Localism Bill

Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

The problem with what the Government were proposing was the muddling of those two, which has huge potential for undermining standards in the governance of local authorities because it removes the system of checks and balances that help local authorities to run properly. Removing the proposal and the introduction of a mandatory requirement to have a code of conduct is a step forward, as are some of the other amendments in the group. I only wish that the Government had listened earlier in Committee to the points that were made by my hon. Friends.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I shall be brief, as I have made this point many times to Ministers.

The coalition agreement states:

“We will give residents the power to instigate local referendums on any local issue.”

Despite being wildly enthusiastic about the introduction of referendums, I was critical of this component of the Bill because I did not think it went nearly far enough. This aspect of the Bill recognised that people want more say and more control over the decisions that affect their lives, but because the referendums that we were proposing were to be non-binding, I think the Government would have failed to deliver. I tried on many occasions to persuade the Minister to convert the idea so that the referendums would be binding, but I failed.

I was told to take comfort from the fact that this was a start, and that the referendums did not need to be binding because only a mad local authority would ever go against the wishes of its electorate. Well, there are many mad local authorities, as everyone here knows. [Interruption.] I will name one or two. Earlier this year King’s Lynn and West Norfolk threatened to build a large incinerator, which triggered an almighty backlash from the local population. In the ensuing referendum the turnout was 61%, which would make most constituencies envious in the run-up to a general election. That is a serious figure—61% of the 80,000 people polled —and 92% of those voted against the incinerator. That was an overwhelming result, and hon. Members can probably guess the outcome: the result was ignored by the local authority.

[Helen Jones]

Did the question include where the incinerator should go?

[Zac Goldsmith]

To be honest, I do not know what options were offered, but a large percentage of the population turned out to vote and the vast majority of those made their opinion known and were ignored. Whether we agree with that decision is academic. The fact is that people had their say and were ignored.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

To reinforce the point that my hon. Friend makes about councils listening, when the then governing coalition of Conservatives and Liberals on Leeds city council was discussing an incinerator, which I opposed, the Labour councillors made great play of the fact that the incinerator was going to be built. They won power on the council in 2010, and they are now building the incinerator. We have not heard a peep from the councillors who opposed it before.

[Zac Goldsmith]

We could go on. I shall take the opportunity to give one more example of a mad council ignoring the wishes of local people. That was in my own local authority in Richmond, where a couple of years ago—[Interruption.] It happens even in places such as Richmond, where I called a referendum on a proposal to bring in a supermarket, which local people felt would seriously damage the independent shops in one of the much-loved streets in Barnes. We had a bigger turnout in that referendum than in any general election, but we had a Mugabe-esque result: nearly 90% of people rejected Sainsbury’s, yet the local authority did absolutely nothing to prevent the takeover of the high street by Sainsbury’s. Again, whether we agree with the decision or not, democracy ought to play a role in such decisions.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case in favour of referendums. He referred to overwhelming turnouts in favour of a proposition. However, the proposal before us contains no safeguard for such a referendum, and there could be a binding referendum on a very small turnout. How would he deal with that problem?

[Zac Goldsmith]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. There is a safeguard, although it may not be enough. The Government’s proposal was that 5% of the population could trigger a referendum, which I always felt was too low and would allow it to become a cranks’ charter, because it does not take much to get 5% of people to call for something, and we could end up debating some mad ideas. My amendment would raise the minimum number of signatures required to trigger a referendum to 20%, but I would be happy with 30%, because it should be difficult. A referendum should act as a veto in the hands of the people, but it should not be an easy mechanism to deploy.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

We have just heard about one potential weakness of the hon. Gentleman’s amendment, and I would like to raise another. He has made great play of the fact that the result of the referendum would be binding—it is repeated several times in the wording of the amendment—but it then states that that would be

“subject to exceptions set out in regulations made by the Secretary of State”.

Could he assist the House by giving three examples of the kind of exceptions that he has in mind?

[Zac Goldsmith]

I can give the right hon. Gentleman one exception that covers many more than three: matters that are not in the control of the local authority. If the decision can be made without reference to national Government, the local authority would be bound by the results of a referendum. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman described the weakness that I highlighted earlier as a “potential” weakness, because I hope that I answered the question adequately.

[Hilary Benn]

The example that the hon. Gentleman gives seems to be covered already by subsection (2) of his amendment, which says that a referendum can take place only if relates to one of the four examples given in paragraphs (a) to (d). It seems to me that his answer falls at an earlier hurdle—his own amendment. I ask him again whether he can give three examples of situations in which he thinks the Secretary of State should say that the result of a referendum is not binding.

--- Later in debate ---

[Zac Goldsmith]

We are getting into a technical exchange—[Interruption.] It is very technical, and I think that the right hon. Gentleman has answered his own question, as Government Members have pointed out from a sedentary position. The previous Government’s proposals for the non-binding aspect of the referendum were clearly inadequate, but I concede that, as the Minister said at the time, they represent a start. It was a start until the entire chapter was dropped as it was being negotiated in the other place. That might have been a mistake, in which case I am happy to reintroduce the concept in the amendment, but it takes the previous Government’s idea one step further. The amendment would give people power to instigate a local referendum, which is a commitment that all Government Members made in the run-up to the last election. We all committed to ensuring that people could have their say in local referendums, and in my view it was an important part of the manifesto. Crucially, it is binding. Crucially, we have raised the threshold to 20%, which I hope would prevent the kind of abuses that people are worried about.

