Sustainable Communities Act 2007 (Amendment) Bill

Public Bill Committee, 9 March 2010.

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

Good morning. I have a few housekeeping announcements. First, hon. Members may remove their jackets if they wish to do so. Will hon. Members please ensure that mobile phones, pagers and other electronic devices are switched off?

I have a small but significant announcement. I have taken an executive decision as Chair and decided, exceptionally, to admit a manuscript amendment this morning, because it is necessary to make a technical amendment to the long title of the Bill to make it make sense. Given the proximity of this process to a general election; the fact that there is, I understand, general consensus; the desirability of getting the Bill on to the statute book; and the fact that the amendment is not in any way contentious, it would not be in the public interest to delay the process by forcing the Bill back on to the Floor of the House on another Friday. For those reasons alone—this should not be taken as a precedent—I have decided to accept the manuscript amendment.

Clause 1

Alistair Burt (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

Thank you very much for your comments on the technical aspects of the Bill, Mr. Gale; they will be enormously helpful to the Bill’s passage, to all its supporters, and to the work of the Committee this morning. I am sure that I speak on behalf of all colleagues present when I say that we are pleased to be under your chairmanship. We thank you for the speed and typical clarity with which you have made a decision that enables us to move on.

Clause 1 is not the most substantive part of this short Bill. The substantive elements are in clause 2, and I will talk about the Bill more widely when I speak to that. The Bill is a short amendment to the Sustainable Communities Act 2007. It seeks to open up the work of local communities to greater transparency, and to enable them to make suggestions, through a selector body, to central Government to assist the work of local communities.

Clause 1 is designed to make it easier for Government to deal with the range of proposals that have come forward under the 2007 Act, and those that we hope will come forward. The clause seeks to enable the selector body—in this case the Local Government Association—to put proposals to Government, on which they will make decisions. It enables the Government to deal with those proposals in part, rather than simply as a whole. I invite the Minister, whose presence we all welcome, to say more about how that will assist the Government to deal with the aims and purposes of the 2007 Act.

Roger Gale (Conservative, North Thanet)

Just before I call the Minister, one thing I should have mentioned is that copies of the manuscript amendment—it is not a dramatically big document—are available on the Table if Members do not already have it. Given the nature of these proceedings, I am perfectly happy to accept not a Second Reading debate, but a slightly broader debate on clause 1, if that will facilitate the later processes of the Bill.

Barbara Follett (Labour, Stevenage)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Gale. Like the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire, I am grateful to you for accepting the manuscript amendment, which will enable us to give the Bill a fairer wind. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on getting his Bill to this stage, and on piloting it through the House with such skill.

There was a debate on Second Reading on whether clause 1 would enable the Secretary of State to delay making a decision to implement a proposal. When the 2007 Act was in Committee and the current process was being debated, the Government—and I expect some hon. Members here as well—assumed that one proposal would equal one ask for Government action. It is clear that that is not the case. As I said on Second Reading, there were 199 shortlisted proposals, but they totalled 242 requests for Government action.

The clause enables the Government to address each individual concern. Implementing a proposal in part means being able to implement one ask of Government while deciding not to implement the other—having given reasons, of course—or not to do so immediately. The clause will not delay decisions, but will enable the Secretary of State to make them relate to what local authorities actually ask for; it could expedite decisions. We see this as a common sense clause and welcome its inclusion in the Bill.

Clause 2

Alistair Burt (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

Clause 2 contains the meat of this short Bill. With your permission, Mr. Gale, perhaps I could say something about the Bill more widely under this clause. It gives me an opportunity to thank those on whose shoulders I stand, and who put in place the original foundations on which the Bill has been built. It is a pleasure to welcome in person to the Committee my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood, who piloted the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 through the House. The hon. Member for Stroud, a long-standing friend and colleague of mine in the House, has a commitment to the cause. Along with the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne, who is not able to be here this morning, he took a leading part in picking up the proposals originally made by the Local Works campaign to open up the processes of government.

