Lord Stunell
Main Page: Lord Stunell (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)(12 years, 6 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Stunell)
I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 14.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Lords amendments 15 to 49 and 95 to 111.
Lords amendment 112, and amendment (a) thereto.
Lords amendments 235, 248, 256, 261, 263 to 333, 404 to 413 and 441.
Andrew Stunell
As my right hon. Friend the Minister eloquently set out in respect of the last string of amendments, the Government believe that we need to decentralise power to local communities. I think that is now a shared all-party analysis, that the days of top-down control should be removed and that we should move to bottom-up control.
For the last 30 or 40 years—my right hon. Friend suggested perhaps for the last 100 years—there has been gathering frustration at the way in which local communities and local councils have had their decision making taken away from them and their power denuded, and, particularly for those in local government, how they have increasingly faced a situation in which everything they did was either compulsory or prohibited with no scope for local discretion or for taking account of local circumstances, local needs, local resources or, indeed, local opinion.
The communities that local authorities have served have had the role of angry bystanders, whereby things were simply done to them, imposed on them or dumped on them—not done by them, decided by them or, least of all, chosen and delivered by them. This Bill marks a huge cultural change not just for those local communities and local councils, but for those in Westminster, and perhaps even more for those in Whitehall. We need to change that culture: it is a long overdue change, and this Bill makes a start on achieving it.
I am encouraged by the fact that the criticism of Opposition Members is now that we are not going far or fast enough, when, in fact, over the last 13 years, they made the problem worse, not better. We look forward greatly to their co-operation in this place—as it was so willingly offered in the other place—so that we can improve the Bill, make it even more localist, and deliver for local communities and local councils.
Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
As the Minister will know, the amendments include a requirement for the deletion of clauses 42 to 58, the local referendum provisions. Does he regard that as an enhancement of local decision making, an embarrassing withdrawal from a rather bizarre and ill-thought-out proposal for local decision making, or simply a recognition of a cock-up on the Government’s part?
Andrew Stunell
Given that the right hon. Gentleman spoke and, I believe, voted against the inclusion of that provision in the Bill, I should have thought that he would welcome the fact that the Bill in its present form reflects his point of view more accurately than it did before.
The amendments take the power and local responsibility of local authorities further than the Bill as originally drafted. Although the original Bill set out to achieve that, we always made it clear that there was more to do, and that we were willing to listen when there were sensible arguments for going further. That is what underlies the amendments, all of which—as was pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Minister—secured support throughout the other place. During the debates both here and in the other place, a number of Members of both Houses made sensible suggestions about additional areas in which we could free up local government. Let me highlight two examples in which the Bill now goes even further than we originally proposed in freeing local authorities to manage their own business as they consider appropriate.
Good arguments were advanced in the other place in support of the view that the rules on area committees were too prescriptive. In response, the Government tabled Lords amendments 269, 271 and 272, which remove the Secretary of State’s powers to make regulations in relation to such committees. When we were discussing the earlier group of amendments, the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) maintained the argument—which does not bear close examination—that, in some mysterious way, inserting these proposals in the Bill, and improving them today, constituted an act of centralisation. Nothing could be further from the truth: our amendments relating to area committees demonstrate not just our intentions, but our delivery of increased localism for local authorities.
Good arguments were also advanced in the other place for the view that the rules on area committees were too tight. We therefore tabled Lords amendments 263, 267 and 270, which enable an executive of a local authority to delegate its functions to an area committee and to arrange for the discharge of those functions by an officer of the authority. That enables councils to establish whatever area committees they wish to establish, and to give them whatever executive functions they consider appropriate, without asking the Secretary of State for regulations or permission. Lords amendment 273 also removes the restrictions on the maximum size of area committees.
The Bill gives more powers to local authorities in respect of local elections. We have responded to representations about unnecessary restrictions on authorities wishing to change their scheme of elections, and the significant time constraints that were built into that scheme. Lords amendment 14 removes the rules stipulating when authorities may change their scheme of elections. It leaves them to make such decisions at a time that is right for them and their local communities without being dictated to by central government, and enables them to decide the date on which they will hold their first whole council elections.
