Localism Bill

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for her explanation. She gave us quite a lot of information at a fairly rapid rate. I have been scribbling down some of the points that she made, and I found myself very sympathetic with her comments about the need for balance and the need to satisfy certain criteria. Then she turned to the question of consistency across the country and a national standard. That is where my Amendment 136 comes in. It inserts in Clause 74(5) the requirement that there should be a definition of an asset of community value. That establishes consistency across the country. I have not participated in this Bill so far, so I should make it clear at the beginning that I support its thrust. I favour community empowerment. I think it is a good Conservative principle, and I am on the side of the little battalions. Indeed, having just chaired a task force on red tape and having seen hundreds of examples from across the country, one or two of which I may refer to later, I know how important and vibrant local community feeling is, so I very much support the localism idea. Perhaps I may take a minor swipe as I go past. It is rather extraordinary that we should, as a party or Government, appoint Sir Terry Leahy, the ex-chief executive of Tesco, as our adviser. Sir Terry Leahy has had a very distinguished career, building up Tesco nationally and internationally, but his entire career has been devoted to destroying localism. His plan, of course, is to have a Tesco store on every corner, and every butcher, baker and candlestick-maker should be wiped out. It is a slightly strange appointment, but there we are. I agree with my noble friend that there is a balance to be struck between the community entitlement and the right to private property. This amendment, and indeed the later amendments which I shall be speaking to—probably at our next sitting of the Committee—seek to explore this balance and discover the Government’s thinking. I first need to declare at least a couple of interests. The first is that I am the senior independent director of a listed company, which is one of Britain’s largest brewers and pub operators. We operate five breweries and over 2,000 pubs across the country, some of which are managed and some of which are tenanted; we are an integrated business, not a pubco. Some of what I say will therefore have a pub flavour about it, if I may use that phrase, but I think there is a good deal of read across to other assets which are of interest to the community and on which I am sure other noble Lords will wish to speak. The other interest that I ought to declare is that I am president of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, and—before someone else points it out—the NCVO has briefed against my amendments, which just shows that that is what makes horse racing. There is clearly a balance to be struck. My concerns and my reasons for speaking to this amendment are partly philosophical and partly practical. I will deal with the philosophical point first. As my noble friend has made clear, the right to enjoy one’s private property is an absolutely fundamental part of our society. The Englishman’s home is his castle: it provides stability for our society; it provides people with a stake in our society and in the order of that society. If I may exaggerate grossly to make a point, development experts will say that property rights are a key part of any country developing satisfactorily. If you do not know when your property may be removed from you, why bother to invest? Merely go and stick it in Switzerland and wait for the inevitable to happen. I am not in any way suggesting that there will be wholesale expropriation. I am, however, suggesting that there may be the law of unintended consequences. It may deter people from offering their assets for use by the community, for fear of precedent; and as noble Lords will have seen in the briefings we have had, woods, cricket pitches and use of buildings are all issues that have been raised by various interest groups talking about the background to this Bill. It would surely be a shame if we were to impede much worthwhile activity at a local level. So much for the philosophy; what practically needs to be done? My amendment suggests that we should insert a definition on what constitutes an asset of community value on the face of the Bill. This will reduce the fear of the unknown factor. What factors and issues could be included there? I think there is an argument that it should only operate for local businesses. I understand that the wish is to have farm shops, village stores, restaurants and pubs, but national chains—even Sir Terry with his store—might not be as appropriate as an asset of community value. The question is also whether there is any alternative provision in the locality; if there are two restaurants or two pubs, for example, should one of them be able to be listed? As the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said, there needs to be some distinguishing between the service that is being offered and the premises in which it is being offered. Many communities will like having a shop, a post office, or a shop and post office combined, but suppose it is bought up by the community and turned into an antique shop; that is rather a different issue. There are also possibly some reasons to prevent flipping; that is, the purchase and then the resale when it turns out that the commercial enterprise is not quite as easy as was expected. Again, as the noble Lord who is no longer on the Front Bench said, there are existing rights to be respected. Taking the example of tenanted pubs, the landlord will probably live above the pub and therefore will have a premises, a dwelling, which will be part of his home for himself and his family. There are TUPE and other employment issues. Finally, there is the evidence of local support and the need for a local connection. These are some of the things that should be evidence in a national standard that we are seeking to establish. I am perfectly well aware that many will argue that what I am suggesting is the antithesis of localism. The briefing from the LGA says that, "““what is valuable to communities in the Cotswolds will not necessarily be the same as what is valuable to communities in inner-city Manchester””." I accept that point. But if one accepts the fundamental importance of the right to enjoy one’s private property, to have a variable interpretation across the country must be undesirable and unwelcome. Some may argue that local authorities are likely to arrive at broadly the same conclusions and definitions. I wish I thought that that were the case. I fear that there will be great differences and some capricious outcomes which we simply cannot foreshadow or foresee tonight. I referred previously to my red tape task force, and shall give an example of how local authority capriciousness can develop. Charities and voluntary groups depend a great deal on street collections. Charitable collections are governed nationally but also have a degree of local authority variability. We received interesting evidence from the Sainsbury Foundation about the way in which local councils interpret the permissions for local collections. It states: "““Local councils vary widely in their procedures. Doncaster Council, for example, assesses applications within 14 days. Wolverhampton informs applicants of the outcome within 12 weeks. Most councils require applications to be made a month in advance; but North Lincolnshire requires all applications to be submitted by 30 November for collections the following year. Basingstoke has a simple one page form requiring the name of the charity and proposed dates for collections. North Lincolnshire requires the names and addresses of the charity's secretary, treasurer, auditors and bankers. Wolverhampton requires collectors to undergo a police check. Surrey Heath wants to know whether the collector is going to be accompanied by an animal””." These are the sorts of capricious outcomes that we will have. They are undesirable and a cause of confusion to charities, as seen in this narrow example, and you will have a much wider application in the concerns of this Bill. We need to avoid this sort of situation when it comes to establishing assets of community value. The definition in the Bill would be a good place to start.