Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-60)
DEPARTMENT FOR
COMMUNITIES AND
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
12 JULY 2006
Q40 Greg Hands: On local government,
the Prime Minister's letter in appointing you on 9 May specifically
talked about mayors, and in your reply, dated today, you say,
"I believe we are at a tipping point in our democracy where
we can usher in a new and unprecedented era of devolution."
You are basically agreeing with the Prime Minister entirely but
there is no mention of the key word "mayors" in there,
and I am wondering why that is. Why is there no mention of mayors?
On regional government, can you confirm your predecessor's policy
that if there is to be significant regional reorganisation, for
example city regions, that that would be subject to referenda
which he promised to ourselves on this Committee not so long ago?
If there are referenda, what happens if the referendum is passed
in the city region, but specific areas vote "no": would
those areas still be included in the city region, or would they
be allowed to opt out?
Ruth Kelly: In response to the
Prime Minister in paragraph 10 I specifically talked about elected
mayors. That is the first point. The second point was about city
regional government. I think it is too early; we have not even—I
have made clear there is no single blueprint for this at all.
It is very much grass-roots driven. Cities and city regions have
come to Government—they have been asked to—presenting
business plans, saying, "this is our ambition for 10/20 years'
time; this is how we intend to progress from where we are at the
moment; but these are the barriers that are holding us back and
these are the powers we would like from government to help us
realise that ambition." We are in the process of talking
to those or examining their business cases and talking in Whitehall
to other government departments about the issues mentioned already
and others, and thinking about how to respond to them. We are
in the process of doing that.
Q41 Greg Hands: You are correct that
you mentioned mayors but it is the centrepiece, in my view, of
the Prime Minister's letter on the specific question of local
government reform, yet your answer just uses an elected mayor
as an example of the difference clear and visible leadership can
make. There seems to be quite a big difference and I wondered
what your personal viewpoint is on directly elected mayors. Do
you think they have been a success? Obviously there were a few
but there have not been many recently. Do you expect to see more
directly elected mayors?
Ruth Kelly: I think they have
been a success, yes. The evidence on particularly visibility and
whether the local citizen knows who is taking the decisions is
quite impressive in the areas in which we have seen them. I think
the Labour Mayor of London has been a success and is widely recognised
as having been a success by Londoners, and seen as a success nationally.
There is an opportunity for civic leadership to be combined with
a different form of accountability. What I would not say is that
that is the only way of achieving it. There are other ways of
achieving civil leadership as well, and that is why I am engaged
in a debate with local authorities and cities about the way forward.
Q42 Dr Pugh: I want to get on to
regeneration but can I start from the point in your speech. You
talk about giving cities the tools that they require to compete
successfully. What tools did they tell you they did require?
Ruth Kelly: Different—
Q43 Dr Pugh: Or are they simply the
tools you think they require?
Ruth Kelly: No, these are the
tools that they say they want. We are looking at business cases.
It is quite interesting: I think transport has been mentioned
by practically everybody. There is also a common desire to see
more influence over skills, delivery in inner cities and city
region; and there are various degrees of requests for more influence
over housing, planning and economic regeneration. Those are the
major areas that have been highlighted.
Q44 Dr Pugh: With regard to current
tools like neighbourhood renewal funds, the new deal for communities
and single regeneration budget, which are all ending, are those
no longer tools for the modern age or are you evaluating their
success in deciding how to change them?
Ruth Kelly: Of course we are,
and I think the evidence suggests that there have been very significant
improvements in those areas. We will always need an area-based
response to deprivation and economic regeneration.
Q45 Dr Pugh: Does any of the evidence
indicate they have not been that successful in all cases?
Ruth Kelly: I think the evidence
suggests, for instance on crime, that crime has fallen significantly
across the regeneration areas, but also on education. Clearly,
we need to be sensible and evaluate what works and what does not
work, and learn the lessons from that as we go ahead. However,
the evidence suggests that they have been important in improving
the educational standards and reducing levels of crime.
Q46 Dr Pugh: So they remain in the
toolbox, or something like that!
