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Our view is that any thorough assessment will give sufficient prominence to social and environmental issues. The issues raised by this amendment are best addressed through guidance. Any guidance issued by the Secretary of State would indeed stress the need for local authorities to have due regard to social and environmental matters. Placing the matters that should be addressed in assessments in the Bill would, in our view, unnecessarily constrain local authorities. It would also be more difficult for us to respond to changing economic circumstances and changing priorities as any change to the elements that should be included in any assessment would require a further Bill. For example, priorities during an economic upturn may be very different from the priorities in a recession.
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Amendment 160G, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, seeks to ensure that a principal local authority would not need to carry out a new assessment if such an assessment had been prepared within the previous
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The important point is that an assessment is fit for purpose and gives an accurate and up-to-date assessment of local economic conditions. This is a point we stress in our policy paper. Therefore, we do not believe it is appropriate to place an arbitrary cut off point in the Bill, and certainly not one of five years. I doubt very much that an assessment carried out five years ago would fit the bill, given the economic changes that will have occurred in that time. As our policy statement states, a principal local authority that has already carried out an assessment prior to this duty coming into force will need to consider it in the light of the new duty and any government guidance. While they may need to make some changes and will need to ensure that they meet their obligations to consult, the work they have already done will not go to waste.
The noble Lord also proposes that a principal authority should be able to prepare the assessment for different parts of the area covered by the assessment at different times. We do not agree that local authorities should prepare the initial assessment for different parts of the principal local authority’s area at different times. The aim of an assessment is to get a comprehensive and holistic picture of the current economic conditions of the local economy. If local authorities were encouraged to assess different parts of the area covered at different times, they would not be able to get that holistic picture. You could have the situation where different parts of the area covered would be assessed against inconsistent data sets. However, authorities may revise the assessment or part of it at any time. This allows sufficient flexibility to ensure changes that in local circumstances can be taken into account.
I hope that these assurances address the Committee’s concerns and that Members will understand why I do not think these amendments are necessary. I also ask that Clause 63 stand part of the Bill.
Baroness Hamwee: I should like to ask two questions, having drawn a number of conclusions; namely, that there is to be a duty because a few local authorities are not undertaking assessments and that local authorities should decide for themselves how to do it, provided the Secretary of State agrees. On the second point, I would ask the Government, as I have asked every Government in office since I joined your Lordships' House, how they would feel if the Secretary of State were not from their own party but was someone whom they might regard as less benign. I have also drawn the conclusion that the comments about acknowledging the social and environmental aspects of sustainable development might jeopardise the economic matters at difficult economic times, which makes my point for me.
Will the Government confirm that all this is within the powers of local authorities and that it is within the power of the Secretary of State to give the guidance, which seems to be the basis for all this, and to make the policy statement? The answers to those questions are clearly yes. Therefore, to that extent they are rhetorical, which, again makes our point.
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Lord Greaves: The Minister referred to the policy statement, which, in my view, is full of top-down rules and regulations. The longer I listened to the Minister speaking, the more I saw a whole series of top-down guidance, rather than regulations, which everyone seems to have to carry out. He said that practitioners welcome new guidance to prepare for new duties. However, if you are provided with a load of new duties but you do not quite understand what they mean or understand the legislation, of course you will welcome guidance telling you how to do it. Otherwise, you may be very worried that you are not doing your job properly.
The Minister said that he detected a lot of enthusiasm among local authorities. I should like to know where that is to be found. I detect little or no enthusiasm among local authorities for most of the contents of the Bill. Although this is one of the more benign parts of it compared with some of the others, nevertheless it is all utterly unnecessary. It is legislation that does not need to be enacted. One of the basic principles of legislation always used to be that the state had no right to involve itself in the liberties of the citizen unless it was necessary. Now the Government seem to think that they can involve themselves in legislation, all of which affects the liberties of citizens or organisations, not if it is necessary but if they feel like it or it is convenient, or expedient, or for whatever reasons.
I asked about evidence of failure among local authorities which are not carrying out this provision, but have been given none. However, we should be prepared to believe that some will be judged not to be doing it properly. What the Government have to understand is that some will not be doing it properly after this legislation is enacted because some poor local authorities do not do things well or do not do particular things well. Enacting legislation like this, saying that they must be good boys and girls, does not mean to say that they will be good boys and girls. This legislation will change little except that some people will be employed to carry out unnecessary work, which will result in duplication. It is not simply a question of saying—as my amendment does—that previous work should not be wasted, but rather that new work should not be done if it is unnecessary. There is no evidence at all that if you want to get a comprehensive and holistic picture, to quote the Minister, of local authorities’ economic situation, you cannot get it from them or be referred to someone else who has that information. That is the existing situation in most places and is why I think this clause ought to be removed from the Bill.