Members of both Houses expressed the fear that the Government’s proposals would place unnecessary burdens on local authorities. We reflected carefully on those arguments, and discussed them at length with appropriate parties both inside and outside the House of Commons. One example relates to the point raised by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) about the proposed mayoral arrangements. As a result of comments made on Report—by the right hon. Gentleman, among others—and on Second Reading in the House of Lords, we agreed to streamline our proposals for elected mayors. Lords amendment 312 and a number of consequential amendments remove our initial proposals on shadow mayors as precursors to directly elected mayors, while Lords amendments 94 and 296 and a number of consequential amendments remove our proposals on mayoral management arrangements, under which the elected mayor would also have become the chief executive of his or her authority.
Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
May I ask the Minister a question about Lords amendment 112? As he will know, there are proposals—which are not universally accepted—for a directly elected mayor for the Liverpool city region. There is some support for them, and I support them in principle. Would the amended provisions make possible the creation of a directly elected city region mayor, but only on the basis that the powers of that person in regard to such important matters as transport, police and fire and rescue services are increased? Otherwise the amendment is pointless.
Andrew Stunell
The Bill does not encompass matters relating to city region mayors. That would require a separate provision. Let me, however, draw the right hon. Gentleman’s attention to the amendments with which we will deal shortly relating to core cities, and to my right hon. Friend’s request for the core city regions to consider what powers they might wish to take. There are various options, but I should make it clear that there is no proposal in the Bill for a city region mayor.
Under the Local Government Act 2003, local authorities can already conduct non-binding referendums on matters relating to their services or expenditure. In addition, the Bill gives local people powerful new rights to vote on key issues such as governance changes—for example, mayoral elections, council tax increases and, of course, neighbourhood plans. A number of members of the House of Commons Committee feared that, given those new rights, the provisions on referendums did not add enough to justify the additional burden. Similar observations were made in the House of Lords Committee, and, after careful reflection and discussion, we determined that the right course was to accept on Lords Report amendments 96 to 112 removing the provisions relating to local referendums. That does not change the provisions on council tax referendums, which are the vehicle that switches the power to prevent excessive tax rises from the Government and the Secretary of State to the local communities and electors who will be paying those bills if they vote for them.
Helen Jones
What is the Minister’s response to the view of the Electoral Commission that if council tax referendums are introduced in 2012, the time scale will be too short to allow them to be prepared for properly? Will he listen to the commission’s representations?
Andrew Stunell
We will, of course, take careful account of all the advice we receive. The powers are to be changed only in respect of non-binding referendums. The Government are committed to giving people a greater say, but local people currently have many good opportunities to speak out and be heard.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
The Minister and I were involved in the congestion charge referendum in Greater Manchester, and I think we both had concerns about the returning officer’s impartiality. Will the changes under discussion deal with situations such as that, where the returning officer was appointed by one side of the campaign and they operated from adjacent offices?
Andrew Stunell
The hon. Gentleman reminds me that we sometimes make common cause on issues, and he is right to say there were concerns about that. The provision in question removes the proposal for non-binding referendums. Other proposals remain in the Bill, and the referendum to which the hon. Gentleman referred was, I believe, carried forward under the 2003 Act, which we are not amending.
I shall now turn to the amendment proposed by the hon. Members for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), for Clacton (Mr Carswell) and for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney)—and, I believe, supported by the hon. Members for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Kettering (Mr Hollobone). It seeks to add to the Bill a scheme of binding local referendums. The Government are committed to giving people a greater say in how their communities are run, but we do not believe that it is sensible to introduce binding referendums on any subject that might arise. Given the potential scope of the local issues that binding referendums might cover and the many complex impacts that such a regime could have on local service delivery and local public finances, it would be unwise for there to be a presumption that all local referendums should be binding. There could be occasions where there are two competing referendums with potentially conflicting aims. There could be occasions where the course of action requested has significant cost implications and would have an adverse impact on the delivery of other services or priorities. Ultimately, it is the role of councillors to take decisions by balancing the various views of citizens alongside the needs of the community, particularly where there is no consensus, and those councillors are ultimately responsible to local people for their decisions through the ballot box. I hope the signatories to the amendment in question will air their points of view, but I hope they will not force a Division.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on making those comments. It is important that such referendums be non-binding, especially when we consider cities such as Leeds, part of which I represent, where there are many diverse communities. In times of economic trouble, it is easy for a blame culture to arise, and I can envisage situations in which some might try to use hate in a referendum campaign. If referendums were binding, that could cause a problem.
