Localism Bill

My Lords, I apologise for falling asleep; it is these Zs all over the place which are doing it. I am not speaking to Amendment 130ZD, which I missed. However, Amendment 133ZN has exactly the same meaning. I was going to apologise for putting down the same amendment twice in the group but it seems that that was providential. I certainly have a great deal of sympathy and support for what the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, has just said. We put down amendments to take out the reference to employees not because we do not think that in appropriate circumstances it is a good idea for employees to take over running the services for which they are employed, but because we are not at all convinced that this Bill is the best place to legislate for employee buy-outs, employee buy-ins, employee takeovers or whatever. They do not quite fit with the concept of the community—however the community or somebody in the community is defined—making a challenge and saying, ““We can run this service. Can we have a go please?””. Employees are very different in that sense as they represent the producer side of the service rather than the consumer side and, clearly, if consumers or citizens or residents take over a service, they become producers as well. Equally, employees can make the same journey in the other direction. However, it is different and some of the amendments put forward from over the way have shown that if you are going to do it properly you may need different sorts of structures and organisations and to some extent a different legal framework. Things such as worker co-operatives are very different from an organisation in the community taking over running a park or something more ambitious. There is also the question of how an expression of interest from employees will be measured by the council when it comes to procurement against alternative expressions of interest from the community or wherever. What is the basis for competition? Is it possible to set up competition on a fair basis when you have people so entrenched in the organisation and already running it? On the other hand, are they put at a disadvantage by being set against, perhaps, commercial organisations which may want to come in and take advantage of the procurement process? Perhaps it might be better if it were done on a separate and clearly understood basis run independently from the community process. It would be interesting to hear the Government’s views on that. Amendment 131ZB to Clause 68(5) refers to the definition of a relevant body. It is just a small question of definition. It says that the Secretary of State may specify in regulations, inevitably, "““such other person or body””." The amendment suggests it should read ““category of bodies””; perhaps ““category and classes of persons and bodies”” might have been better. It reads at the moment as if it is referring to a particular person or body, which I do not think it means. Surely it should refer to categories or classes of people and bodies. Amendment 131B probes the question of whether and how a voluntary body can make a surplus. It relates to Clause 68(7) and the text at the moment reads: "““The fact that a body’s activities generate a surplus does not prevent it from being a voluntary body for the purposes of subsection (5) so long as that surplus is used for the purposes of those activities or invested in the community””." We are not quite sure what, "““the purposes of those activities””," really means here and we suggest that a phrase such as, "““for the benefit of the community””," might be better since we are talking about voluntary bodies—I think and hope—which operate in a particular area. That leads on to Amendment 131C to Clause 68(8) and the definition of a community body. It says that a community body means, "““a body that carries on activities primarily for the benefit of the community””." Our amendment would add,"““wholly or partly in the area in which the relevant service is provided””." Again, this is a question for the Government. If a community body wants to challenge for a particular service in a particular area, whether it is the whole or part of a local authority area or quite a small neighbourhood, surely its existence as a community body should depend on the fact that it is active in that area and not somewhere else. That means that you would not get people in Liverpool challenging to run services in Leeds or people in Preston challenging to run services in Pendle, or is that what is intended? Is it intended that the community should be the community in which the service is provided and in which it is intended that the challenge should be made?