Localism Bill

Lord True Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, before we go any further it may be in the interests of the House if I indicate probably what is now the worst kept secret—that the Government will be minded to accept these amendments, and there may be further debate.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I do not wish to inject a note of dissent entirely, because noble Lords who were in Committee will know that I was one of those who was extremely critical of many of the prescriptive aspects of what was laid out in the Bill. Indeed I have laid amendments with my noble friend Lord Howard to raise the question of whether referendums might be binding in certain circumstances.

I do not fear the use of referendums; they will be possible, and I hope that in endorsing the decision of the Government, the message will not go out from the House that somehow referendums are in all circumstances undesirable or unwanted. I know that that is not the Government’s intention otherwise they would not have presented us with the Bill in the first place, but in the general maelstrom of enthusiasm that I am sure will follow this announcement, it is important for someone to place it on the record that in terms of localism and popular voice, a referendum can be a powerful and legitimate weapon of public power and authority.

One of the problems with what was drafted by the Government was not only its prescriptiveness but of course the ease with which it could be used, which led to all the problems of cost and potential abuse, and that is where we got into a number of difficulties. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, withdrew an amendment which was effectively going to restrict the ability of one or two councillors to interfere or manipulate the process of these referendums.

Since we are going to discuss this matter late here tomorrow in relation to neighbourhood orders, Amendment 207, which gives the power to individual ward members to exercise a stopping power, is not desirable. That reason why the Government’s referendum provisions are not desirable is a good reason why I support the Government’s action in withdrawing this. It is important to state that, from my perspective as the leader of a local authority, a referendum is a weapon that can and should be used and should be accepted by those in local government.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, I shall be extremely brief. My morale has been sustained throughout the Recess by the prospect of shortly moving Amendment 195ZB, in which I see I have the support of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. That amendment is directed at the issue that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has addressed. I tabled it at the request of the British Retail Consortium. If it makes any difference to any doubts in the mind of my noble friend the Minister about what she is about to say, she will have the British Retail Consortium on her side when she does so.

I am less sure that Amendments 195D and 195E to Clause 59, which are in my name, will now be unnecessary. If we are to have a break for dinner, there may be an opportunity to find out whether they need to be moved.

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[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I have later amendments on the same issues. In relation to Amendment 197DA, I would like to say to my noble friend that I think that experience in the particular activity that is at issue is less important than the geographical link. I take his point about wanting a connection, but I am not quite convinced that it is the particular connection that he has mentioned. However, by and large I am entirely with him on this issue.

The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, framed this in terms of urban needs, and I myself am very much an urban and suburban person. He also mentioned the comfort of state provision. Since this debate has morphed into discussion not just about two employees, but about whether two employees might, as it were, sell out to Tesco, it does remind me that there is often a very sharp divide on this issue. People do not like Tesco, but they do like being able to shop in Tesco, which creates quite a dilemma.

My question for my noble friend is whether there is any room for local variation in a local authority’s response to such an expression of interest? I will come to my other questions when we come to my amendments later.

[Lord True]

My Lords, there is a gentle sense of irony in the representative of the workers’ party, and my noble friend who is yearning for the days when his party stood for worker control, expressing so much concern at the prospect of employees, however few—less than half, I gather, is unacceptable— expressing an interest in undertaking a function. It seems to me that we are witnessing major change in communities and local government and that it is perfectly reasonable, indeed it is already happening all over the country, that groups of workers and employees are coming forward with propositions to set up social enterprises, to take on existing bodies and to take on other activities. I am sorry that I was not in the Chamber to welcome the withdrawal by my noble friend of regulation in the previous group of amendments, which I do welcome. Yet here we are being pushed to prescribe and put blocks in the way of people putting forward expressions of interest simply on the basis that they might be employees of the organisation and, still worse, that they might secretly be in cahoots with capitalism.

[Lord Beecham]

That is not what I said, nor is it what the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said. What we object to is the idea of two people in a potentially large organisation committing the rest of the employees. Where is the democracy in that?

[Lord True]

There is nothing to say that this deals with a large organisation—some of the things that we are discussing at the moment are relatively small. It seems inconceivable to me that two employees would act against the wishes of those people that they actually want to work with in the future. For years the noble Lord endured the policy of his party being made by small, powerful executives purporting to speak in the names of millions of people—for all we know, they probably still do. I do not see any reason why a group of workers or employees should not get together and entrust their negotiations about an expression of interest to two or three of their number. I think that we should be extremely careful in framing this Bill not to put forward regulation that makes employee initiative more difficult.

