| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
A local spending report is a report on expenditure by such authorities, in such areas, and over such a period as are determined in accordance with arrangements made by the Secretary of State. The duty was put on the Secretary of State to provide the information. The authorities may be a local authority, a government department or any other person exercising public functions. The area must be one or more local authority areas, one or more parts of a local authority area, or a combination of those.
Providing information about these things in this way is a major, new challenge, and it is complex. We were very keen to see some discretion in the Act as it went through because of that complexity and the need to be flexible. We have been working across the department and with key stakeholders from other departments, such as the Audit Commission and the LGA, to map out what information is currently available. I shall be frank that this has taken longer than we thought. We had originally planned to consult in 2008, but it has proved more complex than we initially expected. We are now at the point where we are preparing to run a consultation on what it is proposed will be provided in the first tranche of information about expenditure about local authorities. The idea is that the first arrangements will be the first tranche of information about expenditure, which will go to every local authority, which the Secretary of State is required to do. The consultation will be on whether we have got it right, whether it is the right sort of information and so on.
That is the first stage. We are planning to do it in two stages. There will be one document, and we will try to bring that forward as fast as possible. We will certainly do that before 23 April. Then there will be a longer stage, when we will consult on the longer-term arrangements.
That brings me to the amendment. The intention behind local spending reports, as the noble Baroness knows, because she was heavily involved in the passage of the Act—I was not involved, for reasons that escape me at the moment; maybe I was doing the Housing Bill or something—is to promote the sustainability of local communities by providing access to information about the public funding that is available in local areas. The aim is to inform local authorities’ consultations with local people and to enhance the operation of the new LAAs by ensuring that there is greater accountability and transparency, so that local authorities, their partners and communities can take more informed decisions about priorities and sustainability.
We need to ensure that local spending reports are closely linked with the regular and accessible information on local services that we have committed to providing.
9 Feb 2009 : Column GC275
The important thing is that the documents reflect a true picture of what is going on and can anticipate what is likely to happen; so they have got to be able to adapt to future policy. We want to make sure that they can do that over time. I hope that is sufficient to update noble Lords about where we are, what they can expect in the next few months and how we see the documents evolving over time.
Baroness Hamwee: I will not attempt to extend the discussion on this, but it will be useful for those outside the Committee who have been asking about it to see the Government’s response. It may be that we will want to come back to knitting the Sustainable Communities Act more closely into this legislation. The noble Baroness said that a short statute is not necessarily easy to implement. I cannot resist saying that a long one is not necessarily easy either. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
165A: Clause 65, page 44, line 21, at end insert “to be established by the responsible regional authorities as specified in section 67”
Lord Hanningfield: I shall speak also to Amendment 165B. We have talked a lot about consultation on economic strategy, but these amendments concern how the RDA would consult on the regional strategy. I shall go back to several points I made at the beginning of the Committee sitting today. We have had these debates before, and on the last occasion planning powers were given to regional assemblies. They are now being removed from those bodies, which at least had elected members, and given to the RDAs, which might have one or two elected members, but even then they will have been appointed to the agency. Given that, we want it to be absolutely clear who the RDAs are going to consult with and take notice of in constructing the regional strategies.
We are not sure where the economic assessments we considered earlier relate to all this, but every type of authority within each region has a particular type of power. We talked about how district councils have a local government framework structure that includes planning and housing powers, while county councils have highway powers, some responsibility for education, care for the elderly, park authorities and particularly environmental concerns. It is not clear, but this provision might remove county councils from consultation on the regional strategy.
9 Feb 2009 : Column GC276
We went through much of this when we considered the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill in 2004, led by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. In fact, we defeated the Government several times in the House on the list of people to be consulted, and county councils were returned to the list. It seems ridiculous not to consult county councils when they have the powers I have just outlined.
We have talked at length about not building too much into the Bill, and I endorse that again. However, this is something that should be in the legislation. If a non-elected body is going to draw up the regional strategy, even in partnership with leaders’ boards, which we shall talk about later, we should make certain that the regional authority consults with the right people—the democratically elected people in the region—to ensure that they have a real input into creating the regional strategy. I beg to move.
