Localism Bill

Lord True Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, if I might intervene, slightly more briefly, because I agree with so much that has been said by the noble Lord. I did not have the opportunity to take part in the debates on these clauses, although I have taken part in a lot of the proceedings on the Bill. I strongly agree with the objections that have been raised to the amendment. Perhaps it is not surprising, declaring again my interests as a local councillor and leader of a local authority, that it tends to be that some of us with experience of local government find ourselves ranged against the exacting purity of those who practise at the Bar.

Some may feel this is a function of the imperfection of local councillors. Imperfect, of course, we are. The point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, and others, that councillors are biased. They are elected to be biased. My electors would be extremely surprised if I were not, as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said, seeking to implement the policies on which I was elected. That reality has to be understood and respected.

The current situation is having a chilling effect on a lot that goes on in local government, a point referred to by the noble Lords, Lord Sewel and Lord Greaves, and others. Councillors are nervous about expressing opinions on a whole range of matters where there is no question of predetermination or predisposition and so forth. It is having a bad effect on local democracy because local councillors are representative—they are not very highly-paid volunteers to try and put the public’s will into effect. They try their best.

I fear there is a growing inhibition on being able to speak out and speak frankly on questions. As the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said, there is a clearly understood distinction between issues of planning and other issues. The trouble with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick—the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, began to say this in reading out the first part of it and my concern was reinforced by the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hart of Chilton—is that subsection (2)(c), in stating that an earlier statement or conduct shall be,

“given such weight as is appropriate in the circumstances of the case”,

refers to a decision as defined in the clause, which is any decision of the council. We are not just talking about planning applications; we are talking about committee meetings, sub-committee meetings, functions of the authority’s executive and council meetings. The noble Lord, Lord Hart, conjured up in my mind the spectre of lawyers standing outside the council meeting saying, “You cannot go in and cast your vote because you said this on that a few weeks ago”. It may sound humorous but that kind of thing could well happen. People are trawling the opinions of local councillors, seeing who is biased and seeing whether they can get people struck off. It is rather like one of those American films where they try to strike off members of the jury to make sure that the right result is achieved in a murder trial.

I am worried about the link between subsection (2)(c) of the amendment and its application to every possible decision that might be taken by a councillor. We do need severe protection of the law on planning, but in other areas please let councillors be biased; please let them respond to the wishes of their electors; please let them be like MPs and Members of your Lordships’ House—people who are entitled to strong opinions. Let us not proceed with the chilling effect of this process of litigation and quasi-litigation that has actually occurred or may be threatened. I support the Government’s attempt to set things right and to improve things. It may not be perfect, but I certainly prefer it to the amendment. I hope that your Lordships will not support the amendment.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, we have added our names to this amendment, for reasons which I will try to explain. As I understand the Government's position, this provision is meant not to change the current position—they may confirm or deny this—but to clarify it, as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said. The problem in seeking to clarify it, for some of us at least, is that they have unbalanced it and made it difficult. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, advanced the point that, as drafted, the “just because” was the get-out but I contend that if you have to ignore anything that the decision-maker has previously done with a view to a matter, directly or indirectly, there is not much else that that decision-maker could have done which could then be the subject of a challenge on predetermination.

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[Lord Pannick]

I understand that, of course; I am responding to the point made that if our amendment were to be carried, this would in some way affect the existence of that whipping that does take place in local government—those elements of party control that are effective. Let me just complete the citation from Mr Justice Woolf: he concluded that there is no objection to any of this so long as, when the councillors come to the council meetings, they have an open mind in the sense that they are prepared to listen to the competing arguments.

The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, was rightly concerned that we should do nothing that should enable lawyers to make lots of money out of all this. That is a very laudable objective. My concern is that Clause 25 is so unclear that it will inevitably provoke litigation, and it will do so because the Minister says that it is not changing the common law but merely expressing it, whereas its terms manifestly do change the common law.

[Lord True]

On the question of litigation, will the noble Lord answer the point that my noble friend Lord Greaves and I made? If we are concerned about litigation, surely the construction of his proposed new subsection (2)(c),

“as is appropriate in the circumstances of the case”,

which may, as construed with the rest of the section, apply to any decision of any form made by a councillor, is pretty ripe for litigation. Therefore, I do not think his argument that the Government may cause more litigation stands up. Let him answer on this one.

