Local Government Finances
Baroness Hamwee Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I readily accept that I am past my sell-by date, but there are times when speaking from your own experience just feels right. I was a London borough councillor from 1978 to 1998—a much shorter time than other noble Lords have chalked up. Over 20 years and five elections, the turnout in my ward was never below 60%.
That was then. Not everything was peachy. Householders paid rates; my noble friend mentioned business rates as well. I represented a newly built council estate—those really were the days—on the borough boundary. The rates on the large houses on the other side of the boundary—the other side of the road, indeed —were much lower because of the big differences in government grants to the two authorities. I gather that the reserves which the other authority was able to build up during the many years it was so favoured now have a similar effect on council tax.
The 60% turnout did not seem unusual; if anything, I would have hoped for more, given the effort that went into keeping in touch with local residents. We were able to consult about the level of tax rates—x% more would enable the expansion of such a service, x% less would mean this or that reduction; y% would allow for reduction here and expansion there. Referendums are not the equivalent and there is an understandable reluctance, I think, to spend scarce cash on an expensive exercise.
How different it is now. The whole budget, not just the bottom line, is so divorced from local decisions about tax that taxation and representation are largely detached. This is the particular reason I wanted to speak today. What has been happening and continues to happen regarding finances puts local democracy in jeopardy. There is almost no local discretion and, I suspect, no bandwidth to think strategically. Councillors have ambitions for their local communities; they have them for various different communities, such as users of this park, travellers to that school, supporters of a certain football club and the passengers on the 8.23 to Waterloo.
It has always required agility and resilience, because politics is about balancing priorities and should be about being able to take preventive action. How soul destroying to have to keep saying, “We can’t, there’s no money”; spotting a need but knowing that there is no point in pursuing it, and knowing that local residents have decreasing confidence or trust in their local authority.
An unproductive, unedifying blame game does not foster good relationships. Residents—voters—must feel more detached: abandoned, even. In this situation, can local government attract the best candidates across a range of experiences and representatives of their local communities? There is a lot to be said about staff, too, but I will stick to my main point, save to say that the problems of recruitment and retention affect council services and contribute to the overall worrying picture. In addition, charities—the third sector—to which we have so long looked are not in a position to fill the gaps. I am now told that it is very rare to find people who work in local business among councillors. No doubt there are various reasons for this, but those informal links were so valuable.
As I have said, there is so little local discretion and so much is mandatory, the how as well as the what: how you do it, as well as what you do. Recently there has been an announcement about low-traffic neighbourhoods. Central government has said how local authorities should approach these but not said how they should pay for them or given them any more to pay for them.
My noble friend mentioned planning fees. He probably does not know that I was the chair of my local planning authority when we decided to charge all of £25 to businesses for advice on proposed developments. We were taken to court and we lost.
Local authorities are increasingly dependent on what they can raise locally, but this is increasingly restricted. I travel to Westminster on a road that has a yellow box junction which, because of the sets of traffic lights on either side of it, often traps traffic. It may be an urban myth but it is said to be the most profitable yellow box in London. I understand that the local authority does so well out of infringements in that yellow box that it is one of the very few that still offers free domiciliary care.
I would be frustrated now—to take one example which, judging from the speakers’ list, may get quite an airing today—if I were a member of a local authority which was cutting all spending on arts and culture, which I regard as essential and not an optional add-on. If I were not a councillor, in this context, would I want to stand? In fact, I would feel quite anxious at the prospect, at a time when councils are selling off the family silver—indeed, heading towards fire sales—and spending capital receipts on revenue. Those are receipts from assets paid for by the public and they will be lost from public use.
I am well aware that my references to local government finance are a bit simplistic and, at any rate, broad-brush, but my central point is absolutely serious. Our communities are not short of issues to get involved in, but I would guess that most noble Lords would argue that single-issue politics are rather different from the democracy which comes with responsibility and should come with power.
On these Benches, and around the House, we value local democracy. I came here in 1991, because my then party leader was able to make a single nomination and wanted our single new Peer to have had experience in local government and to make the point about its importance. I stood again in 1994 because the local mandate was the only democratic mandate I was able to seek. I am sure I am not the only speaker to have done that—in fact, I know that. My local community was very important to me. Would I want to do the same in 2024?
Houses in Multiple Occupation (Asylum-Seeker Accommodation) (England) Regulations 2023
Baroness Hamwee Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I too thank the Minister for her introduction. I was not aware that my noble friend was going to speak. Fortunately, what I have made a note of is not inconsistent with what he said. I will try to edit as I go so that I do not repeat too much. I recognise the issue that the Government seek to address, though I am unconvinced that this is the solution, but I made my views on their asylum policy quite clear to the House last week. My noble friend has also given the context quite clearly.
