Rough Sleeping

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, part of the ministerial working group is looking at the issue of rough sleepers in London who are former members of the Armed Forces. I pay tribute to the work of my honourable friend in the other place, Johnny Mercer. The key is to work with local authorities to identify those people so that we can get support services to them. The support services for our Armed Forces as well as for ex-offenders are in place; it is a question of ensuring that we identify those people so that we can wrap the service support around them.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. In the past hour, London has become the largest city in the world to call for a trial of universal basic income. An unconditional income sufficient to meet basic needs would be one way to ensure that no one ends up sleeping on the streets —that conditionality of benefits or insecurity of employment would not lead to eviction. As the noble Lord, Lord Truscott, said earlier, today’s figures report a fall in rough sleeping, but the future of rising unpayable debt, in particular among private tenants, looks grim. The Government keep saying that they will not introduce a national universal basic income, but will they support London and the 14 other local authorities that have voted for trials in their communities?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, it is indeed blue-sky thinking to guarantee someone an income that is paid by the state. I point out that in the pandemic we have seen the national debt increase substantially to the level of our economic output for a year, which is some £2.2 trillion. In that environment, it is very difficult to make these kinds of spending commitments, and I will certainly leave something like that to the Chancellor.

West Yorkshire Combined Authority (Election of Mayor and Functions) Order 2021

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Tuesday 26th January 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the powerful remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and I associate myself with his and others’ questions about when we can expect the devolution White Paper. We know the slogan “Take back control” was at the forefront in 2016; I do not believe it has any less resonance today—I suggest it has more, given the loss of the democratic oversight and opportunities of the European Parliament.

I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and the input of the Yorkshire & the Humber Green Party into these questions. Most of them concern democracy. The Minister referred in his introductory remarks to the consent for these plans and the percentage of people who indicated agreement to the lead question. So I ask the Minister: what alternative was offered to people? Would it have meant a loss of money to the region, as I understand it would? Were people given the alternative to show support for the One Yorkshire plan that, in 2019, 18 of the 20 councils of the regions backed? Where is the Government’s evidence for the support of the people? Why was a referendum not held, as has occurred in the past?

As other noble Lords have said, London has an elected Assembly that scrutinises the work of the mayor—perhaps not as strongly as we might like but it none the less exists and has the opportunity to question and challenge. Why does Yorkshire not have a similar assembly or, given its scale, a parliament? Can one person really represent 2.5 million people? Will there not be a democratic loss through the loss of the elected police and crime commissioner and making the deputy mayor for policing a political appointee, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said? Across West Yorkshire, more than 8% of elected councillors are from parties other than Labour, the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats. How are the voices of those other voters going to be properly represented on the combined authority?

Briefly, in the time available to me, I have some questions. There is a low level of participation in adult education across the region of 30%. The lowest level nationally is 29% in the south-west. Are there enough resources for the new mayor to be able to make a difference? Given that housing is such a huge issue in the area, perhaps the Minister could now, or at some point in the future, say whether the Government have considered allowing the mayor to suspend the right to buy in West Yorkshire and specify higher levels of energy efficiency as part of the mayor’s powers.

Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I will have to write to the noble Lord about that. I did not quite catch his question, but I will make sure that we get a full and proper answer to him and put a copy in the Library.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. On the subject of local government finance, I am going back to two answers from the Government on 15 December to questions that I and the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, had asked, referring to the £500 self-isolation payment to people who were ordered to self-isolate due to Covid-19 exposure or infection. At that point it was clear that there was a postcode lottery, and some local authorities had run out so people were unable to get payment. On 15 December the Government gave two answers, one of which said there was a fixed envelope of money and implied that no more money would be given, while the other, from the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, said that this was under review. Has it been reviewed, and has the postcode lottery over the money being paid out by local government been fixed?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend Lord Bethell is absolutely right and the matter is under review.