[Lord Pannick]

My answer to the noble Lord is that paragraph (c) is simply designed to maintain—as the Government say they wish to maintain—the existing common law principle, which is that the judge will indeed look at all the circumstances of the case and decide whether there has been unlawful predetermination. I am not seeking to change the common law position; I am seeking to maintain it. The Minister has the same objective; he does not have the objective—as I understood him—of changing the substance of the common law. The objection to Clause 25 is that, on its wording, that is precisely what it will do, or there is a real risk it will do that. That is why it needs further consideration.

In the hope that the result in your Lordships’ House is neither predetermined—

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[Lord True]

My Lords, I am rather more sympathetic to the Government’s attempt to find a formulation than some of the demurrers and I congratulate my noble friend on finding an admirable way through. That is another example of the way in which she has conducted the Bill. If I may help my noble friend Lord Tope, surely the answer to the question of committees or bodies to which councils mandate members is that in the first instance questions of misconduct must come from those bodies themselves, to which the people are mandated. It seems inconceivable that any council would wish to be represented by somebody who had attracted censure. It would certainly be within the power of any council to withdraw a nomination and I would hope that every authority would do that.

My noble friend Lord Shipley raised a point on subsection (3). I rather like that subsection although I agree with my noble friends Lord Shipley and Lord Tope, and the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, that there has to be some sense that there is independence. Often these matters can be dealt with by arbitration and a sensible person who will put two people together. It is clearly sensible, as my noble friend Lord Shipley says, that we may need to get two committees. However, there may be things that can be dealt with more effectively without getting to that process, but giving everybody along the way the sense that they can go to an independent body. I would not want my noble friend to be much more prescriptive, but I agree with the sense of what my noble friend Lord Shipley said. We have found an admirable way through and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, and others who have contributed to it.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of a council—hence my straying into jargon that we apply in council debates—a member of the standards committee, which meets later this week, and vice president of the Local Government Association. I join other of your Lordships in extending warm congratulations to the Minister who is clearly responsible for, and indeed embodies, an outbreak of sweet reasonableness over this issue that we hope to be pursued by some of her ministerial colleagues when we come to other legislation after this evening’s proceedings.

Like other noble Lords, I believe that there are issues that one might have wished to have taken a little further. A mandatory code would have perhaps been preferable. As the noble Lord, Lord Tope, indicated, in all probability we will end up with something like that. I hope that the Local Government Association, with others, will draft something that will be useful and will be adopted by many local authorities. It is very important that this independent role should be reflected. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, that mandatory committees, perhaps with that independent element, would have been preferable. Nevertheless, we have gone a long way forward since the original Bill and our earlier discussions on Second Reading, in Committee and on Report. For that we are clearly indebted to the Minister.

I am not quite so sure about the sanctions that are available and whether they are sufficient to meet some of the more serious cases. A huge range of cases has applied at national and local level. I note that people from all political groups have transgressed, sometimes quite significantly. A prominent Conservative ex-leader of a council was found to have leaked a confidential document related to a land sale and was suspended for 28 days by his council. A Labour deputy group leader was also found to have breached confidentiality in relation to a compulsory purchase order. These are not insignificant issues, and they are not personal issues either. He was suspended for three months by his local authority. A Lib Dem councillor was suspended for six months for bullying and disrespectful behaviour at a training session. One of the worst cases was an independent borough councillor who had undermined and humiliated the council’s press officer systematically in front of other councillors until she began to cry and had to leave the room. That is intolerable behaviour in any circumstances and is certainly not consonant with holding a public office. A suspension for three months took place in that case.

However, I wonder whether suspension from a committee or even removal from outside bodies is necessarily sufficient for the more serious types of case. We clearly cannot pursue this further tonight, but it may be that over time, and bearing in mind that we need to see how this works in practice, we might have to revisit that element. Another place has quite draconian powers of discipline. I am not quite sure that they are quite as draconian in this place, although there are matters currently under consideration of a very grave nature and one hopes that one would not see anything like that again in your Lordships' House. It may be therefore—given that the national framework has been dismantled and that there may still, unfortunately, be a few cases where really serious misconduct occurs—that one must wonder whether the sanctions currently available and reflected in the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, are adequate. We have clearly moved on and I am grateful and pleased that we have achieved this. I congratulate the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, and thank them for the work they have done on this matter.