Local Works built a remarkable coalition of organisations, including the Federation of Small Businesses, the National Federation of SubPostmasters, the Woodland Trust, the Campaign for Real Ale and others, to create a series of meetings up and down the country at which local communities expressed their interest in doing rather more in the processes of government than they had been able to do. From those meetings, the idea came forward—picked up by my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood in his Bill—of a sustainable communities Act to address what so many people had seen in their communities over the years: a loss of facilities, the emergence of what was termed “ghost-town Britain”, and the feeling in some communities that for reasons unknown to them they had been unable to control the forces that had changed the face of their area. They wanted to do something about it, and engaging both local and national Government in a different way provided the opportunity and the answer.

Through the work and effort of people at a local level, such as those involved in Local Works and the coalition, and through the skilled efforts of a number of colleagues in Parliament, including those whom I have just mentioned, the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 came into being. I suspect that we would all say that none of that would have emerged had it not been for the consistent and extraordinary efforts of Mr. Ron Bailey—he may be listening to these remarks—who did so much to bring together the various interests, and who worked hard with Government to ensure that the original Bill came through.

As is only fair, I started my comments by recognising that I have been able to build on that remarkable work and, a short time after the passage of the Act, am able to make a couple of amendments. That is how we have reached the position that we are in this morning. The two substantial amendments made by clause 2 relate to the ability of the process to be repeated and the wider engagement of parish and town councils.

First, on the ability of the process to be repeated, I believe that it was always the intention of Government and the promoter of the Bill that the provisions of the 2007 Act should not stand alone. They should not be a one-off opportunity for local communities to come together, with the support of their local councils, to submit proposals for the improvement of an area to an entity termed the selector—that turned out to be the Local Government Association—and for that selector to put proposals to Government, which would pronounce on them and engage the processes to bring them into life. It was always envisaged that there would be subsequent invitations for the process to continue, but that was not put in the original Bill. Accordingly, clause 2(2) on subsequent invitations and proposed new section 5B on the power to make regulations provide the opportunity to set a date both by which the next round should commence and for regulations to come forward to ensure that this will be a continuing process.

It is appropriate for me to thank the Minister for her hard work and commitment to the issue, and her colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government, Paul Phipps and Clare Cooper in particular, for their hard work on the drafting. Perhaps the Minister will explain how she would intend the Bill to be used by Government to ensure that the process is continuous.

The point of the Bill is that beyond this building the original Act inspired a huge burst of enthusiasm; if I remember rightly, some 301 proposals eventually reached the selector, of which 199 were put forward to the Government. None of us wishes to see that enthusiasm curtailed in any way; by providing an opportunity for subsequent invitations, we hope to encourage it.

The second aim of the clause was to include parish and town councils. The technical amendment to which you referred, Mr. Gale, arises because town councils are technically and legally part of the parish council domain. There is therefore no need to put the term “town council” in the Bill, and that is what must be changed at the end of the Bill, in the long title. Some of us live in areas where parish councils are a vibrant part of the community. I have more than 50 of them in my constituency, together with five town councils. Including parish and, by implication, town councils in the processes by ensuring that local councils will involve them matters a great deal to them.

I pay tribute to the work of the parish and town councils in my constituency. They do a great job and engage a large section of the population. My work would be made immeasurably more difficult if I did not have the active engagement of the community, as represented by the local parish councils, with their views, opinions and helpful advice on a whole range of issues, from the planning issues that affect their high streets and village streets, to concerns about community safety and their ideas on how to look after and promote the interests of young people in their area.

The meat of clause 2 enables subsequent invitations to be brought forward and engages parish and town councils. I hope that the sentiments behind it are wholly in line with the original aims of the promoter of the Sustainable Communities Act 2007. With the encouragement of the Government, I hope that the measures will ensure that there is a legislative vehicle to bring forward any good intentions. I commend the clause to the Committee.

David Drew (Labour, Stroud)

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Gale. I declare an interest as a parish and town councillor; in fact, I was at a town council meeting last night, but don’t tell the Whips. I fear my town council more than I fear them, but I should have been in two places at the same time.

I concur with what the hon. Gentleman says. I value the fact that I am still a town councillor; as my old friend Stephen Wright says, that is the first, not the lowest, level of government. It does an enormous amount of good. Parish and town councils should be part of the process that we are discussing, because they have ways and means of generating ideas that can go to other levels of government. Most particularly, however, people want to know that their communities are being listened to.

