Deregulation Bill

Debate between Lord Tope and Lord True

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise to the House for not having been able to take part in previous discussions on this matter, but I speak as leader of a London local authority and I consider that it is my responsibility to draw the House’s attention to the way this measure is perceived by a leader of a London authority. I am also by training a historian of Byzantium. I think that very few Byzantine emperors would have devised such a system for their capital city.

On the previous amendment, the Minister on the Front Bench argued very strongly against increasing bureaucracy and extra red tape. He also argued that London needed to be deregulated. However, I anticipate that, just a few minutes later, the Minister now on the Front Bench—my noble friend Lord De Mauley—will tell us the opposite of that and, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, suggested, will tell us that we need more complication and further regulation. I simply do not see the logic of that and I do not know of another leader of a London authority who shares the Minister’s view.

We heard the representations made by London authorities on a previous amendment. It is important to realise that this is not some bone-headed resistance from a bureaucratic body. People who are talking to government, or who wish to talk to government and advise them, have authority and the responsibility of satisfying the people of London on a day-to-day basis that their streets can be kept clean and be competently administered. I believe that they are clean and competently administered in most cases. We have a non-criminal system that was recently established with general consent and which I do not believe needs to be tampered with. If the Government really believe in deregulation and devolution, there is no rationale whatever in changing the London system.

My authority is a keen promoter of recycling. We pass all the Pickles tests. We do weekly collections and even collect from side alleys. We do not have bin snoopers but we do have the opportunity to impose a light-handed touch of regulation. In five years as leader I have not had a single call, letter or email complaining about this system. There is no evidence base that I am aware of to justify imposing a more complex system on London.

I suspect that at this stage the Government are not prepared to change their mind. That is a pity in the light of the arguments in the record that I have read and those that I have heard. Of course, it would be perfectly possible to proceed with two parallel systems. In fact, it would be interesting to see whether the Government’s more bureaucratic system outside London was more effective than the less bureaucratic system inside London. That could be a sensible way to test public policy. Even at this late stage, I urge my noble friend to consider whether the Government could not leave London well alone. That would not stop anything that is planned for the rest of the country in terms of decriminalisation. That is the considered view of experienced people in London based on their experience of doing the difficult job of trying to administer London and at the same time reduce staffing in local authorities and not take on extra bureaucrats to implement ever more complex systems. I hope that my noble friend will reflect on that when he comes to reply.

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, I am the fourth current or former London borough council leader to speak in complete agreement with my colleagues—indeed, my former colleagues. The essential point has been made: what is wrong with the London legislation passed in 2007, which applies across London and was supported by all the London boroughs—it has to be supported by the London boroughs—that we now need Clause 57, at the end of five pages in the principal legislation, specifically deleting the provisions for London, and a four-page schedule, Schedule 12, implementing them?

There must be a pretty serious problem in London that needs fixing. It is supposed to be such a serious problem, but neither a current London borough council leader nor three former leaders from different parties and different parts of London are aware of any problem at all. The London legislation largely meets the Government’s intentions either specifically in decriminalisation or certainly in intent and purpose. The differences between the schemes are relatively minor, certainly not such as to require nine pages of principal legislation to deal with.

We ask, I think in my case for the third time during the passage of the Bill, what is so wrong with the London legislation that it requires this Bill to change it. What are the problems? What are the issues? There is no record of people being incorrectly or inappropriately prosecuted. Indeed, there is hardly any track record of people being prosecuted at all, so that is not really the object of it. The object is to encourage people to recycle and to comply, not to penalise them. It has a very well tested appeals system, albeit not tested in waste collection, which has not been a problem. It is the same appeals system as is used for parking appeals, which is certainly well tested in London.

We have a good system that has been in legislation for just about eight years. We have a good appeals system and a waste collection system that works. What exactly are the Minister and his colleagues trying to fix with this legislation?

Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between Lord Tope and Lord True

Wednesday 10th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, I take a similar position to that of my noble friend who has just spoken but I have a different perspective. I declare an interest as leader of a London local authority—the worst-funded local authority—which will be a tariff authority under the system put forward. One might therefore conclude that I would look forward to a review of these matters. In the unlikely and unfortunate event that the party opposite finds itself back in power, I take this amendment as a pledge that it will conduct a review.

