English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (First sitting)

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th September 2025 Public Bill Committees

[David Simmonds]

Q One of the issues that we aired in the debate when this subject first emerged on the Floor of the House was that at the Government’s chosen footprint of 500,000 minimum population, the Bill implies the abolition of 90% of the local elected representatives in each of those areas. I know the cross-party concerns about the risk of losing that community voice. With your experience at community, district and borough level, it would be helpful for you to spell out what you think is the impact of that potential democratic deficit, especially on contested issues such as planning.

Sam Chapman-Allen: You will appreciate how busy your inboxes and mailsacks are, with the casework that you receive daily from your residents. When you begin to remove councillors, that casework does not disappear; it just becomes a bigger challenge for a single councillor. The risk is as we begin to get bigger those mega-councils, and we begin to think about how to ensure that those councillors can represent their communities. Does it become a full-time job? Does it then preclude other people from being able to stand to become community champions?

The reason why local government and district councils work successfully, in the same way as London boroughs and Manchester metropolitan councils, is because they are hyper-local. There are circa 200,000 to 350,000 residents per council, and they have local councillors representing a couple of thousand people. As we move forward with mega-councils, the risk is that a single councillor will be representing some tens of thousands. The independent think-tank Localis has done some analysis of the current proposal for a 500,000 threshold. We could see 90% of councillors across shire areas removed overnight. That would be a democratic deficit and an absolute catastrophe.

If we look back through the pandemic, as Justin has alluded to, community councillors were out every single day, just as you were as MPs, supporting the most vulnerable, making sure that communities could bounce back and, more importantly, giving support to local businesses to make sure that they could bounce back as well and grow from strength to strength. My concern is that if we begin to move ourselves to a distant model, there will be a democratic deficit and unaccountability, and the ability of a councillor to know that every resident, street, business and community leader will be lost.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Miatta Fahnbulleh)]

Q My first question is for Councillor Chapman-Allen. First, I should put on the record that the 500,000 number that has been cited is not fixed. The Government will prioritise making sure that there are clear links and that we have that democratic basis, so that communities feel connected to their local institutions. That is a priority for us and we will proceed on that basis.

Strategic authorities are made up of constituent local authorities, and at their best, where they work, it is based on partnership. Can Councillor Chapman-Allen give the Committee examples from among his membership, where strategic authorities already operate, of that collaboration among the constituent authorities, which will always have a key role, working in tandem with the mayor to deliver for communities?

I also have a question for Mr Griggs. The role of neighbourhoods and the connection between communities and the places where elected representatives serve is fundamental to what we are trying to do with the Bill. The part of the legislation on neighbourhood governance is looking to bolster and strengthen that. What are your views on how that will create new opportunities not only for community partnership working but, critically, for community voice and power?

Sam Chapman-Allen: Thank you for your question. To start, I think the 500,000 figure as the initial threshold has caused confusion. I think that many of the submissions that will be received in the devolution priority areas next week and then in the rest of the country in November will show that many councils are submitting models of 500,000-plus. Let us put that into context: they will be some of the biggest councils in the western developed world. I think that will ensure there is a democratic deficit.

In relation to strategic authorities and constituent members, the only model where all district councils, or all principal councils, are members are in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. If you look at what is taking place there, you will see it is a really successful model. Yes, there is a little bit of grit every now and then, but that is why scrutiny, governance and accountability are so important. We will not always agree on everything.

If we look at a model in which all principal councils are members—I cite Greater Manchester, with Andy Burnham and his 10 councils within that area—they all share responsibility together. All of them within that locality are the responsible authorities for housing and for planning, and they are working together to drive the agenda forward around the real challenges that localities face. They have had some real successes, and I do not think anybody should take that away from them. I know that you have Lord Houchen giving evidence later; he will give exactly the same example of where you have those principal councils able to pull the levers to get stuff done.

Justin Griggs: First of all—

[The Chair]

Sorry to interrupt, Mr Griggs, but you are quite quietly spoken. Could you please speak up?