Ruth Kelly: Yes. Of course, through
the spending review process we always evaluate our policies and
see how we can improve on them.
Q47 Clive Betts: This Committee recommended
three years ago almost a single pot for regeneration, where local
authorities were given responsibility in general for regeneration,
with a view to them then looking at the particular needs of their
areas and spending accordingly, rather than having different pots
of money in Whitehall, where you have to jump through a whole
series of hoops to get access to.
Ruth Kelly: Those are the sorts
of issues that are coming through in the business plans that are
being presented to us by city regions. Sheffield, as I am sure
you are aware, has ideas for economic regeneration. Others have
different proposals. One of the issues and barriers they are presenting
to us is the fact of having to combine different funding streams
for different times for different purposes.
Q48 Clive Betts: Is one issue on
the operation of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act? One
of the things that I think was absolutely right is that each local
authority was given responsibility for drawing up its own consultation
arrangements within its area rather than being prescribed by central
government. Are we going to have a review of the Act, particularly
on that issue, to see how well the various arrangements with local
authorities are working and use those that are working well as
examples of good practice for other authorities?
Ruth Kelly: I am not going to
comment on that specific issue. I am very keen that we do evaluate
what works and what has not worked, and I will certainly go away
and think about that and take that forward.
Q49 Clive Betts: Could we have a
note about how you will proceed?
Ruth Kelly: Yes.
Q50 Martin Horwood: I am sure you
have read our report on housing stock and affordability—perhaps
used it as bedtime reading! There were a couple of things in it:
we said a simple supply and demand model cannot be applied uncritically
to the behaviour of the housing market and house prices, and we
said that it is unclear what impact the Government's objective
for increased house building to 200,000 by 2016 would have on
affordability; and finally that demand-side factors such as income
levels, interest rates, the availability of credit and taxes would
also affect the price and affordability of private housing. I
would not necessarily expect you to agree with me that your predecessor's
approach to housing supply and affordability was somewhat simplistic
and rather focused on housing supply as a one-trick answer to
the problems of affordability; but would you at least reassure
me that you are doing what you can to talk to Kate Barker as well
as the Treasury about other methods of tackling the problem of
affordability?
Ruth Kelly: First of all, Kate
Barker's report was an excellent report, which recognised the
need for additional homes. As I remember it the report was encouraging
the Government to go even further than we have set out in our
ambition to build 200,000 homes. The second point is that housing
supply is clearly a very significant factor affecting affordability,
but you are right that it is not the only one. We need to do more
also to make sure that people have affordable homes to live in,
particularly on the social housing side, but also encouraging
some of the 90% of people who want to own their own home, giving
them the opportunity to buy an equity stake. In my letter to the
Prime Minister, which I sent today, one of my big ambitions for
the Department is that we really encourage and expand and incentivise
home ownership, giving people the opportunity to buy a share in
their property where it makes sense for them to do so. We have
to look at all of these things in the round: invest in more social
housing, build more social homes, encourage people into home ownership
where they can afford it and where it makes sense for them, but
also increased housing supply to respond to the demographic and
other pressures.
Q51 Martin Horwood: What about the
availability of credit; would that be something you would encourage
the Treasury to look at as an influential factor in affordability?
Ruth Kelly: Of course the availability
of credit is always a factor but the best single thing the Government
could do is to create a stable economic environment.
Chair: I encourage the members of the
Committee not to go through all the recommendations because we
will get a Government response.
Q52 Anne Main: The interim report
of the Barker Review placed great emphasis on the importance of
the planning system to deliver economic objectives. Several leading
figures have complained that the environmental objectives were
not stressed enough within the report. Can you assure us that
other factors than just the economic factors will be taken into
account, particular stakeholders who have concerns about the environmental
impact of building so many houses so quickly?
Ruth Kelly: Are you talking about
Kate Barker's first report on housing or the second report on
planning?
Q53 Anne Main: The interim report,
the second report.
Ruth Kelly: Because there was
an issue about the environmental consequences of building new
homes which we have addressed, but another issue is how you make
more land available more quickly where appropriate so that we
can respond to the pressures of globalisation and attract new
businesses and so forth.
