a one-party state out of Scotland with all but three seats in the hands of one political party. If we had proportional representation using an STV system in the parliamentary elections in Scotland, that would not be the case. In local government there is STV and it has had a profound and positive effect.
Our concern throughout this Committee has been to prevent absolute power through the elected mayor, combined authority and the overview and scrutiny function lying with the same political party. In some cases, a combined authority would have no opposition councillors of any kind on it, caused by the voting system that we are using. I give notice that I think we will come back to this on Report—but, having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Shipley
I add two facts for ministerial consideration. One fact that really struck me about the Scottish referendum was the very high turnout rate of 75% of 16 and 17 year-olds, when for the 18 to 24 year-old age group it was only 54%. That is very marked. What it demonstrates is a clear interest in current affairs and their futures. The question is whether an age group that can demonstrate such a commitment to thinking about their future should be denied a vote generally.
Secondly, decisions are made regularly by local councils which impact on the daily lives of 16 to 18 year-olds. A very good example is the cost of public transport for young people—the cost of bus services, urban rail systems and so on. I have come to the conclusion that the voice of those young people is not adequately heard. I am in favour of votes at 16 and have been for many years, but I am even clearer now that the time has come to implement the change that Scotland has trail-blazed.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, there is no doubt that the Scottish referendum and debate was unique, certainly in my lifetime, in engaging the public in the way it did. Participation in that election by people from all age groups, including 16 and 17 year-olds, was like nothing we have ever seen before. We can all look at it, wonder why we do not engage better with people from all age groups and reflect upon it. Amendment 48 would change the franchise for those entitled to vote in local elections in England and Wales to include 16 and 17 year-olds. As we have discussed, the Bill provides that the franchise for electing mayors for a mayoral combined authority is the same as that for all local elections in England, where the voting age is 18.
More broadly, of course, the voting age for parliamentary elections is set at 18, and beyond that the voting age in most democracies, including most member states in the EU, is also 18. Only Austria in the EU allows voting for 16 year-olds. We have heard the argument about the franchise in Scotland, but this was decided in Scotland, as is its devolved right, just as it is right that decisions about the franchise for elections that take place in England should be decided by this Parliament. I am sorry to be a party pooper at this time of night, but the Government have no plans to lower the minimum voting age and I am clear that the Bill is not the place to take steps to change the arrangements for local elections. I am sure that even proponents of lowering the voting age to 16 agree that, were it to happen, it should be only following detailed debate.
I have not read the report on IER but I wholeheartedly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, about EROs engaging in getting people in general registered to vote, and certainly those younger age groups. On that basis I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, will feel happy to withdraw his amendment.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, Amendment 42A seeks to insert a new clause regarding access for the press and public to combined authority meetings. Whatever the whys or wherefores of the press’s engagement with council meetings, I am happy to confirm that legislation already exists on these issues. As my noble friend Lord Brooke has pointed out, the Local Government Act 1972 provides that all meetings of a combined authority must be open to the public except in limited, defined circumstances.
A meeting of a combined authority, as with other council meetings, may be closed to the public in only two circumstances: if the presence of the public is likely to result in the authority breaching a legal obligation about the keeping of confidential information; and if the authority decides, by the passing of a resolution of its members, that exempt information—for example, information relating to the financial affairs of a particular person—would likely be disclosed.
The Conservative-led coalition Government made new regulations in 2014 to make it absolutely clear that a combined authority is required to allow any member of the public or press to take photographs, film, audio record and report on all public meetings. This openness helps to ensure that combined authorities are genuinely accountable to the local people they serve. It also ensures genuine transparency in this digital age, where our democracy can be enhanced by the use of social media and blogging to communicate widely and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, said, to capture the market that does not want to spend more than 30 seconds reading such matters.
These requirements apply equally to any committees or sub-committees of a combined authority, including any overview and scrutiny committees. Subsection (1)(a) of the proposed amendment refers to a meeting between a mayor and the relevant combined authority. I should clarify that the mayor will be a member of the combined authority—indeed, will be the chairman—so such a meeting would simply be a meeting of the combined authority and is covered by these rules. Similarly, a meeting of the leaders of a combined authority, if I understand the noble Lord’s meaning, will be a meeting of the members of a combined authority, who are most likely—although not always—to be the leaders of the constituent councils.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked about Schedule 3. This is an enabling provision which ensures that there is flexibility to decide which information can be appropriately disclosed or must be discussed. For example, certain information may be commercially confidential or contain sensitive personal information.