Justin Griggs: Yes, Dame Siobhain, I will definitely speak up a bit.

First, congratulations Minister on your appointment; we look forward to working closely with you. I will try to channel my remarks, and also pick up on what Mr Simmonds said about the democratic deficit and the distance that there will now be because of the reorganisation in respect of new unitary strategic authorities and in neighbourhoods.

It is undoubtedly the case that if we did not have a structure called parish and town councils across 92% of England, bringing together 100,000 people to improve their areas—parish councillors put 14.5 million hours into serving their communities—we would have to set one up. It is right in the White Paper and in parts of the Bill to seek to lean into that, because decisions will be taken much further away from places. That is why it is our view, and it has certainly been the case in previous rounds of reorganisation, that it is right for the role of parish and town councils to be strengthened and empowered and to be recognised and respected partners to our colleagues in the principal authorities and in the strategic authorities.

On Sam’s point, we wholeheartedly agree with the importance of collaboration. Where the Bill could go further—we would be keen to work closely with the Government on this—is around mechanisms for more partnership at the mayoral level, linking in much more closely with communities and neighbourhoods through their parish and town councils to provide a democratic voice. They work very closely around agendas for infrastructure, housing and skills in their areas, because they will be the places that are most affected. They are local leaders with skin in the game and they know their places best, so they will be well placed to work with them.

This is where a number of mechanisms can come in that are well tried and tested across other parts of the country that have reorganised, such as the development of charters and protocols to set out how to better work closely together, and parish liaison officers working closely with council associations and local councils across a sensible authority footprint. They are the people who know parish councils best and can work as a trusted partner with the principal authorities to build their capacity and capability.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Holmes]

Q I have a quick follow-up question, particularly to Councillor Hicks: would it be fair to say that the policy on the local government reorganisation is a soft target, certainly, but it was portrayed as a hard target to local authority leaders at the time?

Matthew Hicks: We certainly felt in the beginning that Suffolk, with a population of 750,000, was right in the middle of the range and would be an ideal candidate for one unitary.

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

Q I have a question for Councillors Bentley and Hicks first on unitarisation, and then, if I may, a question to Councillor Craig on strategic authorities. Obviously you are going through the process of working hard with colleagues to put together a proposal for unitarisation. I am really interested in your perspectives and insights about how you—because we are putting it in the hands of local areas to do the heavy lifting—and we get that right. Critically, we are not doing this for fun; we are doing it because we fundamentally believe it will drive better services and better outcomes. I am interested in your perspectives, from your individual areas, about the sorts of impact that you think we can deliver if we get this right.

Kevin Bentley: Thank you, and welcome to your new role; I am sure we will be seeing a lot of each other the coming months, Minister.

In Essex, there are 15 councils. If you want to look at councils of any shape or size, come to Essex; we pretty much have them all, and a lot of them, as well. And while there are four different business cases coming from Essex—and you would expect that, as it is a huge county in terms of population and people have differing views—each has been done thoughtfully and carefully. The overriding message is that the 15 councils are made up of all political parties and none, and there is common cause. No one has fallen out. There is no argument. There is no row going on at all. We meet regularly in something we call the Essex leaders and chief execs meeting—I am talking about Essex here; I will talk about the LGA in just a second—and certainly our experience is of collaboration.

We may have different views from the Government for them to consider, but the understanding that we need to do things differently is really there. That goes for all political parties. We understand that the current system cannot carry on, because it will just run out of money if we are not careful. We are already seeing that.

The one thing to say is that everyone across the sector should be allowed to have their view and decide what is right for their area. When I started as a leader, the one question that I continually asked myself, and still do today, is, “What does this mean for the public and does it improve their lives?” Unless you can answer that question affirmatively, you should stop. So far, for me the answer has been yes—yes, we can do it better than we currently do it—and I think colleagues are in the same position.

