§ (" .—(1) The functions conferred or imposed on the Secretary of State under or by virtue of the provisions of Schedule 1 to the London Government Reorganisation (Pensions etc.) Order 1989 ("the 1989 Order") specified in subsection (2) below are transferred to the Mayor by this subsection.
1748§ (2) Those provisions are—
- (a) paragraph 1 (appointment of members etc.);
- (b) paragraph 2(b) (which makes provision about tenure of office by applying paragraph 2 of Schedule 13 to the Local Government Act 1985);
- (c) paragraph 2(c) (which makes provision about determinations relating to remuneration etc. by applying paragraph 3 of that Schedule);
- (d) paragraph 2(f) (which makes provision about reports and information by applying paragraph 10 of that Schedule).
§ (3) In the application of paragraph 3 of Schedule 13 to the Local Government Act 1985 (determinations relating to remuneration etc.) by virtue of subsections (1) and (2)(c) above, sub-paragraph (5) (which requires the consent of the Treasury to any determination) shall be omitted.
§ (4) In the application of paragraph 10 of that Schedule (reports and information) by virtue of subsections (1) and (2)(d) above, in sub-paragraph (2) (which requires the authority to send a copy of its annual report to the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of State to lay copies of it before Parliament) the words from "and the Secretary of State" to the end of the sub-paragraph shall be omitted.
§ (5) Any appointment—
- (a) made by the Secretary of State under sub-paragraph (1) or (2) of paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the 1989 Order, and
- (b) in force immediately before the coming into force of subsection (1) above, so far as relating to subsection (2)(a) above,
§ The noble Lord said: The new clause implements our White Paper commitment to bring the London Pensions Fund Authority (LPFA) under the control of a democratic London-wide authority. Further amendments dealing with the detailed consequences for financial accountability and audit arrangements will not be tabled, I regret, until Report stage. The LPFA is currently a quango accountable to the Secretary of State. We consider that a body focused on London and affecting the lives of many people across London should be answerable in some way to a democratically elected London authority. This clause puts right that anomaly in a simple way. It transfers from the Secretary of State to the mayor responsibilities for the appointments and tenure of office of members of the LPFA board, for determining their remuneration, and for receiving reports and information. This will be to the benefit of the pensioners and others for whose interests the fund is responsible, and to London as a whole. I beg to move.
§ On Question, amendment agreed to.
§ Clause 317 agreed to.
§ On Question, Whether Clause 318 shall stand part of the Bill?
§ Lord Young of DartingtonWhen I spoke in favour of urban parish councils on the Second Reading of the Bill I was urging the Government to bring London into line with the rest of the country. Scotland and Wales, as I said then, have small community councils and the whole of England has the right to urban parish councils by virtue of the Local Government and Rating Act 1997.
1749 This Act was supported by all parties and is now being vigorously promoted by the same Department of the Environment which has been refusing London the same rights as other parts of England. Urban parish councils are being set up in Leeds, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Portsmouth, Tameside, Hartlepool and quite a number of other places and so the question inevitably arises: why the rest of the country and why not London?
The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, is to be congratulated on his stamina and skill in bringing us so far with this complex Bill. He argued powerfully in the course of the debate on 7th July, when opposing amendments about the Metropolitan Police, that the Met should be under the same statutory obligations as the rest of the country. The noble Lord urged consistency about police authorities, and I hope that tonight he will accept that there should also be consistency across the country about urban parish councils.
Clause 318 is in an unusual position. It was introduced, I understand, into the original Bill as a government amendment late in the discussions in the other place and so was not very fully debated. It confers very sweeping catch-all powers, or it seems almost catch-all powers, on the Minister to make orders for,
incidental, consequential, transitional or supplementary provision as appears to him to be necessary or expedient … in consequence of the provisions of any other Act passed previously",like the Act to which I have just referred.I seek from the Minister—I wrote to him in advance to give him an idea of what I was proposing to say—an assurance that these wide powers include the power to apply the provisions of the Local Government and Rating Act 1997 to London. That would be an important step forward for those who do not want London to be excluded from what has become a national movement for urban parish councils everywhere else.