Q54 Anne Main: There have been concerns
about making land available quickly; that people will look at
ease of developing land rather than putting money into developing
brownfield sites. Are stakeholders having a greater say, because
there have been a lot of issues?
Ruth Kelly: I think Kate Barker's
report gave quite a lot of weight to environmental considerations,
and one of the things about the interim report is that it looked
right across the piece at the various objectives of the planning
system, and it set out an analysis of how the current system worked
against the objectives of where we have to get to; and I think
the environment was taken very seriously.
Q55 Anne Main: You do not think that
local people feel they have not had enough say; that it will be
much quicker to bring land on line but they want scrutiny through
local—
Ruth Kelly: It is very important.
Of course there will be scrutiny. I do not think the answer to
all this is to cut local people out. In fact there is a very,
very important role for local people in all of this, particularly
determining where development is appropriate and where it is not.
Q56 Alison Seabeck: In your position
as Minister for Women and Secretary of State with responsibility
for equality and helping promote a more strategic approach to
gender equality across government with colleagues and other departments,
are you confident, given your experience as a backbencher and
a minister, that your officials are picking up on equality issues
that undoubtedly arise in policy papers across your desk; and
more importantly, once they have been picked up are they vigorously
pursued both within your Department and outside?
Ruth Kelly: There are two different
things. First of all, there is a very clear priority which was
set for me and my Department as Minister for Women, which is the
right one, which is to make sure that we deliver on the Women
in Work Commission's report; and that will be not just as a department
but as a government. My role is to make sure that we understand
exactly what is happening and that we push other departments to
deliver against that, and within six months we have clearly set
out an action plan which is credible, with stakeholders' measures,
and that is a big priority of mine. The second thing is that there
are issues which just come across my desk that are not necessarily
directly related to DCLG—although some of them will be,
such as violence against women, domestic violence, human trafficking
and so forth—and indeed thinking about community cohesion—Muslim
women and how engaged they are. Meg Munn, who is the Deputy Minister
for Women and Equality, sits on five different cross-government
committees which pull some of these issues together and make sure
that action is pursued.
Q57 Greg Hands: I would like to ask
questions about diversity training. I asked your predecessor what
was in place for ministers in terms of diversity training, and
I had an unclear response. He told me that new ministers are offered
an induction course following a general election or substantial
reshuffle, and it was unclear who had actually undergone a course
of diversity training and, if so, when. Would you in your position
push the compulsory diversity training for current ministers and
future ministers following a reshuffle?
Ruth Kelly: Do you know, I think
my Department is a model of diversity! All but one of the ministers
in DCLG is a woman, and therefore we have greater representation
than other government departments. The issue of how you train
ministers is not just in diversity, but how you induct ministers
into their job. It is an issue. I am not going to sit here and
prescribe how we deal with—
Q58 Greg Hands: Diversity training
in Britain today is a major part of major corporations, the private
sector and other public sector bodies—local councils, the
NHS. They all have compulsory diversity training. Does it not
seem out of kilter that the Government, which is supposed to be
promoting the equality agenda, does not have compulsory diversity
training for ministers?
Ruth Kelly: You might think that
the role of a minister is not one that is replicated in other
places in society. I think ministers need an understanding in
awareness of issues. That is really important.
Q59 Greg Hands: You need an understanding.
You set an example—
Ruth Kelly: We are setting an
example. We also have PSA targets specifically about these sorts
of issues, and a programme within our own department to deliver
it; and that is mirrored in other Government departments. We are,
for example, introducing, as a government, a new gender duty on
local authorities, which will ask public authorities to think
about how they promote equal opportunities. That is the sort of
thing that really needs to be actioned.
Q60 Chair: Can I point out that as
Members of Parliament we do not get any diversity/gender/equality
training. Personally, I think it would be an excellent idea. Thank
you very much, Secretary of State. We look forward to rehearsing
these issues with you again. You have set a very ambitious programme
and we will certainly hold you to it. Thank you very much.
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