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have contributed. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, introduced the debate and then strolled off into the area covered by my notes for the next section, so I will trespass into them and see whether that works.

Before I respond in general I will deal with the matters raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, because I am aware that he was not particularly comforted on the last occasion that I responded to him. I hope that he will be now, because if he looks at Clause 74, he will see that it is headed, “Provision of advice and assistance”. I will not say that it is littered with the words “Secretary of State”, but they are there half a dozen times, which suggests that the Secretary of State may well give advice and assistance to those who want to be involved in the challenge. I understand that the department’s view is that the clause would be used to give help and advice to various organisations that may be far better able to tackle the challenge.

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I recognise that the Minister may not be in a position this evening to accept these amendments, no matter how keen he might be to do so. But given all the Government’s fine words about transparency, could he at the very least agree to look at an appropriate timescale for ensuring that the provisions of this Bill do not undermine, as they currently do, the Government’s commitment to increasing transparency and could he undertake to come back and tell your Lordships’ House the results of his investigations at Third Reading? We know that the longer politicians stay in power, the more they like it and the less they like any fetters on the exercise of it. The value of freedom of information legislation and transparency is precisely the fact that it is a fetter on the powerful. Eighteen months ago this Government suggested that they understood the importance of fettering those in power. I hope the Minister can now demonstrate that they are still committed to that, not simply in words but in actions as well.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I must intervene. Obviously the noble Lord has not developed his arguments at the same length as in Committee but I am afraid I am as unconvinced by them now as I was then. It is certainly a worthy thing to pay lip service to freedom of information but one has to think about the practical impact of what is proposed. Although the noble Lord says that in Amendment 199 he places a limit on the extent of the burden by specifying contracts for any sum over £1 million, this is vitiated by the fact that his amendment goes on to say:

“Where such a contract is to any extent performed by means of a sub-contract, that sub-contract shall be deemed to include a freedom of information provision”,

and so on. It is like unwrapping a Russian doll. As we discussed in Committee, many of these large contracts may relate to construction, for example, where many small businesses will be involved. This may be onerous for small businesses and those businesses may well find themselves caught by the way that this amendment is drafted. The only people exempted are legal advisers to those bodies. Indeed, any other person acting on behalf of a sub-contractor, such as the bookkeeper of a small business, may be brought in to the scope of that amendment, as I read it. I should like the Minister to reflect carefully before going in that direction.

I argued that the new clause proposed by Amendment 201 could be absurdly onerous on local authorities. The noble Lord’s amendment uses “relevant authority”, which means that any parish council or community council in this country would have to publish annual reports on the Freedom of Information Act, environmental regulations and information on the number of requests that it had received. All the provisions here would apply to every authority in the country. My own council is very willing to comply with the Act—anybody can ask a question about it at council; we had a question on it answered two council meetings ago and this information was given—but the cost of doing so is already more than £100,000 a year. With the greatest respect, I do not think that extending this degree of reporting responsibility down to the level of the merest parish council and community council in this country, let alone larger authorities, is appropriate or necessary.

While respecting the enthusiasm of the noble Lord, Lord Wills, I hope that my noble friend will resist his amendment for the reasons that I and others have given and that we can proceed with the rest of the Bill.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wills, is quite right that enthusiasm for freedom of information seems to wane the longer a party is in power. He is perhaps sitting there, safely in the far corner of the Back Benches, so that he does not get too heavily stamped on by his own Front Bench. The Labour Party quite clearly lost enthusiasm for the Freedom of Information Bill in the course of taking it through Parliament. It was by the narrowest of squeaks that it survived at all, and that was only six months into government. If it has developed a new affection for it now, I am delighted, but I do not expect it to last.

However, on our Front Bench, we have Mr Freedom of Information himself. My noble friend has been dedicated to this cause for a long time, so I hope that he will take a constructive view of what we might do. I share many of the concerns of my noble friend Lord True and do not think that this amendment does the trick. However, more openness in local government and more consideration of which of the larger contracts in local government should be open to freedom of information would be consistent with the way in which the Government are going; for instance, in considering whether examination boards should be subject to the Freedom of Information Act or putting UCAS on the list of bodies subject to it, as we have a draft regulation to do at the moment. If the processes of the Health and Social Care Bill lead to a substantial transfer of what is currently public activity away from the public gaze, I shall propose that we make sure that it is brought back swiftly through the Freedom of Information Act. I do not see this Bill as leading to large-scale transfers of activity away from the public gaze into obscurity, but there should be some protection in case there is. I hope that we get a constructive answer from my noble friend.