I am pushing this issue, and have been doing so for 40 years, because I believe rather passionately in communities of place. It is often argued that communities have changed their character, and of course they have. They consist in particular of all sorts of special interest groups: football clubs, religious groups, people who use the Internet to join up with other people who believe in black magic, or special diets for cancer and all sorts of other things. There is a great host of worthy voluntary bodies and groups which exist.
Of course I accept that it has happened. There are more specialist interest groups than there used to be, and the Internet is adding to their number. However, communities of locality are still, in my submission, of enormous importance. The community formed around the place where people live still matters. People's homes are obviously precious to them. This is the bit of the world to which they have a special attachment and in which they feel most fully themselves. But some of that attachment also spreads out into the little districts around their homes. If you ask people where they belong—as I have, in a number of surveys—they may say "England." They would certainly say "London" and often, with most feeling, one finds, they would refer to 1750 the little district—their own street and the streets around that, the district that has shops which they use; the district which has a church and a few local pubs, a post office and a primary school and maybe a small local park and a swimming pool.
London is not a vast undifferentiated urban area. It is made up of a series of much smaller places within the whole, which are living cells of that whole. Gertrude Stein, of blessed memory, said about Los Angeles, the world's largest city in terms of territory, "There is no there there." She could not have said that about London. There are many local "theres" in London. Here are many "heres" in London: from Pimlico to Bow, from Kentish Town to Brixton.
David Hume, the great Scottish philosopher, wrote a lot about propinquity as a basis of common association. It is now a quaint word, but one that I much like. I believe that people's sense of their own identity, even now in this small mobile age, is still partly bound up in their own home, in their own homeland territory around it and in their local public realm, as the recent report which appeared under the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rogers, called it.
If they care about it, as so many people do, that is a good basis for local political life, focused on the common concerns and aspirations of the citizens who are near enough to each other to have a sense of propinquity—that word again—and a recruitment ground for people who are going to seek wider public responsibility. This is where people can become engaged in their common affairs at their most basic. This needs to have its most democratic institutions if democracy at higher levels is to be enhanced.
All we are saying is fully compatible with what the noble Lord, Lord Rogers, in his report, is recommending about home zones. The new parish councils could introduce such home zones. Based on the best German and Dutch examples, home zones would be groups of streets which create living spaces where pedestrians have absolute priority and cars travel at little more than walking pace, suitable to a parish. Why, if it all happened, children might emerge from their homes and once again be playing in the streets.
I think I can recommend any of the candidates for mayor of London to put elected grass-roots councils into his or her manifesto. I believe that could yet be, strange as it may seem, a winning card which makes much of the little and puts himself or herself on the side of the small man or woman in a big world and a big London.
Anyway, back to my question: I want to ask the Minister whether he can confirm that the sweeping powers given to the Minister by Clause 318 could be used to apply the relevant parts of the 1997 Local Government and Rating Act to London, as it does to the rest of the country. I beg the Minister to help us.
§ 8 p.m.
§ Lord BorrieI want to speak in support of my noble friend Lord Young of Dartington, as I did during Second Reading. The points which he then made and has repeated today have a great deal of force. People identify most closely with the immediate neighbourhood 1751 in which they live. In London, there are numerous villages not unlike the rural villages with their parish councils; and certainly not unlike the areas where neighbourhood councils are permitted. The residents of those areas petitioned for them to be allowed. Perhaps because London can be so impersonal, there may be a greater need for community councils than elsewhere. It is remarkable that only in London are they not permitted.
The Bill, which my noble friend has been so diligent in taking through nine days of Committee, is concerned with setting up an authority with a mayor and an assembly. The members of the assembly, apart from those who are chosen on the basis of party lists, will each represent some 300,000 electors. Surely, there should be a link between them and the electors. Let us hope—although I do not have great hopes—that the electors will be larger in number than we have become accustomed to in recent months. The greatest enemy of local government, as my noble friend said on other occasions, is apathy. But there would be no apathy about electing small neighbourhood community councils.
