Localism Bill

My Lords, that was a good debate. We had a very long time for it, and quite a lot of it had very little to do with the centre-point of the Bill—we roamed pretty widely, near to the subject, but also away from it—but I return to the points I made when we last discussed this issue the day before yesterday. We are looking for a simple way of ensuring that local communities can have an opportunity to try to put together a business case and purchase a facility in which they have a particular interest if it comes up for sale. I shall not try to answer all the points made today, some of which will come up again later. This debate has gone right across this clause, but various amendments cover other clauses and I shall respond to them then. I shall be sympathetic to some of those amendments but not to others. As I also said last time, there is a terrible danger that I will go back over what I have said before. As noble Lords said, I have put in the discussion document, and at our previous sitting I gave a pretty good indication of the sort of areas that the Government are considering. I think that I have also given a pretty good indication that we are not closed to thinking about possible unintended consequences. Many of the speeches today raised the question of unintended consequences. I think that a number of those consequences are completely outside the scope of the Bill. We want to narrow the debate and return to the Government’s starting point which, as I said, was precisely to try to deal with situations where facilities simply vanish from the community’s sight because it cannot do anything about it. I have taken notes throughout the debate and have to say that so many separate points have been raised that I will need an opportunity to consider them. As I said, I am happy to discuss these issues—some for the first time, some not—with noble Lords. We want this part of the Bill to be right. We want it to do what we believe it should do, and we do not want people to spend the next 10 years of their lives trying to sort out what it means and does not mean. As I said, I am happy to have more discussions about this to see how we can look at the issues further, if necessary. One matter that I want to address is compensation. We have included compensation for loss of value between a notification and a sale, and we expect the general rules to apply in quantifying this, as with compulsory purchase orders. No final decision has yet been taken on it but I think we can assume that that is roughly what will happen. We are going to come back to this issue after we have had a break and we will answer more of the points then. As I said, I am listening very carefully to what has been said but, without notice of some of the points that have been raised, I do not think that I can answer them at this stage. I thank everyone who has contributed to the debate. I assure all noble Lords that every single point that has been raised will be taken into account. I shall endeavour to talk to noble Lords and give them answers before the next stage, or I shall talk to them and not give them the answers, in which case those points will reappear at the next stage. In the mean time, I hope that the clause will be agreed.