Clause
88Exercise
of local authority
functions
Dan
Rogerson: On a point of order, Mr. Amess. I
seek your guidance, but I assume that an amendment can be moved by any
Committee
member.
The
Chairman: I discussed that with the Clerk. There appears
to be a number of amendments tabled by people who are not serving on
the Committee, but as those amendments have been selected it is quite
in order if Committee members wish to speak to them and it is a matter
for them if they actually want to move
them.
Dan
Rogerson: I beg to move amendment 71, in
clause 88, page 60, line 34, leave
out from ‘to’ to end of line 35 and
insert— ‘(a) promoting the
sustainable economic development and regeneration of its area,
and (b) contributing to the
mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate
change.’. The
amendment is in line with a debate that we had about an earlier
amendment, which I think was tabled by the hon. Member for Liverpool,
Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle). That sought to strengthen the
Bill’s wording regarding sustainable development. We were
seeking to press a power, or duty, on the responsible regional
authority, the RDA and the leaders’ board in their development
of a regional strategy. If we are to have economic prosperity boards
carrying out similar work on economic development in their areas, the
same principle applies and we would feel more comfortable if a more
explicit duty were placed upon them to carry out sustainable economic
development. Paragraph
(b) of the amendment contains the
phrase: “contributing
to the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate
change.” The
Minister said in an earlier debate that she felt the point was
covered—that the Secretary of State could issue general guidance
and that that guidance would, no doubt, be in accord with meeting those
aims. However, given that the Bill establishes these bodies, it would
be good if those key duties were imposed from the outset for any such
bodies that come into
existence.
Ms
Winterton: I hope that I can give the hon. Gentleman some
reassurance on that point. All members of the Committee will doubtless
agree that it would be entirely counter-productive to the long-term
well-being of the sub-region for “economic development”,
in that context, to mean anything other than sustainable economic
development—in other words, development that is within
environmental limits and that enhances environmental and social welfare
in the area. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that our statutory
guidance will make it clear that that is precisely what we mean. I hope
that reassures him and that he will withdraw his
amendment.
Dan
Rogerson: I thank the Minister for that. Although we are
attempting to make some progress—I will behave myself, as I said
I would, when it comes to not repeating votes on general
principles—this is an important matter. There is a great deal of
feeling outside this place that not enough emphasis is placed on this
issue. As the title
of the boards suggests, they are about economic prosperity. That is
important, and I hope they will make a significant contribution to that
duty. However, other important considerations also need to be borne in
mind, among which this matter is perhaps paramount, so I would like to
divide the Committee on the
amendment. Question
put, That the amendment be
made. The
Committee divided: Ayes 6, Noes
8.
Division
No.
55] Question
accordingly negatived.
Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
Mr.
Goodman: Given that the Minister did not rise to her feet
to introduce the clause, I thought I would raise a point put to the
Committee by the Campaign to Protect Rural England. In a submission
that I and other Members of the Committee have received, it argues that
clause 88 will, as it makes clear, allow functions to be passed to
EPBs. The CPRE
wrote: “We
do not believe that planning powers should be passed to the EPBs. The
planning system should not, and cannot, be focused solely on delivering
economic
growth.” In
arguing that the planning system cannot be solely concentrated on
delivering economic growth, I am sure the CPRE is right, but I am not
sure whether the Opposition agree entirely with the CPRE. If local
authorities voluntarily wish to work together on planning, they should
be allowed to do so. I do not entirely follow the CPRE’s
argument in that respect. Having said that, I ask the Minister to say
what functions an EPB can gather to itself, because I think the
Committee would find that
useful.
Ms
Winterton: I hope that I can give some assurance to the
hon. Gentleman. It is up to local authorities to set out the functions
that they wish to pass to an EPB across their area. They may decide
that their EPB should play a part in spatial planning, most likely
through co-operation in the production of regional development
frameworks. It is very unlikely that local authorities would propose
ceding power to make particular planning decisions to an EPB, or that
the Secretary of State would agree to such an arrangement. I assure the
hon. Gentleman that the Government are clear about wanting the link
between planning decisions and direct local democratic accountability
to be
maintained. Question
put and agreed
to. Clause
88 accordingly ordered to stand part of the
Bill. Clauses
89 to 99 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
100Combined
authorities and their
areas Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
Mr.
Goodman: This begins a different section of this part of
the Bill, in that it introduces combined authorities that are not EPBs,
as hon. Members can see from the italic print at the top of clause 100.