Lord Hanningfield: The noble Lord mentioned guidance far too much. Every other word was about guidance, which is what we are concerned about. I thought he said that guidance might be applied on a different basis. Clearly, what happens in my county is very different from what might happen in Lancashire, Northumberland or Cornwall. Therefore, guidance will need to be applied differently. If guidance is to be applied to processes, it will result in much more bureaucracy, which is one of the things we are all concerned about. I hope that the noble Lord is not thinking that there will be so much detailed national guidance that we will stop what we are doing now and start all over again. Local authorities are doing their
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Lord Patel of Bradford: One of the key issues here was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—namely, whether this provision lies within current powers. It does but we need to provide a consistent framework within which it can happen. This is not just about identifying a handful of criteria but achieving consistency across the country as regards how the measure is carried out. We have had fruitful events which local authorities have attended. Many local authorities attended events in the south-west and found them useful. I take the point that Secretaries of State change but we will consult on the guidance. We are discussing with IDeA its sector-led guidance on best practice. This is about providing a consistent framework and ensuring that things are joined-up. In certain areas measures are not feeding into the regional strategy. This is what we are trying to join up. The guidance would direct people to that.
Baroness Hamwee: Light-touch legislation as well as light-touch guidance.
Lord Hanningfield: This is the first of a series of debates on this issue. I hope that we can persuade the Government to revisit this area, otherwise we will have complicated further processes in the passage of the Bill through Report stage and Third Reading. Clearly there is a lot of unhappiness with the Bill.
When local authorities are consulted on whether they want a new duty the only reason they say yes is that they think they might get a bit more money. They do not say yes because they will be getting guidance from the Secretary of State. If we have a duty, we usually get money. That is why they said yes last year, rather than saying yes to a lot of involvement by the Secretary of State. Local authorities already do it and they thought that if they had a duty to do so they would get a few more millions to help them with regeneration and so on. That is why they said yes. They wanted a bit more money for regeneration and help with their economies. If the Government said that, they would have no problems with their proposals. We will have a series of discussions round this issue this afternoon. I beg leave to withdraw the amendments.
Amendments 160E to 161A not moved.
Lord Hanningfield: This is a simple amendment which follows on from some of the previous discussion and which has been promoted by the Local Government Association. The Minister will know from her work
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Lord Tope: I rise in support of Amendments Nos. 162 and 163. As the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, said, they are simple amendments. He has more experience in working with district councils than me, and if the leader of a county council says that it makes sense, it must be right. The Local Government Association supports the amendments. It points out, correctly, that district councils have the housing responsibility. They are the local planning authority, so it makes no sense to exclude them from the Bill. I hesitate to say that because in reality, of course, they cannot and will not be excluded; they have to, and will continue to, work with county councils. We share the view of the LGA that a straightforward joint duty in two-tier areas would be preferable and would remove the central role of the districts. The noble Lord said that it was a simple amendment, which it is. It is clear in its intention and purpose, but it is also an important amendment.
Lord Greaves: Amendments 163A and 163B are also in this group, referring to the involvement of district councils in two-tier areas and their relationship with the county council. I support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, and I support everything he and my noble friend said.
Amendment 163A refers to Clause 63(6)(b), which refers back to the duty on the local planning authority under the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, of which as I said, we all have fond memories. Clause 13(1) states:
“The local planning authority must keep under review the matters which may be expected to affect the development of their area or the planning of its development”.
Clearly, the duty refers to the district council as a planning authority and to its functions in development and planning. As regards the economic assessment of an area, as opposed to land use or spatial planning—functions wider than those merely of a planning authority are involved. One of the things that a lot of district councils have done over the past 30 years is taken on new roles in the economic development of their area. That may be in town centres or industry, or working through their local strategic partnership in job creation and training, and economic stimulation. There are all kinds of areas that are not specifically related to district council functions, but districts have become involved in them because of the need and the because of what they can obviously do.
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Much of this Bill, particularly this clause, implies that districts really do not do that kind of thing. It implies that the county does it and that districts just do the planning and function as a housing or leisure authority, or whatever. But even in that, districts have important functions in the wider economic development and prosperity of their area. I am therefore proposing
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Finally, some parts of the country are getting these new strange things called “multi-area agreements”—I declare an interest in an authority which has just signed up to one. MAAs exist specifically to promote economic development and the economic regeneration of areas. That is their single most important function and it is why they have been set up. Districts in areas such as Pennine Lancashire are playing a major part in that, alongside the unitary authorities and the county councils in their own two-tier areas. To omit them from this proposal seems silly. Nowadays, districts do far more than the Government understand and realise, going by much of what is in the Bill.
Amendment 163B is fairly simple. The Bill states that the district council must co-operate with the county council. I merely want it to state that the county council must be reasonable in what it wants the district council to co-operate in, and to insist that it must co-operate when the county council makes a reasonable request, and not any old request that might have nothing to do with the issue in hand—or more likely is onerous.
Lord Patel of Bradford: Amendment 162 would have the effect of making non-unitary district councils principal local authorities in respect of the duty, as well as unitary district councils and county councils. Amendment 163 would require a county council to act jointly with the district council for that area in preparing an economic assessment. These amendments would in effect place a joint duty on the county council and district councils in its area.