I spoke at some length in Committee on the philosophy of these questions so I do not intend to detain your Lordships on the same issues now. My authority calculates on the basis of the information that has been provided so far. Through my noble friend the Minister I thank officials for their courtesy in contacting my officers. My authority currently expects to be about 17% adrift of our business rate target. We have absolutely no prospect whatever of growing business rates to get out of that hole, which is a continuation of a historic hole in which my authority has sat for a long time. That ought to lead me to say, “Yes, let’s have this review”, but, actually, that would be a rather mechanistic approach. I am not happy at all, as I made clear in Committee. Nor am I happy with the idea that there should be no reset before 2020. That position is absolutely unsustainable and there has to be a system whereby these matters are reviewed before then. I would like them to be looked at before 2013, as the amendment suggests. However, I thought that I heard my noble friend say in Committee that, although she would not be prepared to entertain an overall, general reconsideration of the system, there would be some kind of ongoing consideration of problems and issues as they arose, and there would not always be a flint-hearted, Treasury-style response, although there would be many such responses to questions that might arise.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, that we need to know more, and I am grateful for the assurances from my noble friend that we will hear more. My feeling is that if we park this away and do not have a review until 2013, everyone will say, “Oh well, there will be a review one day”, and nothing will happen. We need an ongoing dialogue, and I shall listen carefully to what my noble friend says in response. I hope she will indicate that there will be flexibility and a continuing readiness to listen, not only before 2013 but after, and that she will agree that 2020 is not the date before which no move will be made.

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, my noble friend referred several times to a review in 2013. While I am sure that he would like to have a review in 2013—would not we all?—I suspect that he might have meant 2016, which is the intention of the amendment. A review in 2013 is not a practical possibility, even if it were desirable.

My noble friend also said—and I rather agree with him—that the amendment from the Labour Benches is possibly the first firm election pledge that we have heard from the party opposite. I must say that I took it in a slightly different way. Although we will certainly have a new Government, of whatever composition, by 2016, this amendment seems to be an expression of doubt that the party opposite will be in a position to have a review even if it wants one. I am not quite as confident as my noble friend Lord True regarding the Labour Party’s intentions here.

My noble friends on this side have made the point that a review may very well be desirable, and of course there are a lot of uncertainties in introducing something as far-reaching as this—of course there must be, they are unavoidable. The review would also come in uncertain times, to say the least. However, I very much doubt whether we need to have in the Bill a binding commitment to a review in 2016. As my noble friend said, it would introduce yet another uncertainty. People would say, “The review is going to come. What will it say? Shall we try and hang on for another year or two?”. A review may very well be desirable at some point. It may happen in 2016, before that or afterwards. If the Government of the day, whoever they are, were able to carry out a review at such a time, in such circumstances and with such terms of reference as they chose, I would caution against having it as a legislative requirement in an Act of Parliament, three years in advance.

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[Lord Tope]

My Lords, I intended that my name should also be added to the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. Due to some mishap, that did not happen, but the noble Lord knows that and that I support the amendments that he has moved so ably. He and my noble friend Lady Eaton and others have said much that needs to be said and, perhaps unusually in this Chamber, I do not intend to repeat it all.

I would like to add a little context to remind noble Lords of the situation here. Ever since the business rate was nationalised some 20 years ago, successive opposition parties pledged themselves to denationalise or localise it, and it has not happened. At last the coalition Government announced that they were going to localise business rates, and I think it is fair to say that that met with a general if cautious welcome across the whole of local government. It was something that all parties in local government had long wanted and argued for, and at last it was going to happen. As it became clearer and clearer exactly what was going to happen and what the intentions were, the wisdom of a cautious welcome became clearer and clearer. It was not quite as good as it was thought to be. And then the announcement came that, at least in the first year, the set-aside would be as much as 50%. For most that came as a shock rather than just an unwelcome surprise. That is the context in which we approach the amendments today.

Local government on all sides is understandably suspicious and doubtful not of the Government’s good intentions but of their fulfilment, and that the 50% rate may remain for ever. Therefore, the amendments that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has proposed are a very good way, although it might not be perfect, to introduce some certainty into what I am sure is the Government’s intention: that it should not remain at 50% but should escalate so that one day we reach that dream world where 100% is retained by the local authority, when it will be a real incentive. I hope that the Government will consider very carefully the amendments and most particularly the intentions behind them.

I want to say a few words from personal experience in support of the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. I was very interested to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Smith, talk about the Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust. In common with many local authorities, my own has considered, for perhaps a little too long, a similar sort of culture trust for the services for which I had executive responsibility right up to May. It is therefore no surprise that I am still involved with this area. We are a little way yet from a decision on it—there are inevitably many pros and cons with these things, and things to be considered—but one key aspect is the question of the NNDR. I could almost go so far as to say that that is a deal breaker or a deal maker. It makes a critical difference to the finances of this operation. Therefore, I support this amendment very strongly and what has been said by the noble Baroness, my noble friend Lord Shipley and the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh. Indeed, I want to know more about the Wigan trust.

