Localism Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has had a long, distinguished and occasionally challenging career—and I say that as someone who served on the same authority for 20 years. I put two points to him. First, would he agree with me that almost everywhere else in Europe, unlike in this country, the principle of subsidiarity refers to the most local level of government—that is, local government— at which a good decision can be taken or policy made? Localism based on community groups and neighbourhoods that are self-forming and sometimes self-selecting are not a version of subsidiarity under the widely used European term. Secondly, the noble Lord referred to people in the locality and the difficulty of decisions being made above the locality level. How would he envisage that working? I cite two issues to do with planning from my experience in local government. In the 1980s, long-stay mental hospitals were being replaced by local hostels for people to be reintegrated into the community. I faced ferocious public meetings with people who were absolutely determined that it would not happen in their backyard. It was an extremely difficult decision, made worse by the sadness in Ribbleton of three of the people who had spoken out publicly against such hostels coming to me privately and telling me that members of their families had been locked away for decades. The second planning issue involved a hostel for former prisoners around the corner from where I lived. If the localism that seems to be implicit in this legislation had applied, they would not have had it, and I cannot think of any other community that would have welcomed the proposal. An absolutely ferocious public meeting was held. I was the only member of the planning committee who had given approval to it and who was present at that meeting. It was verbally nasty. When I was out with my children, I was threatened with a beer bottle by a member of the public who had been at the meeting and had been drinking. At the end of the meeting a ferocious woman in a hat bore down on my husband and said, ““Is she your wife—can’t you keep her under control?”” That sort of public meeting and those sorts of services are the most intractable. They are very difficult unless a decision and delineation are made so that the general good and the needs of smaller groups can be protected. I know from his background that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, would sympathise with the need for the provision of both those services for ex-prisoners and former long-stay patients.