Localism Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has raised important issues, and I look forward to the Minister’s response to them. I speak particularly to Amendment 133ZEC, which seeks to include a provision relating to expressions of interest. Clause 70(5) already calls on relevant authorities to consider the likely impact of any expression of interest on promoting or improving the, "““social, economic or environmental well-being of the authority’s area””." I greatly welcome this and believe that it is an essential component of the consideration. However, I wish to strengthen it by including a consideration of equality. As noble Lords know, I have a long-standing interest in equality and feel passionately that this is a vital issue for all public services. I greatly welcomed the previous Government’s introduction of the Equality Act and have watched with some concern the current Government’s apparent retreat from many of the excellent provisions in that Act. It seems appropriate that we should do all we can to ensure that equality is a prime consideration under the community empowerment chapters of the Localism Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, shares this concern. His Amendment 133ZM seeks to ensure that the provisions of the Equality Act 2010 that apply to relevant authorities will also apply to relevant bodies. I wish to go somewhat further than this as I believe we need to ensure that the existing equality requirements are strengthened. I wish to outline three reasons why this is important. First, there is a risk that the community right to challenge could result in the exclusion of vital voluntary and community groups that currently empower people and ensure that local decision-making promotes equality. Groups working with specific communities, such as lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender communities, black and minority ethnic communities, people with disabilities, and faith groups, should all be given robust support to take up the community challenge. Without specific protections to ensure this, such as a duty to consider equality, many of these groups would be passed over. Secondly, many will judge the community right to challenge by the degree to which it delivers improved outcomes for the most disadvantaged members of the community and provides safeguards to protect vulnerable people, including older and younger people. If the community right to challenge is to be credible, it must provide tangible benefits for these groups. Thirdly, we need to ensure that there is a level playing field. Many of the groups who will wish to take up the community challenge will work every day with vulnerable and disadvantaged communities, often with very scarce resources and capacity. These groups, which we know are often the best at reaching people traditionally neglected by statutory services, will face significant challenges in undertaking the process of competing to run services. In order to ensure that they are best supported in this process, a duty to consider equality would be really helpful. This is vital, especially if we are to ensure that the community right to challenge promotes and improves equality for local people and does not disadvantage vulnerable groups or negatively impact on the provision of local services. I hope that the Minister is a little bit amenable to this suggestion, and I feel very strongly that consideration of equality should be included in this important chapter of the Bill. I am sure the Minister will say that lots of the services are covered by this legislation anyway, but again the issue is about making it explicit so that people do consider it and we give the opportunity to some of those groups that traditionally would not get it.