The Bill, for all the reasons given by the hon. Gentleman—my friend—is about enhancing the excellent Sustainable Communities Act 2007. The hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood did immense and valuable work on that Act to get it through Parliament, as did our friends the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne and Ron Bailey.

This is the start of a process. It is not only about a bit of legislation that needs to be put on the statute book, but about changing the building blocks of our democracy. My hon. Friend the Minister has been immensely helpful in listening to our pleas and will, I hope, ensure that the legislation is passed without too much of a hitch. More than anything, however, the issue is to get the Government thinking about doing things in a different way, as they are doing through Total Place. We know that our democracy is in some difficulty at the moment. This Bill and its predecessor Act can start putting things right, which is why I am delighted to serve on the Committee. I wish it Godspeed and hope that it will change all our lives.

Nick Hurd (Conservative, Ruislip - Northwood)

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire on his excellent work in stewarding this important supplementary Bill through this place. He has been extraordinarily generous in his remarks about others, but he has done a wonderful job himself.

I reinforce my hon. Friend’s important point about the need to send a signal to communities that the process provided for in the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 was not a one-off process. It has aroused considerable interest and a sense of possibility—a sense that local communities can get together, change things and make a difference in their area. People want to know more about how the process works. Those who have not participated—quite a lot of local authorities have adopted a wait-and-see approach to get a sense of whether the first wave has actually resulted in anything substantial—are watching the process carefully. They need to receive a signal from this place that there is cross-party consensus on the value of the process put in place in the 2007 Act, that the process was not a one-off, and that there will be future opportunities to participate. As my hon. Friend says, clause 2 is the meat of the Bill, in terms of sending that signal.

I also add the rider that it is imperative that the Government do their job, as regards the selector, by getting some proposals and approvals through the first wave in good time, preferably before the general election. The message would then go out that the Act has changed things, that the process is not a one-off, and that it would be worth getting involved in future processes. That is why the clause is so important, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on the way in which he has presented it.

John Battle (Labour, Leeds West)

As someone who has not been an overactive participant as regards this Bill, and certainly its predecessor, may I congratulate all those hon. Members who have driven the Bill through the House? We in this House rightly think that it is a great achievement to get a Bill on the statute book, but we sometimes think that that itself is the process. It is important, however, to see the Bill and all the energy that has gone into it not as an event in itself, but as driving a dynamic and enduring process in communities. As the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood says, those councils that are currently sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what happens need to get engaged and learn from the best practice of other communities, so that we have a bottom-up process that drives through new democratic thinking.

I completely underline what my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud said. We sometimes look at the pyramid of politics, rather than looking at inverting that pyramid. We want to renew faith in politics, and we need to drive that from the base upwards, so that we engage people and they can see the point of moving to different dimensions of politics. The Bill will be a very helpful tool in engaging people in what matters to their daily lives. In that respect, the fact that the Bill will pass through the House and be put on the statute book should not be seen as an achievement in itself; it is a process to be engaged with for ever to make ours a better and more dynamic society in which people’s voices actually matter.

I thank hon. Members, the Minister, and others who have been mentioned, who have put so much energy into driving the process forward. I will treat the day on which we cap off the Bill, and it is enacted, as the starting gun. There have been some initial stirrings, but let it go forth from here to really drive forward democracy and engagement.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Gale. It is also a pleasure to support the Bill, which was introduced by the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire, with whom I have worked on several issues over the years. I am pleased to see the Bill going forward with such support today. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West, I have not been actively involved in its progress, apart from having chaired a meeting at which the Bill was launched a few weeks ago, in my capacity as chair of the Community Development Foundation. It is with that hat on that I say all speed to the Bill. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud will send my good wishes to Stephen Wright. I remember Stephen from the start of my political career, when I was a member of Cirencester town council.

David Drew (Labour, Stroud)

A long time ago.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

A very long time ago. Indeed, before Stephen was active in Gloucestershire, he was active in Staffordshire, where my mother was on an urban district council.

