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I look forward to examining how the rest of the Bill will operate and what other changes to the Greater London Authority might help it operate more effectively and in a manner that Londoners would support. In other words, I look forward very much to scrutinising this Bill and in this House, if not always in City Hall, dealing with issues on the basis of a simple majority.
7.43 pm
Baroness Valentine: My Lords, I relish the opportunity to speak about governance of the capital, a recurring theme in the symphony of London over the past quarter-century. As far back as the early 1990s, the business community identified the need for an executive mayor for the capital. London First, the business body of which I am chief executive, lobbied hard for London devolution. They say, “Be careful what you wish for”.
Prior to 2000, the UK’s premier city had no strategy for managing its own success, no long-term investment plan and no political leadership. There was no policy for deciding whether or how to encourage economic growth following the big bang and no plan to cater for the explosive increase in transport demand. There was not absolute support for every detail in the original Greater London Authority Act, nor has there been absolute support for every policy or flight of fancy of the current mayor since 2000.
However, at least if we do not like what is happening in our city, we know who to call. London’s economy has strengthened: we have seen off the challenge from Paris or Frankfurt and we now rival New York for pre-eminence in financial services. But London’s complexion is far from flawless. Our transport system is bursting at the seams, we have the lowest employment levels in the country and around a fifth of London adults would qualify for special help in reading and writing were they to start secondary school today. An expected 1 million more people will live in London in the next 20 years, which is like everyone in Birmingham packing their bags and moving to the capital. Housing supply is not keeping up. Demand outstripping supply forces prices up, which takes even so-called affordable homes beyond the means of those on average incomes.
These are serious challenges and we need to know that someone, armed with the necessary authority and funding, has the responsibility for tackling them. In this regard, I count the Greater London Authority as at least a qualified success. Without the powers bestowed on the GLA we would not have a strategic London plan, a flagship transport authority with a
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I am pleased, therefore, that we are debating an extension of these powers. In the animated Wallace and Gromit film “The Wrong Trousers” the focus was on the trousers not on the wearer. For today’s debate we must separate the personality, Mr Livingstone, from the trousers, which may be difficult for some of those on my right and, indeed, for some on my left, given that the office of mayor has largely been shaped by the current incumbent.
In fairness, his achievements, style and policies this time around have made life under Ken less scary. I and others feel more comfortable about the extension of mayoral powers, so long as they do not extend to foreign policy. If Ken is listening: South America is an interesting continent—I have been there myself—but there are plenty of challenges to occupy us in London without trying to address those in Caracas.
Joking aside, it is entirely appropriate for the Government to assess London’s government structures and entirely rational to take devolution another step forward. Already the Further Education and Training Bill has confirmed that responsibility for skills training will pass to a capital-specific body, the London Skills and Employment Board. Stronger powers for the mayor need to be balanced by effective scrutiny by the Assembly. I support a strong executive mayor, even when he pursues what I regard as misguided policies, such as the western extension of the congestion zone and the west London tram. But the obligation placed on the mayor in this Bill to explain why he has rejected Assembly recommendations is a welcome measure that should increase the debate and transparency around decision-making without slowing things down.
The new GLA Bill clears up anomalies in the day-to-day operation of the original Act. Importantly, by extending planning and housing powers, the mayor can deliver the strategic plans formulated over the past six-and-a-half years to address London’s growing demand for commercial and residential property. It moves the mayor from back-seat commentator to front-seat co-driver.
One helpful aspect of the GLA has been its intelligence function. The improved forecasting of London’s demographic and economic changes has provided the backdrop for the London Plan, which sets out London’s planning, economic, environmental and transport policies a decade or so ahead. That is important for London and for the UK as a whole. The latest forecasts show that over the next 20 years the population is set to increase by 1 million, with up to 900,000 extra jobs. It represents a huge challenge to the planning system to build enough homes, shops, offices and infrastructure to support this growth.