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The amendment provides a safeguard to avoid a situation where, effectively, a community might find itself being manipulated by particular interests without being aware of what those interests were. I hope that the noble Baroness will look again at this matter. This is the last opportunity, of course, in this place for that to be done. I cannot really see any strong argument against extending that degree of transparency in as sensitive an area as planning to these new forums, in the same way as would apply to members serving on a planning committee of the local authority, or indeed the parish council—given the scale, it is more like a parish council, obviously. Equally, those interests should be declared. I believe it would be consistent with the general approach that the Bill adopts in these matters for that to be the case. I beg to move.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I am sorry to say that I have a lot of sympathy with the spirit behind this amendment, but having wearied the House with my views on neighbourhood forums and not having been able to persuade my Front Bench fully about this question, I think that noble Lords opposite will know that my view is that we should start from the assumption that the neighbourhood forum includes everybody in the neighbourhood area. In those circumstances, if the neighbourhood forum is very large, I do not think that the kind of amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has proposed would be practicable. I do not think that we could ask everybody who lives in a village or in a neighbourhood area to publish their interests simply because they wanted to participate in a neighbourhood forum.

If, however, it emerges—and I think we have to wait and see the guidance on the Bill—that my maximalist view of what a neighbourhood forum should be does not prove to be the case, and if the neighbourhood forums turn out to be rather small bodies of perhaps only 21 individuals wielding a great deal of influence in the name of the community, then I would find the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, quite persuasive. As we gain experience going forward of what these bodies are actually going to be—whether they are small or big—this will affect the judgment that I would make about this question. I would suggest, however, that this is something that we might leave until we see further guidance on the Bill. I am sure it would be a matter that might be addressed then. If 21 people are going to be very influential in an area, I would like to know where they were coming from, and I am sure local people would, too.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, Amendment 14 would require local authorities to maintain a register of the interests of members of designated neighbourhood forums. From the outset, I remind Members and my noble friend behind me that 21 is a minimum. You can have as many as you like on a forum—if he wants the whole bloomin’ neighbourhood, he can have the whole lot on it. There is nothing to stop that happening. I would take his view that if you are going to have most of the members of a ward or an area, which might amount to 1,500 or so, this proposal would probably be otiose.

A neighbourhood forum is designated by a local authority for the express purpose of preparing a neighbourhood plan or order for a designated neighbourhood area. The neighbourhood forum will not make decisions on planning applications or on whether a neighbourhood plan or order should come into force, nor will it take on wider duties and responsibilities. Neither is the neighbourhood forum intended to form an equivalent governance function to that of a parish council. The neighbourhood forum is simply a group designated by the local authority to prepare a neighbourhood plan or order.

We have worked hard to ensure that the Bill reflects this position by imposing minimum requirements that community groups must meet in order that they can be designated as a neighbourhood forum. This will enable existing groups to take a leading role in neighbourhood planning. To avoid forums acting inappropriately, the Bill gives local authorities the power to remove the designations of neighbourhood forums in certain circumstances. In addition, requiring their members to register and declare interests would be unnecessary. Since the forum is similar to a planning applicant submitting a planning application to the local authority, it is not making a decision in the public interest.

Furthermore, in practical terms, maintaining a register of the interests of neighbourhood forum members would be extremely difficult for the authority to achieve, given the wide range of individuals who could be members of a neighbourhood forum and the likelihood of frequent change in the forum’s overall membership throughout the process of preparing the plan or order. The Bill requires all neighbourhood forums to include, as I said, at least 21 members who live or work in or are elected members of the neighbourhood area and to have an open approach to their membership.

In addition, of course, there was the requirement that we put into the Bill—I think at Report stage—that there should be consultation before any plan is put to the local authority. I hope that Members will accept this view and not push this amendment today.