I recall that the White Paper, which preceded the Bill, indicated that when the members of the assembly are concerned to discuss strategy and policy they should be sure that they reflect people's views. Let them have, to aid them, the eyes and ears of community councils in local neighbourhoods where people feel they belong.
Will Clause 318 enable an order to be made by Ministers to allow in London what is feasible and allowed in other parts of the country without difficulty? That is all that is being asked for and I hope that the Minister will be able to give encouragement to my noble friend who has raised this important matter tonight.
§ Baroness HamweeI congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Young, on his ingenuity in finding not just a hook on which to hang an argument but a substantive point which could enable what many of us have long argued for to come about. We tried to table a more direct amendment on the subject of parishes in London, only to be told that it was not within the Title. I said to those in the Public Bill Office that I should reserve the right to argue that at a later date. However, we are pleased to have the opportunity to support the noble Lord tonight.
It has long been the policy of these Benches, and it was argued in this House and in another place during the course of the 1997 Act, that London should not be excluded from parishing. As I have learnt during the course of the Bill from my noble friend, one should talk about spheres and not tiers of government. That is a good term. Parishes ought not to be regarded as junior; they are important forms of government in themselves.
London is often described as a world city. It is made up of many villages and even smaller entities. I was interested in the guidance issued by the previous government in relation to the 1997 Act, which stated that the larger the town the greater will be the scope for 1752 the identification of distinct communities within it. That is an interesting point which applies in particular to the biggest of the lot.
§ The Lord Bishop of Bath and WellsI spend most of my life trying to help communities to evolve in London. I have been at it for 25 years. The Church has parish church councils throughout London. I have joined the debate only today and it is most refreshing to hear such a proposal rather than dealing with only structural backgrounds. Having been a practitioner, I fully support the noble Lord, Lord Young.
Sadly, propinquity was no longer the people's personal propinquity. In other words, the area idea survives in some parts of North and East London. I was part of a new town and I know that in many places people's neighbourhood was where they worked, where they had interest groups, where they played golf and so forth. Sometimes, people did not know what was in their area. Whereas Bethnal Green might have had a real identity it is now very different. It contains several communities and it would take great subtlety to create a parish council.
§ Lord Young of DartingtonI beg the right reverend Prelate to recognise that there remains a sense of identity in Bethnal Green, even though the composition of the population has changed.
§ The Lord Bishop of Bath and WellsI have based a great deal of my work on that belief, but I am not sure how far we are trying to reimpose the village concept in a city which is extremely mobile and diverse and, it must be said, often apathetic.
The noble Lord's argument would be that his proposal would undermine the apathy and that people would discover their identity and community. Maybe, just maybe, but before one created another level I should like harder evidence that it would work. The apathy found in large estates can be countered by estate battles, but nearly always a battle against an outside body such as an authority. There is a great deal of anonymity and I am weary of going down an idealisation of reality.
§ The Earl of SandwichIt has been a pleasure to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Dartington. I hope that he will remain with us for our subsequent debate on international development where he will find similar views expressed.
§ Lord TopeI hesitate to delay the debate on international development. However, I cannot let this pass without saying a few words. It is very nearly 26 years since, to my considerable surprise, I was successful in the Private Members' ballot in another place and chose, as my Private Member's Bill, The London Parish Councils Bill, for exactly the reasons expressed so eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Dartington.
The case for parishes has been strongly and eloquently made tonight. I support all that has been said. I feel as strongly on the issue now as I did 25 or 26 years ago, even though in the intervening time I have 1753 been a London borough councillor, which I was not at that time. I am well aware that some who have been county councillors or even district councillors are not always enthusiastic about parish councils.
However, the issue tonight is not whether we favour parish councils in London; it is for the Minister to explain to us—and to give me an answer to a question which I have not received in 26 years—why in England, London alone is not allowed to have urban parish councils. Even if a community in London clambers and demonstrates 100 per cent support and enthusiasm for a parish council, the law does not permit it. Why are Londoners alone so discriminated against? Why have successive governments refused to provide legislation to enable London to be like the rest of the country? Indeed, would this Bill give us that opportunity?