The competition is moving fast; Asia is moving fast. In the medium term, it is the greatest threat to London’s success. We need to learn to embrace change. In Shanghai, plans today are skyscrapers tomorrow. I do not advocate such an undemocratic, command-economy approach, but our processes should not sit at the opposite end of this spectrum.
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It is not enough for the London Plan to set out where development should take place; it has to be translated into approval of actual development proposals. When the GLA was a babe in arms, the Government were nervous of giving the mayor a positive power to approve planning applications. They did not want to recreate the turf wars which characterised the relationship between the boroughs and the GLC, so they settled for a negative power for the mayor to direct refusal of applications for major schemes. This power has caused surprisingly little friction, a tribute to the professionalism of planning teams in both the GLA and most London boroughs. In the main, the power has been used to negotiate revisions to proposals rather than to direct refusals. Nevertheless it is right to be cautious about transferring power from the boroughs. The Bill and the process enshrined in the draft Mayor of London order represent the outcome of months of intense discussion between the major players involved in London’s planning processes. There is wide agreement that the balance is now about right. The proposed new powers will apply to only a very few cases. The boroughs will still consider applications, consult the local community and reach a view on them, but it is right that in exceptional cases the mayor should be able to ensure that proposals of London-wide importance are considered in the interests of London as a whole rather than on the basis of purely local concerns.
London needs to increase its housing supply to accommodate an increasing population and provide homes that people working in the capital can afford. This depends primarily on improving the operation of the planning system, including improving the effectiveness of borough planning departments in securing appropriate development. All housing is needed. Simple market forces mean that a greater supply delivers greater affordability overall, and the mayor should have a role in ensuring that London has the housing supply it needs.
There has been much debate behind the scenes about whether, if a borough is already fulfilling its housing targets or where only one borough is affected, the mayor should not have the power to intervene. This would overcomplicate the test for whether the mayor can take over an application, achieving nothing more than delay and money for lawyers. The test is already defined as being about strategic importance and significant impact. Adding more dimensions and complications would be counterproductive and smacks of a failure to embrace the fundamental concept. But I recognise that this is a new system and I would welcome a commitment from the Government to review it after a couple of years of operation.
Of course there must be proper consultation with those affected, and their concerns must be taken into account. The new process must be transparent but equally there is a high price to pay for a system which makes it easier to hold up development than to approve it: runaway house prices as supply fails to match demand and the highest office rents in the world. Let us be clear: when London fails to win
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Other measures beyond planning legislation are needed to ensure that development keeps pace with demand. Since the introduction of the uniform business rate in 1990, local authorities gain no financial benefit from new commercial development. I welcome the proposal from Sir Michael Lyons that local authorities should be able to keep more of the rate income from new development and use it to provide the investment needed for successful regeneration. It is important that local authorities and developers in London learn to work better together to achieve the huge development required to support its growth. This Lyons proposal would better align interests and is a step in the right direction. But Lyons’s recommendations will achieve nothing if they gather dust on the shelf, and I look forward to government action to implement them.
In summary, I treasure a vision of a UK proud of London and a London that recognises its responsibilities towards the rest of the UK. The capital plays a unique role in the UK economy and its challenges are unique. The Government took a bold step—some would say a gamble—when they created a unique form of government for the capital. Very few would argue that, all things considered, the gamble has not paid off. Re-evaluating the structures after seven years is a sensible move, and incremental devolution has proved successful. Arguably, the original Act bit off only as much as it could chew. To continue the analogy, there is now an appetite for greater devolution. London should have the ability to tackle its own challenges.
I hope, therefore, that this is only the second and not the last GLA Bill, and that in the near future we will have another opportunity to review progress and take yet another step towards truly devolved London government. Just to give several years’ warning of what I will be looking for in that next phase: first, more levers to tackle unemployment, and, secondly, more fiscal autonomy for London to determine its own spending priorities.