As the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire says, we should recognise the great importance of parishes, and the fact that some parish councils are more effective than others—the Bill gives some parishes the impetus to perhaps be a little more active—but it is important not to forget that there are parts of the country that are not parished. The two largest conurbations in my constituency, Buxton and Glossop, are not parished, but they are not excluded from the process.

As for engaging with communities in the way envisaged in the Bill and its predecessor, that is really a question of empowering them to take on board the Bill’s provisions, and complementary provisions such as the community call for action, which was in Government legislation. It is also about recognising that democracy does not just happen every four years, but is 24/7. The engagement between the governors and the governed is valuable and precious, and can deliver far more than has perhaps been the case hitherto, in terms of giving ordinary people power over what goes on in their communities. It also recognises that a community is not a rigidly defined body; it is organic, and can be defined in different ways for different purposes. That has been taken on board as well.

With all that experience, and having watched the progress of the Bill and its predecessor from the outside, I am sure that we do not want to delay the inevitable success of the Bill any longer, and I wish the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire the best of luck.

Barbara Follett (Labour, Stevenage)

As the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire and others said, clause 2 is the meat of the Bill, and it will enable the process’s continued future. We have said in the House that we believe that all those who have experienced the 2007 Act so far need to have a say in its future. It would be foolish to change the system without asking those on the front line what changes they would like. I am happy to restate the Government’s intention of inviting more proposals in the future. Clause 2 will enable that future process to adapt and evolve in a way that is necessary.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West, and my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud emphasised, to make the process dynamic, we have to make it adaptable and flexible, and we have to base it on the experience and wishes of local councils and the people whom they represent. All too often, politics—which every person engages in every day—is represented as something that happens to people, not with them. The Government would like a shift in that kind of thinking.

The 2007 Act gives power to those who want to see changes in their neighbourhood. I am particularly keen on that, because I have a constituency that is both rural and urban. I would like to empower the rural side, where parish councils are particularly important. It is right that people should have the chance to shape how the Act changes and develops in the future, and I hope that that is the direction that politics will take.

Clause 3

Alistair Burt (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

I will speak on this clause very briefly, Mr. Gale, because it gives me a chance to thank colleagues on the Committee. Clause 3 is at the technical end of the Bill, and we will deal with the technical amendment after discussion on the clause, which I commend to the Committee.

There was no deliberate intent to bring this about when the Committee was put together, but it does contain rather a large number of old friends who will not be in the next Parliament: the hon. Member for Calder Valley, the right hon. Member for Leeds, West, the hon. Member for High Peak, the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon. I leave it to the Committee to work out with which of those I spent an evening in a blues bar in New York, in the sort of circumstances that the media just do not understand. The visits to institutions abroad that we undertake together create the relationships that, when we return to this country, make this place work in the very special way that it does; they can be relationships with Members across the Floor, which I think people outside find hard to understand. I did not find it difficult to raise the Committee, and I am grateful to all Members for taking part.

I will particularly miss my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon, an outstanding Local Government Minister, who understood the needs of local communities at a very early stage, when my colleagues were busy centralising everything. My right hon. Friend’s voice of sanity on many issues will be particularly missed in my party. I am grateful to all members of the Committee and, of course, to the Minister, who has been very kind during the Bill’s stages. We will miss her, and we thank her enormously for her work in the east of England, and as a Minister. With that, Mr. Gale, I commend clause 3 and thank colleagues for their involvement in the Bill today.

Barbara Follett (Labour, Stevenage)

I would like to add my thanks to those of the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire, and particularly thank all those who are on the Committee—and those who are not—who have worked so hard to get the Bill to the stage that it is at today. We can be proud of the Bill, and I commend it to the House.

Alistair Burt (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

I beg to move a manuscript amendment, in the title, line 1, leave out from ‘2007’ to end of line 3.

The purpose of the amendment is to shorten the title. The Committee will note that the original title refers to making

“provision regarding town and parish councils, local decision-making and expenditure”.

In fact, there will be no expenditure imposed by the Bill and, as I mentioned earlier, town councils are covered legally and statutorily by the term “parish council”. In order to make the title accurate, and to satisfy parliamentary counsel, the amendment will leave out everything from “2007” to the end. I hope that that technical amendment is convenient to the Committee and the House, and I thank you, Mr. Gale, for the opportunity to make it.