Examination of Witnesses (Questions 211-219)
RT HON
KEITH HILL
MP, RT HON
NICK RAYNSFORD
MP AND RT
HON LORD
ROOKER MP
15 JULY 2003
Q211 Chairman: Can I welcome you
to the final session of the Committee's inquiry into the Annual
Report and Estimates and ask you to identify yourselves for the
record, please.
Keith Hill: I am Keith Hill, the
somewhat new Minister of State for Planning and Housing, the Gateway,
Minister for London, the Dome and livability, if that helps!
Lord Rooker: I am Jeff Rooker
from the other place, Second Minister of State doing the other
growth areas, that is other than the Thames Gateway, the market
renewal pathfinders in the housing renewal areas, neighbourhood
renewal, social exclusion owners list, government offices and
all House of Lords business of course.
Mr Raynsford: I am Nick Raynsford,
the somewhat old Minister of State responsible for Regional and
Local Government and the Fire Service.
Q212 Chairman: Do any of you want
to say anything by way of introduction or are you happy to go
straight to questions?
Lord Rooker: I have one thing
that I would like to say. I have brought with me a copy for yourself,
Chairman, and the Clerk, if the Clerk wants to collect it from
me, of the Government's response to the Select Committee's Report
on Sustainable Communities. It will be published as a command
tomorrow afternoon and, if we had not brought an unofficial draft
with us this morning and published it tomorrow, everyone would
have screamed blue murder that we had fixed it all to avoid the
Select Committee. We are not in that business. We apologise that
it is so late; that is the problem of clearing the decisions around
other Whitehall departments. It was only cleared yesterday afternoon
and it has to be converted to a command paper form, I am told,
but I have insisted on bringing in a photocopy, as I say, for
yourself and the Clerk.
Chairman: Thank you very much. Can I
also point out that we hope to finish prompt at 11.00 because
we are seeing the Leader of the House at that point to pursue
the question of how long the Housing Bill might be in the next
session. So, I am appealing to my colleagues for short, sharp
questions and no doubt we will get short, sharp answers.
Q213 Mr Clelland: I am not sure that
there is a short, sharp answer to the first question which is
about the reshuffle in June, which was the fourth reshuffle in
five years involving the department, having started off being
the DETR, then the DTLR and now the ODPM and presumably it is
unavoidable that there will be some disruption in the department's
work. What is your experience of that? Has the disruption been
minimised? Is it all over? Has everything settled down now?
Lord Rooker: To be honest, the
question of reshuffle is really down to the Prime Minister. There
is no secret about it. From my point of view and say Keith's,
the Prime Minister wanted a Member of this House to deal with
housing, so that means there have been some changes. It means
that you have a few more briefings to do to catch up on things.
It is not affecting the management of the department. We had other
changes as well other than those between myself, say, and Keith
joining the department. There is no evidence. We are still answering
parliamentary questions, we are turning up at adjournment debates,
we are still getting around the country visiting the growth areas
and the pathfinders, and we are meeting local governments and
other people.
Q214 Mr Clelland: A smooth transition
then?
Mr Raynsford: Can I perhaps comment
on that because I am the continuity having been right through
DETR, DTLR and now ODPM and I have to say that, talking to colleagues
in other government departments, there have been more dramatic
changes in personnel in a number of other departments. I certainly
do not see a problem in terms of the reshuffle. I am delighted
that we are continuing to focus very much on our key priorities
with renewed energy.
Q215 Mr Clelland: That is fine but
there does seem to have been some confusion certainly about ministerial
responsibility. The Committee was unable to get a list setting
out the detailed responsibilities of each of the ministers. Which
minister, for instance, is responsible for social cohesion now?
Lord Rooker: It is probably me
in conjunction with the Home Office. Look, let us get this clear.
We do not decide these things. You are going to have to ask the
Prime Minister about this, the head of the department. We do not
negotiate. The idea is to make sure that there is as least interruption
as possible with the flow of Government decision making and the
reaction with Parliament and the public. I cannot account for
any difficulties you might have had in finding out what is what.
As you fully appreciate, for 24 hours, we were one minister less
than we had had previously and that in itself meant that there
was a reallocation of responsibilities when we lost the Parliamentary
Under-Secretary and then gained one within about 48 hours. That
in itself would have caused delay but, as far as I know, there
has been no delay in answering questions and obviously no complaints
from anybody outside, any appointments and delegations that are
coming into the department. Social cohesion is a cross-cutting
issue across Whitehall and particularly in our relations with
the Home Office and all the work on the ground with neighbourhood
renewal and social exclusion.
Q216 Mr Clelland: So there is not
a single minister responsible for social cohesion?
Lord Rooker: The lead minister
from my time at the Home Office was always the Home Office Minister;
it was John Denham following the disturbances when we set up a
separate unit and a separate cross-Whitehall Committee of Ministers
and that was chaired by John. So, from that point of view, unless
something has happened of which I am completely unaware, the lead
minister will be a Home Office minister but obviously there are
contributions from other departments.
Q217 Mr Clelland: Can I ask the Minister
of State for Housing and Planning if he is going to be the minister
who finally sees off the Dome and sees the end of the project.
Keith Hill: You do not mean literally
see off the Dome, I take it! We are very keen to sustain this
huge architectural monument and I am very optimistic about the
prospects. We now have a joint project involving both a very major
housing development scheme which actually, on the whole site,
can lead ultimately to construction of 10,000 houses which is
absolutely colossal and of course the Anshultz Entertainment Group
have a solid track record of the construction and successful operation
of great entertainments-come-supporting complexes in the United
States and have taken on the Dome itself. They have plans which
are very well advanced for the development of the Dome into an
arena which can in part be for sports but also can be for concerts
and other forms of entertainment. They are working already quite
closely, I am pleased to say, with DCMS in terms of the Olympics
bid because they point out that the Dome could be part of what
is on offer in terms of sports complexes for the Olympics. I visited
the Dome and inspected the site on Wednesday of last week, met
with the key players and it is looking good at this moment. As
you know, all of the planning permissions have now been agreed
to, the Mayor is playing ball, and, as a department, we decided
that the application was sustainable and did not need to be called
in—that was announced last week. Things are looking very
positive as far as the future of the Dome is concerned.
Q218 Chairman: When is someone going
to put the signature on the documentation?
Keith Hill: It depends who has
that responsibility. There is a question of powers of attorney
and the question of ownership.
Lord Rooker: I was the Dome Minister
until Keith took over but the fact is that the shareholder is
still Lord Falconer. I operated under a power of attorney as the
Dome Minister and Keith operates again under a legal power of
attorney, but the name on the share is still Charlie's.
Keith Hill: And that is because
I think it is subject to a court case at the moment.
Q219 Chairman: I am not pressing
you and I was not particularly probing into who actually had the
responsibility for the share, I was just asking when the signature
was going to be made by somebody.
Lord Rooker: When all the other
issues are complete such as the Section 106. It will be well into
next year, as I understand it. I think the date is around March
next year when it becomes . . . I have forgotten what the phrase
is.
Keith Hill: Operational?
Lord Rooker: That is not the word.
There is another *phrase for when the final legal transfer of
all of it actually takes place (unconditional)
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