I hope that, with these reassurances, the noble Lord will agree to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, can the Minister explain what the Government plan to do if all the members of a combined authority are members of the same political party and hold informal pre-meetings prior to the meeting of the combined authority which is being held in public? Let us say that the meeting of the combined authority ends up being a short meeting and the private meeting beforehand ends up being a long one. What steps do the Government plan to take to deal with such situations should they arise?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Lord raises an important point, but it has always been thus—informal meetings between people are not obliged to be held in public. The point on transparency is that the decision-making has to be in public and the public can be there to see it. However, informal meetings have never been subject to those rules.
Lord Shipley
I thank the Minister for her reply. We may need to revisit this issue on Report but, for the time being, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Lord Shipley
My Lords, we have tabled Amendments 41 and 42. I will not add to what the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has said, but I subscribe to the views he has expressed.
Our amendments in this group relate to the membership of the overview and scrutiny committee. We said in the first day of Committee that we did not want to create one-party states, so we have been seeking ways in which we can propose amendments that will deliver that outcome. This is to take the proportion of votes cast for each political party at the most recent local government election for the combined authority’s constituent councils.
The reason why this matters is that, if you take seats only won under the first-past-the-post system, one particular party in most of the areas currently subject to or considering combined authorities would absolutely dominate the overview and scrutiny committee—indeed, the Conservative Party has very few seats in northern cities—so this would not be good for the democratic process. I think that the overview and scrutiny committees ought to have a significant number of opposition members and that that should be calculated on the basis of votes cast in the last election, rather than on the number of seats that they win under first past the post.
In terms of the chair, there are a number of examples in local government where scrutiny committees are chaired by a councillor who is a member of the opposition. That principle should extend to the combined authority. Amendment 42 says that the chair of such a committee must be a member of a political party other than the party of the mayor of the combined authority.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, the issue of effective scrutiny has come up a lot during the course of the Bill. As I said during the debate on the previous group of amendments, I am ready to have discussions with noble Lords across the House about their ideas for strengthening scrutiny.
Amendment 39C would remove the power for the Secretary of State to make provision about the chair of an overview and scrutiny committee and about the appointment of a scrutiny officer. I am not sure that removing the ability of the Secretary of State to ensure, if it were deemed appropriate, that all overview and scrutiny committees have a scrutiny officer, or to make provisions about the chair, would achieve our joint aim of strengthening scrutiny and safeguarding against a one-party state.
Nor am I clear that Amendment 40A would strengthen overview and scrutiny. The amendment would remove from the scope of the order-making provision on overview and scrutiny issues the publication of reports et cetera and the information which must or must not be disclosed to an overview and scrutiny committee. I am clear that strong scrutiny needs the overview and scrutiny committees to have access to all the information that they consider necessary to pursue their work. Equally, it is important that their reports and recommendations are public, transparent and properly taken into account by those making decisions. The following amendments essentially set out some of the ideas that may achieve these aims and the substance of which we will wish to consider carefully.
Amendments 36H and 37B seek to expand the scope of overview and scrutiny so that it includes the possibility of an overview and scrutiny committee examining not only decisions made or actions taken, but decisions made or actions “under consideration”.
Amendment 41 would require that any order made by the Secretary of State about the membership of an overview and scrutiny committee must ensure that such membership reflects the proportion of votes that each political party received at the most recent local government election for the constituent councils. Amendment 42 would require that any order made by the Secretary of State about the chair of the overview and scrutiny committee or committees must include provision that the chair is to be a representative of a different political party from the party of the mayor of the combined authority. Amendment 49 provides the definition of “party” for these two amendments. While I believe that there are some practical issues with Amendment 41, given that not all parties who receive votes at an election may have an elected member, I understand the concern that underpins the amendments.
Finally, Amendments 39AA and 40B seek to introduce the affirmative procedure for orders and guidance about overview and scrutiny. Given the importance that we attach to overview and scrutiny, I have some sympathy with the aims of these amendments, and, indeed, in our wider consideration of how best to strengthen overview and scrutiny. We may consider that some matters might be better dealt with on the face of the Bill, rather than through secondary legislation. In our previous short debate I highlighted some of the important issues that we will wish to consider when looking at how to make scrutiny strong and effective in all areas. This, most importantly, includes those areas where the members of the combined authority come from one party.