I hope that if what we have been discussing is an unintended consequence—I want to believe that it is—active consideration is being given to what to do about it. As I said, I have a personal interest in the sense that this issue is very live with my own local authority. I know that it is equally live with a lot of other local authorities. We need to know, particularly at this budget time, what the position will be by next April.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I wish to follow that point and add my support to the principle of the amendment put forward by the noble Baroness, which I am afraid I saw only when I came down to collect the relevant papers before coming to the Chamber. From what she has said I understand that there is continuing dialogue on the issue. I may be reading wrongly paragraph (b) of the noble Baroness’s amendment, which states, “arising between resets”, but it appears to generalise beyond the specific issue raised of mandatory and discretionary rate relief. I am not sure whether that is the case but it is something that we would have to discuss. However, I endorse everything that has been said by the noble Lords, Lord Smith and Lord Tope, and others. I discussed this issue with two other London council leaders only yesterday.

One of the principles of wishing to promote social enterprise and trust approaches is to support the principle of local involvement, localism and local understanding. If a perverse disincentive is being created quite by accident to offload institutions to far more remote bodies or else to keep the matter in-house, that would be a great pity. In the case of mandatory rate relief, I do not know how it will evolve, but if we are to have an increasing number of charitably run academies and other institutions, these are issues over which local authorities have no control whatever under existing legislation.

I hope that the noble Baroness will not press the amendment at this stage, although I do not think that is her intention. I hope that my noble friend will listen to the points that have been raised, and to which I add my voice, as this Government have a proud record in supporting localism, social enterprise and charitable activity. I do not think that anyone, certainly not in my noble friend’s department and I would hope not in others, would wish unintentionally to cause any disadvantage. Therefore, from these Benches I add my voice in support of these amendments in principle.

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[Lord True]

My Lords, I have made a general statement of principle about public finance. I do not think that anyone who has heard my contributions to debates on this or other Bills relating to localism would doubt that I am very strongly committed to it. I would like the direction of travel to be as my noble friend has indicated. I am simply saying that ring-fencing local authority provision for ever in this manner does not seem an appropriate way to tie the hands of any future Chancellor from whatever party.

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, that intervention reminds me that almost exactly a year ago we had quite a long debate in your Lordships’ House about what localism is. My noble friend Lord Greaves and I tried to set down, at some length, what we think localism means and it rapidly became clear that localism means what you want it to mean. In the ensuing 12 months, it has become increasingly clear that localism means what you want it to mean. Increasing pronouncements from central government—from my Government—demonstrate that point.

I am sure that there is no one involved with this Bill and no one in local government who does not agree with the view expressed in this amendment. In that, I include the Minister, who will speak for herself. I am sure she cannot say that but I am equally sure that she agrees with the views expressed. I even dare to go so far as to say that I suspect that the Secretary of State would agree with the view expressed. However, we all have to recognise the reality that no Minister in any Government will accept this amendment. The Treasury would simply never let them. That is a hard reality of life and one that I personally regret very much. Before today, the Minister has gone a considerable way, and I hope she will in a few minutes’ time, when she replies, make it very clear to us that the genuine intention of the Government is that it should not and will not go below 50%. I was not at the Local Government Association conference—I am one of the few people here who is not a vice-president—but I read that the Secretary of State, Mr Pickles, was urging delegates there to continue campaigning for a higher share than 50%. Perhaps that was just a populist appeal at the time but I like to think that that was the sentiment.

I think we all share the view expressed in the amendment. If we are honest, I think most of us realistically understand that no government Minister, of whatever party or coalition, would be able to accept that amendment. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for moving the amendment and allowing us to press the point even further. I think the point is well and truly made and accepted. When the time comes, I hope that he will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between Lord Tope and Lord True

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord True]

My Lords, I cannot claim to have been a council leader at the time of the community charge, as I will carry on calling it.

[Lord Tope]

The noble Lord was too young.

[Lord True]

However, in the early 1990s I worked for Sir John Major at No. 10, where one of our main responsibilities was finding an alternative to the community charge. Therefore, I was in a different place but working on the same issue. In many ways I am also in the same place as other noble Lords who have spoken today. I made a number of points at Second Reading that were taken up by noble Lords. I support to a large degree the intellectual case that was put. My noble friend Lord Tope spoke wise words. The Committee must address practically the issues that have arisen. We have all made our position clear. I said at Second Reading and will say again that I would rather we were not here and that the benefit was part of universal credit. However, given the position that the Government are in, we must try to make this work in the best way possible.

