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Lord Greaves: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for allowing me to intervene. The point I tried to make was that, while I agree entirely with what the Minister has said, the problem is that many of the existing quangos do not do that. In their operations they actually exclude local people.
Lord Filkin: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his comment.
Reverting to how we support local people to become effective participants in the process, we have established the Community Empowerment Fund aimed at equipping local people to join in with local strategic partnerships. That will make some contribution towards greater local participation.
Along with other noble Lords, I thoroughly enjoyed the contribution of my noble friend Lord Clark of Windermere. He sought to reposition the importance of landscaping, afforestation and trees. Until I spoke to my noble friend, I had not realised that the Forestry Commission is not active only in Scotland, but focuses on urban areas. I wish more strength both to his arm and to that of the commission for that involvement.
It is clear that trees enhance the quality of life. One has only to look at the success of some of the new towns and the emphasis they place on addressing the question of landscape architecture in order to improve the feel of those towns. Let us hope that the noble Lord and his agency are able to transform the quality of many of our urban environments. We wish him the best of luck also with regard to the 100,000 hectares of land unsuitable for anything other than cultivating trees that he mentioned in his remarks.
My noble friend Lord Rogers of Riverside reminded us that, while rural areas and issues are important, some 90 per cent of the people of Britain live in towns and cities. The quality of the physical environment and our public spaces, in terms of their visual appearance, the sense of security, cleanliness and enjoyment is extremely important to the success of Britain. We all know that when we visit Florence, Siena or Barcelona, it is a joy to walk around those urban spaces. We have to catch up with those cities and demonstrate that we can provide the same.
In that respect, the Government and my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer are studying an initiative addressing the issue of open spaces. We are considering what more needs to be done in order to address the care of public spaces. We shall wait to see the outcome of those deliberations as a part of the Comprehensive Spending Review. However, that issue is certainly on the Government's agenda, as well it should be.
My noble friend also mentioned the importance of the quality of architectural and other skills leadership to urban regeneration. Again, I agree with his comments. I would mention in this context the creation of regional centres of excellence in each of the nine English regions to promote architectural design skills, working with the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment. If I recall correctly, Sir Stuart Lipton is producing a report of the Urban Design Skills Working Group which will set out a plan of action to make progress in this area. We shall monitor its progress.
The noble Lord, Lord Best, spoke from one of the greatest depths of experience of any noble Lord in terms of the work on regeneration of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation carried out over the past 20 years or so. The House acknowledges the consistency of that work. From that experience, the noble Lord pointed out that it is essential to have a vibrant local economy; that is vital to provide local employment; and that one must have local ownership. All these are crucial and the Government endorse that thinking.
I thought he encapsulated very well the aim of turning areas from which people want to flee into ones where people want to stay. He was right symbolically, but it is more complicated than that. I was struck when I heard Sir Robin Wales, the leader and now the mayor of Newham, describe how he and his officials had stopped boasting that Newham was the poorest place in Britain. They want to turn Newham into a place where people want to come and to stay in rather than to flee as quickly as possible. If we are to avoid ghettoisation, then that will be necessary. Furthermore, it will be necessary if we are to avoid undue pressure being put on land in the green belts, a point mentioned by my noble friend Lord Rogers and other noble Lords.
The noble Lord, Lord Best, opened his remarks by discussing the issue of abandonment, which is absolutely critical on the Government's agenda, both for reasons of housing and regeneration. The Special Housing Market Renewal Fund is under consideration to tackle problems of low demand. It is recognised that regional housing markets will require interventions. Appropriate mechanisms are currently under discussion. I cite also compulsory purchase powers, but I acknowledge that those powers are in need of reform. Proposals will be taken forward as a part of the planning Green Paper.
My noble friend Lady Lockwood spoke interestingly about regarding multiculturalism as a strength, about the location of a university as a potential strength, and recognising that regeneration strategies have to try to identify what is unique in an area in terms of potential assets—canals and so forth—rather than simply to list the problems.
With the leave of the House, I shall take a few more minutes in order to address all the issues that have been raised in our debate.
My noble friend Lord Evans of Temple Guiting spoke of the importance of regional and local museums and art galleries. The commission for museums and art galleries was tasked by the then Secretary of State at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to study these issues. I am sure that consideration will be given, whether favourably or not, to the noble Lord's innovative bid for further funding, as was well publicised yesterday in the Guardian.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans reminded noble Lords that this is not an issue only for the Government or for local government; it is an issue for civic society. In other words, regeneration involves us all. He stressed the importance of volunteering and mentioned a whole range of volunteer groups, of which clearly the Church is one of the most influential. That, too, forms part of successful local regeneration.
The Local Government Association, in conjunction with the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions and the Home Office, produced in February 2002 the report, Faith in the Community, a guidance for partnership between local authorities and faith communities. It contains many wise words on these issues. He was worried about what was happening to the DTLR. The "T" is being lost from "DTLR" but "the Regions" remains with the rest of it and therefore the Government's commitment to regeneration remains as strong. It is, of course, a cross-government and a cross-departmental commitment.
The noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, illustrated how Corby—which most saw as a failed steel town, to put it too crudely—had a vision for transforming itself into a completely different place. That sense of vision of what can be done is an important part of successful regeneration. One has to identify where the opportunities are and provide skilled local leadership.
The noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Hampstead, referred to the market renewal pathfinder. I have spoken about that already and I shall not repeat what I said. I agree with his point about communication to local people and their involvement in the strategies, rather than something being done by agencies separate from them.
The noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, spoke powerfully and with great experience about what has been happening in Wigan and about the importance of looking not only at residential but at retail and commercial areas of risk as well. We need to reflect on that point. There is no promise that SIGOMA will necessarily get all that it wants in any funding review, as the noble Lord will not be surprised to hear.
The noble Lord, Lord Corbett of Castle Vale, spoke from a lot of local knowledge. I agree with his point about not losing the experience of best practice in housing action trusts. If the skill and experience is in local communities and local projects, one of the roles of central government is to ensure that that experience
is retailed to each other, is not lost and is reflected on. Ultimately, local communities have to learn how best to do it themselves.As to the multiplicity of funding bodies, I have already spoken about the work of the regional co-ordination unit. The noble Lord, Lord Hardy, gave an eloquent description of his successful efforts to remove old slag heaps and to change some of our former mining areas into better places following the collapse of their industry.
Given the time, I shall not go into any further detail. I hope that I have commented on most points. I conclude with a sense of humility. The Government think that they have better strategies than they had for addressing regeneration. The fit between what has been said in the debate and what I have said from the Dispatch Box gives some hope that a consensus is developing. Nevertheless, we have to keep learning and we have to keep developing. It is therefore important that we use mechanisms such as the urban summit in October, when all areas will get together to discuss what has been learnt, and continue to reflect on how policy and practice, both at national and local level, need to change and improve to increase our success at regeneration.
Lord Woolmer of Leeds: My Lords, it has been a wide-ranging debate, as I thought it would be. It has been good humoured and has drawn upon the experience of many noble Lords. I am grateful to them for participating in the debate and for making it, I hope, a considerable success. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
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