English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Debate between Lord Lansley and Lord Bassam of Brighton

Committee stage
Wednesday 11th February 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 206 in this group. I guess it is fishing in a similar pool to that of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, but with a more explicit purpose.

With the increased size of local authorities that we are going to get, we will have cities becoming parishes. At the moment, I think the largest parish form of council is Northampton, which has a population of about 130,000. I do not know what the outcome of the local government reorganisation will be, but quite a large number of towns and cities that have a substantial population will have their powers reduced to that of parish and town councils. My guess is that there will be an expansion in parishing in those areas because people will want to make up the democratic deficit.

However, my point in this amendment is to try to ensure that, where neighbourhood areas are identified as being important—as, for instance, with the Pride in Place programme—the parishes, whether town or city-style parishes, are at least represented. As the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, correctly argued, they are a form of elected democracy and are there to represent their local community. While we all celebrate and work with people who are from neighbourhood organisations, they do not have the same standing in their community because they have not been directly elected by local residents. What I am therefore trying to achieve with this amendment is that, at least where neighbourhood areas are identified and a governance body is established for a neighbourhood area, parish and town councils should have a stake in that organisation. That is what my amendment seeks.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I have a number of amendments in this group and will speak to them in turn, but I just begin by saying that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. His Amendment 206 and my Amendment 207 are complementary, and in a sense, ask the same question: if one is creating effective neighbourhood governance, does one do it by incorporating town and parish councils into some structure or by investing town and parish councils, as far as possible, with functions and responsibilities themselves? That is where I think our amendments are complementary and could in practice be adopted in one direction in some places and in another direction in others. I accept that this is not our job in this clause, which seems to be the only clause that does not get its own schedule. I would want to have a schedule attached to this clause that set out in intense detail how this would be done because it would vary from place to place.

I was listening to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, earlier; I did not interrupt, but the Long Title has no interpreted legal force. It is called the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, and that is a means of citation, but the Long Title does not mention community empowerment. In effect, you can look at what the Bill is called but then you look at the Long Title and it just makes provision about various forms of authorities. It does not actually say that the purpose of the Bill is to devolve power or to empower communities. It is our job to ensure that the Bill really does that. Clause 60 ought to be about community empowerment, which is where my Amendment 208 comes from. In so far as there should be guidance to local authorities on how they go about creating effective neighbourhood governance, it should be geared towards empowering and engaging local communities. It is not necessarily the case that that would happen.

I live in Suffolk. My noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook and I were both at the same meeting where the intention—it may be intention in many places—is to create neighbourhood governance. This is, in essence, the elected members of the unitary authorities forming a committee for an area. I do not say that that is irrelevant to this purpose, but it is not the same thing as town and parish councils, which have their own identity, their own powers, their own connections and relationships with all the people who live in that precise area. I come back to the word “identity” because, as all noble Lords understand, political identity is very important in how one creates political and organisational governance structures. The starting point for government structures should be: what is one’s political identity? As it happens, in Suffolk, most people probably identify with their town or parish. That is where they start from. My proposition is terribly simple, which is that towns and parish councils should be, wherever possible, strengthened and their functions maintained or enhanced by this process of local authorities creating effective neighbourhood governance.

Media Bill

Debate between Lord Lansley and Lord Bassam of Brighton

Committee stage
Monday 20th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I intervene briefly to express my support for Amendment 30 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. I think she has captured, very importantly, how the character of watching major sporting events has changed over recent years, certainly a great deal since the Communications Act 2003, when I had the pleasure of working with Lord Puttnam and others in another place on that Act—the Standing Committee and the Puttnam commission—back then. Of course, when we are looking at listed events, people were understandably focused on the live coverage in those days because that was predominantly how people watched sporting events. That has changed and we must adapt the structure of the legislation to match that.

I will come on, if I may, to the difference between Amendments 29 and 30. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, referred kindly to Amendment 30 and I think there are advantages. I note that Amendment 29 somewhat suggests that the noble Lord and the Opposition Front Bench have started to write amendments a bit as a Government in waiting in a way in which we tend to see the Government thinking it a very good idea for Ministers to have the powers to do things however they wish. I think now the Opposition Front Bench wants to have similar sorts of powers—

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

We are not in the habit of getting ahead of ourselves.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I know that the noble Lord is sticking to the line to take, and nothing is being taken for granted. I completely understand. However, he will understand why I favour the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson: because it incorporates the structure of this proper legislative reform in relation to on-demand services. It does not apply where somebody has access to on-demand rights and makes them available in a number of places to unconnected persons. That would not necessarily fall to be regulated because it is not exclusive, and the use of exclusivity is really important. It reflects what is done in relation to existing live events. Equally, if it is made available free to air or free of charge, it would likewise not need Ofcom’s permission; again, that is like live events.

The amendment very carefully addresses itself to the listed events—major events of national importance—where they are intended to be available on demand, exclusively by those rights holders only and by nobody else, and behind a paywall. This means, in effect, they are not available as most people would expect to see national events in the catch-up and on-demand world of broadcasting that we now live in. It is an excellent amendment and demands close attention by the Government. I urge my noble friend to consider whether this is now the time to make this additional change to the structure of the regulation of listed events.

Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill

Debate between Lord Lansley and Lord Bassam of Brighton

Report stage
Wednesday 13th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I intervene very briefly to support the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in the intentions of his amendment. A number of noble Lords will recall that, about eight years ago, we sought that the Government would use secondary legislation to extend the definition of media enterprises under the Enterprise Act.

The point that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is making is in this territory. Clearly, if media enterprises for these purposes were defined more widely, it would capture some of the providers that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, was talking about. At the moment, media enterprises basically consist of print newspapers or broadcasters—and broadcasters are only those that are licensed under the Broadcasting Acts.

I hope it will be evident to noble Lords that there are now many more news creators and aggregators, and sources of news, that make up the news landscape and are not comprised within the definition of print newspapers or of broadcasters under the Broadcasting Act. So we need to make sure that the specified considerations under Section 58, about free expression, accurate presentation and plurality, are applied in relation to this wider definition of media enterprises.

This was something that Ofcom said to Ministers in pursuance of the consultation about the media public interest test, I think as far back as 2021, or maybe at the end of 2022. So I suppose what I am asking is to share in the urging of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that Ministers might take this on, and to give advance notice that—from my point of view—we should address this in the Media Bill quite soon, in order to give them further encouragement for this purpose.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, we are very grateful—we are always very grateful, actually—to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for tabling this amendment, which raises a valid concern around the suitability of the current provisions in Section 58 of the Enterprise Act.

We take the view that the world has changed significantly since that legislation was put on the statute book. It was changed as a result of the passage of the National Security and Investment Act, but not in a way that addressed the points that have been properly raised by the noble Lord. Some aspects of this debate featured during the passage of the Online Safety Bill, and I strongly suspect we will revisit this on other occasions in the future, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has invited us to with the Media Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, described this as a “brazen attempt” on his part. Well, I hope the Government will be open-minded about looking at whether and how the public interest notice regime could be revised in the future, to take account of different types of media provider. However, because I know that noble Lords would like to progress on to another interesting group on a similar topic, I will hand the Floor to the Minister.