Localism Bill

Lord True Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Dillington]

My Lords, I support the right reverend Prelate in his intention to oppose the clause standing part. In so doing, as this is the first occasion on which I have spoken in this Committee stage, I declare all my interests as a landowner and farmer and, in this instance, as chairman of the Charities’ Property Association, whose membership includes many charities that either have property as part of their core business as a charity or own property as part of a wider portfolio. I have been asked by my members to probe the Government’s intentions here and, without repeating what the right reverend Prelate has said, I hope that we get some encouraging words from the Minister.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I intervene briefly from the perspective of a local authority. I think that most local authorities would have enormous sympathy with what the right reverend Prelate has just said. I am generally very suspicious of definitional creep. I do not think that the charity world has necessarily been helped by the major attempt to redefine a charity after doing away with the great simplicity and proven law of the Elizabethan statute. Therefore, I hope that we are not going to move down another definitional road.

I would not want to see local authorities not being able to have constructive dialogue with charitable organisations, because I think that discretionary relief is extremely important. On the other hand, sometimes premises are certainly not used as efficiently as they might be. It might be for the general good if two or three charities shared offices that might be improved, and I would not want to see that kind of exploration forbidden. Therefore, I, too, should like to hear from my noble friend, but I certainly feel that this is a provision that local authorities would like to stay long in law.

I could speak for a long time on the subject of the fine arts but I do not think that I will. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, referred to eloquence and I wondered whether his much admired contributions to these debates meant that debating was a fine art as well. If so, he should be part of it.

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. It might be easier if I start with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham on the whole business of relief. The message is that there is to be no change in relief for charities. Whether it is mandatory or discretionary, the answer is, “No change”. There is no element of change in this provision. To me, the words that the right reverend Prelate is concerned about are a bit convoluted, but that convolution is because of the business rate element. For charities, however, I repeat that there is no change.

I return to the three amendments. Amendment 118A would require an authority to have regard to the interests of business rate payers as well as council tax payers. When the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, spoke to the amendment, he was looking at contingent events rather than where we stand now. The words,

“only if it is satisfied that it would be reasonable”,

are included because the local authority that wanted to assist a business rate payer would have to realise that the council tax payer would in effect be funding it. The Bill is saying that a local authority has to be certain that it is reasonable, bearing in mind who will carry the burden.

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Moved by

[Lord True]

119: Clause 42, page 37, line 20, leave out “must” and insert “may”

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[Lord True]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 119, 120 and technical Amendment 121 in my name. I also support Amendments 123, 124,125,126 and 129 in the name of my noble friend Lord Cathcart. This is an exploratory group to whose question other noble Lords have come forward with other potential solutions, but it goes to the heart of a critical question relating to the purpose and the workability of this Bill. Accepting that there may be a right of referendum by the people to a local council, and I made clear at Second Reading that I see a case for that, I am asking what the appropriate triggers for a referendum are and how we restrain potential mischievous use of the power and the risk of escalating costs? I freely admit that the solutions that we are offering may not be the right ones. In terms of the numbers concerned, other noble Lords have tabled amendments, and the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Hanham in the following group raise interesting questions and may well offer some answers from the Front Bench.

I do not think that the Bill, as currently drafted, has set the threshold high enough to trigger a referendum in any local authority in this country. Authors of the Bill perhaps underrated also the political difficulty of refusing a request for a referendum. Although the power is given to do so, it is not necessarily that easy a power to exercise, particularly as an election approaches, even in the case of those types of proposals described in Clause 47(6) as “vexatious”, which in itself is a dangerously justiciable word. The reality is that, in practice, if a referendum is requested, the local authority lies under a legal duty to hold it under the original Bill unless it can find cause for exception. As I have just said, it would be quite difficult for some referendums to be refused. My Amendment 119 builds the presumption of discretion in if we are to retain in the Bill thresholds as low as they are now set, and I note that the Government appear to be moving in that direction in relation to special petitions. I should say that 5 per cent might be 300 or so voters in an urban ward, or perhaps a few dozen in a rural community, but these figures are not very hard to make with a minimum of political organisation. Some of these proposals benefit political organisations more than they may members of the public. I suggest that as a potential compromise a local authority should have discretion on whether to hold a referendum on a petition at that low level. I feel that the Government may be moving in our direction.