It is also important that our colleagues in local government across the country consult not only with each other but with the public to ask whether we can do this better. If they believe we cannot, okay, but I think they will find that we can. The most important thing is to not lose sight of why we are doing it. It is for the public and the people of this country, not for politicians and councils.

Matthew Hicks: I would echo that. For us, it is about building on the experience of others who have been through this. We have been out to places such as Cumbria to ask for advice on what they learned and what works well. We have learned how others delivered on business cases or struggled to deliver on some of the items they included.

Ultimately, for us, this is about a new and more positive relationship between local government and our residents and businesses; it is about doing things differently. With the two cases in Suffolk, ultimately, everyone has the interests of our residents at heart. The big issue is how you analyse the data that people are using, and the forecasting. That is where we are seeing the major variants, but the delivery and what we want to deliver are not too different.

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

Q Councillor Craig, obviously Greater Manchester has been at the forefront of devolution and the development of mayoral strategic authorities; I had the pleasure of being there at the outset a decade and a half ago. I am interested in your take on the impact the difference and it has made on your communities and, critically, on the collaboration between constituent authorities and the mayor and the strategic authority. During the last panel, the concern was about the power, onus and importance of constituent authorities. I am interested in how it has worked in practice and what we can learn from that.

Bev Craig: That is an important question. The difference for Greater Manchester was that we asked for devolution. That started the journey across the north of England initially, but it went out across the whole country. It has come off the back of a generation of co-operation in Greater Manchester, so it was built into a system. When the Greater Manchester authority was disestablished in the 1980s, my predecessors carried on with the meetings and kept that model alive.

I will come on to accountability, but what helps is that people do not identify with local authority boundaries. We represent people who, in their normal lives, say that they are from a place. A colleague might say that they are from Middleton and they are proud to be from Middleton, but when they are on holiday and people ask where they are from, they say “Near Manchester.” There is something about creating a place that people can identify with; that has been really strong. When you look at models where mayors have been successful, it is because they have tapped into a place identity. That links to my point that rural areas can still have place identity.

On accountability, in the Greater Manchester model of combined authorities, which moved to strategic authorities, we all have a role to play. Think about the role of the city. It is a major economic driver for not just Greater Manchester but the north of England as a whole. The whole region needs Manchester city centre to do well, in the same way that Manchester city centre needs the rest of Greater Manchester to do well if it is to have people with skills, good education, homes to live in and places to celebrate that they enjoy spending time in. That is why, through our model, we all hold portfolios. I am just as interested in getting Atom Valley in the north of the conurbation to be a success as I am in growing my life sciences sector in the city centre. There is something about getting people to take responsibility.

When we look at the competencies, that is why the LGA argues for clarity in the Bill that local authorities will still have a stake in some of the areas that we might think mayoral strategic authorities lead on. I say this with kindness, and I often say it to my Mayor’s face: he can give the parameters of the homes that we build and he can help fund them, and I will put on his logo and picture if we need to, but fundamentally it is Manchester city council that is out there building council homes. That is why we built more council and social homes last year than at any point over the last decade and a half. It works when we work together.

To clarify the role of commissioners in the context of the Bill, where they have been useful in Greater Manchester has been in an advisory capacity. We have been able to draw in people like Dame Sarah Storey as an active travel commissioner. She does not need to be a deputy mayor or take away my authority as a leader of a place, but she brings something that is additional. We must not lose sight of the fact that devolution models work with systems and Bills in place to deliver them, but actually it is about collaboration. There will need to be investment in the time that leaders of a place spend together if you are to get that relationship with the mayor to work.

Kevin Bentley: The identity question was raised before and it is important that we say political boundaries might change but communities do not. Identity of communities will always remain strong, whether you are in a district or county council. I represent 1.5 million people. That could be a disparate place. If you want to say, “Which is the most important to your leader?” they are all important, because they all have their own identities.

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

Q A quick question to Councillor Hicks. In your role as chair of the County Council Network, have you had any discussions with or representations from Konsel Kernow, Cornwall Council? If you have, what is the nature of those discussions in relation to mayoral combined authorities?

