Localism Bill

My Lords, the amendment gives a town or parish council the power to put in a request to its superior council, whether that is the district, county or city council, to say, ““We wish you to provide your services in a particular way””, or, ““We wish you to exercise your functions in a particular way””, and for it to be imperative on the superior council that it accede to the request unless doing so would cost it money or interfere with its wider interests. There are three principal themes behind the amendment, all of which we will come to in my later amendments. First, there is much to be said for producing something between the current status and some of the cathartic remedies offered in the Bill—in this case, the community right to challenge. It is a serious prospect to ask a small Hampshire town to take on rubbish collection, parking control or any other services that are provided on a large scale by the local authority, and probably belong at that scale, but it is quite reasonable for it to say to the local authority, ““When the dustmen come round and spill a bag, we would like them to pick it up rather than leaving the contents on the ground, as your current contractor does””, or, ““Please can you desist from parking control on Wednesdays, when we like to allow everyone free rein to get into the shops in the town centre””. To my mind, such requests should be acceded to, but we will never do it through the community right to challenge. I propose this as a more gradual way, an in-between solution. We are giving such power and influence to town and parish councils that they will over the next decade or so grow much stronger than they are at the moment. There are many other things in which people have an interest locally—not just planning but the whole way in which their local services are provided—and it seems unreasonable that the only way they should have to influence those things is in trying to put together a consortium to take over from the superior council the whole provision of those services. If they can find a solid way to influence the services, if they can make a definite promise to their electorate that they will go to the superior council to ask for that to be done and to have every indication that it will, that will contribute to building strength at the bottom end of the council structure. That will produce a much more robust council when it comes to taking all the decisions that will be asked of it under neighbourhood planning. In strengthening communities and the basis for neighbourhood planning, the amendment has a role. The third role concerns cities. In neighbourhood planning, we are producing a structure that will work very well in the suburbs and the countryside, where there is a great deal of value to be extracted from the planning process and where communities have a close interest in the way that development takes place. That is the case not only in the inner cities but in places such as in Battersea in London, where I lodge. There is really no interest in controlling development because it is a matter of minutiae and individual planning decisions. The place is built up, except for Clapham Common, and no one can touch that. There are no big decisions to be taken in our neighbourhood; there is no incentive to get together as a community under the provisions of the Bill. However, if the neighbourhood was to be granted any sort of control over the enforcement of parking, 50 per cent of households would come out to vote tomorrow. I want the capabilities of neighbourhoods under the Bill extended to include the sort of things that people will care about in cities. In places such as Battersea, that is parking, music in pubs and licensing, and other such local authority functions. In the more impoverished parts of the inner city, it is likely to be education and provision for youth. Those are the sort of things that a community will care enough about to want to influence and that will provide the motivation for the creation of the sort of active neighbourhoods that the Bill is intended to achieve. From all those points of view, the amendment is worth while. It is inevitable in the way in which I have structured it that the town or parish council, in putting forward its proposals, will have to produce savings for the superior council. Otherwise, the thing just will not work. It therefore builds in an element of saving and cost-cutting, which I hope will be an additional attraction to the Government. I beg to move.