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[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, there have been significant changes wrought by this Bill. One of those that we debated in earlier days was the abolition of the duty to promote local democracy, which I thought was somewhat inconsistent with the general localist agenda. That elicited little or no support on the Benches opposite and did not seem to me to be worth while bringing back at this stage. However, in respect of another issue, which was the provision about petitions, it does seem to me that the case for some provision—as opposed to the elimination which Clause 46 of the Bill would have carried through—has been heightened by at least two recent developments.

The first is the changes in the Bill around the issue of democratic engagement. I very much welcome the withdrawal of the proposals for local referendums, which I thought were misconceived, overelaborate and calculated to produce a great deal of mischief and trouble. Nevertheless, they were a form—and in my view a very unsatisfactory form, and I think that has ultimately been accepted by the Government themselves—of promoting public engagement. This still leaves the issue of how one does promote particular forms of public engagement.

In another place a week ago, there was a diverting evening using the petition process which the Government have initiated to debate rather grander matters, I guess, than will normally be the case at the local level. Of course, the Government have proceeded with their electronic petitioning and the right of the other place to debate matters that receive a significant degree of support—a policy which may not have entirely produced the results anticipated last week and which some members of the Government may even have cause to regret. At any rate, the procedure is there.

For some time, in some councils, there has been an approach which has welcomed, and indeed encouraged, the bringing of petitions and discussion of them. Looking back, about three years ago the New Local Government Network, which is not a partisan organisation—it has councils in it that are controlled by all three major parties and indeed some independent members—advocated a proposal for a more defined process for bringing petitions. That proposal was, in almost the last gasp of the previous Government, embodied in legislation which, as the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, pointed out in his typically robust fashion was somewhat overelaborate, to put it mildly, and that certainly was the case. I think the legislation was announced in December 2009 and passed into law shortly after that, and it was certainly much too overprescriptive in the way it laid down how the process should be implemented.

Nevertheless, although a significant number of councils have a process to facilitate the bringing of petitions and their consideration, it is by no means universal. It seems to me important that there should be an obligation on local authorities to foster that kind of engagement with the communities they represent so that matters can be brought to the attention of the council and discussed in whatever form the council decides is appropriate, on the basis of the basic requirement that Amendment 49 would create, of having a scheme under which the petitions might be considered. This would also include another right that was brought into being by the previous Government, the right to call an officer of the council to account, in a properly structured way.

This is not an overbureaucratic process. As I say, many councils have their own procedures now. Mine certainly does; I dare say the councils of the noble Lords, Lord True and Lord Tope, and perhaps even that of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, will have similar procedures. However, it is not universal, whereas it seems to me that it should be, so that any number of people—the council may lay down a minimum if it chooses—would know that they have the right to have matters raised at the level of the local authority, not just with their individual councillors, although that is always an option, but in a more systematic way.

The amendment also provides for a simple enough procedure for the council to give an account of what happens to those petitions, so they do not just disappear into a black hole. That certainly is the case in my own authority and I suspect in many others, and all there really needs to be, perhaps even just once a year, is a brief summary of what matters have been raised and how they were dealt with, so people can know that their views and concerns have been taken care of. It is not a huge obligation and would contribute to a healthier relationship between a local authority and its members on the one hand and the community on the other. I hope that even at this late stage the Government will have second thoughts. I beg to move.

[Lord True]

My Lords, that is a nice try by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, but I am afraid I am going to be conditional in my support again. Petitions are important and he is quite right to say that my own authority considers them: tomorrow night we have a debate on a petition from the public; and there are two running petitions, both with over 2,000 signatures, which I am sure will lead to debates at future council meetings. I agree that it is good practice for local authorities. I do not think the Government are withdrawing from encouraging that but it would be a pity if they were.

I have not had time to study the details of his new clause so for that reason alone I would find it hard to support it. However, I am slightly worried about the concept of public petitions calling an officer to account. All those who have been in positions of authority in local government will know the amount of, frankly, sometimes libellous and hostile comment one gets about officers, and one of the duties of people who are elected is to take responsibility. I do not care for the encouragement of petitions to call officers to account. For that reason, as well as not having studied it, I would be doubtful about the form; the spirit is right but I do not think that it is something we could add to the Bill at this stage.