Matthew Hicks: I have only been in post a week, so I cannot give you an answer as to whether those discussions have taken place in the past. Certainly I know we have looked at the Cornwall business case and Cornwall has always been well represented and a strong voice at the CCN, putting its case very strongly, and I am sure that will continue in the future. However, I cannot answer that question today.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Simmonds]

Q This question is to both witnesses. There are a number of different elements in the Bill on which you have relevant expertise, but can you give the Committee your view on the impact of the envisaged reorganisation on the planning system? What impact will the measures in the Bill about upward-only rent reviews have?

Ion Fletcher: Good morning, everyone. My name is Ion Fletcher. I am the director of finance policy at the British Property Federation. Our members own, develop and invest in both commercial and residential property across the UK.

In high-level terms, our members have had a good experience with devolution so far. Having combined authorities with responsibility for planning, transport and place making, and strong convening powers, means that our members are able to invest with confidence, knowing the strategic aims for that area. We hope to see that replicated with strategic authorities. We can get into more detail—Cat is better placed to comment on the reorganisation and the impact on planning.

We feel that the way that upward-only rent reviews were introduced into legislation without any meaningful consultation is not good policymaking. We feel that it will not do much to help the high street and it could have a negative impact on new investment and development.

Catriona Riddell: Hello, I am Catriona Riddell, a strategic planning specialist. There are two components to this. First, it is about the fact that fewer than 30% of local plans are up to date. That is partly because all the decisions and all the financial, technical and political risk sit with individual local planning authorities. It is right that there is a separation of decision making in the way that we had before 2010 for 40 years.

If that decision making is now through the new strategic authorities, that is probably the right place for it in terms of the new spatial development strategy, which I know sits with the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. However, there is no point in strategic authorities having the responsibility to prepare those strategies if they do not also have some responsibility to deliver them. The range of delivery mechanisms set out in the Bill will help that.

For example, in the last few weeks, the Mayor of the North East combined authority announced a massive housing development in Newcastle on a site that has been derelict and unviable for many years. She has used her convening and financial powers to bring together Homes England, local authorities and others to bring forward development on that site. On the delivery side, the powers and funding that the mayors will have to make sure that spatial development strategies and local plans are implemented will be really important

In terms of local government restructuring, it is fair to say, as everybody has already this morning, that resources are thin on the ground. They are getting thinner the longer this goes on. People want a resolution. They want to move to the new local government structure as soon as possible to make sure that the resources within the local government family remain.

But, again, before 2010, for 40 years planning resources were done in two ways. The strategic level is where all the specialist skills sat, and then the planners and others were within the local authorities. They worked as two parts of the same team. We do not have the specialist skills in local authorities anymore; they have to pay to bring that back. A lot of specialist skills are rare anyway, so they are difficult to get. Having some teams and general support at the strategic scale will be invaluable to local authorities going forward.

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

Q I have a question for Mr Fletcher and then a question for both witnesses. You have expressed some reservations and concerns about the upward rent review. Is it fair to say that the position among your members is not unanimous? Mark Allan of Landsec, who I think was the previous president of the organisation, has said that he thinks the changes are favourable, and that the status quo is complex and suboptimal. It would be good to clarify that there is not a single position that thinks this is averse.

Northern Ireland went through a very similar reform about a decade and a half ago. I am interested in your assessment, because most people would look at that property market and think it works well. There was a transition, and it has ended up in a position that, most people would argue, is not just benign and effective but consistent with what we see in other countries. I am interested in your views, and then I will have a question for both of you.

Ion Fletcher: I think that Mark would also say that the way it was announced was not great; it should have been done with prior consultation. One of our main concerns is about how one of our members was recently in Malaysia and Singapore, and his investors were asking him questions about it: “Where did it come from? Why was there no consultation?” It has been noticed overseas, and by people who are deploying capital into our towns and cities. It was not something that was trailed, either in the Labour manifesto or in any of the discussions about devolution. In fact, it is a bit odd to find commercial leasing provisions in a Bill that is mainly about local government reorganisation and strategic authority powers.