Given this commitment, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I agree with the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. I want to ask the Minister about the nature of a police and crime commissioner appointment. I recall that when we debated the terms of those appointments in your Lordships’ House not that long ago, these were clearly full-time appointments—substantial salaries were to be paid. Does the Minister agree with me that if a decision can be made that an elected mayor can undertake those functions along with all the other functions that may be devolved or delegated to them by the Secretary of State, it is very hard to see the basis on which a PCC appointment should be seen as full time? If it should not, what is the implication of that for other police and crime commissioners?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, Amendment 24 would insert a new provision within new Section 107E to require the Secretary of State to bring forward proposals to make alternative arrangements where the geographic boundary of a police and crime commissioner area does not correspond, as noble Lords have said, with the area of a combined authority.
New Section 107E would enable the Secretary of State to provide, by order, that the mayor of a combined authority area would exercise the functions of a police and crime commissioner, subject to the necessary consent from the appropriate authorities. If such an order were made, new Section 107E would also require the Secretary of State to provide that there is no separate police and crime commissioner for the area of the combined authority. The Bill also enables secondary legislation to be made which creates the position of mayor for the area of the combined authority, while retaining a separate position of the police and crime commissioner for the policing area.
The Bill does not prevent a mayor also being given police and crime commissioner functions where the relevant combined authority area does not correspond to a single police area. Should it be considered appropriate to transfer functions to a mayor in such a case, powers in existing legislation would enable police areas to be altered to facilitate such a scenario. On this basis, mechanisms are already available to enable alternative arrangements to be made. However, as we know, Greater Manchester’s devolution deal is the only one to date which will include a directly elected metro mayor also taking the police and crime commissioner function. We also know that in this area the police force boundary corresponds to that of the combined authority.
We will consider any future proposals to transfer police and crime commissioner functions to the mayor for a combined authority area on a case-by-case basis, and will transfer these functions where appropriate. Clearly, geographic issues will be an important consideration in this regard. With these explanations and assurances, I hope the noble Lord will feel content to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I do not know whether the noble Baroness has answered the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
If the noble Lord will indulge me, I will get on to that a bit later.
Amendment 27 seeks to amend new Section 107E, which enables the Secretary of State to provide by order that the mayor for an area of a combined authority may exercise the functions of a police and crime commissioner. Subsection (4) of this new section sets out that such an order can be made only with the consent of the appropriate authorities, as defined in new Section 107B(6). Noble Lords have asked that new subsection (4) be amended to make clear that all the appropriate authorities defined by new Section 107B(6) must consent before such an order can be made.
I reassure noble Lords that, under the current draft, all the appropriate authorities in the area would, indeed, have to give consent before an order to transfer police and crime commissioner functions could be made. As my noble friend Lord Eccles neatly said, it is part of the deal. Therefore, I do not believe that such an amendment is necessary. I would be concerned that, if adopted, the amendment might suggest that consent would be required from all the different kinds of authorities set out in new Section 107B(6), not all of which would necessarily be relevant in a given area.
Amendment 28 seeks to amend new Section 107E to place a requirement on the Secretary of State to outline, in a report to be laid before both Houses of Parliament, plans to develop policing and crime functions for mayors who take on the functions of a police and crime commissioner. The principle behind the Bill is to ensure broad consistency between existing police and crime commissioners and mayors who take on police and crime commissioner functions. On this basis, we have set out in the Bill specific functions that will be applied to every mayor for a combined authority area who takes on police and crime commissioner functions. We envisage that, generally, all remaining functions will transfer across. That is the point that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle—not “Lord Riddle”—made.
However, the Bill maintains a degree of flexibility at this stage, as there may be functions that would not be relevant in the context of a mayor exercising PCC functions, to enable transfer arrangements to be appropriately tailored to the local circumstances of the area concerned. I reassure noble Lords that there are no plans to develop the PCC functions transferred to mayors separately from the wider functions of PCCs. We will ensure that the level of accountability, transparency and service applied to a mayor taking on a PCC function will be the same as is the case for PCCs across the rest of England and Wales.