Baroness Andrews: This is the first debate on the implications of the regional structures, but I will save my longer contextual speaking note until we come to the later group because that will allow us to have something of a clause stand part debate. However, I have not forgotten the main points the noble Lord made in his remarks earlier this afternoon. I shall deal specifically with the two amendments before us.
Amendment 165A specifies that the regional strategy is established by the responsible regional authorities. I think that the meaning of the word “establish” is unclear. A key part of our proposals is to embed stronger democratic accountability throughout the entire process of preparing the regional strategy. That is why the Bill establishes a genuinely collaborative approach between RDAs and local authorities in the drafting of regional strategies to achieve the objectives. It has buy-in from local authorities, communities, business and other stakeholders. The leaders’ board will be comprised of local authority leaders with sufficient authority to act on behalf of all local government in the region. Together with the RDA they will have joint responsibility for the regional strategy: drafting, implementation and monitoring.
However, there will obviously be others who also have a key role. The whole set of professional staff employed by the RDA and leaders’ boards will lead the process, but the reality is that local authorities, and particularly planning and economic development departments, hold much of the evidence and local knowledge that will go into the development of the strategy. Communities and stakeholders will therefore be vital contributors, including business, community groups and so on. Government agencies will be vital, because government make such a major investment in major infrastructure, such as transport or flood defence. Of course, the Government are responsible for much of the investment underpinning the delivery of these strategies. Many of these roles are set out in subsequent clauses, and we will debate them as we come to them. The effect of the probing amendment would essentially be to duplicate that.
The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield did not speak to Amendment 172. I do not know if it is listed in this group.
9 Feb 2009 : Column GC277
Lord Hanningfield: I would be grateful if you would speak to it.
Baroness Andrews: I shall give the noble Lord the answer that I would have given. This is the proposition that the leaders’ board must approve the regional strategy. We will come on to a discussion of the powers of the Secretary of State, how they are positioned in the Bill and why they are there.
We have established a model in the Bill, based on extensive consultation over the past two years. The leaders’ board and RDA must jointly agree a draft regional strategy, which then has to be approved by the Secretary of State. In practice, the RDA and leaders’ board each have a joint veto because they each have to agree with each other. The amendment would give the leaders’ board a veto over the Secretary of State if they chose not to approve the strategy with amendments from the Secretary of State. As I will say later, however, the Secretary of State has a responsibility to ensure that the regional strategies in place reflect regional priorities but are in line with national government policy and deliverable—for example, that they reflect the resources available. Ultimately, if something is not deliverable, it is meaningless and there is no point in having a “strategy”. If the amendment is included, therefore, there is a high risk of regional strategies simply ending in deadlock. We cannot afford that situation, which this arrangement is designed to avoid.
On the important point of consultation, Amendment 165B requires the responsible regional authorities to consult all local authorities in a region before establishing the regional strategy. Amendment 175B, which, again, has not been spoken to, but which I shall address—
Baroness Hamwee: I apologise. I was confused by the last-minute changes in groupings. However, what the noble Lord said on 165B was probably quite an adequate introduction.
Baroness Andrews: I appreciate the confusion over groupings. We are handling some complex groupings in this part of the Bill, so I quite understand.
Both amendments ask the Government to give assurances that local authorities will be properly included. Amendment 175B would require every local authority in the region to be included in the statement of community involvement, which sets out policies on those who need to be involved in the preparation of the regional strategy. I reassure the noble Lord and noble Baroness that I have total sympathy with what they are seeking to establish. It is important that the right people are consulted, and that they have the maximum opportunity to inform the strategies. It is inconceivable that the list of those who have an interest in the development of a regional strategy would not include local authorities, not least because their plans will have to be in general conformity with the strategy.