There is also the focus on the high street. Upward-only rent reviews are not what is keeping shops empty at the moment. That is more to do with business rates and a lack of demand for space. Most high street shops are on leases of five years or less, so upward-only rent reviews are not going to be an issue; they do not have those clauses in them.

The real value of upward-only rent reviews to investors and developers is that they provide predictability of income. If you are thinking about undertaking a new development project or refurbishing an existing commercial building, having the confidence about the level of income that you are going to get gives you much more security, and it de-risks the project. It makes it more likely to happen. At the moment, there is a shortage of development going on—there is a bit of a development viability crisis across both residential and commercial property—so adding more uncertainty in the form of unexpected policy changes does not help.

In relation to your point about international comparators, yes, Ireland went through this, as did Australia about 20 years ago. There is a transition period. The industry can and would find ways to adapt, but the point is: what problem is it really trying to solve? Is the disruption that it is going to cause in the meantime—the transitional costs, for example—worth the candle?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

Q But if I may, Mr Fletcher, do you recognise that the UK is an outlier? What we are doing is moving to a system that is consistent with other major economies and works well. Commercial investors operate in those systems with no issues.

Ion Fletcher: England and Wales is an international outlier in that; it is also an international outlier in the strength of the rights that it gives to occupiers to renew their leases. Generally speaking, where countries offer occupiers the automatic and statutory right to renew their commercial leases, it tends to be restricted to particular sectors. That is not the case in England and Wales. You have to look at it in the round.

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

Q We think that strategic planning and the role of strategic authorities within that are quite important—in the context of how we want to “build, baby, build”, to quote my boss, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. I am interested in your take on how, if we get this right, it will have an impact on the Bill, and critically, where you think we might need to go further to make sure that we are delivering the buildings and the growth that we need?

Catriona Riddell: What is set out in the Bill is going to help to develop things more quickly. We have just talked about viability; that is such a massive factor in everything that we do at the moment. In relation to strategic planning and spatial development strategy, I think the Minister for Housing and Planning, Matthew Pennycook, has referred to it as a spatial investment framework. If you look at it as that, and not as a big local plan, and if it does that role, that is going to set the precedent. It is going to say: “This is where we want to invest.”

They are also long-term plans; they are 10, 20 or 30-year frameworks. Again, that is to start building investor confidence in these areas. What is needed, in terms of building investor confidence, is leadership and that is where the strategic authorities can help. Some of the planning mechanisms in the Bill are really important, but actually, it is more about the wider powers, such as the convening powers and the duty to talk to your neighbouring mayor—the sum of the parts has to add up to a national picture. We do not have a national spatial framework in this country, so the sum of the SDSs has to add up to that national picture. I think the softer powers in the Bill that mayors and strategic authorities will have to bring together stakeholders will be really important.

I would say the measure needs to go further. My understanding of the convening powers is that they are largely about bringing local authorities and the public sector together, but one of the biggest challenges we have is around the infrastructure side of things—with utility companies, such as water companies and electricity companies, that engage at the very end of the process. We need to use these mechanisms—the convening powers—to bring them into the plan-making bit about the spatial development strategy from the start, so that there are no surprises at the end and nobody says, “We don’t have enough water or electricity to plug into these new homes that we have already permitted,” because that is what is happening all over the place. This is about getting the system working up front, much further upstream, so that the decisions on planning applications are much easier further down. The strategic authorities have a huge role to play in that.

The only other, minor change I would mention is on national parks. I think that once we have gone through local government restructuring, all local planning authorities will effectively be a constituent member of a strategic authority. National parks will continue to be local planning authorities. They have plan-making powers and development management powers. At the end of this, they will be the only planning authorities that will not actually be part of the strategic authority, so I guess we need a shout-out to national parks and some thinking about what their role should be in this.

