Localism Bill

This has been a very interesting debate and I am stimulated to make one or two comments in view of what has been said. I am less sanguine than my noble friend Lord Shipley about whether this chapter of the Bill will help to do the kind of things that he has been talking about. I agree 150 per cent with what he said about the need for communities to be able to be much more active and involved, particularly over pieces of land. There are ways forward here, but they require resources and organisation. Local government can help in that area, but it is not just a matter for local government. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said that some of the comments were a full-frontal attack on this part of the Bill. When I first heard about this part—indeed, when I first saw it in this telephone book of a Bill that we have—I was enthusiastic and excited about it, because I thought that someone was at last getting to grips with the problem of the loss of community resources in both rural and urban areas. The more I have looked at it and thought about it, and the more I have listened to comments here, the more I think that what is being proposed will cost money but not actually do much good at all. My personal view is that if this part of the Bill disappeared while going through your Lordships’ House, that might not be a bad thing. The basic problem is there, but I cannot see the point of introducing what looks like an heroic gesture but will not achieve anything in practice. I find myself a little surprised to find myself saying this and on the same side as some Conservative Members here, who I quite often do not agree with on this kind of issue. However, simply from the point of view of workability and practicality, and whether the money spent on it will be of any value, I question whether it is actually of great use. There is a rural/urban division here. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and my noble friend are quite right to look at some of the other problems, but the genesis of this really came from villages, particularly when losing pubs and post offices. We have to remember that post offices, for example, are Post Office businesses and not premises. When a sub-postmaster wants to retire, the contract to run that post office is transferred to whomever the Post Office thinks is the best person to take it on—if there is more than one person; very often there is not. It is not linked to a particular building; it is a Post Office business, and that is how it works. Often, the Post Office business has been closed down not by the sub-postmaster but by the Post Office in reducing the size of its network. In quite a few villages in smaller places, the removal of the post office facility has been the trigger for closing the local or village shop, which was partly a post office but partly a typical local or village general shop. Losing the Post Office business was the straw that broke the camel’s back and made that business no longer viable. Noble Lords on the Labour Benches opposite have to understand that the biggest programme of post office closures was under the 13 years of the previous Labour Government. Often, hundreds of post offices closed a year. Those noble Lords should also understand that this coalition Government have stopped that closure programme. My right honourable friend Vince Cable, my honourable friend Ed Davey and their Conservative colleagues—I would not take away from them as well— have stopped the enforced post office closure programme. That does not mean that no post offices will close, because the businesses might not be viable or people might retire and want to sell on the properties but there is no enforced programme under the new Government. Perhaps noble Lords opposite who are so concerned about local post offices will give some credit to the new Government for that action. I have tried to get my mind around this part of the legislation as it regards urban areas. With the sort of area that I represent on the council, we all think of these things. I am finding it very difficult indeed to think of many circumstances in which putting assets on a list held in the town hall will make any difference at all. The moratorium will make no difference because the assets that we are talking about are often closed assets. Urban pubs are closed, and then stay empty for months and years on end while the owners of the buildings try to find another use for them. If people in the community wanted to take over those pubs, the owners would be absolutely delighted, but that is not the case. Then we are told that the measure is about railway arches, railway sidings and wasteland. I wish to relate one more anecdote. There is a piece of former wasteland in the ward I represent that has been wasteland for 40 years. For a lot of that time we have wondered what on earth could be done about it. It has now been transformed by a partnership between local residents, the borough council and the town council into new allotments and a new mini park. It is a brilliant scheme—the sort of scheme that everyone would look at and say, ““It is a wonderful, south-facing site, superb for new allotments””. Why did it never happen before? That is because the resources were not there to do it. Why has it now happened? That is because it happened to be part of an area that was included in a housing market renewal priority area and we were given money to carry out environmental schemes as part of the housing market renewal work. It was possible because public money and public resources were put into it and made it happen. I hope that it will be a brilliant scheme for the next 100 years. There is no way on God’s earth that the local community in areas that are in the top 5 or 10 per cent of deprived areas will be able to raise whatever it costs—say, £35,000—to remodel that land completely and put up new fencing. The resources are simply not there; they are poor areas. If that piece of land was situated in a rich suburban village, the community may have been able to renovate it, but having a system tht is useful only in richer areas full of retired professional people who can devote their time to such projects is no good. A system must apply across the country in the inner cities, suburbs and former textile towns such as the one where I live. This proposal has very little to offer to the kind of areas in which I live and represent on the council.