I thought it worth briefly sketching out our general view and giving
the Minister notice of any issues that are likely to
arise. We
see no difficulty with combined authorities dealing with transport in
principle. The concern that arose in the Lords was the prospect of
congestion charges or other such charges being imposed on local
authority areas without the consent of their voters. Looking ahead to a
later clause—I will not go into it in detail—it seems
that that is covered in clause 106, but it would be useful if the
Minister gave some assurances on
that. From
my reading of clause 100, it seems that a combined authority and an EPB
must be distinct, and perhaps the Minister will say something about
that. Subsection (5)(b) states that no part of the area may form part
of
“the area of an
EPB”. If
I am reading the Bill correctly, the Department’s intention is
that a combined transport authority and EPB will be separate entities,
and the Committee will be curious to know
why. 9.30
am
Ms
Winterton: I hope that I can give some reassurance on
congestion charging. The powers and functions of integrated transport
authorities are set out in the Local Transport Act 2008. The Bill will
not alter the functions available to ITAs but merely allow them to be
brought together with local authority economic development functions in
a single combined authority. The Bill will not create any new transport
functions for sub-regional bodies when such functions could not already
be given to
ITAs. On
the hon. Gentleman’s point, combined authorities can act in the
same way as EPBs and can take on the same functions. Therefore, it
would not be appropriate to have two bodies for the same area.
Subsection (5) states:
“Condition
D is that no part of the area forms part of...the area of another
combined
authority”. The
provision is intended to ensure that the boundaries are fairly clear
and that there are not all kinds of crossovers. I hope that that is
reassuring.
Question
put and agreed to.
Clause 100
accordingly ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clauses
101 to 116 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule
6 agreed to.
Clause
117 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
118Multi-area
agreements Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
Mr.
Goodman: We see no difficulty with multi-area agreements,
which are a good thing in principle. In the Lords, my noble Friend Lord
Hanningfield needed to be convinced that this clause and the following
clauses would not simply impose improvement targets on those who signed
up to multi-area agreements. The note that I have in my almost
illegible handwriting says, “See Andrews’
reassurances”, which suggests that Baroness Andrews was able to
give my noble Friend the reassurances that he sought. Again, however,
it would be useful to the Committee if the Minister spelt out some
reassurances.
Julia
Goldsworthy (Falmouth and Camborne) (LD): It is a pleasure
to serve under your chairmanship in this lovely weather, Mr.
Amess.
As the hon.
Gentleman said, there is genuine agreement that multi-area agreements
are a good thing. Once again, however, we return to the question of
whether it is necessary to make provision for them in primary
legislation. Considerable powers are reserved to the Secretary of State
in subsequent clauses on multi-area agreements, and we should question
whether that is necessary to enable local authorities to work together
to achieve improvements in public services in their areas.
I may refer
to this later, but in an interview in yesterday’s
Guardian, the new Secretary of State referred to exploring the
possibility of new powers, with a legally enforceable charter under
which local authorities would have the right to refuse to have the
Secretary of State’s views imposed on them. Most of the Bill
could fall into the category where local authorities might say,
“Actually, we think that this is an imposition of your powers,
which is completely unnecessary.” They would then have the
opportunity to refuse to implement it.
Dan
Rogerson: It strikes me that we would rather the Secretary
of State had virtually no control over issues that really are for
decision by local government. With regard to the paper that has been
mentioned a few times, it is fair to say that we prefer “control
delete” to “Control
Shift”.
Julia
Goldsworthy: That was an amusing intervention from my hon.
Friend. It is clear that, while we have been debating the Bill, there
have been considerable changes—not only to the Secretary of
State responsible for such matters, but to Ministers. I congratulate
the new Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury—I understand that
she has been moved in the past 24 hours. I wonder whether Ministers,
Departments and their policies are moving beyond that paper. Will the
Minister responsible respond to that? More generally, how do the powers
that the Secretary of State mentioned in the newspaper yesterday relate
to multi-area agreements?
Ms
Winterton: Unfortunately, I have not yet had time to read
the article that the hon. Lady refers to, but I can reassure the
Committee, because there is a recognition that local authorities have
asked for more robust multi-area
agreements so that duties are placed on partner authorities. The vivid
illustration that I asked for yesterday when discussing the matter with
officials was raised earlier by the right hon. Member for Skipton and
Ripon. His point was that if there is a desire in North Yorkshire for
the authorities to come together—perhaps in a multi-area
agreement—there may be a need to sign up the regional
development agency. The idea was that, within that multi-area
agreement, duties would need to be fulfilled. Local authorities
consider that that gives more reassurance, when putting together plans
for future economic development, that they have an agreement that needs
to be fulfilled by the various different
bodies.
I should like
to offer reassurance to the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne and
the hon. Member for Wycombe. This is not about imposing
targets—every authority or partner to whom a target relates must
agree to that target for it to apply to them. We are trying to achieve
a consensus about working together, while responding to the points that
local authorities have made about proper backing through duties being
appropriate for them. I hope that I have reassured hon. Members and
that the clause will stand part of the
Bill. Mr.
Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con): I want to make
a pedantic point. Since I do not understand any of this new jargon, I
have tried to look it up to see what it means and to find out what a
multi-area agreement is. Clause 134 says that
a “‘multi-area
agreement’ has the meaning given by section
118(2)”. I
went back to the first mention of it, to find that the provision says
that a multi-area agreement is a document that “covers an
area” and specifies targets. It does not say who it is an
agreement between. It could be an agreement between you and me,
Mr. Amess. I take it that it is meant to be an agreement
between local authorities, although the Bill does not say
so.
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