§ The Earl of ListowelPerhaps I may speak briefly about the Walthamstow Housing Action Trust, which I visited recently. Tremendous changes have happened there. Many people say that that is simply because the Government have poured millions into it. However, it all started because a few women went to Horseferry Road with fallen masonry from their housing estate and said, "Look; this housing estate is falling to pieces around our ears. You have to do something about it". So, local action can be vigorous and effective.
§ Lord WhittyIt has been some considerable time since we had this level of passion for the GLA Bill. I suppose I should thank my noble friend Lord Young for intervening at this stage and giving us something to think about. Perhaps I may make two comments: first, the Government do not agree with him, for a range of reasons, partly related to the comments made by the right reverend Prelate and partly to another aspect of practicality.
Secondly, even if I had been convinced over the last 20 minutes and we did agree with him, the amendment is not appropriate in this Bill. It is certainly not appropriate to link it to this clause. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, stated, it is outside the scope of the Bill which deals with the construction of a Greater London Authority above the level of London boroughs, not with the structure of local government below that level. There may be appropriate Bills which deal with London government in general, but this is not the appropriate Bill. Even if that problem was overcome, this clause, which has been described as containing "sweeping powers", is not. Clause 318 only allows the Minister to make incidental, consequential, transitional or supplemental provisions as appear to him to be necessary or expedient in order to achieve the general purposes of the Bill. It does not allow him to do anything else in London in relation to the structure of local government or London democracy but to deal with the issues covered by the purposes of the Bill.
There is clearly a large number of empathetic arguments for the amendment, as the noble Lord, Lord Young of Dartington, said and others have echoed. However, the Bill is not the appropriate Bill and the clause is not an appropriate clause. I am sorry to be so 1754 boring and legalistic about this, but that is the fact. I would therefore ask my noble friend not to pursue the amendment at this stage and on this Bill.
§ Lord Young of DartingtonI thank the Minister for his courtesy, but not for the content of what he said. I did not find it wholly surprising, but sad. I believe that the Government are missing a real opportunity to show that, given a change in structure, considerable energies could be brought forth from people who at present do not think anything of politics and do not see themselves as playing any part in representative institutions.
This is a feeling which, so far as it exists, and it does, we need to combat in every way possible. Admitting that London should have the same rights as the rest of the country would show, as it would in practice, that it really does something when people have a right which has been denied to them.
I agree with the right reverend Prelate that there are many parts of London which are not perhaps in the first line of suitability for having the new kind of council for which we have been urging. However, the beauty of the Act—if an Act which has "Rating" in its title can have any beauty—was that it did not impose anything; it gave the right to people who wanted to have a council of this kind, with enough support to petition the Secretary of State, to be allowed to have it. Obviously if the Secretary of State wished, he or she could turn it down. However, the opportunity was there. A new choice was and is being presented in Leeds and all the other cities of Britain. We will have an opportunity to see whether it really does work to reinvigorate local politics, as I hope it will.
However, I accept the Minister's comments as being telling. I am glad to have had the opportunity, with some support, to have made my points. I intend to pursue this matter with all strength wherever I can. However, I do not intend to do so further tonight.
§ Clause 318 agreed to.
§ Clause 319 [Transfers of property, rights or liabilities]:
§ Lord Dahrendorf moved Amendment No. 455AZAB.
§ Page 167, line 26, leave out ("Corporation of London") and insert ("Common Council")
§ The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 455AZAB and 455AZAC standing in my name have acquired an almost Old Testament designation, if I may say so with due reverence to the right reverend Prelate. I do not propose to offer anything either as serious or as long as that text. I propose a simple drafting amendment; at least it is unless the Government intend to nationalise the private assets of what is commonly known as the Corporation of London. But so far as I know, that is not a part of government policy.
§
Clause 319 is about the transfer of property, rights and liabilities of local authorities and other bodies in London by orders of a Minister of the Crown. Subsection (2)(d) mentions specifically local authorities and in Subsection (3)(b) London borough councils. In both cases it adds:
or the Corporation of London".