[Bob Blackman]

My hon. Friend once again makes a powerful case for referendums, but the point is that although the trigger for instigating a referendum would be 20% of the electorate, there would be no safeguard when it came to the voting. The turnout could be as low as 5% or 10%, but the result would still bind a local authority.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I will not argue on that point, because I do not necessarily disagree with him. The purpose of the amendments is to introduce the concept of binding local referendums. If it was decided as a result of a proper debate in the House that the minimum proportion of signatures needed to be 30%, I would not argue with that. At one point the Bill specified that it would be 15%, and after much discussion the Members in whose names the amendment stands decided to raise the figure to 20%. In my view, that is not an issue to get hung up about. Similarly, I certainly do not oppose the concept of a minimum turnout, and would have been willing to include that in an amendment, following proper discussion. It is the principle that is important. It was an error for the Government to remove even a half-hearted attempt at handing power back to local people, and it is a mistake that I think people will remember.

I will not press the amendment to a vote, because clearly it does not enjoy overwhelming support, and Front Benchers on both sides of the House have said that they will whip against it. If I pressed it to a Division, I would not expect to achieve anything other than wasting people’s time. However, I hope that the Government will think again and recognise that they have an opportunity to show that when they talk about localism they actually mean it, and that they trust people to make decisions that affect their own lives. I hope that they will recognise, as the Minister has done many times, that no one is better placed to decide the nature, shape, form and future of an area than the people who live in it. I urge the Government to think again.

--- Later in debate ---

I shall also speak to amendment 112 proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith). Again, I want to focus on the facts. I am grateful to the shadow Minister for her comments and for the opportunity to intervene on the Minister earlier. If we have a binding referendum, we do not have control over what someone may be made to do. We can bring in threshold limits, but there is something called the internet, which makes it easy for people to move forward with ideas and get to thresholds. A relatively low number of people could then go and vote, and we would be faced with some very nasty legislation.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I have a brief question. If the amendment is pressed to a vote, would my hon. Friend support it if it included turn-out thresholds, not just trigger-mechanism thresholds?

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I would not support the amendment for the reasons my hon. Friend just mentioned, because if someone wants to have a referendum that is binding on any subject, they leave themselves open to several problems. My hon. Friend’s amendment contains provisions that he feels would deal with that. However, in this place, we must be very careful about the legislation we introduce and the language we use. We may try to foresee the instances that may occur and try to stop some unsavoury referendums taking place, but once the legislation saying that it is binding is in place, someone somewhere will find a way around it.

We live in heightened times of tension. That is inevitable in an economic downturn. We go through periods when there is a blame culture and it is easy to pick on the weakest person.

If the House will indulge me, I would like to refer to “The Simpsons”. I am sure I am not alone when I say that I am huge fan of “The Simpsons”. Some of the episodes can be particularly cutting. I remember one episode when some of the characters woke up to find a bear in the front garden and decided that they wanted to introduce a bear tax to keep the bears out. The mayor had a meeting and said, “I want to bring in a bear tax.” Everybody said, “We’re not paying any more tax”, to which the mayor said, “All right. Well, I blame the immigrants.” Everybody cheered and the mayor said, “We’ll have a referendum on it.” As the episode goes on, they have a referendum to kick out the immigrants because they are unhappy about having to pay more tax and there was not enough tax to sort out the bears. Later, the episode highlights the fact that people in their communities, their friends and so on have an immigrant past and are fully integrated. There is a road to Damascus moment for Homer who goes around saying, “This is a terrible referendum. We can’t vote on this.” The result comes in, and there is a 96% vote to get rid of all the immigrants because nobody listens.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I apologise for intervening again, but my hon. Friend’s argument is exactly an argument in favour of democracy and referendums. If an unattractive proposition is made, people’s gut reaction may be to take the least attractive option. However, after debate and discussion—just as Homer Simpson proved to my hon. Friend in his youth—the right decision is normally reached. There are examples of that happening. In Switzerland, there was recently a vote on a motion that would have made migration to that country almost impossible. All the pundits and pollsters said the proposal would be overwhelmingly accepted; in fact, it was rejected by two to one as a result of the type of discussions prompted by the referendum. I say to my hon. Friend: please do not fear democracy in the way so many of our colleagues here do.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

It is not democracy I fear; it is people who may not be fully informed going to the ballot box. Let us not forget that the Third Reich was elected.

In conclusion, there is a place for referendums, and the balance in the Bill is about right. However, referendums should not be binding, which could open things up. It is perhaps sometimes hon. Members’ responsibility not to adopt the position we would take ourselves, but to consider what is best overall to protect the people from those who would seek to abuse and twist a system, as, indeed, happened with the Standards Board.