HMOs under the current system are hardly luxury accommodation but the licensing requirements in force since 2004, I think, ensure certain standards. As my noble friend has said, these are not just about physical standards but the standards of conduct, and so on, of those involved in the provision—licence holders and managers must be fit and proper persons. I am making a foray away from Home Office debates into DLUHC ones, but in Home Office discussions I have expressed my concern several times that the people who run the hotels are not fit and proper. I have raised the question of disbarring orders and so on; we are all aware of the history of children going missing. Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children may not be placed in this accommodation, though perhaps we ought to get a confirmation from the Minister that they will not be placed in it by themselves. However, children will be; I gather that it is intended for families.
I have also gained a very clear impression that the providers of hotels have been quite distanced from what is happening on a day-to-day basis. I assume their contracts contain some requirement regarding the people who run the hotels, but it does not seem to be well enforced. The current assessment for a licence relates to compliance with housing, landlord and tenant law and codes of practice. Will we have codes of practice relating to this accommodation? My noble friend has mentioned the issue of discrimination on a number of grounds. When one thinks about asylum seekers, it is obvious how relevant that is.
The Minister has mentioned dispersal. There are different ways of looking at this. I understand the point she has made about the strain on different local authorities, but there is also an important advantage to placing people with similar backgrounds within what they might well regard as their community. It helps towards settlement, though I recognise that the Home Office is not particularly concerned about settling asylum seekers—probably the contrary. The people who live in HMOs are often vulnerable and not likely to complain. I would guess that this is even more the case with asylum seekers, who will not naturally have much trust in authority figures.
My noble friend talked about physical safety standards and the obvious concern about fire risks and so on. The Home Office may be doubling its personnel, but there are the questions of numbers and training. What inspection and monitoring arrangements will be in force? I do not have a picture of how often it will be. Will they carry out their work only at the start of a contract, or before? The scheme looks too much like a blank cheque for less scrupulous landlords and providers of asylum accommodation. We know that hotel accommodation is now being charged at rates unrelated to its standards.
Reading about how the temporary exemptions from licensing will operate, I wondered whether the administration will be cumbersome because of the varied start dates involved. Inevitably, I wondered what consultation there had been with local authorities. We are told about future work between central government and local authorities, but this sort of scheme, which is a significant change, should—perhaps I am too idealistic—have been one whereby local authorities were satisfied that they had had good involvement with the work of DLUHC.
I received briefings, as other noble Lords will have done, from the LGA, London Councils and Shelter, for which I am grateful. They did not give me the impression that the Government had met their concerns or of how they could do so in future. There is understandable concern that, even if a property is not brought into the scheme until it has been inspected by the Home Office, the conditions will deteriorate and we will end up with a two-tier system. Landlords will surely be incentivised to switch properties away from their existing use to Home Office contracts because they are potentially rather more profitable.
What consideration has been given to continuing the current licensing arrangements but with lower standards? I am referring not to matters such as fire safety but the numbers of people who share bathrooms and kitchens—not that the standards are that high now. If a property is designated as asylum accommodation, what is to stop the landlord letting it to non-asylum seekers? I mentioned tenants being unaware of their rights and frightened to complain. That will be so much more the case than it is now.
Finally, there is the issue of the resourcing of local authorities, whose work in this area is part funded, I understand, by licence fees. Once an HMO is exempt, the local authority will not know where the potentially dangerous HMOs are. Would money not be better spent on inspections and enforcement than on going hunting for HMOs? As the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee rightly suggests, will the Home Office make publicly and regularly available the numbers of asylum seekers placed in unlicensed accommodation? It defies logic to suggest that nothing significant will change in terms of standards—if that were the case, why have this statutory instrument?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I cannot let it go that we are not making it clear why we are doing this. I want to make it very clear that we are doing it to speed up the movement of these people from what the House has clearly said many times is unsuitable hotel accommodation, which is not right over a long period of time, into better accommodation. That is why we are doing it. We want to do it as quickly as possible, and we fell that, in the short term of two years, the licensing regime was slowing that movement down.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
I will tell the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, a tale about mixed-up names when we finish this Committee.
We have focused very much on safety standards. As I understand it, and I may be wrong, the standards of bathroom and kitchen facilities, and possibly the amount of space per person, will be different. I think that is covered by what the Minister has said she will find out about, but I do not want to lose that.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
No, absolutely not: I have written down everything that the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, asked to be checked against the Home Office conditions, and we will make sure we check Hansard. I know that things such as bathrooms, kitchens and room sizes were in that list because I have written them down. If there are no further questions, I assure noble Lords that these regulations are an important part of the Government’s asylum dispersal plans—although I do not like that word. I thank noble Lords for the challenge and scrutiny they have given to them, and I will make sure that I get answers to them as soon as possible.