At this point, I will answer the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, on scrutiny. The mayor will be required to establish a scrutiny panel, which will perform the same task as the existing police and crime panels. The scrutiny panel will support the effective delivery of the mayor’s PCC functions, assess the police and crime plan, monitor the budgets and retain the ability to suspend a mayor from the policing functions in certain circumstances.
For the mayor of a combined authority area to take on PCC functions, the Secretary of State will be required to lay an order setting out the detail of how PCC functions will be transferred to the mayor. Parliament will have the opportunity to fully consider that.
Amendments 29, 31 and 32 would place a requirement on the mayor to implement an appointment process for any person exercising PCC functions on their behalf, and to extend the disqualification and suspension criteria to such persons. It is our policy that the arrangements for mayors with PCC functions mirror as closely as possible the arrangements for police and crime commissioners and those to whom a PCC delegates their functions, and that is what the Bill does. It ensures that the process for delegation of responsibilities from the mayor and any appointed deputy is consistent with that for the delegation of functions from a PCC and a deputy PCC.
Schedule 1 to the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 sets out the process of scrutiny for senior appointments made by a PCC. This scrutiny process, which covers the appointment of deputy PCCs, provides the relevant police and crime panel with an opportunity to scrutinise senior appointments and to make reports to the PCC. We consider that the current arrangements work well, and it is our intention to apply them by order in areas where the mayor for a combined authority is taking on PCC functions.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked about mayoral elections. It is not the case that a person will have two roles—both mayor and police and crime commissioner. The position is that a mayor can be given the policing powers so that among his other functions he exercises the functions of a police and crime commissioner. When people vote, they will know what the mayor’s functions are. They will vote for the mayor on this basis. Orders setting out the arrangements will be made so that this is clear before the mayoral election, and we will consider how, if necessary, to ensure that this is always the case.
On the issue of disqualification and suspension, I am aware that there are additional restrictions on deputy PCCs that are not set out in the Bill. However, I assure your Lordships that it is our intention to apply these provisions by order.
Finally, Amendment 30 would insert a new provision into new Schedule 5C to require the Secretary of State to make provision by order for the protection of police budgets where this responsibility is transferred to the mayor. To be clear, the transfer of functions from a PCC to a mayor will not directly change the way in which central government funding for the police is calculated. This will continue to be done in line with existing policies, with the funding transferred to the mayor rather than the PCC. It is also our intention that the mayor will set the level of the policing element of the precept, and we have ensured that, in line with PCCs, the Home Secretary retains the power to intervene if the police budget is set at a level that would put the safety of people in the area at risk. Additionally, the mayor will be required to set up and maintain a separate fund in relation to receipts arising and liabilities incurred in the exercise of their PCC functions, and to prepare a separate annual budget in relation to the exercise of such functions.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, asked about the continuity of areas and what would happen if, say, there was a combined authority with a mayor for part of a police force area and that mayor was given police and crime commissioner powers to exercise. The essential point is that if this were to happen, there would need to be an adjustment of force areas as necessary so that the mayor’s area and the surrounding force area made sense in policing terms. There would not be a messy arrangement in the way that she suggested. If a mayor’s area did not make sense in policing terms, the mayor would not be given policing powers.
On the basis of those explanations, I hope the noble Lord will feel content to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, perhaps I might pursue the Minister’s answer on the right of the general public to know in advance of a ballot for a mayor exactly what it is that they are voting for. I think she said that the public will know in advance of polling day what the duties of a mayor would be. Will she confirm that no responsibilities of a police and crime commissioner will be transferred following an election—in other words, a decision will not be made after an election by the Secretary of State, working with the combined authority—and that it will always be clear to the general public which responsibilities of the PCC will be part of the obligations of the mayor, and that they will not be changed afterwards?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I can confirm that when people vote they will know what the mayor’s functions are.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, no one is going to force you to buy that bottle—it depends on what the bottle contains.
If I could, I will make some progress. I cannot even remember where I was—if noble Lords could just indulge me, I will find where I was up to.
I want to get to Amendments 9 and 10. The Bill provides that the Secretary of State may make an order to provide for there to be a mayor for a combined authority if a proposal has been made by that area. The Secretary of State must gain consent from each constituent local authority before an order can be made. It is open to the local authorities, when developing proposals, to decide to consult their electors at this stage.
Government policy is to devolve far-reaching powers to local areas and it is clear that, if areas are to have such powers, they must adopt strong governance and accountability arrangements. Where major powers are devolved to cities, there must be a single point of accountability. People need to know who is responsible for decisions that affect them and their local area. A directly elected mayor will provide this point of accountability.
It is up to an area’s democratically elected representatives to decide whether they are interested in taking up the devolutionary offer we are making, with the benefits that that will bring to the city’s people and businesses. My noble friend Lady Warsi talked quite compellingly about businesses and business growth in her area of Yorkshire. She asked where the view from businesses was. I am sorry to hark back to Greater Manchester again, but local enterprise partnerships, which are made up largely of businesses, should be at the heart of the process and conversation that the combined authority has, as they are in Greater Manchester. They are business led and, in many ways, cannot wait for the growth opportunities that it will entail.
Imposing a statutory consultation requirement on the authorities, as this amendment would do, risks delaying or derailing potential devolution deals, as my noble friend Lady Warsi points out. These deals are about firing up our cities, towns and counties so that they can become economic powerhouses, and backing businesses so that they can create thousands of jobs for people.
I will turn to some other points that noble Lords made, without taking up too much time. My noble friend Lady Warsi asked whether this extra bureaucracy in the name of democracy was going to help businesses. The Government do recognise that no two places are the same. People who live, work and do business in a local area know best what that area needs to prosper and grow. Through the bespoke devolution deals, the opportunities for businesses to further shape local business are significant. This is a very compelling offer.
Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked why an assembly was only for London. The issue of an elected assembly arises in a number of amendments this evening but I will touch on it here. We do not want—and I am confident that few in our cities and counties would want—a new tier of government with more politicians. London is quite different and it would be wrong to see the London arrangement as suitable for other places. My noble friend Lord Brooke’s comments were very helpful in making that point.
I hope with all those assurances that the noble Lord feels able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I am grateful to all those who have taken part in this debate. In one sense, we have had something akin to a Second Reading debate—it has lasted just on two hours. On the other hand, it has proved extremely helpful in identifying what some of the issues are. I concluded from it that many issues will have to be resolved between now and Report. So much is in the phrasing—the words that are used.
I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for twice reminding us that Amendment 3 is a clarifying amendment. It simply asks the Secretary of State to ensure that certain criteria are in place before making a decision. I had not thought when I drafted the amendment that this would prove quite so controversial and lengthy a debate. However, there we are.
I am grateful for the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine. He was very critical of local government, relating largely to the 1980s, about which there was a great deal of truth. I pay tribute to his work with the Urban Development Corporations which revived so many of the cities in England. The difference here is that I am trying to talk about legitimacy and accountability. Indeed, in her reply, the Minister talked broadly in the same field. For me, this is about making the proposal in this Bill sounder in terms of public acceptability and legitimacy and in terms of making accountable those who are in positions to spend very large sums of public money.
Both the noble Lord, Lord Woolmer of Leeds, and the Minister talked about us trying to create a new layer of local government, but that is not the case. The Bill itself reinforces the combined authority layer of government and provides for a mayor and deputy. That is a function of the Bill, not of our amendments. The question is whether areas outside London should have unaccountable mayors while London benefits from a proper system of scrutiny by directly elected representatives. We will have a discussion about this when we read the relevant amendment. The assemblies that we propose would not have many members, but they would play a vital role in speaking up for citizens and communities against a potentially very powerful mayor who must be subject to scrutiny. That takes me to my next point.
Housing Associations: Right to Buy
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, what guarantee will the Government give that they will replace houses sold on a one-for-one basis, given that, in the previous sale of council houses, only one house has been built for every 10 sold?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, the Government can go on their record on this, which is that under the coalition Government more council homes were built than in the previous 13 years. Also, if the new revitalised scheme does not yield that one-for-one replacement within a three-year period—the one-in-10 figure is actually quite misleading, because we are only at the end of the first three-year period of the first council home sold—the HCA will take on those properties and sell them.
Greater Manchester: New Deal
Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, there are certainly lots of conversations going on at the moment. There is no one common deal to suit everyone. The Government are very keen to hear from cities, counties and rural areas and any combination of the above.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that such deals should be subject to a local referendum to give legitimacy to the new structures which are being introduced?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Lord will recall that, back in 2007, the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act provided for resolutions of councils, not referenda, when going to a mayoral model for single authorities. This replicates that provision so, no, I do not.