Sustainable Communities Bill

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. I regard it as a privilege to be able to move the Second Reading of this Bill, which was taken through another place with such determination and skill by my honourable friend Nick Hurd. I start by congratulating all those who have worked together to get the Bill this far. First, its main architect was Ron Bailey of the campaigning organisation Local Works. Secondly, it had widespread cross-party support, with more than 400 Members of Parliament, including more than half of the Parliamentary Labour Party, signing Early-Day Motions in favour of such action. Many national organisations have already spoken out in support. Let me quickly mention just a few: the Local Government Association, nearly 1,000 parish councillors and their umbrella organisation, NALCO, the Countryside Alliance, the CLA, NCVO, Age Concern, Help the Aged, the Scouts and the British Youth Council. Perhaps I should first declare my interest as the chairman of Marlesford Parish Council, president of the Suffolk Preservation Society and a vice-president of CPRE. I have been concerned with the sustainability of rural England and Wales for many years, having served during the 1980s and 1990s on the Countryside Commission for 12 years and the Rural Development Commission for eight years. The campaign started as a result of Ghost Town Britain, a study by the New Economics Foundation which charted the decline of local shops, post offices, pubs, services and communities. The report demonstrates social exclusion, in particular. Many other reports have backed it up: High Street Britain 2015, published by the All-Party Parliamentary Small Shops Group and Stamped Out, by Age Concern, to name but two. I am sorry to say that during the past 10 years, rural areas in this country have felt neglected and ignored. There were real signs that that was changing with the arrival of Mr Miliband at Defra, and especially with the arrival of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who is so very respected in this House. I am reasonably confident that Mr Hilary Benn, who has taken over from Mr Miliband, will continue the new tradition. The Bill offers the Government the chance of a real shift of influence from the centre to the grass roots, so I am very glad that the Government are endorsing the Bill. That was the starting point. Then the campaign had to take a view on what we were seeking to achieve in place of ghost town Britain. The answer must be sustainable communities. Bearing in mind our starting point, that clearly meant the reversal of the decline in local economies, services and communities highlighted in the reports that I mentioned. But sustainable, healthy communities should also be environmentally sustainable. They should be inclusive and encourage citizen participation; otherwise they will not be sustainable as communities. Hence, the four limbs were: promoting local economic activity, the environment, social inclusion, and citizen involvement. What is certain is that this problem will continue unless action is taken to stop it. Let me give a real example: supermarkets in rural areas. There have been individual campaigns against supermarkets and their effects on communities and some have been successful. By way of illustration I will tell your Lordships about a campaign in Suffolk to prevent Tesco from opening another superstore in rural countryside near Saxmundham only 12 miles from the Tesco superstore which already existed at Martlesham. It was led by Caroline Cranbrook who has done so much nationally to encourage the sale of locally produced food. Lady Cranbrook interviewed 81 local shops, most of which would have closed if the supermarket had been built. The Suffolk Coastal District Council looked at the retailing need and refused Tesco planning permission. The company appealed and then withdrew in the middle of the appeal. Meanwhile, Paul Thomas, who previously ran a pub in London, opened a farm café in Marlesford entirely based on local food, including fish from the local coastal waters, which has won national acclaim for some of the best meals in such establishments. I hope some of your Lordships may visit it. The overall picture, however, is of the trends of ghost town Britain increasing and that evidence is overwhelming. Local authorities and local communities can and should play an important role in promoting the sustainability of local communities but the problem is so serious that government cannot leave it to individuals, communities or even local authorities. There are ways in which government can help—I emphasise the word ““help””, not ““dictate””—to stop and reverse the problems. There are things that only government can do, as well as things they should do, as well as ways in which government can help to enable the actions of councils and communities. Those government actions must not be ad hoc or done on a whim; they must be properly thought out and co-ordinated. So do we act top-down or bottom-up? The campaign’s oft-stated view is that councils and communities are the experts in their own problems and the solutions are for them and not for Whitehall. The Prime Minister and the previous Prime Minister seem to agree. Mr Blair said in his party conference speech last year: "““People want power in their own hands … and won’t accept a service handed down from on high. They want to shape it to their needs, and the reality of their lives””." As our present Prime Minister said just a year ago: "““Just as in the last century governments had to take power from vested interests in the interests of communities, in the new century people and communities should now take power from the state and that means ... I want a radical shift of power from the centre””." Mr Phil Woolas, the Minister who took the Bill through the Commons, said in his brief to the PLP on 26 March this year: "““We firmly believe that it is for local people and their elected representatives to determine how best to ensure that their community is sustainable””." If the Government believe that, they will trust local people and their councils who must now get into the driving seat. Let me explain clause by clause how the Bill will work. Clause 1 concerns the sustainability of local communities. It defines the principal aim of the Bill, which is to promote that sustainability. Promoting the sustainability of local communities is defined as encouraging the improvement of the economic, social and environmental well-being of a local authority, or part of its area. Subsection (4) clearly states that it is the duty of Government to assist local authorities to achieve this. It recognises that local authorities need help in achieving local sustainability but do not want more imposed duties from central government. Clause 2 requires the Government to approach all local councils and invite them to put forward suggestions on how to improve the sustainability of their communities. In making suggestions, local authorities must have regard to 13 different matters in the schedule to the Bill that have been selected by tens of thousands of people as important for local sustainability. In the Bill, local councils mean county councils, district councils and London borough councils. In some ways, I regret that they do not mean parish councils, which are the real grass roots of local government. However, I recognise that already more than 400 councils would