Towns Fund

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Thursday 19th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con) [V]]

My Lords, there is no doubt that regeneration involves physical regeneration, economic regeneration and social renewal. Women often play a bigger part than men in that process, from my experience in local government.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

Yesterday, the Government made an announcement acknowledging both the urgency of the climate emergency and their special global responsibility in chairing COP 26. If the Government are operating in a joined-up way, you would expect the towns fund money to be used for super-policies that have environmental benefits in addition to economic ones. Can the Minister tell me what percentage of spending addresses those goals?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am happy to write to the noble Baroness on that point as I do not have those figures to hand.

Devolution in England

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, this is much more than simple decentralisation. Devolution has now occurred to eight mayoral combined authorities, which we see as driving forward the economic performance of the regions governed by those mayors. We will continue to build on those successes.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, the effectiveness of local contact tracing compared to the centralised system has been striking during the Covid-19 pandemic. Can the Minister tell me how the White Paper has been shaped and changed by things we have learned during the Covid-19 pandemic?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot pre-empt the White Paper on that point, but there has been full consultation that will take in the lessons learned from the pandemic.

Mobile Homes (Requirement for Manager of Site to be Fit and Proper Person) (England) Regulations 2020

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Gypsies, Travellers and Roma. This debate is about the regulation of park homes, but we are in a context where we have a broader problem with the insecurity of private tenants in a wide range of circumstances and under a wide range of tenures, some of whom arrive in park homes after terrible experiences in other accommodation. We have a long way to go to provide everyone with a secure, genuinely affordable, comfortable, appropriately sized place to live.

This is a very small step towards tackling one area of this problem and I welcome these regulations, which reflect those that have existed in Wales since 2014. But I associate myself with the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, about the costs to local authorities and how they are going to meet them and find the technical resources and skills. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for setting out the scale of the challenge.

I also note the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. Many of us will know from the experience of planning how local authorities can feel underpowered legally and underfinanced when trying to act in the interests of residents in their communities.

I have a couple of direct questions for the Minister that I hope he may be able to answer. I raised this issue with the Association of Green Councillors, and it came back to me with concern about a company controlling several sites and this being a source of problems and distance. Who would be the fit and proper person who oversees a number of sites, or would there have to be a person nominated on each site? How will we be able to ensure that they operate in an independent manner?

When the owner is also the manager—particularly in the case that the Minister noted in his introduction—can the local authority, if there is a not a fit and proper person, appoint a new manager with consent from the site owner? It is easy to imagine a problem where a site owner has been declared not a fit and proper person and then becomes obstructive and difficult to handle.

If a licence is revoked, what will happen to the residents? A number of noble Lords have referred to the many problems that residents encounter. I have seen sites where residents have had to buy gas bottles at grossly inflated prices, and where a large number of trees have been felled without consultation or prior advice, with a real impact on the amenity of the residents. There is clearly a problem. This is a step towards tackling it, but our debate today has revealed that a lot of work will have to be done to turn this into an effective mechanism to protect some of the often vulnerable residents of park homes.

Devolution: England

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 28th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh]

The devolution in England that we are seeking is through the local leadership afforded by local mayors rather than the regional devolution models of Scotland and Wales. That is the basis on which we will outline further measures in the White Paper this autumn.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, suggested that the Government should not impose a compulsory standardised model—indeed, reference has just been made to the way in which the devolved Administrations in Scotland and Wales have worked so well. Will Her Majesty’s Government consider consulting local people, looking to far more democratic, proportional and fair voting systems—the systems that local people want to deliver—and not enforcing the kind of single, strong leader model that the noble Lord the Minister just referred to?

Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield Combined Authority (Functions and Amendment) Order 2020

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Friday 24th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

I must begin by declaring a very large interest in this order as a resident of Sheffield, from where I am speaking now, and by admitting that I am torn in my approach.

I welcome any devolution of power and resources, but that South Yorkshire has done remarkably badly from the stranglehold of distant Westminster is a statement of the obvious, whether you look at our average income, gross value added—which is less than half of London’s—or whether I contrast the environment I see walking along the Sheffield & Tinsley Canal to what I used to see walking along Regent’s Canal near my old home in Camden, north London.