5.15 pm
Secondly, we set out in the policy document that we published a few weeks ago that, as well as a general requirement to consult and engage, we will set out in regulations a more detailed list of specific bodies that must be consulted. Clearly, I am happy that we will
9 Feb 2009 : Column GC278
of the region in the case of the regional strategy. I hope that gives sufficient clarity and assurance.
I also emphasise again that, by giving the joint duty to develop the regional strategy to the LA leaders’ board, we have really put local authorities into the driving seat. When we debate this, I will be able to provide evidence for noble Lords about the way in which local authorities in the regions are responding positively to that. For all those reasons, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Hanningfield: Perhaps I should ask a question first, because we are going to have a long discussion on regional strategy. What do the Government expect to get out of a regional strategy? In London it is difficult, but you can have a London strategy. You can have a strategy around Manchester or Birmingham. In the large regions, such as the eastern region, which I am part of, or the south-east region, the strategies that we have been trying to work out over the past few years have not worked at all. If the Government want housing numbers, they have gone about it totally the wrong way. It would be much better to involve smaller groups of authorities, as we talked about earlier.
This seems to be a whole bureaucratic nightmare, and nothing is ever going to be achieved out of it, because the regions are so disparate and have such different problems. At this stage, will the noble Baroness tell us why the Government are doing it? It seems totally unnecessary, it will create a lot of bureaucracy and it will cost a lot of money. RDAs spend a lot of that money now, but they have a lot of staff. I am not talking against the staff of the eastern region. They have around £200 million to spend and around 200 members of staff. If you shared that around the local authorities, we could spend that money rather better on economic development and regeneration for about 10 members of staff. That is honestly true.
What do the Government expect to achieve out of this? We will go through the debate later about regional strategies, leaders’ boards and everything else. It would be better to leave it to elected members in elected authorities to work together to solve these problems, rather than creating this tremendous bureaucratic nightmare of having strategies all over the place. Are they going to deliver anything?
Baroness Andrews: I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me if I answer his absolutely pertinent question in the context of the beginning of the next debate. When we debate the clause standing part, I will be able to answer the question at more length than I can at the moment. I will draw on some of the words that have been put to me by both regional and local leaders about why the current system—he has said so frankly this afternoon—is not working.
Lord Hanningfield: Could the Minister think about how it will have to be different? The old county structure plan actually delivered things. Everything
9 Feb 2009 : Column GC279
Baroness Andrews: Very briefly, certainly local government has evolved, but not even Essex is sufficient unto itself.
Baroness Andrews: I know that this is a shocking thing to say; perhaps it should not even be reported. The point is that Essex sits within a region that is now as much the victim and the master of globalisation as every other region in the country. There are choices to be made. Housing is a particularly sensitive area—it is a particular issue in Essex for different reasons—but all our regions are facing different challenges from the ones that they faced when the old counties were so triumphant. One issue is climate change, which affects how we plan for transport, the movement of people, where people work as well as where they live, how we manage our environment and the balance between rural and urban areas. All those issues, and many more, cannot be contained within the most efficient authority in the world. The regions have a much more important role to play.
Lord Hanningfield: That is why I very much support MAAs. I hate taking Essex as an example all the time, but it must work with London and the London boroughs, particularly those that were part of Essex such as Havering, Redbridge and even Enfield. It must also work with the ring road authorities around the M25, so we have to work with Buckinghamshire and Surrey because of the expansion of the M25. As I said earlier, there is also the Thames Gateway, which means Kent and London, and the Haven gateway, which means Suffolk. We also have the M11 corridor, which means Hertfordshire.
As much as I love them, we do not need to work with North Norfolk or Cambridgeshire. It is just ridiculous. To a certain extent, the RDA has been slightly dominated by Norfolk, so it has been totally alien to us. I have nothing against it—no doubt they are all very good people—but it would have been much better to work with the people with whom we have a day-to-day existence. As leader, I have to talk about London and the Thames Gateway; I do not have to talk about what has happened in North Norfolk or the fen district in Cambridgeshire. It would be much better if we could talk about housing strategies, economic strategies and highways with the people with whom we have a day-to-day existence.