7.56 pm
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch: My Lords, I am sure strong views will be expressed on a number of aspects of the Bill, but I should like to concentrate my remarks on the housing and planning proposals. I should begin by declaring an interest. I am a member of the board of Circle Anglia, which is a combined group of housing associations across London and the south-east, and I chair Circle 33, which is one of the largest registered social landlords in that group. Together we have 30,000 properties and we are likely to double that figure in the next three years. We are experiencing phenomenal growth through a combination of local authority stock transfer, merger with smaller registered social landlords and Housing Corporation funding for new build and regeneration. We are a large housing association, but certainly not the largest in London.
The reason I say this is to illustrate the changing shape of social housing provision in London. The old model of social housing purely being provided by
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This broader mix of housing providers can bring benefits, but it is also in danger of leaving a democratic vacuum. It is an issue that housing associations are trying to address through increased tenant participation at the local level, and we are working hard to find new ways of involving tenants in shaping their services. Clearly these initiatives can play an important role in supplementing the continuing crucial role of local authorities in responding to local housing needs. However, the scale of the housing challenge that we face across London needs a broader democratic mandate. That is why I welcome the new powers in the Bill to enable the mayor to set a London-wide housing strategy based on a thorough assessment of housing need across the city, with practical powers to specify the numbers, type and locations of houses to be built.
It is impossible to overestimate the scale of the problem the mayor will inherit, which will need more than mere number-crunching to transform the housing crisis in the city. It has already been estimated that nearly 1 million extra people will move to London in the next 10 years. That is exacerbated by the year-on-year rise in single households, which put extra pressure on the existing stock. Meanwhile, we already have 62,000 families living in unsuitable temporary accommodation, and Shelter estimates that one in seven children is growing up in substandard or overcrowded accommodation. This is blighting the lives of a large number of our future generation, for whom poor housing also leads to poor health and to poor educational achievement.
To be fair, the Government have been bold in providing additional funding for housing on an unprecedented scale, but they will need to be bolder still. While they remain on course to meet the decent homes target for all existing social housing by 2010, Shelter has estimated that an additional 20,000 new units of social housing a year nationally need to be built to meet the growing housing need. The majority of those units will be concentrated in the south-east. I hope the Chancellor will address this issue in the Comprehensive Spending Review. He should do so with renewed confidence that the mayor and the GLA
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I referred to the need for the Government to be bold, but there is an even bigger obligation in this Act for the Mayor and the GLA to be bold and imaginative in addressing our housing challenge. In particular they need to galvanise the wasted resources in the private sector. We already know the extra pressures caused by the accumulation of land banks for speculative gain. While the planning-gain legislation is a useful weapon, the Mayor will need a clear strategy to free up pockets of brownfield land for development. At the same time, we know we have an estimated 100,000 empty residential properties already in London. Again, some of those have been purchased purely for speculative gain, rather than for use—as I heard it described on the radio yesterday, buy-to-sit rather than buy-to-let. The new powers in the Housing Act could tackle those empty properties, but the Act will need to be imposed more systematically to make a real difference.
Lastly, the Mayor has the opportunity to be innovative in accessing the empty space in commercial premises and above shops, which could be converted into residential accommodation and help regenerate neighbourhoods. I do not pretend that these interventions will be easy, but we need to utilise every appropriate space within the confines of London before we can justify expansion. We need to maintain a high-level dialogue with the people of London to give a democratic mandate to the use of that space.
There is one further reason why, for me, the new powers for the Mayor are so important. Last week saw the publication of the report by John Hills into the future of social housing in England. He identified a crucial challenge: currently, more than half of those of working age living in social housing are without paid work. That is twice the national rate, and is not merely a feature of the disadvantage that may have qualified them for social housing in the first place. He identifies a range of possible explanations for that, such as a fear of losing benefits, the possibility of the location of social housing being in the wrong place to access work, the constraints on mobility and the downward impact of esteem in some neighbourhoods. He makes a strong thesis of a link between social housing and a lack of economic activity.