However, the stuttering, agonised birth of the combined authority could be taken as a case study for how not to do devolution—imposed from the centre, with the fractious involvement of a handful of local people, legal action and conflict. All of this was conducted largely out of sight and out of mind of the public. I doubt that if you stopped 100 people in the streets of Sheffield today, you would find one who knew that this order is now before Parliament. You would be lucky to find one who knows who the incumbent mayor of the Sheffield City Region is, although a few might know him from his other job as an MP.

This order is not a solution, and it cannot provide a long-term way forward. As we seek to rebuild from the shock of Covid-19 and face the climate crisis and the danger of social and economic collapse from poverty and inequality, we need to build back better. We should really start with democracy.

I am indebted to a local activist and philosopher, Simon Duffy, for a useful comparison between Iceland and the area of the combined authority, which are roughly equal in population. Iceland has a President, a 63-member parliament and scores of local government bodies with a powerful and recognised place in the constitution, with control over kindergartens, public schools, waste management, social services, public housing, transport, and services to senior citizens and disabled people. It also has an effective and fair welfare system and a much better performing economy—and it put 36 bankers in jail after the financial crash. Dr Duffy, like myself, is a campaigner for a Yorkshire parliament, for a widespread, deep consultation with the people of Yorkshire to create a genuinely democratic structure with real power and resources, which is not what this order does.

The failure of our creaking, antique, accidentally accreted constitutional arrangements are visible everywhere in the UK, from your Lordships’ House outwards. However, there are few places where the human and environmental consequences are more obvious than Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield. We have to do much better than this. That means going to the people, finding out what they want and delivering it.

Covid-19: Local Government Finance

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Tuesday 7th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh]

We are aware of the specific problems with regard to Greater Manchester. These are being exacerbated by the loss of the dividends that it normally gets from the airport, which is clearly having an effect on local authority incomes. I can commit that the department will continue to work closely with Greater Manchester councils to ensure that if a bespoke package is needed, that will provided for them.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my position as a vice-president of the LGA. I welcome the £1.57 billion rescue package for the arts that the Government announced for theatres, galleries and museums, but can the Minister tell me how much of it will be distributed by local councils? In a normal year, they put more than £1 billion into the arts around the country. Can the Minister reassure me that this money will not go to just a few large institutions, particularly in London, but will be spread around the country through local councils, so that we can hope to rescue and protect wonderful institutions, such as the theatres in Southampton and Sheffield—where I am speaking from now—and little rural arts centres up and down the country?

[Lord Greenhalgh]

I can give a commitment that funding will extend beyond a few well-known names to the important local theatres and museums that are often supported by local authorities. I cannot give the noble Baroness the precise extent to be distributed via local authorities and will have to write to her with further information on that.

Planning Process: Probity

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh]

Let us be clear. It was the letter from the department that was sent out on 14 January. The determination by the Secretary of State was made a considerable time before that—certainly before the end of the year—and the planning application went on to his desk with the planning casework in December. As the noble Baroness will know, only a small proportion of decisions have ministerial involvement. Of the 447,000 applications, we are talking about 26 ministerial decisions, which is a tiny fraction. There are many occasions when the Secretary of State will decide to go against the planning inspector or the local planning authority to encourage the supply side of development—so I do not recognise what the noble Baroness says.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my position as vice-president of the Local Government Association.

Does the Minister agree that cases such as this, in which the judge found apparent bias and ruled against the Government, fuel fears that the country is not being run for the common good, and that the underlying problem is large private political donations? Is not the only way to protect Ministers to ban large private political donations?

[Lord Greenhalgh]

This is about the probity of the planning system. It is quite right that currently we do not have taxpayer funding for political parties. All the fundraising by the Conservative Party adheres to the guidelines around donations. Ministers have no part in that. That is a topic for another day, but, regarding probity in this matter, it is absolutely clear that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State followed the guidance on planning propriety, as outlined by the department, every step of the way.