Localism Bill

I fear that the Bill is a hotch-potch of unco-ordinated policies, as Labour Front Benchers have said, and it will not deliver a strengthened voluntary and community sector. It will instead deliver punitive sanctions on those least able to stand up to them, particularly in the area of housing. I know that from experience in my local authority of Hammersmith and Fulham, which is doted on by the Secretary of State and Ministers. As mentioned previously, that council was said to have showed the way by merging backroom services and cutting senior salaries rather than making front-line cuts. I urge the Secretary of State to look at the budget for the next three years, which last week was published—or sneaked out, I should say—by the council. Less than 1% of cuts will come from mergers with other councils, as was trumpeted, and less than 1% will come from cuts in senior salaries. Yet fully 50%—more than £13 million in the first year—will come from cuts in children's services and adult social services, including the closure of most Sure Start centres. The Mail on Sunday reported just before Christmas that one officer in Hammersmith and Fulham has been paid £1,000 a day for three years—£700,000 paid into a private business run by that single officer, which is more than all the other cuts in senior management put together. That has been described as ““good value for money”” by the Conservative council. Since this officer's job is the systematic demolition of council estates in the borough and the redevelopment of needed community assets, I suppose that the Conservative council would think that that was good value for money, but I wonder whether that is what the Secretary of State meant by looking at high salaries. Three aspects of the Bill have been greeted by hollow laughter by my constituents. One is the community right to challenge. What local organisations taking over community assets means in Hammersmith and Fulham is that all the money is withdrawn, the staff are sacked and in some cases the premises are sold—Sure Start centres and libraries, for example. Then the community is told, ““If you want to run these centres on your own behalf with no money from the council, and sometimes with no premises, then go ahead””. That is called the big society. As for assets of community value, what use is that policy if there is no right of first refusal and no support from the council? What we have seen in Hammersmith is a fire sale of all community buildings—buildings in which literally hundreds of voluntary sector organisations operate. I heard just this morning that Palingswick house in the middle of Hammersmith—a building that 22 active local voluntary groups have made their home for many years—is to be sold off to open a free school for children from outside the borough. Nobody in the constituency has asked for that. The same is true of the Irish cultural centre in Hammersmith, of Shepherd's Bush village hall and the Sands End centre. Those are vibrant and successful community assets and there is no opportunity for the local community to continue to run them. As for neighbourhood planning, almost every planning scheme is a joint venture between the council and a developer. In order to build new luxury offices for councillors and senior officers, we have 15-storey tower blocks along the riverside on the site of a community cinema and homes provided by the Pocklington trust for people with visual impairments. The 100-year-old Shepherd's Bush market is being destroyed to make way for luxury housing. The air rights relating to the car park of an old people's home in my constituency are being sold to a private school, which means that no light will reach the old people, but it will make £200,000 or so for the council. Furthermore, in west Kensington the right of local people to take over their own estate, provided by legislation that the Government claim to support, is being vetoed by the council so that a private developer can demolish 750 good-quality council homes in one of the largest developments in the country. I wish that I had more time in which to talk about the impact on my constituents' housing: about the lack of security of tenure, and about the lack of a duty in relation to homeless people.