Andrew Stunell
I thank my hon. Friend for that wise remark. One can envisage such binding referendums having a variety of unintended negative consequences.
The issue of standards was keenly debated in both Houses. Members and peers made it clear that they supported the abolition of the Standards Board regime and the removal of what was a top-down, bureaucratic system. However, concerns were raised about some aspects of our proposals to deal with local authority standards after the abolition of the Standards Board, and about whether they would ensure the high standards we all expect of local authorities. There was, however, much common ground and we were able to refine and develop our proposals as the Bill progressed through the House of Lords, and thereby get to a position which reassured all parties. All sides agreed that the promotion and maintenance of high standards of conduct was vital; the debate was about how best to achieve that.
We have introduced amendments 29 to 36 to address these concerns. They focus on the offence of pecuniary interests, and ensure that there are appropriate defences, such as “reasonable excuse”. In simplifying our proposals, we have ensured that councillors cannot use their position for financial advantage, but without the danger of criminalising a councillor for an honest oversight or omission.
There was a feeling that the provisions dealing with local authority standards after the abolition of the Standards Board needed to be set out in more detail. On Lords Third Reading, following meetings with peers of all parties and Cross-Benchers, the Government introduced amendments 15, 20 to 26, 7, 125, 332 and 333, strengthening the standards provisions in the Bill. Local authorities will now have to draw up a code of conduct in accordance with the Nolan principles of standards in public life, which I am sure I do not need to remind Members are selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. Central Government will not otherwise prescribe its content, other than to require councillors to register and disclose both their pecuniary and non-pecuniary interests in an open manner. Local authorities will also have to put in place arrangements both to deal with complaints that the code has been breached and for coming to a decision about complaints. Again, we will not stipulate what these arrangements should be.
Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
I thank the Minister for the clarity he is giving. In respect of this provision, district councils have felt that there might have been some suggestion that they would have to have a standards board looking after parish council complaints. I am sure that is not the Minister’s intention, however.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
May I extend that question? We are going to have neighbourhood forums in respect of neighbourhood development plans, and there is also an issue to do with community budgets and the Government asking for community groups to come together to spend local money—that was recently proposed by the Department for Communities and Local Government for deprived areas such as mine. Will such matters be the responsibility of the new standards arrangements? They will not fall under parish council responsibility; rather, they will be dealt with by the district council or the Government. How will they fit in with the standards arrangements?
Andrew Stunell
I think the hon. Gentleman might be confusing different processes. The Standards Board regime applied to councillors at parish, district and county level. We are sweeping away the Standards Board and making sure that local authorities put in place sound and sensible provision to safeguard the integrity of themselves and the members who serve on them.
To return to the question of my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler), district councils do not have to monitor parish councils. They do need to have in place arrangements to deal with allegations of misconduct by a parish councillor, but how they do that is up to them. We will expect district councils and parishes to work together to make arrangements as simple as possible.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I welcome the fact that the Government at last recognise they may have some responsibility for appropriate standards being maintained in local councils. Can the Minister give an assurance, however, that where there is a serious complaint against a chief executive or leader of a council—perhaps about bullying of a junior member of staff or another councillor—the complainant will receive as robust an investigation into those complaints as under the current regime that the Government seek to abolish?
Andrew Stunell
Absolutely. We are clearly setting out what councils have to do and have in place, and the safeguard that they are required to provide.
On the application of the standards regime in London, we took the opportunity on Lords Report to make amendments 16 to 19, 28, 37, 408, 411 and 413, which ensure that the Mayor of London and the Greater London assembly are given equal roles in and responsibility for promoting and maintaining high standards, rather than leaving that function to be discharged by the assembly alone. The amendments also allow the assembly and Mayor to delegate functions to a committee or member of staff.
