 House of Commons |
Session 2006 - 07 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Sustainable Communities |
Sustainable Communities Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Alan
Sandall, Committee
Clerk
†
attended the Committee
Public Bill CommitteeWednesday 23 May 2007( Afternoon )[John Cummings in the Chair]Sustainable Communities BillClause 5Local
spending
plans
Question
proposed [this day], That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
2
pm
Question
again
proposed.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following: new clause 3—Local spending reports: rights of
principal councils and representatives of local
persons—
‘(1) After
considering the information contained in a local spending report issued
pursuant to section 4, a principal council may make recommendations to
the Secretary of State as
to—
(a) whether that
council could decide how any part of the money specified in that report
may be spent; and
(b) any
consequential delegation of functions to the
council.
(2)
Where a principal council proposes to make recommendations pursuant to
subsection (1), it
must—
(a) refer the
matter to any panels under section 3 for consideration;
or
(b) establish such panels if
they do not exist and refer the matter to them for
consideration.
(3) A principal
council and any panels acting pursuant to this section shall exercise
their functions to promote the sustainability of local
communities.
(4) Within three
months of receiving recommendations made by a principal council under
subsection (1), the Secretary of State shall either adopt or reject
each of the recommendations, and in either case shall give reasons for
his decision.
(5) At least once
in each calendar year the Secretary of State shall publish a report
providing details of all decisions taken pursuant to subsection (4)
above.’.
Amendment
(a), in line 2, after ‘may’, insert ‘subject to
subsection
(2)’.
Amendment
(b), in line 6, at end
insert—
‘(2A) A principal
council may not make recommendations regarding any money that has been
specified in the local spending report as being spent on services of a
wider or national
significance.
(2B) In
subsection (2) “services primarily of a wider or national
significance” means services provided wholly or largely for the
benefit of persons resident in areas wider than the area of the
council.’.
Amendment
(c), in line 12, after ‘shall’,
insert—
‘(a)
’.
Amendment
(d), in line 13, at end insert
‘and
(b) have regard to the
council’s community strategy prepared pursuant to section 4 of
the Local Government Act 2000 (c.22);
(c) specify that in their opinion any
recommendations are consistent with that community strategy;
and
(d) give their reasons for
that
opinion.’.
The
Minister for Local Government (Mr. Phil
Woolas):
I hope that you had the opportunity for a good
lunch, Mr. Cummings. I was able to have only a glass of wine
on the Terrace, I am afraid. It was a very nice glass of wine and very
reasonably priced, but it was only wine and no
sustenance.
I am
delighted that my persuasive powers have persuaded my colleagues to
come here and join me.I am, as ever, joined by my
fantastically loyal Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the
Member for West Ham. I want to place on the record my thanks to her.
She has engaged in the spirit of the Bill with gusto and provided a way
forward.
The hon.
Member for Ruislip-Northwood asked me to clarify the
Government’s intent. I take it from that that he feels that I
did not clarify it, so I intend to do so now. The Government support
part of the intent of clause 5 and new clause 3. It is not the
principle thatwe have a problem with; it is the drafting and
the application. I hope that I have convinced the
Committee that we are a devolutionary and decentralising
Government—the two are different. We believe that decisions,
including funding decisions, should be taken locally wherever
possible.
I put it on
the record for the sake of clarity that I propose to table an amendment
on Report that I believe will cover the intent of clause 5 and
newclause 3. My proposal is that if authorities consider that
the function or functions of one body should be exercised
by another, they should be able to make
representations to that effect under new clauses 5 and 6. However, we
think that, wherever possible, local authorities should seek to use
their powers under the Local Government Acts of 1972 and 2000. We
believe in a consensual and devolutionary approach to these
issues.
There is
agreement that the original clause 5 should not stand part of the Bill.
I expect that the hon. Gentleman will wish his new clause 3 to be
included in it. Although I cannot support the detail, I have no problem
with the principle, as I said. Therefore, I do not intend to oppose new
clause 3. I hope that that clarifies the matter. If not, perhaps he or
other hon. Members will say
so.
Mr.
Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con): I am grateful to the
Minister for his remarks. They do indeed clarify the position, as I
think my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood would agree. They
were a whole heap clearer than his earlier remarks, and I am sure
that we shall await the Minister’s amendment.
However, I want to say something in the spirit of putting into his mind
things that may be helpful when we come to Report and when he comes to
consider the amendments that he will move
then.
If I understood
the Minister aright in his concluding passage, he was suggesting that
his amendmentswould provide for the local authority under some
circumstances to take over the functions in some respects of some
existing other body. I think that it is worth warning him that it is
unlikely, in my view, that
such an amendment could succeed in achieving the object that we seek,
and I shall explain why, in the hope that he will reflect
further.
Where there
is a current Government agency or devolved agency—a regional
development agency,for example—it will typically have a
remit that is established first in statute, then perhaps in regulation
and thereafter in some kind of ministerial targets or edicts. I may be
wrong, but I suspect that if the Minister attempts to draft a clause
that gives the local authority the right not to seek the ability to
redirect moneys but to seek to take over specific functions, that will
have the effect that we do not want of putting the local authority,
when exercising those functions, under the duty to follow the remit
that the agency
had.
