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Session 2008 - 09 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords] |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Mick Hillyard,
Committee Clerk † attended
the Committee Public Bill CommitteeThursday 11 June 2009(Morning)[Mr. David Amess in the Chair]Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]Written evidence to be reported to the HouseLD
03 British Constructional Steelwork
Association LD
04 Heating and Ventilating Contractors’
Association 9.30
am
The
Chairman: Colleagues, to be frank, when we gathered at 9
o’clock—given that everyone made a great effort to be
here despite the transport disruption—I had hoped that we could
have started proceedings at that time. However, I have been advised
that I would have had no power to do so. An uncorrected error in the
printed version of the resolution is responsible for the delay of our
start. The Clerk, who is a good chap, has apologised for the error and
inconvenience caused to colleagues. I say to the Government Whip, as we
are now left with just 55 minutes, that perhaps we might make some sort
of
progress.
Clause 23Duty
of public authorities to secure
involvement Question
(9 June) again proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local
Government (Sarah McCarthy-Fry): I welcome you to the
Chair, Mr. Amess, on this my first outing on the Bill. I
look forward to considering the clauses that fall under my
remit. Before
we finished on Tuesday, the hon. Members for Wycombe and for Falmouth
and Camborne raised questions about the clause and asked for an
explanation of why it is in the
Bill. Mr.
David Curry (Skipton and Ripon) (Con): On a point of
order, Mr. Amess, would the Minister mind moving a couple of
seats to her right, because the light is behind her and it would be
much more pleasant to see her face than to see a black
blur.
The
Chairman: Again, this is an unusual start to proceedings,
but the Clerk has advised me that we are going to adjust the
blinds.
Sarah
McCarthy-Fry: Much as I should love the right hon.
Gentleman to see my face and not a black blur, I am afraid I need the
additional table here for all my bits of paper. I am sure we will sort
something out with the blinds.
To
begin, I will explain the logic behind what we want to achieve with the
clause—[Interruption]—if
anyone is listening. In 2007, we introduced the Local Government and
Public Involvement in Health Act, under which best value authorities
were given a duty to involve. That came into force from April this
year. There has been a positive response to that, and local authorities
welcomed the duty to involve. Many already do so as part of their usual
duties, and are keen to increase the level of involvement as a
result.
The duty to
involve is not stand-alone legislation. On considering how to take
forward community empowerment, we took the new local performance
framework that we were introducing as our starting point. It became
increasingly obvious that to be most effective, the duty ought also to
apply to partner organisations that are under a duty to co-operate with
councils to agree local performance targets—namely, local area
agreements. The proposal was discussed and agreed with the relevant
partner organisations; we subsequently announced, in the
“Communities in control” White Paper, our intention to
extend the duty to involve to those organisations.
We will also
add the new Homes and Communities Agency to ensure that principles of
involvement apply to it. Since we have established that agency, it,
too, has a duty to agree local performance targets with the local
authority.
The clause
seeks to place a duty to involve on a wider set of authorities. It
represents a simple, logical extension of the local community’s
ability to have its say, and to be informed about and become involved
in a wider range of local services, as
appropriate. The
question was asked why this list is not the same as the duty to promote
democracy list. It is not a question of having the same lists; it is a
different process. This list is for those partner organisations that
form part of the duty to co-operate and part of the local area
agreement.
The hon.
Member for Falmouth and Camborne asked whether subsection (4)(a) gives
an authority any powers. The clause is worded to mean that new duty
does not grant a public authority any new powers; it is intended to
exist alongside other statutory duties. It does not enable authorities
to pass on duties or responsibilities to another body beyond any powers
set out in legislation governing that authority. With that explanation,
I hope we can agree that the clause should stand part of the
Bill. Question
put, That the clause stand part of the
Bill:— The
Committee divided: Ayes 8, Noes
7.
Division
No.
21] AYESNOESQuestion
accordingly agreed to.
Clause 23
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause 24Duty
of public authorities to secure involvement:
guidance Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
Mr.
Paul Goodman (Wycombe) (Con): It is a pleasure to see you
in the Chair, Mr. Amess. The only person who spotted the
printing error was the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne, who did
not think it was a printing error and came in at 9 o’clock in
any event, so there we
are. I
also welcome the Minister, who will be hoping that the passage of this
Bill through Committee is easier than that of the last Bill with which
she was engaged. I say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton
and Ripon that the Minister would be unwise to move her place, because
apparently, Ministers are sometimes reliant on sources of inspiration.
I am never going to be a Minister, sadly, so I do not know, but it is
unwise for a Minister to separate herself too far from those
sources. This
clause, which seeks to give guidance, would ordinarily be inoffensive,
but as it contains the words to which clause 23 applies, for which we
did not care, we do not care for this clause,
either.
Sarah
McCarthy-Fry: The arguments that were made in relation to
clause 23 apply to this one, if that is the reason why the Opposition
are opposing it.
Question
put, That the clause stand part of the
Bill:— The
Committee divided: Ayes 8, Noes
7.
Division
No.
22] AYESNOESQuestion
accordingly agreed to.
Clause 24
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause 25Establishment
and assistance of bodies representing tenants
etc Mr.
Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con): I beg to move
amendment 26, in
clause 25, page 16, line 36, leave
out paragraph
(b).
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following: amendment 27, in clause 25, page 16, line 40,
leave out paragraph (b).
Amendment
28, in
clause 25, page 17, line 3, leave
out paragraph
(b). Clause
stand
part.
Mr.
Jackson: After a faltering start, it is great to be back
on the second day of the Bill. I welcome the Minister to her place. I
do not have a problem with her sitting there, because, with the sun
coming up, she looks positively
angelic.
The
amendment is cunningly disguised as a probing amendment. Conservative
members of the Committee feel that there was not sufficient debate in
the other place on financial provision for tenant representative
bodies. The specific questions that my noble Friend Baroness Warsi put
to the Minister, Baroness Andrews, and others were not properly
addressed. There
is a wider issue about this clause. We have heard that, in many
respects, the Bill contains the fag ends that could not be put in other
Bills. As the appropriate Minister advised us, part 8, on construction
contracts, should have been a separate Bill in the same legislative
programme. It is not and instead, it was tacked on to the end of this
Bill. In the same way, this clause should more properly have been
included in the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008, which I was
privileged to be involved with on Report and Third
Reading. The
clause seems to be out of place, and there are issues with the
definitions in it. There has been some debate about the concept of
“other residential property”, and whether it is right in
the Bill to give carte blanche financial responsibility not only to the
representation of social tenants and the functions of the organisation
set up in their name, but to the tenants of social housing in other
residential property in
England. In
Committee in the other place on 3 February, Baroness Warsi
asked: “Once
the Secretary of State has provided the money, who will spend it? What
will it be spent on? Who will account for it, and to whom? I will be
grateful if the Minister will explain the meaning of the words
“financial assistance” so that we can read the
explanation”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3
February 2009; Vol. 707, c.
GC151.] The
terminology used in the clause is too wide, and on that basis,
we do not feel predisposed towards supporting
it. Mr.
Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab): As the hon.
Gentleman played some part in the passage of the 2008 Act, he will
presumably understand that the provision of social and affordable
housing embraces a range of different landlords and different types of
housing, including intermediate rent and what would traditionally be
seen as social housing. Is he seriously suggesting that we should have
a rigid distinction that limits the tenant voice solely to those people
defined as living in traditional social housing, and that others in the
more widespread tenure options that are rightly being developed should
be
excluded?
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