[Mike Reader (Northampton South) (Lab)]

Q Can I pick up on upward-only rent reviews? I recognise the points you made about consultation. The intention is primarily to focus on high streets. Do you think, with the way the legislation is written currently, it is focused on that narrow area, or is it broader? Could we see unintended consequences in things like—this is important to my constituency—logistics and advanced manufacturing?

Ion Fletcher: That is a really good question. Yes, as currently drafted, the Bill applies to all commercial tenancies, regardless of whether they are on the high street or in an industrial park, a data centre or a laboratory.

Upward-only rent reviews have definitely been highlighted as an issue among high street small businesses and in the hospitality sector, and I have a lot of sympathy for businesses that have been on high streets and going through a lot of change and turbulence over the last decade or so. At the same time, they have not really been raised as an issue by occupiers in logistics parks or in office buildings. I guess the main reason is that property costs are a far smaller proportion of their total cost base than for retailers and hospitality businesses.

Larger businesses also tend to be well advised and are aware of the trade-offs that come with upward-only rent reviews. They can allow property owners to give a longer rent-free period, for example, or a bigger contribution to fit-out costs. There is definitely merit in thinking about how the Bill might be more closely targeted at those areas where there is perceived to be more of an issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vikki Slade]

Q Welcome to the Committee. Communities will be able to nominate assets of community value that are of economic value. Nick, that is particularly relevant for the community businesses that you support. Can you say a little about how communities could use the new power, and whether there are resources that need to come with that power?

Nick Plumb: At Power to Change, we think that the Bill’s provisions on community right to buy are a positive step forward. Power to Change has been calling for this for several years. To illustrate why the right is so needed, the key piece of data on the current regime on assets of community value and the community right to bid is that of every 1,000 assets that are listed as assets of community value, only 15 end up in community hands. The expansion of the definition of assets of community value to include economic as well as social benefit is a positive step, as is the introduction of a community right to buy as opposed to a community right to bid.

Some of the questions lie in the implementation. We think that there are potential challenges with this new right if you are asking councils to maintain a broader list of assets of community value and trying to get the new right to live up to the expectations that communities are rightly bringing forward. One thing that Power to Change has been calling for since the end of the community ownership fund is continued community ownership funding to support groups, particularly at the early stage at which groups might have a great idea for an asset but are not quite sure how to take it forward. A combination of revenue and capital funding is really important.

One of the lessons of the community ownership fund is that communities have a real ability to raise funds themselves. One of the great stories of the fund was that Government money leveraged lots of other investment, whether that was through private loans or by community share raising, where groups go out to the community to raise money from local members. Any future funding model for community ownership to sit alongside the community right to buy could be quite mixed. It could involve grant, loan and, importantly, revenue funding support and training. I know that there is mention of that in the Bill, and I am pleased to see that.

There is one final point to add, on the economic contribution of community-owned assets. Power to Change recently did some work with the 11,000 community businesses across England and found that they contribute roughly £1.5 billion in direct gross value added to the economy, which is equivalent to the solar sector, so they are important economic actors. Importantly, the economic contribution of community-owned assets sticks locally: we found that roughly 56p in every £1 circulates in the local economy, due to local supply chains, compared with roughly 40p for large private businesses. With the agenda around local growth, I see a successfully implemented community right to buy as a key driver of local growth outcomes.

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

Q Thank you for setting out how we are building on the community right to bid and the additional powers that are baked in to the legislation that will generally give communities the power to take over assets. One of the things that we have done a huge amount of work on over the past decade and a bit is building the capacity of our community organisations to be in the position to do this. I am interested in your take on the relationship with the neighbourhood governance powers in the Bill and the extent to which you think that this is an opportunity to build the capacity of some of our community organisations both to take over ownership but, critically, to have voice and power to change their places.