This debate has taken on the tone of that on Amendment 1. I agree with some of the analysis, but if the logic is that the burden will go on a narrower and narrower base, and that base will tend to be lower-income working families, we will have to wrestle with these issues very carefully in Committee. A number of amendments suggest all sorts of other exemptions, some defined, some less defined. Some call for the Government to define who the vulnerable are; that is an interesting concept. The risk is that the Committee could make the work incentive situation worse with a well meaning intent to try to protect broad categories of people who obviously deserve our consideration.

I throw that into the discussion because it will be an interesting tension given that we are also told to take it as read—like my noble friend Lord Tope, I accept the position of my Government—that pensioners are to be excluded. However, as my noble friend Lord Greaves and others have said, that of course narrows the ground. In my authority, too, pensioners make up around 44% of claimants and 43% of council tax benefit spending.

I am not going to claim any credit of prior speaking on this. The point is well made; I made it at Second Reading. However, I hope that as we go forward to look at the amendments in detail we will remember that some well meaning amendments might have the perverse effect of making the work incentive situation even worse. I hope that we can now go on to look at the matters in detail.

Localism Bill

Debate between Lord Tope and Lord True

Thursday 23rd June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 84DA in the same group, which stands in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Hamwee. My noble friend would certainly have wished to move this amendment but, unfortunately, she cannot be here. It is suggested to us by the Centre for Public Scrutiny, on whose advisory body she serves, and it follows a theme of today's discussion in Committee. The effect of Amendment 84DA is to remove the right of the Secretary of State to make detailed guidance on scrutiny issues. It would remove the statutory force from existing guidance that the department has produced but, of course, local authorities would still be able to use that existing guidance to get some idea of the legislative intent of Parliament.

The centre believes, and I certainly agree with it very strongly, that the maximum possible discretion should be given to local authorities about how they operate their scrutiny function, with primary legislation providing general enabling powers which are interpreted intelligently by councils, councillors and their officers. Scrutiny is a member-led function and, therefore, it seems inappropriate that Government should provide detailed prescription of its operation. That is the same theme with which we have been dealing all day today and I suspect that we shall continue to do so through much of this Bill.

Where a specific need for guidance is identified, advisory information can be developed by the sector which can incorporate the views of the Government but which would be prepared independently and based on the needs and interests of local authorities and their residents. The justification for omitting this paragraph on guidance is a combination of practical reasons and reasons of principle. I beg to move.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I do not wish to prolong proceedings, but I have not had an opportunity to say how much I agree with the general thrust of many of the things that are being said. It may be that, at a later stage, it will be possible, through Amendment 84DA, to leave out a “must” and put in a “may”. Those who advise the Secretary of State, and who have the pleasure of writing all sorts of guidance for local authorities, could continue to do so and we could pay due respect to the importance of that guidance and to guidance that came from other sources. Then perhaps everyone would be delighted and a little localism might reign.

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[Lord True]

My Lords, I understand where the noble Lord is coming from but there are obvious difficulties with the amendment quite apart from whether or not it is tending towards prescription. For example, I recall a not very happy election in 1986 when I was one of three members of my party on our local authority—

[Lord Tope]

That was a very happy election.

[Lord True]

It may have been for others. I did not know that the noble Lord, Lord Tope, was there. In those circumstances, had there been a scrutiny system with four scrutiny committees, under this amendment a member of the opposition would have found himself or herself chairing two scrutiny committees. The principle behind the amendment is a good one but in practice it simply would not work. In my humble view, the so-called “cabinet” system that was imposed on us by the previous Administration has tended, as many of us involved in local government know, to create a potential gulf between the executive members and the back-bench members of the governing party and local authorities have had to work against that all the time. It is vital that back-bench members of the governing party have full involvement—often very sceptical involvement—in the operation of the authority. It is desirable that they should also be given the opportunity to take a leading role in challenging the authority and scrutinising it. This is often the case in many authorities that I know and have visited. It would be outrageous for the opposition party to be excluded from chairing scrutiny committees but equally, as well as being impractical in certain circumstances, it would be undesirable to exclude the back-bench members of a governing party from being involved in taking executive decisions and playing a leading role in scrutiny. Therefore, I am afraid that I cannot support my noble friend’s amendment.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I begin by paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and his colleagues for changing the system that we operated in Newcastle when they took office in 2004. I will let the noble Lord and your Lordships into the secret that prior to that date I had tried to persuade my colleagues at least to emulate the system in another place of a balance of chairmanship of such committees, but with my usual lack of cogency I failed to persuade them at that time. However, they have now been converted by the noble Lord and his colleagues, so things move on.