Baroness Andrews: I shall reply very briefly; we will have a debate that is far too long in a moment. On the Liberal Benches, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for
9 Feb 2009 : Column GC280
Lord Greaves: I am not challenging the need for sub-regional arrangements at all; I am challenging the top-down, autocratic and centralising way in which the Government are going about it.
Baroness Andrews: It is a contradiction in terms Those arrangements can be driven only by the regions and the sub-regions, otherwise they simply will not work.
We must address the potential inequalities in the regions and manage and avoid failure as well as mobilise success. All our regions are very complex in different ways, but if we are to secure the sort of investment and the skills that we need, and if we are to deal with the massive changes that there will be in our economies—we have seen huge shocks in our economy in the past six months—we will have to have exactly the sort of arrangements that are obviously working very well in Essex with all its sub-regional partners. However, we also need a regional vision and a process to ensure that we can address the inequalities across regions as well as mobilise potential. These are long-term plans; they are not plans that will suffice for the next five years.
Lord Hanningfield: We had a bit of a debate there. As I said, I very much supported the government initiative for a sub-regional strategy, but the regional strategy seems to be creating a lot more bureaucracy and giving the RDAs much more power. That is why we have a lot of problems with the Bill, which will continue.
I always believe in flexibility. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said—I heard the Minister say this herself—that these systems should be flexible. If we are not careful, we will create a fairly inflexible system. If we could see more flexibility in what the Government were creating, it might work. I am sure that we will have lots of debates on this area before we finish. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
165C: Clause 65, page 44, line 22, at end insert—
“( ) policies in relation to the spatial strategy for the region,”
Baroness Hamwee: In moving Amendment 165C, I shall speak also to Amendments 165E, 166B, 177F, 182ZA, 182ZB and 182ZC in this large group. I will not intentionally anticipate the introductions of other Members of the Committee to their amendments. The exchange that we have just had—in particular, the quite extemporary comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, and the response from the noble Lord, Lord Greaves—has already encapsulated some
9 Feb 2009 : Column GC281
Amendment 165C concerns spatial planning. The objective of Part 5 is to move spatial and economic strategies closer. I am concerned about the diminishing role of spatial planning at a regional or sub-regional level. We have heard that this is intended for the long term, but the 2004 Act was only five years ago and the sections in that Act on spatial strategic planning are to be repealed. In a separate group, we will debate the terms “sustainable development”, “sustainable economic growth” and so on. But I understood regional spatial strategies to have been designed to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development in all its aspects and to be the balance to which we always refer.
Under Clause 65(2) spatial policies are listed second. Clause 65(2)(b) uses the same terminology as the 2004 Act, so the word “spatial” does not appear. Members of the Committee will understand what I mean. “Sustainable economic growth” is the first objective under Clause 65(2)(a). Clause 65(6) reverses the order, but it gives no clue as to whether it is intended that only the parts of the regional spatial strategy which promote economic growth are to be retained.
Spatial planning concerns matters such as character and identity. I have seen the term “legibility” used, as well as the quality of the public realm, the use of movement, diversity and so on. On other occasions, Members of the Committee have talked much of place shaping, which does not stop at the boundary of the principal local authority. Planning and urban policy should facilitate sustainable development through detailed understanding of the characteristics of different places and economic centres within economic regions and the sub-regions.
I have tabled this amendment because I would like the Government to justify what I see as a move from the balance inherent in sustainable development to economic growth. I accept that we are not in a good state economically, but I do not believe that that justifies a focus on economic growth, possibly to the exclusion in all practical terms of all other considerations. Does it justify the role that regional development agencies will have in planning, rather than there being a separate regional spatial strategy? Combining the spatial and economic pieces of work carries the danger that the two will be conflated. I do not see that it will be possible to keep them separate, but I am concerned about there being an expectation that economic considerations will override all others. That would be bad in the long term, bad environmentally, bad socially and, indeed, bad economically.
5.30 pm
| Next Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |