Localism Bill

Lord Snape Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, I am reluctant to intervene in the debate but do so having listened to the arguments for the amendment put forward so ably by my noble friend Lord Hart. Like my noble friend Lord Sewel the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I had the honour—I will not do irony, either—to serve on a local authority before being elected to the other place. Not being a lawyer, I would like the Minister to tell me what predetermination actually means. Like my noble friend Lord Sewel, I confess that the Labour group on the local authority of which I was a member, eventually becoming leader, met before council meetings and decided the group view on various issues. Is that predetermination, or not? If it is, is it caught by the provisions of the Bill?

I take the view that both Houses of Parliament interfere far too much in local authority matters. I well understand the view that where planning matters are concerned the letter of the law should be laid down and followed. The previous Labour Government created a standards authority for local government, which quickly became bogged down. If you traded insults in a council chamber, a complaint was made to that body and all sorts of trivia were discussed at that level. I do not wish to tie the hands of local authority members more than successive governments have done over the years, but I am concerned about both the clause and my noble friend’s amendment.

My noble friend is not just a lawyer—he advises lawyers, as well. He is doubly damned in my eyes, I have to tell him. But he did not define predetermination in speaking to the amendment. Like my noble friend Lord Sewel, I think that the Minister really ought to do so. I end as I began: tying the hands of local authority members is something that both Houses of Parliament have done over the years, in my view quite unnecessarily.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, always moves his amendments superbly, and I am fascinated by them, although I heard it elsewhere than in the Chamber this evening, and I apologise for that. But I think that he does not look at this matter from the point of view of people being elected. Ever so many people are elected simply because they have always had some pet subject that was very much of local interest, and that is what got them elected. Any of those people, under this amendment, will find themselves being accused or blamed for the fact that they fought in that way. I am thinking of the Member of the House of Commons, who was elected on the single issue about the hospital in Worcestershire, and elected not once but twice on that issue. Would we have all condemned him if he had shown a particular interest in the hospital in Worcestershire? It is unrealistic to believe that people could be completely opposed to something that they had fought for for years.

The other side of that is that anyone sitting on any planning committee should do so with an open mind. If they do not have one, they have no right to sit on that committee and they should declare it as such. That should deal with the matter, rather than this amendment.