Localism Bill

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, what a horrible title this is for a Bill, which is essentially about community—a much warmer concept. In the few minutes available, I will flag up some key issues, which I hope to return to at a later stage. The areas of main concern to me are how the Bill impacts on Wales and in general how it impacts on the well-being of disabled and disadvantaged people wherever they may live.

My party, Plaid Cymru, supports not only the devolution of power to the nations and regions of these islands, but also to local communities. For years, Plaid campaigned for the abolition of the ultra vires rule. Of course, enabling communities to do more for themselves does not guarantee that they have the capacity to do so. Some of the neediest communities also have the least capacity. JB Priestley once commented that decentralisation by central direction is a contradiction. That may be relevant to this Bill.

I am very aware that some of this Bill was rehashed substantially in its later stages in another place under a stringent timetable Motion, and that in March there was a yes vote in the referendum on the powers of the National Assembly in Wales, which significantly impacts on the application of parts of this Bill on Wales. Consequently, there is some lack of transparency which we will need to look at in Committee. An example is the lack of clarity regarding the Bill’s application to Wales. This arises in Part 1, dealing with the general powers, Clauses 1 to 8. This has to do with local government, and the term “local government” is defined in Clause 8 in terms that apply to England. The Explanatory Notes to the Bill say on page 97 that Clauses 1 to 8 apply only to England, yet Clause 5(8) refers to orders that have,

“effect in relation to Wales”,

and provides for consultation with Welsh Ministers. Similar problems arise elsewhere in the Bill, for example in Clauses 126 and 127 in relation to homelessness, and in Clause 145 in relation to the abolition of the housing revenue account subsidy, which has a significant knock-on effect for Wales.

Two other areas are of particular concern to the Welsh Local Government Association. The first is in regard to the UK Government passing down European fines and penalties to local government. If councils are liable for EU fines, they rightly feel that they should be able to influence the laws that lead to those fines. It is not clear how the EU fines that relate to councils in Wales will be handled. Part 2 does not appear to apply to Wales, but the WLGA fears that it will. The Minister Greg Clark suggested in another place that this will happen, although it is apparently not currently in the Bill. As most local government functions in Wales are devolved to the National Assembly, this raises the question of the Assembly’s right to interface directly with Brussels on these issues. There is also a danger of significant legal costs to the public purse from intergovernmental disputes over fines that may arise.

The second issue that the WLGA has flagged up is to do with planning. As the Minister will realise, Wales already has 25 local planning authorities, which enjoy substantial local engagement. Community councils have a key role as local sounding boards in Wales. Therefore, the question arises of whether localism as an approach in the Bill is as relevant to Wales. This leads to the question of whether the provisions of the Bill on nationally significant infrastructure projects are appropriate to Wales. The Bill does not reflect the reality of the devolution settlement in Wales. For example, Welsh Ministers and the Welsh Local Government Association have supported the aim that all energy developments of up to 100 megawatts should be devolved to the Assembly. The current dual approval process provides specific problems in Wales; so far Ministers appear to have been deaf to such pleas. I very much hope that we can return to this at a later stage.

Finally, I turn to issues of concern to disabled people. I declare an interest as joint patron of Mencap Wales. These issues include ensuring that security of housing tenure is maintained for carers and relatives of disabled people. This is an issue of considerable concern to many in the world of disability. There are also worries that people with learning difficulties will not be a priority group for social housing. This needs to be addressed. No doubt other such issues will arise in Committee; I very much look forward to participating in those debates.