With these amendments, taken as a whole, we have achieved a balanced approach to the promotion and maintenance of high standards of conduct, with local authorities determining for themselves how best to achieve that. They will be freed up from the top-down, bureaucratic yoke of a national regime, of a model code and of a quango-regulated regime that became a vehicle for petty, vindictive and often politically motivated complaints. Our approach, which balances localism with safeguards, is the right one to ensure accountability locally and consistently high standards right across the country.
This group also contains a number of more minor amendments, many of them technical in nature, but I will mention one because it will be of particular interest to Labour Members. Lords amendments 38 to 43 introduce measures intended to increase accountability on local authority decisions about pay and reward. During the Commons’ consideration, Labour Members welcomed these provisions, as far as they went, on senior pay and asked us to go further to see how the Bill could bring similar levels of accountability on the pay of the rest of an authority’s work force. We committed to do so, particularly in the light of Will Hutton’s review of fair pay in the public sector, which made several recommendations. Following the representations that we have received, and with that report as the background, we made amendments in the Lords which have the effect of expanding the scope of pay policy statements to include an authority’s policies towards its lowest-paid staff, as well as the relationship between the pay of its most senior staff and the rest of its work force. I hope that Labour Members will agree that these sensible changes broaden the scope of the measures to capture the spirit of their comments and the Hutton recommendations.
In summary, this group of amendments will radically reduce the prescription bearing down on local authorities, freeing them up to serve their local communities better. I wish to pay tribute to the way in which hon. Members from all parties have—in Committee and on Report in this House, and in the other place—engaged with this part of the legislation to deliver a much-improved Bill. I urge the House to agree to these Lords amendments, and I hope that hon. Members will not press their amendment (a) to a Division.
Helen Jones
We are dealing with a broad group of amendments relating to local authority governance. I wish to begin by speaking to amendment 15, which would ensure that it is compulsory rather than voluntary for local councils to adopt a code of conduct. The subsequent amendments make it clear that the code of conduct must be in line with the Nolan principles and would ensure that arrangements are in place to investigate complaints against a member, including the appointment of an independent person whose view must be sought before action is taken. As the Minister said, this group would also allow the Mayor of London to exercise functions relating to standards and provides for a register of interests.
We welcome the amendments. It was bizarre that, in Committee, Government Members opposed the requirement to have a code of conduct—I found that extremely confusing. We accept, in this House, that we should be subject to clear standards of behaviour, but the Government were proposing that other elected representatives—people who deliver important services to their communities and take decisions that affect people’s daily lives—should not face a similar requirement; a council might have a code or it might not. Such a situation is not acceptable. It fails to offer sufficient protection to the public and it implies that the standards regime is optional.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
I want to return briefly to the local code of conduct and how it will work. We all know that the Standards Board is going—and I, for one, am not sorry to see it go, but I would like to see something put in its place. We must have some form of security. I think that the Minister failed to answer my question, so I will put it again and give him the opportunity to intervene if he wants to. This legislation establishes neighbourhood forum groups that will shape and influence planning policy. Residents will be drawn almost at random, or it will be the usual people who get involved in community activities who will come forward. Surely they must be accountable in some way, according to some form of standards. They cannot simply operate in a vacuum, in which things can simply happen and then there is no way to hold them accountable for their decisions.
Last week the Department for Communities and Local Government announced the Community First programme, offering £30 million of grants to 597 of the most deprived wards. Here the Government are asking for neighbourhood committees to be set up. In my constituency, Peel ward, one of the most deprived in the country, is to receive £17,000 in each of the next two years as part of the Community First programme. The residents were told last week that they will have to set up a committee to spend what is essentially public money, yet there is no accountability. The Minister is totally unclear about how local authorities will deal not only with elected members in local authorities, but with unelected members who will be involved in some of the decision making that will help to shape public policy.