There are many other ways to respond to a petition from the public, which need not be put in legislation or regulation but often could be dealt with, and indeed are dealt with, under a local authority’s standing orders. A local authority might simply do what the petitioners ask, at least in some modified form. That was how this Parliament came into being: the Commons came to Westminster, or to wherever the Parliament was meeting, to petition the Crown and noble Lords to hear their complaints on particular subjects. Very often, the Crown readily responded without a referendum. In the end, it saddled itself with the other place, but that perhaps is a subject we should not go into.

It might have a debate in council, which would be a perfectly reasonable way to respond. It might hold public meetings to explore the purpose of a petition. It might set up a process of consultation. All these might get to the desired end quicker than a referendum and sometimes in a far less divisive way than in circumstances, say, which one can readily envisage, where in an urban area 300 people wanted a controlled parking zone introduced or perhaps removed and a couple of hundred others were implacably opposed. One can see the whole formal process of the referendum ending in dividing rather than uniting a community.

However, I recognise the Government’s wish, which I support, to make some petitions inescapable. We therefore suggested in these amendments that the referendum should be mandatory, subject to Clauses 46 and 47, if 20 per cent of the electors in an area ask for it. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has suggested a figure of 10 per cent. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, with that plebiscitary fervour of the Liberal Democrats, has suggested that 25 per cent might be the threshold. I certainly would not want to come between the noble Lords, Lord Beecham and Lord Greaves. Certainly, 20 per cent might not be the right figure but it is a figure that we offer.

The reality is that well above that level of electors participated in a recent contested referendum in my authority, so I do not think that 20 per cent is an impossible figure to reach. But I equally accept that it may well be too high and we in this Chamber would want to hear arguments for other figures set down in other amendments and other proposals, including interesting ones from my noble friend which we will consider later.

The purpose of laying these amendments originally was to enable your Lordships to consider in Committee another way of approaching the difficult question of the trigger. I will get out of the way to allow your Lordships to do that shortly. I certainly do not want to anticipate the speech of my noble friend Lord Cathcart but I would, from a local authority standpoint, like to draw your Lordships’ attention to the potential difficulties of Clause 42(3), taken with Clause 45. As I read it, this means that in a typical three-member ward in a politically split urban area, two members from a minority party might be able to provoke a referendum without any significant local support and with no particular effort to collect signatures. I might have found that power rather tempting in the past in opposition but I am sure that I would have resisted the temptation.

This provision is very open to political exploitation with members seeking referendums that they do not really want, perhaps just to make a political point or even one that has salience outside their own ward by challenging the local authority to refuse a referendum. I do not think that that is a wise, helpful or even very localist provision. My noble friend Lord Cathcart suggests that such a proposal would have to be supported by at least 5 per cent of the electors in an area. Without going over the issue of the appropriate level again—I hope that my noble friend will forgive me for anticipating that important amendment, which I support —that additional trigger would avoid short-term political exploitation. I beg to move.

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[Lord True]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for his very thoughtful and considerate response to the debate and also to all noble Lords who have taken part. It is an important matter. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for not being present when petitions were discussed—I was in proceedings on the Education Bill—but I can assure him that if a petition were presented to my council, it would be considered under the standing orders of the council at the next council meeting.

As far as the debate is concerned, I take the point that seeing it only from the point of view of the opposition was a defect in what we said—perhaps it comes from being under the control of my noble friends for 23 years—but I think the point made about the temptation on parties in power to procure referendums is important, and I hope my noble friends will consider it. Equally, the point made about the BNP by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, was important, and I hope my noble friends will consider it further.

I did not comment on the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. I shall comment on it further when we come to neighbourhood planning matters, but in the processes that we have undertaken, local people have defined areas that they believe are their communities which are different from ward boundaries or electoral area boundaries. I believe that they could be capable of being recognised in petition and referendum procedures. I hope that my noble friends will consider that matter and that flexibility further because I have amendments down in relation to neighbourhood planning.

My noble friend and I did not seek to find the final answer on the issue of the threshold. The triggers in terms of ward councillors and, I still think, for a mandatory referendum—potentially a percentage—are too low in certain circumstances. I will reflect very carefully on what my noble friend said. I welcome the fact that he said he would reflect on the position of potentially having different thresholds for different quantities of population, as suggested by my noble friend Lord Cathcart. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 119 withdrawn.