§ The amendment standing in my name suggests that a more correct reference would be to the Common Council. I shall not spend time going into the many designations of institutions in the City. However, I would emphasise once again, as I did at Second Reading, that the corporation has a private as well as public element. If the property rights or liabilities of the corporation as a whole were within the ambit of a clause, the result would be that the power of transfer would extend well beyond local authority activities and would take in private interests which have no relevance to and are not funded by the local government finance system. Moreover, the clause would apply to property which is neither required nor held under local government powers. The proposed amendment is in line with local government legislation, and indeed with other parts of the Bill before us; for example, Chapter 13 of Part IV. It would therefore seem appropriate to refer to the Common Council, or even to the Common Council in its capacity as a local authority instead.
§ I shall not press the amendment tonight. I hope that the Minister will assure me that he will look at and consider these arguments. If so, it may not be necessary to return to this matter at Report stage. I beg to move.
§ Lord Harris of HaringeyI shall not detain the Committee for any length of time at this stage. It has been put to me that the use of the phrase "Corporation of London", blurs the distinction between the private and public assets of the corporation. Therefore, it runs the risk that the Bill is rendered hybrid. I am not entering into a debate about the assets of the Corporation of London and the Common Council, but I am concerned that if the Bill were inadvertently rendered hybrid, all the work carried out by the Committee would somehow be rendered invalid. Therefore, I hope that the Minister can give us some reassurance on that point.
§ Lord WhittyI greatly hope so. I should tear out my hair were I to discover that the nine days that we had spent in Committee were to be rendered invalid. However, I cannot give a definitive answer to the noble Lord, Lord Dahrendorf, tonight. I believe that he may well have a point. Clearly there are some arcane legal matters here. My officials have been in contact with the Office of the City Remembrancer as to the way that the City is referred to in the clause. We have not as yet fully resolved the matter. It seems even more complicated than described by my noble friend and by the noble Lord, Lord Dahrendorf, but I hope that we can resolve all these points in a satisfactory way by the time we reach Report stage.
§ Lord DahrendorfI thank the Minister and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ [Amendment No. 455AZAC not moved.]
§ Clauses 319 and 320 agreed to.
§ Schedule 26 agreed to.
§ Clauses 321 to 324 agreed to.
§ Clause 325 [Regulations and orders]:
§ [Amendment No. 455AA not moved.]
1756§ Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 455AB:
§
Page 173, line 43, at end insert ("or
(c) section 317(1) above,")
§ The noble Lord said: In moving the amendment I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 455AC and 455EA. The amendments seek to apply the affirmative procedure orders made under Clause 317(1), which we are bringing forward directly in response to the recommendations of the 16th Report of the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Deregulation. I am grateful to the members of that Committee for their careful and detailed scrutiny of the Bill. This was their major point on the Bill and we believe that these amendments meet it. I apologise to noble Lords inconvenienced by the relatively late tabling of the amendment. Nevertheless, I believe that by this group of amendments we have met in full the requirements of the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Deregulation. Therefore I hope that the Committee will accept the amendments.
§ Baroness Anelay of St JohnsI rise briefly to express the support of these Benches for the amendments. They seem to meet the objectives which we have sought in tabling Amendments Nos. 455B and 455E at a rather earlier stage than the Minister's amendments, but we certainly appreciate that the Government have now met those objectives.
§ On Question, amendment agreed to.
§ Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 455AC:
§
Page 173, line 45, at end insert—
("() Subsection (3) above shall not have effect in relation to a statutory instrument containing an order under section 317(1) above making—
if it would not have effect in relation to that instrument apart from those amendments, repeals or revocations or that provision.")
§ On Question, amendment agreed to.
§ [Amendment No. 455B not moved.]
§ Lord Whitty moved Amendment No, 455BA:
§ Page 174, line 21, leave out ("paragraph 16(2)") and insert ("provisions specified in subsection (4) above")
§ On Question, amendment agreed to.
§ Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 455BB:
§ Page 174, line 22, leave out ("paragraph 22(2)") and insert ("provisions specified in subsection (4) above")
§ On Question, amendment agreed to.