Andrew Stunell
I wanted to hear the rest of the hon. Gentleman’s point in case I was missing something fundamental, but I was not. I hope that I can return to the point later. I can assure him that there is nothing in the Bill that changes the requirement for any body that receives public money to spend it in a lawful way, and with integrity. If it is a charity or community group, the Charity Commission and other regulatory bodies will kick in. He is erecting a substantial mountain out of a very small molehill.
Graham Jones
I thank the Minister for his intervention, but I think that his answer is more smoke and mirrors. I am asking where the judicial framework is, and his answer is that there is none, but there is a legal framework, within which we all operate. If that is the case, why do we have standards in public life? It is because that is a judicial element that governs and reflects the service that we all give—but we encounter problems when people make decisions that are not in the best public interest, but in their own personal or prejudicial interests.
Alec Shelbrooke
Through local communities and local government, projects are being identified—[Interruption.] I give way to the Minister.
Andrew Stunell
I wonder whether I may help my hon. Friend by reminding him that any body or organisation that spends public money is subject to the equalities duty, introduced under equalities legislation introduced by this Government earlier this year.
Alec Shelbrooke
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for assisting me with that line of debate. There are protections in place: there is the law of the land, there is legislation and, when it comes to democratically elected people, there is the ballot box. I do not think it will do any harm to local government to remove the Standards Board and consider other areas, because it has wasted hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of pounds of taxpayers’ money on vexatious, vindictive claims. Beyond that, the board has slowed the process of local government, as well as the service and, indeed, the communications we, as elected Members, would want to have with our public. We need to address that.
John McDonnell
That is incredibly helpful, because although amendment (a) might not be pressed to a vote, the House in due course—fairly rapidly—will need to look at how undemocratic the City of London corporation actually is.
There are numerous examples of when a referendum in the City of London on the basis of universal suffrage—one person, one vote—would enable residents to address some of the abuses of the system that take place currently. If people want an example of those abuses, they should read the front page of The Guardian today. The City of London corporation has applied City cash—anything up to £100 million in local authority funding that is never audited or publicised; that completely lacks any form of transparency to local residents or the rest of the electorate in both the corporation area or elsewhere; and that is never investigated—to enhance a property development on the edge of the corporation area in Hackney. That also enhances the value of properties owned by Hammerson, which employs the lord mayor of the City of London corporation. A referendum in the City of London area could valuably take place on that matter. Residents could vote on whether it is appropriate for the City of London to enter into developments of that sort.
The Hackney example is not the only one; there was the Spitalfields development and opposition from the Barbican Association. The City of London corporation has ridden roughshod over the wishes of local residents to enhance the profits of businesses which employ council men on the corporation. If the hon. Member for Richmond Park is suggesting that the rules and regulations made under proposed subsection (11) of amendment (a) would ensure universal suffrage in the City of London corporation, it would be a major breakthrough for democracy in London.
I hope that the amendment is pressed to a Division if we gain assurances from all who have tabled the amendment that that is what it means. Even if we cannot use the amendment to prise open democracy in the City of London corporation, there will be other opportunities. Hon. Members from all parties should try to place this matter firmly on the agenda again, because allowing businesses to have the vote and to ride roughshod over the wishes of local residents in the corporation area is 21st-century abuse of power and democracy.
Andrew Stunell
We have had an interesting and wide-ranging debate, with plenty of interest added by Members’ personal experiences.
I appreciate the decision of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) not to press amendment (a) to a Division. He will have seen in the course of the debate that the force is not with him, although he has raised a number of interesting aspects, which I am sure he will ensure are kept in front of the House in the years to come.
Other hon. Members have raised a wide range of issues, and perhaps the most persistent raiser of issues was the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones), who is not in the Chamber. This part of the Bill applies to local authorities; it does not attempt, and it never did attempt, to regulate community groups, neighbourhood forums or other non-governmental organisations. However, I remind the House that there is still a requirement on anybody spending public money to give a proper account of that spending and to be held accountable, if necessary in the courts, should they fail to do so. On the wider duty on anybody spending public money, the introduction of the equalities duty provides a substantial safeguard and remedy for those who feel hard done by as a consequence. I hope that the House will accept that as the right basis on which to proceed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) told us a shaggy bear story, but hidden behind it were some important observations, one of which was about the present system’s extensive capacity for creating trouble for council members going about their lawful business and trying to serve their community. He referred to a case in which essentially he was being bullied by a developer because of views he had expressed on a planning application. I am happy to tell him that, quite apart from our abolition of the Standards Board, our abolition of the pre-determination legislation, which is also right at the front of the Bill, will put in place a safeguard in such situations.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) drew attention to the hard work done in the House of Lords, not least by our Liberal Democrat colleagues. Government Members acknowledge the fruitful dialogue in the Lords, which I believe has produced a much-improved Bill. She suggested that it might be appropriate for us to return to the standards regime and monitor its performance after a couple of years. More broadly, the Government have said that they want to monitor the impact of legislation as time goes by, and I hope that she will understand that the House always has the capacity to return to matters. No doubt the Select Committee and others will keep an eye not only on that provision in the Bill, but on all the others.
I heard the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), particularly on police and police commissioners. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, who has responsibility for decentralisation, has recently written to my hon. Friend about that matter, and I know that the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice has also offered to liaise with him. I assume that he will want to take up that offer. He made several observations about what would happen in the United States, but I have reason to suspect that he is not in favour of introducing a federal system in the United Kingdom. In default of a federal system, we have to manage our own resources of governance.
On council tax referendums, I made the point in my introductory remarks that we are replacing a top-down limitation on what councils can spend and raise from the council tax with a process controlled by the electorate—the ones who pay for it—which is how local accountability is supposed to work in our democratic system. As those who did an A-level in this area will know, that is what we are all taught happens, but what has not happened for many years. We are changing a top-down financial control system to a bottom-up control system. In the eyes of my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood, that might not be perfect, but I hope that he would accept that it is more than just a small notional improvement.
Mark Reckless
It might be that for local authorities we are just about doing as the Minister states, but it is not the case for the area of policing that I raised. The letter that I received from my right hon. Friend the Minister of State was entirely unsatisfactory, and the meeting with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice has not happened. Importing the Localism Bill into the police framework makes a complete dog’s breakfast of the precept setting and contradicts the coalition agreement and last year’s “Policing in the 21st Century” White Paper.
Andrew Stunell
I am disappointed to hear my hon. Friend say that. Local people have as much right to take a view on excessive police precept increases as they do on increases in any other sector of local government. I believe that the provisions we have are right. I hope that he is not spurning the offer of a meeting my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, because he might find it more productive than he evidently fears it would be.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to consider Lords amendments 114 to 150, 236, 236, 251, 334 to 349, and 414 to 417.
Andrew Stunell
The amendments focus on the community right to challenge, on assets of community value, and on council tax referendums. As the Minister of State, my right hon. Friend Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), said at the beginning of our debates, the fundamental aim of the Bill is to shift power away from central Government and back to local communities. This part of the Bill enables decentralisation to be taken beyond the town hall, so that we can empower communities and enable them to play a bigger part in local life, whether their aim is to improve local services or to save treasured assets. Community rights will give communities more opportunities to do exactly that. When it is successful, it will give them a chance to compete to deliver those services themselves, using local knowledge, expertise and innovation to improve local services.
Assets of community value will hand communities the initiative so that they can identify important local assets such as the old town halls, village shops and pubs that are of value to community life. There are already many good examples across the country of communities coming together to take over local pubs, shops, libraries and community centres. I think that all of us will have seen examples—if not in our constituencies, during visits to other areas. However, there are many more cases in which communities have missed out because they were not aware that a building was up for sale, or because when they discovered that, they lacked the time to make a viable bid. The new right will make it easier for communities to save local assets that are important to them, and will give them the time that they need to prepare a bid to take them when they come up for sale.
We are also replacing central Government capping with council tax referendums. I had intended to say more about that, but I think that I covered it adequately in the last debate.
A wide range of bodies have said that the powers and opportunities that we are providing are long overdue and very welcome. The National Association for Voluntary and Community Action, the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and Locality have all expressed the view that we are doing the right thing, and during the Bill’s passage Members on both sides of the House have expressed broad support for the principles of our reforms.
However, Members wanted us to go further in some respects, and expressed concern about the details of a number of other aspects of our proposals. As my right hon. Friend said, we have been in listening mode throughout. We have considered the points that have been made not just by Members of the House of Commons, but by peers and interested parties outside. The hon. Members for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) and for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) played an important role in the debates that led to the amendments, and in the other place Lord Greaves, Lord Tope, Lord Patel of Bradford and Baroness Hamwee made helpful contributions.
Although we had some excellent debates here in Committee and on Report, we did not think it appropriate to amend the provisions until we had had a chance to consider all the responses to the consultation carefully. That consultation closed in May. Following consideration of the responses and the debates in the House of Lords, we tabled amendments on Report intended to improve the workability of the provisions in the Bill and strengthen their effectiveness.
On the right to challenge, the consultation and debates in both Houses demonstrated that there was an appetite to extend the reforms, but also that there were concerns about the prescription in the Bill. To address the former, amendment 115 makes it clear that the right could be extended to require a Minister or Government Department to consider expressions of interest. To address the latter concern, we have removed a number of delegated powers, particularly those allowing the Secretary of State to prescribe time scales associated with the right to challenge. Instead, under amendments 118 to 121 it will be for local authorities to set their own time scales, while having regard to factors to be set out in guidance.
There are also a number of minor amendments to the right to challenge. I will not detain the House by describing them in detail, but, for example, we have made it clear that the definition of community body in the provisions does not include a public or local authority, and we have ensured that if the right is extended, it would continue to apply only to services provided in England.
There has also been broad support for the principle of giving communities greater opportunities to identify assets of community value and more time to raise the funds. We have also had constructive discussions about improving the practical application of the provisions and avoiding overly detailed rules. I would particularly like to thank Lord Gardiner of Kimble, Lord Cameron of Dillington, Earl Cathcart and Lord Howard of Rising for their contributions to improving these provisions.
We have listened carefully, and amendments 122 to 126 define land of community value based on principal use for social well-being and social interests, including cultural, recreational and sporting interests. Amendments 127 to 130 make it clear that only a voluntary or community body with a local connection may nominate an asset to be listed by a local authority, which will safeguard against vexatious nominations by individuals. We have also improved the workability of these provisions by exempting certain types of relevant disposal: those where the community is not at risk of losing the asset. Amendments 140 and 144 exempt several types of relevant disposals from the moratorium in the Bill. As a result, the provisions will not cover situations such as where a village shop is to change hands as a going concern and the community will still get the benefit of a shop, nor will they capture a situation where a transfer is made between family members or through inheritance or gifts. Further exempt disposals will be set out in regulations. Most importantly, we have ensured that groups will have enough time to raise funds to buy assets; that was a key concern of community groups.
Amendments 141 to 145 specify that the interim moratorium will be six weeks, the full moratorium will be six months, and the protected period in which a further application cannot be made will be 18 months, starting from the first date. In other words, there will, in effect, be a 12-month moratorium period. We have also reduced the amount of prescription. Amendments 131, 132, 134 and 135 give local authorities greater freedom to decide how to administer and publicise lists of assets of community value in their local area. In summary, these amendments will ensure that the provisions give communities a powerful new tool to preserve assets of community value, while ensuring that we do not create unintended consequences.
These reforms were welcomed by the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action and by the Country Land and Business Association. When both those organisations claim victory, it is clear that we must be doing something right.
Finally, this group also contains a number of smaller technical amendments, which include provision for ensuring that levies made on local authorities by levying bodies are not part of the calculation on whether a council tax increase is excessive, and for ensuring that only residents, and not business voters, in the City of London are entitled to vote in a council tax referendum. I hope that that gives at least a little comfort to the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). Overall, I hope that hon. Members will agree that these amendments significantly improve the Bill and address issues of common concern, and so will agree to them unanimously.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
Labour Members broadly support the amendments, which support some of the points made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones). This whole part of the Bill had to be substantially rewritten following discussions in this Chamber, in Committee and in the other place. Although it purported to give communities more power over their areas, it actually gave a lot more power to the Secretary of State to outline the time scale for local authorities to consider a transfer of community assets and on what those were. We are pleased, therefore, that a definition of land of community value has been put in the Bill and that some of the ridiculously prescriptive powers relating to the community right to bid have been removed or put where they should have been put—with local authorities. We are also pleased that the amendments should enable local authorities to set and publish their own time scales for deciding on community expressions of interest. I hope that that is helpful to them and to the local communities that wish to take over assets.
John McDonnell
I shall be extremely brief. I wholeheartedly welcome this part of the Bill and the amendments proposed, but I would also welcome some advice from the Minister on the time scale for the implementation of the Bill and this bit of it. I shall quickly give a relevant example.
In my constituency, a library has been closed and a new one opened. I did not get everything I wanted, but I congratulate the local authority on opening the new library. For some time, there has been an expectation—indeed, promises have been made by the local authority in the past—that the previous and now redundant library would be handed over for community use. Despite a petition signed by more than 4,000 people urging the local authority to provide this facility for community use in some form, the London borough of Hillingdon is now rushing ahead with its sale. Last week, the authority actually gave itself planning permission for housing, despite the fact that I appeared at the petition hearing with the petition and directly quoted words of wisdom from the Secretary of State. He had cited a library being made redundant as an example of exactly what this Bill is intended to address.
So I ask the Minister about the London borough of Hillingdon’s undue haste to give itself planning permission for housing and to sell the site off to pre-empt the coming into force of this Bill. Will he assure me that something can be done to persuade the authority to listen to the local people and enable us to use this Bill for the purposes for which it was intended: to empower local people in respect of just this sort of asset? I would welcome any assurance that he could give, any advice that he might wish to render to the London borough of Hillingdon and anything that he can say about the importance of the community being listened to on such examples.
Andrew Stunell
I welcome the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) to the Front Bench and welcome her welcome for the amendments that we have introduced. I understand that she obviously has to go through the ritual motions of accusing us of U-turns, but what we actually have is a Government who are listening and ready to share their learning with the House. We did not come to the House with a finished product, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made clear from the moment the Bill was produced. I believe that the Bill has been improved at each stage of its progression and has now reached a state of perfection.
John McDonnell
May I clarify that I am not enticing the Minister to criticise the local authority? However, there is an issue here. A Bill is coming to its conclusion and will shortly be enacted. Should not true a local authority taking a reasonable decision and taking into account all relevant factors take into account the fact that the Government intend the Bill to be implemented rapidly? Should it not therefore act in the spirit of the Bill?
Andrew Stunell
Perhaps it would be appropriate for the hon. Gentleman to make sure that the report of this exchange in Hansard is drawn to the attention of the council leader.
I can add a little more information about the timetable. The implementation of the rights requires secondary legislation in accordance with the procedures agreed by the House. Affirmative resolution measures require parliamentary time and consultation and we cannot prejudge exactly what the outcome will be. However, preparatory work is well in hand and the ministerial team certainly intend to get all these rights not only on the statute book but make them effective and active in local communities as soon as possible.
Mr Raynsford
I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. He will know that the Government have taken the view, in relation to the next part of the Bill on planning, that their intended policy should be a material consideration for local authorities when assessing planning matters. Would it not be appropriate to do exactly the same in respect of the request of my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell)? Should it not be made clear to the council that the imminent implementation of this measure should be a material consideration when deciding the future of the library?
Andrew Stunell
The right hon. Gentleman is being a little naughty. As he knows, the material consideration is a matter for the courts, not for interpretation by the Government. Of course, it is open to the local authority to take account of forthcoming legislation and, as I am sure the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington will point out, that might provide an opportunity for it to move ahead of the change just as much as it might incline it to wait for the measure to be implemented. As ever, one should be careful what one wishes for in this place.
Lords amendment 113 agreed to, with Commons financial privileges waived.
Lords amendments 114 to 150 agreed to, with Commons financial privileges waived in respect of Lords amendments 114, 115, 131, 148 and 150.
Clause 94
Abolition of regional strategies