be consulted, and good local authorities do in general consult parish councils on many matters, particularly planning applications. I am therefore confident that, under the terms of the Bill, parish councils will be able to make effective representations on matters that affect their communities. Clause 2(2) and (3) enable local councils to request a transfer of functions from one person or body to another to promote local sustainability. This will allow local authorities to identify existing sources of money for local matters, to propose how that money could be spent differently, and, if they so choose, how it could be used to switch resources to what local people find more important. If a particular road in a local authority area is managed by the Highways Agency and the local authority believes, on the ground of improved sustainability as laid out in the schedule, that it could manage it better, it could request from the Secretary of State a transfer function from the Highways Agency to the local authority. Clause 3 deals with how local authorities’ proposals will be dealt with and presented to government, and with the process by which government decide which proposals to action. It requires the Secretary of State to appoint a person known as the selector, who will act as a representative on behalf of local authorities. The selector’s role will be to consider all the proposals made by the various local authorities under Clause 2, and to work in co-operation with the Secretary of State to put them into a shortlist. Having someone to act on behalf of local authorities is clearly simpler than the Government themselves having to co-operate with 400-plus local authorities on a case-by-case basis. There was general agreement in another place that the selector would be the Local Government Association. Once the shortlist is presented to the Secretary of State, the Secretary of State must decide which proposals to implement from the shortlist and, in so doing, must work with the selector to try to reach agreement. The presumption here is on the implementation of local community and council proposals. The duty to co-operate in subsection (1) and the necessity not only to consult but to try to reach agreement is a new and vital part of legislation. Its purpose is to ensure that there are genuine attempts to reach agreement. That goes much further than consultation often does when the consulter has to show only that suggestions were considered. The selector must represent the interests of local authorities. As I said, it is envisaged that this will be the Local Government Association, which has already been approached and has agreed in principle to carry out this function. Clause 4 requires the Government to publish their decisions on the proposals in the shortlist in Clause 3, giving reasons why each proposal has been accepted or rejected. All proposals that the Government have decided to implement must be published in an action plan, with each proposal accompanied by a statement of action stating how the Government intend to implement it. The clause therefore sets out the national framework to be implemented by government to help to improve the sustainability of local communities, with the contents of the plan and subsequent government action being driven from the grass roots. The requirement to publish an explanation of the decisions taken on which proposals to implement or reject introduces transparency and accountability into the process. This is further enhanced by subsection (4), in which the Government have a duty to report every year to Parliament on the progress being made in implementing the proposals in the action plan. Clause 5 requires the Government to implement a set of regulations that must be followed in regard to approaching councils for proposals on improving local sustainability and in drawing up a shortlist of those proposals as defined in Clauses 2 and 3. Subsections (1) and (2) deal with the requirement for the Government to publish such regulations and in so doing to consult the selector and any other bodies that represent local authorities in drawing up the regulations. Subsection (3) suggests guidance on what the regulations may contain surrounding the procedures that local authorities should take prior to making proposals and the procedures that the selector must follow in drawing up a shortlist and reporting to the Government. The most important part of the clause is in subsections (4) and (5), which state that the regulations must contain a duty on local authorities to involve all sections of society and to obtain their views and to try to reach agreement on proposals to improve local sustainability prior to submitting their report on proposals to the selector. That ensures that the process is truly devolutionary, capturing the ideas and the suggestions of local people. Subsection (4) will try to achieve that by a mechanism of local citizens’ panels to consult and try to reach agreement on any proposal put forward. Clause 6 requires the Government or the person they see fit to appoint to provide local spending reports that give a detailed breakdown of all the money spent by the Government and their agencies in local government areas. The purpose of the clause is simply to open up the books and for the first time enable both local authorities and communities to have a clear picture of how government money is spent in their area. That will enable greater transparency and accountability at the local level and also enable councils to identify areas where a transfer of function in Clause 2 would be most appropriate in promoting local sustainability. Prior to the production of any local spending reports the Government must first consult any persons or bodies that are likely to be affected by the compiling of the reports. Clause 7 deals with sustainable community strategy. For the purposes of standardising all legislation that deals with local communities and sustainability, this clause enables the Government to amend current and any possible future legislation that makes reference to a term ““community strategy”” so that it can be amended to be ““sustainable community strategy””. Clause 9 provides for money to be made available from Parliament for the Government to fulfil their obligations under the Bill. Clause 10 sets out the Short Title. The Act will be known as the Sustainable Communities Act 2007. It also defines the geographical and political extent of the Act. The Act does not extend to Scotland and Northern Ireland for the obvious reason that for a Bill that so clearly proposes the devolution of power it would be inappropriate to extend that to Scotland and Northern Ireland, which already have their devolved rights. I am glad that the Bill so closely follows the Prime Minister’s approach. I note that his consultation paper, The Governance of Britain, published only last week, says: "““The evidence suggests that if people feel their efforts will be rewarded by real change in their communities, they will be willing to step forward””." I entirely agree with that and I suggest that the Bill is based on a philosophy that is now accepted by the three main political parties in Britain. The Bill may therefore be the first piece of legislation to receive Royal Assent that will help to implement one of our new Prime Minister’s priorities for action. I commend the Bill to the House. Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Marlesford.)