We believe that there are clear advantages in having one body in the lead. This makes it easier for local authorities and partners to engage and decide on the scope and use of data and methodology, and to provide clearer lines of accountability.
County councils are already the responsible authorities for developing local area agreements in two-tier areas, working closely with partner authorities, including district councils. Given that local economic assessments will be expected to inform LAAs’ negotiations, it is appropriate for the county council also to lead the preparation of the economic assessment. It is also our view that local economic assessments should reflect the local economic geography as closely as possible. For example, in shire areas economic areas tend to match county boundaries more closely than district council boundaries, which tend to be too small. In that context, it makes greater sense to place the duty on the county council. Devon would be a good example of where the wider functional economy is matched closely to the county boundary. Here the county council leads on sub-regional economic development across the county.
I can assure Members of the Committee that we do not, in any way, under-estimate the vital role districts play in supporting local economic development and
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The Bill requires both tiers to work closely together in preparing their local economic assessment. It strikes the right balance between ensuring that district councils are fully involved and the need to avoid unnecessary burdens. It also provides district councils with an enhanced role in recognition of their important contribution to the assessment. To place a joint duty on district councils and county councils would potentially increase the costs for district councils, which would be an inefficient use of local authority resources. Also, many district councils are not as well resourced as county councils to carry out this type of function.
Amendment 163A tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, would require the county council to have regard to any other material that the district council decides to provide beyond the material produced by it in pursuit of its local planning role. There well may be other material held by the district council that would be of use to the county council in preparing its economic assessment. However, it is neither desirable nor necessary to place an open-ended requirement for the county council to have regard to any material that the district council decides to provide. Beyond the planning function, it is better to leave it to the county council and the district councils to sort out what material may be of use to the county council in preparing its economic assessment.
Amendment 163B would require the district council to co-operate with “reasonable requests” from the county council. We do not believe that this amendment is necessary, as the obligation to co-operate does not require the district council to do anything unreasonable. We are not suggesting that the county council has the power to direct the district council to do anything. We are confident that the county council and district councils can decide between themselves how they could best work together, as they already do in many other spheres. We do not believe that it is necessary for the Government to further prescribe on this issue.
I hope that these assurances I have given—about the requirement on county councils to seek the participation of district councils, on the duty for districts to co-operate, and on our valuing the important role that districts play—address the concerns of Members of the Committee, and that they will understand why I do not think that these amendments are necessary.
Lord Greaves: On my first amendment, the Minister said that we can leave it to the county and district councils to sort out. I would be perfectly happy with that. It is not what the Bill says. It says that the district council gets involved as a planning authority. I accept that planning functions impinge on everything else, but it should get involved as a local authority with all
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The Minister also said that boundaries should be based on economic geography, and there is a lot of sense in that. Very often the county is the economic unit, but it can also be a group of smaller unitary authorities. But it is also true, and here I admit that my experience is very much coloured by my own county of Lancashire, that the economic unit is smaller than a large county. That must be the case for some of the bigger counties in the south as well. For example, in Lancashire it is generally accepted and understood that our economic units are central Lancashire, the Fylde coast in west Lancashire and east Lancashire, now known as Pennine Lancashire. In these areas the districts are traditionally strong because they used to be boroughs or county boroughs and have played a large part in driving economic development. In Burnley, which the noble Lord knows well, the borough council is as important as the county council in the attempt to rescue the local economy from the decline of the past decades. The borough council is the driver behind local projects, not the county council. It is a fact of life in areas like Burnley, and I do not think the Government understand that as well as people on the ground might.
Lord Hanningfield: I thank the Minister for his reply. I tend to agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has said. We may revisit this issue because it does not seem to me that it would take much to give way on it. The present wording is a bit of an insult to districts because it has to be a partnership between the county and the districts, and as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, pointed out, virtually every county runs a different system. In Essex we have areas closely adjacent to London as well as very rural parts in the north of the county. One has to work with the different circumstances of each part of the county.
There is some strong feeling about this, particularly from the LGA. I think that the Government could reconsider the point, and I hope that they might do so before the next stage. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Tope: In moving this amendment I shall speak also to Amendments 162AA, 164A, 164B and 165ZA. This large group contains amendments that are all concerned with the requirement to consult, and we come back to what is now becoming a familiar theme
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Amendment 162ZA makes the requirement to consult permissive rather than prescriptive in subsection (5) so that the principal local authority “may” consult whomsoever it wishes. Of course, it already does so and will continue to do so, but rather than say that it must consult, and then go on at some length about who it must consult—no doubt to be prescribed in guidance—and how it must be done, this should be a permissive measure. If the Government are serious about their light-touch approach, they should accept the amendment.
Amendment 162AA would include parish councils specifically in the Bill. Again, at an earlier stage in our debates we all agreed about the importance of parish councils. This amendment recognises that and ensures that they are included. Either they “must” be consulted or, possibly, they “may” be consulted. Amendment 164A gets into the lists. We went through all this at considerable length on Chapter 2, and here we are again. Amendment 164A specifically adds a police authority, a crime and disorder reduction partnership, a local probation board and a youth offending team.
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