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Local authorities will have the power to opt in, and they may do so. I certainly hope that my local borough of Bexley will. In Greater London and the other metropolitan districts, it is essential that authorities opt in. I have been campaigning for a change in the law for five years, with many colleagues from both sides of the House and with outside organisations such as the Right to Peace and Quiet Campaign, located in my constituency and run by Val Gibson, which has also campaigned effectively for five years.
We do not want local authorities to give excuses for not being able to implement the Bill, or indeed to give any reason, such as not being able to afford it. We have been greatly helped by other campaigning groups and by the editor and journalists of The Mail on Sunday, who have been champions of the cause. Thousands of people from all over the country have written to me saying that they want their local authorities to take action.
In Committee, we managed to extend the Bill to Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) cannot be with us today, but he was vociferous in Committee, and keen that the Bill should be implemented in Belfast, just as in London and in the other metropolitan districts in England and Wales. But if the Bill is not mandatory, local authorities, especially the crucial ones in London and other metropolitan areas, may not implement the measure.
Mrs. Bridget Prentice (Lewisham, East):
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that four out of five environmental health officers believe that many local authorities will not implement the Bill if it is not mandatory--I sympathise with everything that the hon. Gentleman has said so far--and does not the fact that the officers themselves think that local authorities will find excuses not to implement make the amendment all the more necessary?
Mr. Evennett:
I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. She represents a borough in Greater London, and knows the problems only too well. She is right to say that many environmental health officers think that the Bill will not be implemented unless we toughen it and make action compulsory. I share that view, and endorse her comments.
I believe that the public will be bitterly disappointed if, after all the campaigning that we have done, including the campaign by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North in the Evening Standard to get people on board, we do not achieve what we set out to do.
In Committee, the Minister was happy with the Bill as it stood. My hon. Friend promised that there would be a campaign to ensure that his borough implemented the measure, and I remember a graphic description--the vision has stayed with me--of my hon. Friend marching up Ealing High street with the protesters, demanding that his local council implement the Bill. Knowing what a champion he is of his constituents, and how effective he is in the local community, I think that he may be
successful--but others may be less so, and may not be able to persuade their councils to do what we want them to do and implement the Bill.
Mr. Harry Greenway:
I agree with my hon. Friend, and I shall come back to that subject, but at this point may I simply say how powerful I think a local campaign can be? When, in 1987, the Labour council in Ealing put up the rates by 65 per cent., I led thousands of people through the streets to protest against that wicked rates increase, and I held a mass meeting on Ealing common, also with thousands of people. The council could do nothing. We swept the Labour councillors from power. We said, "Labour out," and they were out.
Mr. Evennett:
I thank my hon. Friend for that little hint of what may be in his forthcoming memoirs. When he writes them, that will be an important chapter, and we look forward to reading the book--but not for many years yet, because we want him to continue campaigning from the Government Benches, supporting the Government and going from strength to strength.
I am afraid that that was a little digression, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I wanted to highlight my hon. Friend's determination to campaign to get his council to implement the Bill. I am sure that we shall all campaign to persuade our local authorities to do the same, but how successful we will be is a moot point. We may be successful in certain areas, but there will be other areas in which, through no fault of the campaigners, the authorities will not implement it.
That is why I tabled my amendment. I am passionate in my desire to see the Bill come into operation.
Mr. Evennett:
Does my hon. Friend want to intervene?
Mr. Thomason:
No, but I would like to speak when my hon. Friend has finished.
Mr. Evennett:
My hon. Friends are enthusiastic about speaking to my amendment, and I am grateful for that.
I do not want to detain the House too long, because I know that other people are waiting to speak; indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Mr. Thomason) can hardly wait to participate and give the House the benefit of his experience.
We are looking to my hon. Friend the Minister to make some additional proposals to ensure that the Bill is implemented. My amendments may be defective, or there may be other reasons why neither my hon. Friend the Minister nor my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North can accept them, but in Committee both my hon. Friends agreed to take the matter away and think about it again.
It was discussed at length in Committee, and at that time both my hon. Friends were satisfied with the Bill.I think that they must have had more faith in the local authorities than I did--indeed, more faith than the environmental health officers have.
Mrs. Lait:
In Committee, my hon. Friend was successful in increasing the fixed penalty to £100. Has he done any costings that can tell us whether the money
Mr. Evennett:
I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent intervention. We have looked at the figures, but it is difficult to assess the implications. Whether local authorities would be allowed to keep the proceeds from the fines is another question. Certainly that could be a way forward, which the Minister could explore to try to help local authorities to meet the additional costs of implementing the Bill.
I have had the privilege of having discussions not only with my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North but with the Minister and the Secretary of State--who is very sympathetic to and supportive of the Bill. They agreed that they would re-examine that matter, and I look forward with interest to their comments today, because, to reiterate, thousands of people across the country have suffered for far too long.
We have campaigned and achieved this excellent Bill, but it is still one step away from being a really great Bill that will solve the problems. It is a good Bill, but it needs improvement. If it is not improved, we will have raised people's hopes and expectations only to dash them, and many more people will continue to suffer the problems, agonies, anxieties and illnesses caused by lack of sleep and distress from extra noise.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister can present measures to overcome the implementation problem.A good Bill that is not implemented is a waste of time, because it will not do what it needs to do and what we want it to do. There is a great deal of concern about the problem. The hon. Member for Lewisham, East(Mrs. Prentice) has highlighted what environmental health officers think about it. Many local councillors feel the same way about it, and many people who have campaigned on noise nuisance feel that the Bill as drafted is insufficient.
I hope that the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North will examine sympathetically the issues that have been raised in Committee and again today, so that the Bill can be improved and made more effective, so that it gives some respite to people who have suffered for so long from the effects of noisy neighbours.
Mr. Jenkin:
I speak against the amendment, with deference and apologies to my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Evennett), who spoke eloquently in favour of it. The amendment, in fact, transforms the Bill into something completely different.
The Bill is an admirable effort to increase local authorities' powers--to give them discretion, to decentralise, to enhance their autonomy and to allow them decide for themselves what action should be appropriate in their areas.
One lesson that the House should have learnt over the past 20 or 30 years is that the endless stream of obligations that have been placed on local authorities, combined with the very necessary and ever tighter fiscal and financial constraints placed on them, have a detrimental effect on the esteem with which they are held and the effectiveness with which they are accountable to their electors. The more local authorities have become proxies for national Government and for Parliament, to do
our bidding, the less spontaneity and genuine democracy there has been at local authority level. This amendment turns a Bill that confers greater powers on local authorities into one that confers greater obligations on local authorities.
We need only consider community care, for example, in which we turned all the activities of local authorities into prescriptive obligations. There is a question whether that has left local authorities with sufficient discretion to decide how to distribute to best effect the substantial resources they have available for community care. They find that they have to follow certain procedures and categorise certain people in certain ways. This measure is falling into the same trap.
Hon. Members should take a step back and stop being a great regulatory machine, churning out the obligations that we tend to churn out. When, as in this case, we can do so, we should devolve power and discretion to local authorities so that, advised by their electors, they can decide for themselves what is appropriate, what they can afford and what are their priorities. Those matters must be decided locally.
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