1757§ Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 455C:
§
Page 174, line 25, at end insert—
("section (Power of Mayor to transfer functions)(4);")
§ The noble Lord said: In moving the amendment I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 455D and 455J. The first two of those amendments ensure that the Secretary of State will be made subject to negative procedures as a result of government amendments made earlier in Committee. They therefore follow through earlier decisions of the Committee. Amendment No. 455J relates to the designation of paying parking places which was missed at an earlier stage in the Bill. At present, boroughs may designate paying parking places where they are the highway agency for the road. The amendment provides that a borough would have to obtain the consent of the traffic authority before it designates paying parking places. That is an important provision in the question of the management of roads, but at this point it is a relatively technical amendment. I beg to move.
§ Baroness Gardner of ParkesI am sorry, but I feel that I must speak out on the issue of having to apply to the Greater London Authority for all one's parking places. I recall that that was a terribly long-winded procedure. Boroughs were driven mad. The procedure took so long and one could not obtain permission to use parking places. Perhaps the noble Lord would—even if we pass the amendment tonight—look at the matter again before Report stage.
§ Lord WhittyI shall certainly undertake to have another look at it. It does not reproduce the old two-tier system which we had before. However, I shall write to the noble Baroness.
§ On Question, amendment agreed to.
§ Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 455D:
§
Page 174, line 27, at end insert—
("section (Restrictions on contracting out certain services);")
§ On Question, amendment agreed to.
§ [Amendment No. 455E not moved.]
§ Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 455EA:
§
Page 174, line 34, at end insert—
("() For the purposes of this section, the subordinate legislation which is "subject to affirmative parliamentary procedure" is any subordinate legislation contained in an instrument which was subject—
or which was not subject to such a requirement by reason only that it re-enacted subordinate legislation (with or without modification).")
§ On Question, amendment agreed to.
§ Clause 325, as amended, agreed to.
§ Clauses 326 to 328 agreed to.
1758§ Schedule 27 [Enactments repealed]:
§ Lord Whitty moved Amendments Nos. 455F to 455H:
§ Page 320, line 11, at end insert—
| ("1965 c. 63. | The Public Works Loans Act 1965. | In section 2(1)(a), the word "and" immediately preceding sub-paragraph (iii). |
| 1968 c. 13. | The National Loans Act 1968. | In Schedule 4, in paragraph 1, in paragraph (a) of the definition of "local authority", the word "and" immediately preceding sub-paragraph (iii).") |
§
Page 321, line 13, column 3, at end insert—
("Section 107.")
§ Page 321, line 13, at end insert—
| ("1988 c. 41. | The Local Government finance Act 1988. | In section 88(2), paragraphs (c) and (d).") |
§ On Question, amendments agreed to.
§ Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 455J:
§ Page 322, line 19, column 3, at end insert—
| ("In section 45(1), in the second paragraph, the words "outside Greater London".") |
§ On Question, amendment agreed to.
§ Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 455K:
§ Page 322, line 19, column 3, at end insert—
| ("In section 55(4), the word "and" immediately preceding paragraph (d).") |
§ On Question, amendment agreed to.
§ Schedule 27, as amended, agreed to.
§ Clause 329 [Interpretation]:
§ Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 456:
§ Page 175, line 33, leave out paragraph (b)
§ The noble Baroness said: I was surprised to see that this amendment was not shown as having been debated. It was certainly debated in substance if not at this point. However, I shall take just a few seconds to use this opportunity heartily to thank both Ministers for their patience and good humour through this enormously long Committee stage. I know it is normal to offer thanks at the end of a Bill, but I wish to include the officials. They have not only managed to stay awake; they have managed to get through quite a lot of written material as well.
§ My noble friends and I do not wish to have these remarks used against us as supporting the Bill any more now than when proceedings started. But we are extremely grateful for the way in which progress has been conducted from the Government Benches. I hope that I have not started a long debate. I beg to move.
1759§ Baroness Anelay of St. JohnsI echo the sentiments of the noble Baroness, not with regard to her amemdment, but with regard to the assistance given by the officials and the good temper and temperance—in the sense of being restrained—of the Government during the course of these nine days.
§ Baroness HamweeI beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Clause 329 agreed to.
§ Clause 330 agreed to.
§ House resumed: Bill reported with amendments.