Mr.
Woolas:
That is not my intention. The idea of the Bill and
the policy is that the local council, as the democratically elected
body, should be the first among
equals.
Mr.
Letwin:
That is an extremely helpful clarification. If the
Minister’s intention is as he has now described, it may well be
that we can reach a perfect agreement. To take a concrete example, if a
regional development agency runs a business links programme, properly
ordained by a sequence of top-down rules, and the local authority seeks
to use the cash available for something that it thinks a better way of
promoting business in the locality, and if the Secretary of State has
not ruled that the business links are of primarily national
significance, our intention is that the local authority could so direct
the money. If the Minister’s intention is the same, we have
agreement.
Mr.
Woolas:
There is just one caveat, and I hopethat
it does not sound like sour grapes. The strategies and policies of the
business links in that examplecome from consultation, but that
is a side point. Notwithstanding that, if a local area’s
target—for instance, to reduce joblessness—involves the
local authority and other partners saying to the business links,
“We want you to redirect your policy in such a way,” that
should be
achievable.
Mr.
Letwin:
That is extremely helpful, as I think my hon.
Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood would agree. I suspect that
colleagues elsewhere in the Committee would also agree that that
fulfils their intentions. It may well be that the effect of providing
for such a power is that the co-operation that the Minister thinks
often does not apply will emerge, because business links or the people
organising them might say to themselves, “It is not worth not
doing what the local authority wants us to do because, if we
don’t, the local authority will petition the Secretary of State
for the ability to take it over.” That is precisely the dynamic
that we wish to create—one that means that the local authority
is, as the Minister puts it, first among
equals.
Mr.
Woolas:
This is serious stuff. On the point that the hon.
Member for Ruislip-Northwood made about the co-operation on the
targets, that is important and I hope that he recognises that I do not
wish to preclude
further co-operation. But in agreeing the targets, the business links in
the right hon. Gentleman’s example would be under an obligation
to help to meet the targets that had been set locally. In Torbay, for
example, they might be on training, new businesses in hotels and
leisure, or fishery skills, whereas in my constituency they might be on
textile engineering. Precisely that localism will be allowed, as shown
byhis
point.
Mr.
Letwin:
That is true, but, as the Minister says, this is
important and it is worth pursuing a deeper level of detail. As with
any business, it is not a criticism to say that the people running
business links think of the activity that they are engaged in as a
business link-like activity. If you ask them how to spend money, they
may well be willing to spend it in one way rather than another, but
they will always tend to think that the right thing do to is to spend
it on the kind of things that business links
do.
However, a local
authority might feel in a particular case that the general objective of
promoting more sustainable small and growing business would
bebetter achieved by providing people with something
completely different. It would not be natural for the business link
managers to want to do that. Atthe extreme, it might involve
them no longer having the same jobs. One cannot therefore rely on
agreement on targets and how they should be fulfilled in a local area
agreement to achieve what we are seeking to achieve. We want a position
whereby if the business link group does not feel that the local
authority is proposing the right kind of thing, then so long as the
area is not defined as primarily nationally significant the local
authority will have the presumption of getting the Secretary of
State’s approval to take over the
spending.
Mr.
Woolas:
I agree and would go slightly further. The best
way of promoting small business in an area might be to provide a youth
club for 19-year-olds at the further education college. Indeed, such
activities are provided at the South Devon further education college,
which is one of the best in the country. As the hon. Member for
Ruislip-Northwood said, the point is the outcome—the
achievement. If the best way of creating small businesses is to build a
youth club so that there is access to young people, which is what I
want to achieve, that is desirable.
Mr.
Letwin:
I do not know whether this is a parliamentary
term, Mr. Cummings, but my response to that is
“bingo!”
Mr.
Nick Hurd (Ruislip-Northwood) (Con): On behalf of the
Committee, I join the Minister in recording our gratitude to the hon.
Member for West Ham for the role that she has played. During these
proceedings she is condemned to sit in silence, which I do not believe
to be her natural state. She left our earlier sitting looking as though
she needed a lot more than the one glass of wine that the Minister
allowed himself on the terrace, and that may have had something to do
with the speech of my right hon. Friend. We are genuinely grateful for
the work that she has done through the usual channels to get us to
where we are.
I am also extremely grateful to
the Minister for having placed on the record a coherent and reassuring
confirmation that he does not oppose new clause 3 and is prepared to
come back with a suitable amendment to iron out some of its
imperfections. I am grateful, also, to my right hon. Friend for having
teased that out with a specific working example, which is a good way of
testing conviction against vague rhetoric. I agreewith the
Minister that it seems to be the wish of the Committee that clause 5
should not stand part ofthe Bill.
Clause 5 disagreed
to.
Clauses 6
to 10 disagreed
to.
Clauses 11
and 12
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
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