Royal British Legion (Princes Risborough)

Steve Baker Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

It is a huge pleasure to have the opportunity to address the future of the Royal British Legion hall in Princes Risborough, which I believe is a subject only slightly less fiercely contested than those that we have dealt with this afternoon.

I know that you, Mr Speaker, have taken an extremely close interest in the issue, including through extensive correspondence, as the hall falls within your constituency. The Minister for Europe, my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington), being a resident of Princes Risborough, has taken a very close interest also, so my sense this evening, given that it turns out my regional Whip is quite interested too, is that the public have had a four-for-one offer on the subject.

The Royal British Legion was founded in 1921 to provide help and welfare support to those who had fought in the first world war. It currently boasts 380,000 members and about 2,700 branches throughout the UK. On 9 October 2008, the new legion club was launched. It was the culmination of a £5 million project by the Royal British Legion to replace older legion clubs with a new generation of professionally run social clubs.

Twelve months later, with nine clubs, including Princes Risborough, trading under the new legion club name, the project was declared a failure. Contributing factors included the smoking ban, changes in consumers’ drinking habits and the economic downturn, and the nine revamped venues were put up for sale. I understand that Princes Risborough is the only remaining branch that has not been closed and/or sold.

Princes Risborough Royal British Legion hall was erected in the 1950s. Crucially, it was built and paid for by members of the local community for the benefit of the branch and its activities. The premises are on two floors, with the ground floor providing a bar and dining facilities and the first floor a large hall with stage. This facility has served the purposes of the branch and the wider community for over 50 years. Throughout that time, the club made a trading profit year on year.

Just over two years ago, the branch was approached by New Legion Clubs, which requested that the branch transfer the lease of the premises to it. In return, NLC promised a refurbishment of the premises, a membership recruitment drive, professional management, and future security for the branch and the club facility. The branch subsequently agreed to this request, the refurbishment was undertaken, and the premises reopened. As part of the memorandum of understanding between the parties to this arrangement, it was clearly stated that

“in the unlikely event that NLC should fail as a business, the lease would be surrendered to RBL HQ and the Branch”

would

“be given the option to re-open as an Original Legion Club”.

Some 12 months after the reopening, the branch received a letter from Royal British Legion HQ stating that New Legion Clubs was a failing business and that it was to be put into administration, with all nine NLC premises, including Princes Risborough, to be sold for the maximum return. The branch requested that the memorandum of understanding be honoured and that it should be given the option to reopen as an original legion club or as a facility offering wider community use. The request was denied and the premises were put on the open market. However, it was agreed that the branch could continue to operate from the premises and hire out the facilities, provided that there were no alcohol sales.

With the full support of the branch, Princes Risborough town council submitted a bid of £400,000 to purchase the property for use as a community facility, while pledging to allow the branch a permanent presence on site. RBL HQ rejected this bid. Its preferred purchaser was, I understand, a developer that intended to convert the site to residential usage. However, when the developer realised that it was not likely to obtain “change of use” planning permission, its offer was withdrawn and the property was put back on the market. The branch made a direct bid of £350,000 to purchase the property. That bid, which was supported by a professional business plan, the town council and the wider community, was rejected in favour of selling the property to a developer. That, too, fell through. The third time the property was offered for sale, there were only two bidders: W. E. Black Ltd, which bid £475,000; and the locally based Chilterns Christian Fellowship, which bid, we understand, a materially higher amount.

I want now to concentrate on the memorandum of understanding. In his letter of 3 August to Councillor Alan Turner, Andrew Axcell, the commercial head of RBL, acknowledged that when the branch agreed to the transfer of the lease to enable use by New Legion Clubs, the briefing notes that were in use contained the statement that if NLC failed,

“The lease for the building would be surrendered back to the Legion. The Branch would then have the option to form a Club Committee, if it felt that a club could be successfully run by its own members. The Club Committee would be able to lease the building from the Legion and open another club in the traditional manner.”

However, Mr Axcell then went on to explain that the trustees of RBL had decided that they had legal grounds to ignore the MOU on the basis of

“the duties which are placed on them by the trust document or by charity law”.

In your letter of 22 August, Mr Speaker, to Chris Simpkins, the director general of RBL, you said:

“you have simply not addressed the point that I made in the fourth paragraph of my letter of 3 August—namely, that the Princes Risborough Branch asked that the commitment in the Memorandum of Understanding...be honoured. That commitment has been dishonoured, and it should not have been. If the Royal British Legion nationally did not intend to honour the MOU, it should not have signed it. As your organisation did sign it, my constituents and I are entitled to expect that you honour it.”

This point has not been addressed in any of the correspondence that you, Mr Speaker, have received from Mr Simpkins’s office. The building ran into difficulties only following its relationship with New Legion Clubs.

In his letter to you, Mr Speaker, of 17 August, Chris Simpkins said that

“charity Trustees have a statutory duty to act, at all times, in the best interests of the Charity’s beneficiaries. In so doing, Royal British Legion Trustees are bound by the terms of our Royal Charter. Whilst the importance of the contribution which the premises at Princes Risborough makes to community life is appreciated, this is not a consideration that Trustees are entitled to take into account when evaluating offers for the sale of the premises. Trustees are required to secure best value in the disposal taking all relevant factors into account and therefore ignoring all irrelevant factors. I appreciate how difficult this fact might be for local people to understand and accept, but there is no escape from it.”

You, Mr Speaker, local councillors and Risborough residents feel that if the hall is sold to the Chilterns Christian Fellowship, it will cease to be a resource for the community, at least in an equivalent way. I do not know this particular fellowship, but as a Christian I would be disappointed if a church turned out to be a net loss to the community. Although such considerations are material to the decisions that might be taken by property owners, I would like the Government to respond to the objective questions of law that this matter raises in the context of localism and the big society.

It seems to me that local attitudes to the development of a church are somewhat tangential from the law and this House in a free and open society. However, the Royal British Legion signed a memorandum of understanding that it subsequently decided not to honour. The principle of that action should be a matter of concern to this House. The hall was built and paid for by local people and the memorandum of understanding was material to the decision by local people to permit New Legion Clubs to take over the facility. Such matters of trust are fundamental to a good society and to a civilisation based on voluntary action and co-operation.

It is very much to be regretted that the Royal British Legion appears to have fallen short of the standards of honour that are customarily associated with its members. I wish to know whether that apparent dishonour has been forced on the RBL, perhaps by the law or by bad legal advice. If the RBL could have honoured its memorandum of understanding within the law, of course it should have done so. The RBL has refused a public meeting in Risborough with the New Legion Clubs review board to discuss this matter further. I would therefore be grateful for the Government’s advice, in particular on the matters of law at hand, on the implications for the Government’s big society programme and on the Localism Bill and the community right to bid.