Some of his solutions can only be achieved by Government at a national level, but others could easily be achieved by a strategic London-wide authority that already has responsibility for delivering economic success across the capital. The new housing powers complement the existing economic powers, which can deliver better economic outcomes for those in social housing. For example, we could be talking about generating more local employment at a neighbourhood level, or about freeing up the mobility scheme to allow tenants to transfer jobs more easily for job-related reasons. We could be providing more integrated housing and employment support for young people, such as the foyer schemes that have been so successful. I hope the Mayor will champion innovation such as this, and will help to achieve our
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Getting our housing strategy right remains a big challenge, and the Government have to play a part. There will need to be different solutions for different parts of the country. For us here in London, though, the best solutions lie on the one hand in improving community engagement, and on the other hand in an authority able to take a broad view of the housing needs of Londoners and deliver the extra homes we need. The Bill delivers that framework, and I am confident that the Mayor will use his powers wisely. I look forward to the continuing debate on the details of the Bill in the coming weeks.
8.05 pm
Lord Sheikh: My Lords, serious questions need to be raised concerning the contents of the Bill. My main concerns centre on the crucial issues of housing, planning, waste and the role of the Greater London Authority under the new system.
On the issue of housing, the responsibilities of the existing London Housing Board will transfer to the mayor, and he will be responsible for publishing a London housing strategy and housing investment plan. The mayor will have responsibility for addressing the demand for affordable housing in the capital. With regard to planning, the mayor will have the power not only to direct changes for local borough plans but also to privatise particular projects he feels are of most benefit to meet the requirements of his London Plan. The Bill will also create a new London-wide waste management programme, apparently aimed at improving efficiency in the boroughs and increasing recycling throughout London. We will also see the creation of a London waste and recycling fund.
These changes will concentrate too much power in the hands of the mayor, and one of my main criticisms of the Bill is that the large increase in powers to the mayoral office is not matched by equal increases in accountability. That is not fair, and it is unacceptable.
It may be argued that there can be benefits from considering local issues within the wider perspective of London as a whole. However, there is a real danger that local and community issues will be overlooked in favour of more strategic overall plans, which will result in local people feeling ostracised from the decision-making process. A survey published in September 2006 by London Councils provided evidence to suggest that Londoners themselves have much more faith in their local councils over matters such as housing and planning, and are not happy with increased powers for the mayor.
I live in the London Borough of Croydon and my company has its head office in Bromley. Both those local councils are well managed and efficient. Therefore, I do not see any need for the decision-making process regarding housing and planning to be moved from our elected local councillors to the Greater London Authority. I may add that under the new system the role of the Assembly will give it the authority to set its own budget, and it will publish
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The explanations and definitions in the Bill are also poor. The word “strategic” in relation to the mayor’s powers over planning is an example. There is little explanation of how the Government determine “strategic”—thus, the emphasis lies completely with the mayor in how this should be defined and played out in practice. There is a distinct lack of transparency built into the Bill. Instead of definite requirements for planning written into the Bill, the onus is on the mayor to live up to his claims that there will be transparency in his dealings.
Attempts to standardise services throughout the capital—for example, in waste management or housing—will undermine much of the progress made by certain boroughs in these fields in recent years. A “one size fits all” approach will stifle any innovative approach boroughs may have to the individual problems they face; it is not the way to increase standards overall. Instead, a considered and local approach with community consultation is much more likely to have the positive effects desired. Overall, the dramatic transfer of power to the mayoral office is not justified. It is felt that a body dominated by the mayor, run from City Hall, will not be responsive to local issues.
I have very strong connections with the City of London and have a branch of my company in the Royal Exchange. The City Corporation feels that the current proposals are in danger of damaging the City’s international competitiveness by making the whole process more complicated and less responsive. The financial organisations that make the City of London a successful international marketplace require a structure that works efficiently. The proposed added layer of bureaucracy will be a hindrance and not cost-effective.
In my opinion, the Bill is not acceptable in its present form. Several appropriate amendments will be tabled for discussion in its later stages.
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