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Mr. Thomason: Among other relevant factors, will my hon. Friend take into account the nature of the population, and whether an area is essentially urban or rural? Can he give local authorities some indication at an early stage--not necessarily now, but before the two-year review period expires--of the issues that the Department will consider?
Mr. Clappison: The broad concern is that powers should be available where needed. From our debates, there does seem to be a difference between the needs of rural and urban areas, but it is important that the powers should be brought to bear where needed, for the relief of residents who suffer noise problems. We do not want people to suffer in silence while terrible noise is taking place all around them.
There are clearly two separate but complementary strands of thinking.
Mr. Merchant:
I am grateful for my hon. Friend's response to my questions. I am left with but a scintilla of doubt. If, after the passage of a few years, a large number of residents felt aggrieved because their local authority was not responding to a genuine problem that they could quantify, could they approach the Secretary of State in the knowledge that he would examine the matter, and, if necessary, follow up with an order? Would there be an open door? If not, what remedy would be available to those residents? The Government will have the initiative to take action, but I am concerned about the need for an initiative to remain with aggrieved residents.
Mr. Clappison:
We hope that local authorities will listen to their residents and adopt the power if necessary. We recognise that there may be circumstances in which it would be desirable to make the order mandatory, where a local authority has not used its discretionary powers. We would want to listen to anything that local residents might
Mr. Luff:
Local councils are better placed to assess their residents' concerns than central Government. If a small group of aggrieved residents tells the Secretary of State, "We want you to impose an order," how will he satisfy himself that their view is genuinely representative? What consultation would he have with the wider community? I still believe that local authorities are best placed to make a judgment.
Mr. Clappison:
That view was taken when the Bill was originally drafted, when it did not include the power to make an offence mandatory. I remind the House of the views of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, which wrote to me to support the creation of the new offence, but only if it were discretionary. It is worth quoting again the institute's view, as I did on Report:
Mr. Bernard Jenkin:
I have great faith in the order-making powers of my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), but we should not place too much faith in the Secretary of State's ability to make local authorities use the powers at their disposal efficiently. The Government have been trying to do that with many councils throughout the land ever since they took office 17 years ago. Giving the Secretary of State an order-making power will not solve all the problems that many residents encounter with delinquent Labour local authorities.
Mr. Clappison:
My hon. Friend makes a valuable point of general application. There have been several distinguished Secretaries of State for the Environment over many years of Conservative government. Every effort has been made to encourage local authorities to be efficient and to provide good value for money, but some laggards remain in many respects--not just in the provision of a noise control service, which is why it is all the more important to have a power to require councils that do not listen to their residents' views to adopt a noise offence.
Mr. Luff:
Surely the correct response of a community dissatisfied with its council is not to come whingeing to the Secretary of State to override local democratic decisions, but to change its council at the next election.
Mr. Clappison:
My hon. Friend makes a good point, but even after all the workings of local democracy, we have detailed evidence of local authorities that have remained in power a considerable time, but which still remain oblivious to the needs and concerns of their
My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) said that he opposed the amendments but supported the Bill. He wants the powers to be mandatory as soon as they are introduced. He will have heard the concerns expressed by other hon. Members, some of whom want the power to be decentralised and to place their trust in local authorities, while others do not want the power extended inappropriately to rural authorities. I hope that my hon. Friend sees the need for balance, and accepts that we have broadly achieved it with the power introduced by the amendments.
My hon. Friend expressed concern also about car stereos and boy racers. I assure him that there are already powers for dealing with those problems, and I understand that the Department of Transport is also taking an interest in them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin) most eloquently expressed the case for decentralisation and for trusting local authorities. He described it as the "Delors concept of subsidiarity." I was a little surprised to hear him cite that particular authority in support of his arguments, but it made them all the more interesting.
I concur with my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, North about stakeholding. I am sure that he is right that no one will be more suspicious about the idea of stakeholding than farmers and other members of the rural community, who are traditionally people of such good common sense. If someone turns up on their doorstep with claims about stakeholding, they will be the first to suspect that the first stakeholding to be made will be one in their pockets. I join my hon. Friend in his doubts on that topic.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, North and all my other hon. Friends will realise that there is a need for balance in this matter.
My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham has played a most active part in this debate, and he is clearly very concerned about noise problems in his constituency. His comments were absolutely to the point about the need for balance. We believe that these amendments strike the right balance.
Hon. Members have expressed a variety of concerns, and I hope that I have been able to assure them about the way in which we shall approach the issue, and to persuade them of the importance of allowing these amendments to remain in the Bill.
This is a good Bill, and it will provide relief to many people who suffer from noise. I hope that the fact that it contains a fixed penalty of £100 and the possibility of prosecution, confiscation and, in some cases, forfeiture will become known by those who are apt to cause the type of noise problems that the Bill is meant to deal with; and that it will make a great difference to the quality of life of those who suffer from noise.
Mr. Harry Greenway:
With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I thank my hon. Friend the Minister, and colleagues on both side of the House for their kind personal remarks, which are greatly appreciated. I thank the officials of the Department of the Environment with whom I have worked on the Bill for all that they have done. Again I thank Baroness Gardner and others in another place for their strong support and hardy efforts on this Bill.
This debate has been extremely good, and the Bill is strengthened by the thought that so many colleagues have given to these amendments. The amendments are central to the debate, and raise the fundamental issues that the Bill is seeking to deal with. There has been vivid and well expressed opposition to the amendments, and to the fact that the Secretary of State will be given a very great power. However, I warmly welcome my colleagues' underlying support for the Bill, which will be fundamental to its success.
My postbag has been mentioned in this debate. My postbag, like that of other hon. Members who introduced Bills of real importance, has been absolutely full of letters from all parts of the country. I can think of only one or two missives that were opposed to the Bill, so I am in no doubt that there is very widespread support for it, across the country and from all sections of society. There is particularly widespread support for these amendments, because the legion of supporters of the Bill do not want it to fail through a lack of implementation in certain areas where its provisions really are needed. The amendments go to the heart of what people want.
It has been said that I am ferocious on noise, and my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh)--who is on the Lords and Commons hockey team with me--said that I am ferocious on the team as well. I take those as great tributes, because I think that there are moments in life when ferocity of the right type is necessary and right.
I thank the Minister for the way in which he has replied to the debate, and particularly for his reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Luff), who said that the Bill was in danger of being draconian. I ask my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester to accept there are times when law must be draconian. It is draconian in every sense, because it requires people to do what they may not want to do, or to stop doing what they are doing wantonly. That is a proper interpretation of the adjective "draconian", and I invite my hon. Friend to accept it.
The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) made an entertaining speech, although it was not really relevant to the Bill. It was not entertaining for the cockerel, which was taken away and put on the Christmas dinner table of some of the hon. Gentleman's friends. I am glad that he gave them that nice present. However, the hon. Gentleman's speech was not really relevant to our discussion--I am sure he forgives me for saying that.
"it must be up to individual local authorities to tailor their noise service in accordance with the needs of the community."--[Official Report, 10 May 1996; Vol. 277, c. 552.]
It is reasonable to assume that, in all such cases, councils will respond to local pressures and views. In Committee, Conservative Members strongly made the point that many local authorities fail to do so, quoting chapter and verse examples of councils that have not responded to their residents' wishes but remain oblivious to them. We thought it would be appropriate to include the reserve power in response.
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