English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Debate between Lord Tope and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Committee stage
Thursday 29th January 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as one of the co-presidents of London Councils. Since the previous two speakers gave their entire London political history, I cannot resist the temptation to do the same.

I was a London borough councillor for 40 years, and leader of that council for 13 years. I cannot resist saying that it has been under Liberal Democrat control for 40 years already and is now no doubt well on its way to 44 years. I am looking forward to it reaching 50 years, by which time I shall have just about reached my century. I stood down as leader of the council to fight the GLA elections, and was elected for its first eight years, along with the noble Lord, Lord Harris. At the beginning, we had many happy meetings trying to work out what on earth we were there to do, how on earth we should do it, whether we really needed committees and, if we did, which committees—and so on.

I spent some not so happy and very long nights in this place working on the GLA Bill, which took a lot of time and consideration. I have had a long interest in London and its governance. I was briefly even a London Member of Parliament, before all those other things. I always felt that that was the best apprenticeship for being a London borough councillor, but nobody else tried it that way round.

I came here at the request of London Councils to express support for the six amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Harris. My name is attached to one of them but should have been attached to all six, as they are a package, and I certainly support them all. They propose sensible arrangements to enable London Councils to distribute government grants, which it is unable to do at the moment. I do not need to go into the details of exactly how it would work, but the proposal to have a statutory joint committee seems entirely sensible. That is the real point of it: the mechanics of exactly how it would work are not for us to determine, as long as there is an ability to make those arrangements. I am strongly in support of that.

I had not intended to join the discussions on the other issues that have been raised today. I noted, not for the first time, the desire of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, to get rid of what he calls small London boroughs. I suppose that that is the only way Labour would ever win most of them. I do not agree with that, not surprisingly.

I suspect that a review of London governance is not likely to happen, but I think it should. I was not entirely happy with the one that happened just before 2000, which resulted in the arrangements that we have now. If we are to have a serious review of London governance, I would welcome it, but I reserve my welcome for whatever its results may be. I would greatly welcome a proper consideration of the role of the borough councils, the Greater London Authority and particularly the London Assembly.

As I said, my main purpose for being here is to support the proposal for a London joint committee. I had understood that it has all-party support; it certainly has the support of the Liberal Democrats, for whom I can speak, as co-president. I am pleased, therefore, to support those amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Harris.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and my noble friend Lord Pitkeathley, I have added my name to Amendment 72 and the others already spoken to by my noble friend Lord Harris.

I have to say only two things. These amendments would provide the appropriate vehicle, as some of the tasks that fall within London are cross-borough. A lot of tasks and responsibilities fall to the GLA, and some fall quite clearly to the boroughs, but some are cross-borough. It is important that we have the correct vehicle for that to happen, both for statutory consultations and, as has already been mentioned, to make it possible to spend money in that way, rather than it having to be funnelled through a particular lead borough. It is therefore useful and probably necessary.

I do not agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bexley, said about it being another level of government. That is absolutely not the intention. There is a non-statutory vehicle there, which is immensely useful, but there are a couple of things that it cannot do. It seems to me that defining it in statute would fill a gap and would be better for the people and boroughs of London.

Localism Bill

Debate between Lord Tope and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Monday 31st October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 60 and, in doing so, I welcome enormously the amendments tabled by the Minister on behalf of the Government. I warmly welcome what she has put forward concerning the preference for having things dealt with, if at all possible, locally and as soon as possible. If it does not do his future career a lot of harm, perhaps I may associate the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, with the thanks to the Government for moving on this. He cannot be in his place tonight but I am afraid that the two of us are at one in thanking the Government, which I think puts us both in very bad odour.

What the Government have done has been welcomed very widely. I know that the British and Irish Ombudsman Association has supported this final retention of a citizen’s right to direct access. Similarly, the National Housing Federation supports the line which enables MPs and councillors to be involved as the first route at the discretion of the complainant but allows the fallback position. Likewise, the Law Commission prefers a system where the complaints can go either through a local representative or to an ombudsman. I hope that the Government know that tenants are similarly very happy with the new amendments, under which they can either deal directly with their councillor or go to the ombudsman. The organisation Which? similarly prefers the choice of the local route but, if not, then the fallback position if for whatever reason the complainant does not want to involve their MP or councillor. As the Minister said, the reasons for that could well be a conflict of interest: the councillor may be the provider; the MP may already have heard the case in their surgery; or the MP may know the local council official involved. The only other reason that has been mentioned is that there could be a threat to the tenant’s privacy where there are issues that they would perhaps not want to share with an elected official. The only other point when somebody may want to go to the ombudsman, albeit after the delay, would be when an elected representative perhaps would be rarely accustomed to awarding redress and would not have the authority to enforce any award.

The way in which this has been tabled by the Government is to be greatly welcomed. It clarifies the current position of the Housing Ombudsman because the scheme requires complainants to have completed any internal complaints procedure with their own provider before going to the ombudsman. Only in very exceptional circumstances, such as oppression or something like unreasonable delay, would the Housing Ombudsman take a case before it had been through the provider’s in-house procedure. That is also helpful in the wording of the Government’s amendments. All the other organisations similarly take that line.

I am delighted that the wording allows local access or the fall back after eight weeks. It is only that that brings up my very small amendment. I have no difficulties with the idea of some delay after the internal procedure is over for the complainant to take stock and consider whether a complaint to the Housing Ombudsman is still justified, having heard the reasons for being turned down by the in-house procedure. Two months seems a little long, especially as the internal procedure that they would have already gone through could also have been a bit lengthy. My amendment would simply shave a fortnight off those eight weeks. The Government have moved a long way on this amendment and I hope they will go a little bit further. An extra 14 days would make this a particularly good final answer to the original amendment.

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness has just said, the Minister has moved a long way since we last debated this. We all accepted the strong desirability of resolving these matters locally whenever possible, but we realised during or even before that debate that it had an unintended consequence of giving the designated person the right of veto. I do not think that that was what the Government intended and I am pleased that they have recognised that, and that it has been removed. Once again, I thank the Minister for not only listening but for acting. At this late hour at this very late stage of the Bill I do not propose to debate further whether it should be six or eight weeks. I am just glad that we have got to where we have.