Localism Bill

My Lords, here we go again. I will speak also to Amendment 135A in this group. Amendment 133A challenges Clause 74(3), which states that assets that have been placed on a list of community assets will be removed after five years. This is a probing amendment. My first question is: why is it necessary to make the list temporary in this way and provide lots of extra work for the local authority? Why does an asset not remain on the list until there are good reasons for removing it, rather than being removed after an arbitrary time period? Secondly, if there is to be an arbitrary time period, why is it five years rather than two or 10? Thirdly, can assets be put back on the list once they have been taken off after five years? Will the procedure be the same as that for putting them on in the first place, which would seem to necessitate a lot of duplication? Fourthly, can community organisations and parish councils propose that an asset which is due to come off the list at the end of five years should stay on? In other words, can they make a new nomination before the end of the five-year term or do they have to wait until the asset has come off the list and then make a new nomination—in which case there would be a gap between the end of the five years and the new nomination? These are straightforward questions, but they are not answered in the Bill and they are important if we are to know how the system will work. Amendment 135A suggests that under the provision in the Bill for the appropriate authority—in England it is the Secretary of State—to change the period of five years to another length of time if he or she thinks that that would be a good idea at some time in the future, it should be possible to make different periods for different classes of assets. Why is it not possible for the local authority to make sensible decisions based on local circumstances, according to what is appropriate for a particular community asset? It will know the circumstances that relate to each asset. If there is a long-standing recreation ground that is not in council ownership—or even that is—and has been there for 50 years, having to apply every five years to put it back on the list would seem unnecessary. A village hall that might be in private or some sort of other ownership will not go away. One hopes that it will be there in five or 10 years, when the same problems will occur if the owner proposes to close it down or change its use to something else. That might also apply to a village pub or post office, and it seems that village pubs and post offices are where this legislation came from in the first place. Why is it necessary automatically to take privately owned allotments off every five years and then put them back on? Why do all sorts of green spaces that people hope will be there for a considerable time have to come off and then be put back on? For example, burial grounds are not going to go away, although quite often there are proposals to take local burial grounds over, dig up the bodies and develop them. That is what happens in too many cases perhaps. That problem is going to be there in five, 10 or 25 years, so why cannot the local authority or even the Secretary of State allocate different periods for different classes of assets? These are practical problems and practical questions about how this legislation is going to work. It is important that we understand what the Government think about them. I beg to move.