Nick Plumb: I want to make a couple of points. It was a really interesting conversation this morning on neighbourhood governance from colleagues from parish councils and local government. Power to Change is a member of the We’re Right Here campaign, which has been campaigning for community power legislation such as some of the measures in this Bill. We are keen that the neighbourhood governance measures that are introduced through the Bill allow for local variation and for a whole range of different organisations that exist at a neighbourhood level to be a part of that neighbourhood governance arrangement. We think that one of the risks with the area committee model is that it is a prescriptive top-down model that says, “This is the way to do things,” rather than saying, “What exists already in a neighbourhood, and how do we build on that?”

One of the ideas that Power to Change has been working on and testing in place is a community covenant. We have been testing that so far in Market Drayton in Shropshire through a partnership of 20 local organisations—everyone from the local authority to community organisations to representatives from town and parish councils—on the idea of a family and neighbourhood hub. So far, the results from that work are really positive. There was some initial scepticism about a new way of working, but one of the council officers has fed back that the new approach is a real gift that has helped them to move much further and faster with their communities than they would have done if they were just doing things from the council down.

One of the calls from us through this legislation is to try not to be too prescriptive with neighbourhood governance but lean into a model that puts people on an equal footing and gives people an equal seat at the table. I will not spend too long on this, but my other point is that it is great that we have a piece of legislation with “community empowerment” in its title, and I think that community right to buy and neighbourhood governance, if done right, go some way. Power to Change and the We’re Right Here campaign would like to see community right to buy as one of several community rights. We have been calling for a community right to shape public services, which would entail involving the people who receive services from the state in the design, delivery and development of public services. That would build on provisions in the Localism Act, such as the right to challenge, and it would make that a much more expansive right.

We would also like to see a community right to control investment, which would involve certain bits of investment from central Government sitting at that neighbourhood level. Both of those rights really lean into some of the Government’s existing agenda. The plan for neighbourhoods is a real example of that. There are some questions still to be answered on what that looks like, but it could involve trusting neighbourhoods to take hold of money and think, “How do we improve our lot together?”

The right to shape public services is very in line with some of the test, learn and grow work that is happening in the Cabinet Office. We would see the community empowerment element of the Bill really living up to its name if it was the beginning of a set of community rights rather than the community right to buy tick and done.

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

Q Mr Whittaker, I want to pick up on the sporting asset of community value measures within the Bill. Obviously, sporting community assets are of huge value to our local communities, and I am interested in your view on whether the measures create a pathway to far greater community control and ownership of these assets.

Robbie Whittaker: Thank you, Minister. We are certainly very encouraged by the proposal to create a new designation of a sporting asset of community value. It builds on what we have traditionally had before. It is something that we have lobbied for because we think—as we would—that sporting institutions have a valuable role to play in local communities, particularly in promoting empowerment of the kind that Nick was talking about.

One of the interesting benefits of this proposal is that in the last year, as you will all know, we have created an independent regulator for football, which is going to bring profound change for a relatively small number of clubs—only 116 clubs at the very top of the English pyramid. The proposal in the Bill potentially attracts a far larger cohort of clubs further down the pyramid, which are not necessarily as commercially attractive to buyers from outside the country. Therefore, the right to buy is actually a realistic aspiration that some of those communities can have.

We are increasingly seeing valuations of football clubs at the top end of the pyramid that take them beyond the reach of local community or fan groups. But that is not the case lower down. The extent to which you can create an opportunity here for local communities and people who follow relatively small clubs to feel that it is a pathway that they can go down and sustain is very welcome.

I echo what Nick said about community ownership funding, or some equivalent thereof; the existence of that fund played a large part in the creation of the phoenix club at Bury. You may remember that Bury AFC failed spectacularly in 2019, and has caused a lot of angst within the football community ever since. The existence of that fund was quite crucial to enabling a new club to emerge in Bury that was able to play at the ground that had been used for around about a century.

[The Chair]

Your answer, Mr Whittaker, made me consider whether I should declare that I am an AFC Wimbledon season ticket holder and a member of the Dons Trust.