I entirely accept what the noble Lord, Lord True, has said about the impracticality of the suggestion behind the amendment. I can give a better justification. The borough of Newham has 60 Labour members and no opposition members at all—or at least no overt opposition members—so clearly the amendment would not work there. The Labour Party advice about scrutiny committees is that the relevant duty should be shared. That is national Labour Party advice and I hope that the same is true of other political parties as well. It would make a great deal of sense.

If I differ from the noble Lord it is because, as has rather often been the case, he has tended to view scrutiny as something retrospective and as a case of holding an executive to account for decisions that it has made or is about to make. That is part of the job but it overlooks the forward programming of an authority and the development of policy. One of the great advantages of properly resourced scrutiny is that it allows members to develop policy free of the operation of the whip, which should not apply in scrutiny.

After 24 years chairing committees and leading a council, I was eventually voluntarily dispatched to my Siberian power station; that is, the arts and recreation committee in Newcastle. I found that being a back-bencher was very different from chairing a meeting. As the chairman of a meeting, you had an agenda and if you were any good at it you knew what you wanted, you had a discussion and you got it through. In Newcastle’s case I would have a pre-meeting with 15 Labour members for an hour. That represents an average of four minutes each. The dialogue was not Socratic in its nature. It was not the highest level of political debate and many members were simply concerned to get through the meeting as quickly as possible. By contrast, scrutiny actually allows people to think. Some people found the transition to be rather difficult, but it is welcome.

The whole thing can be summarised for me by my moment of revelation, which came when, having missed a meeting, I went to a meeting of the arts and recreation committee—a very worthy committee with a big agenda —and I read in a minute that a member had raised the question of birds eating grass seed on the Leazes Park allotment. I thought, “Has it really come to this? This is not really an effective way of running things”. I therefore support in principle the executive scrutiny split, provided that scrutiny is adequately resourced.

Subject to those reservations, I generally support scrutiny. I will refer briefly to Amendment 48 in this group relating to new Section 9FC and the guidance being proffered. New subsection (3) states that in exercising the power to refer matters to a scrutiny committee,

“the member must have regard to any guidance for the time being issued by the Secretary of State”.

The notion that 20,000 councillors are going to consult the bible on scrutiny issued by Eland House before they are able to refer something is, frankly, ridiculous. I anticipate that the Minister will acknowledge that this could be excised from the Bill without damage. I invite her so to indicate.

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[Lord Tope]

My Lords, I am conscious that Amendment 56 is possibly not now the most important or interesting in this group, but we tabled it as a probing amendment with a view to asking the Minister to explain more clearly than is apparent in the Bill itself new Section 9H(3) and (4), which deals with the nature of a mayor and his or her relationship with the council. While I am on my feet, I shall refer to some of the other amendments in this group and, indeed, to others that are yet to come. Again I congratulate the Government on recognising that the whole question of shadow mayors and mayoral arrangements really has no place in a Bill that is about localism. As we discussed at Question Time yesterday, I know that it will be said by some that this is a sensible move by a listening Government, and said by others to be a U-turn. I do not mind very much what it is called; I just feel that the Government are to be congratulated.

I thank in particular the Minister for bringing the decision forward at such an early stage in our consideration of the Bill, which no doubt will save many hours of debate in this Chamber. With that, I beg to move Amendment 56 and I look forward to the debate on the other amendments in the group.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I have a number of amendments in this group, and I want to follow on from what the noble Lord, Lord Tope, has said by thanking very sincerely my noble friend for the leadership and responsiveness she has shown on this matter. Those of us who have been present in the Committee today will also have noted the openness, warmth and positive way in which she has responded to a number of the points that have been put forward. We are all grateful for that.

I am slightly confused by the groupings, which have changed a little overnight, perhaps for reasons related to pre-emption or to a number of other points. By the way, I should pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding, who played a big part in raising this issue at Second Reading. There was unity across the House that to create shadow mayors before the electors in the cities concerned had had an opportunity to have their say was not a good idea. The Minister then came forward at the earliest possible opportunity to say that the Government had accepted the arguments, so the principle does not need to be debated at any great length, and I do not propose to do so. However, I should give notice, in speaking to the large number of amendments within this grouping, that it should be taken that I have also spoken to Amendments 74A, 77A, 77B, 79A and 81A. They are not in this group, but they relate to the same subject. Even if I have it wrong, I hope that the Committee will accept that I shall not come back to those amendments later, and I repeat my thanks to my noble friend for taking up the point in the positive way she has.