Baroness Coffey (Con)

My Lords, I have tabled in this group Amendments 222D to 222F, 225A, 230A, 232A, 232B, 234ZA and 234B, and the Schedule 29 stand part notice. I do not want to say that I am against Schedule 29, but it is only by doing a stand part notice that I can get a sense from the Minister of what is really happening with that schedule. I will start briefly with the other amendments. There is a lot of merit in them. My noble friend mentions going back to the community ownership fund in Amendment 222A. When I was an MP, I helped a community to buy the Racehorse pub in Westhall. I also facilitated or supported the purchase of somewhere called Holton Pits, which is really an environmental area that receives funding. It goes beyond the Pride in Place which is being used for certain communities around the country. I will jump quickly to Amendment 234B, which is a bit of a cherry on the top. One of the ways to avoid taxpayers having to keep paying for this—although it is a good use of money in terms of building communities—is that one power a council has is that it can take action against the owner or landlord of particular buildings, or a land area, in order to clean them up. I am suggesting—this may go a bit too far, but it is worth considering—that the council has to inspect any asset of community value every five years and then apply a notice if it is derelict or in decline. The reason why it being in decline matters is that one of my concerns is that there is an element here of almost running down an asset of community value in some way, so that it almost starts to be rendered pretty useless or very difficult to recover, and that is not appropriate. Let me give the example of a council that was concerned about a former theatre and sports hall. It had been closed to the community by the private owners and had become a real mess, with broken windows and so on. Initially, the council resisted designating it as an asset of community value, and then, ultimately, it was one of the ones that got demolished. That brings me back to Amendment 222D—yes, Minister, it is back—which would remove the automatic right, or the permitted development right, for assets of community value. There is only a handful of cases where this does not apply. On Report of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, it was very gracious of the Government to concede that this had merit and that they would consult on it. I have not seen any sign of consultation. Another reason given was that it was not usual to amend statutory instruments in primary legislation. Well, the Government are doing that regularly in their Bills, and it is happening in this Bill in Clause 45, so I will not accept that as an excuse any longer. I want to understand what is going on with Schedule 29. It looks more or less like Section 87 of the Localism Act 2011, which is more or less being ripped out and replaced with new Section 86A. A lot of it is similar, and there are a lot of improvements. I may have misunderstood what it is trying to do when I tabled some of my amendments—I think I messed up on Amendment 222F in particular. More broadly, what is so wrong with Section 87 of the original Act that it needs almost ripping out and replacing in full? There are a couple of things that give me a particular cause for concern, and they are addressed in my Amendments 232A and 232B. On page 297 of the Bill, subsections (4) and (5) of new Section 86B seem to give the Secretary of State powers to override, and to stop something becoming an asset of community value when a local council is determined that it should be. I am trying to understand that. That is certainly not in Section 87 of the Localism Act. There are elements that strengthen the legislation, including the provision on making the first bid, as opposed to just being ranked alongside others and having a stopgap of six months—this extends it to 12 months. But too often, well-meaning civil servants, giving advice to their Ministers, who know that they are supposed to build 1.5 million homes by the end of this Parliament, sometimes see designations as a way to block housing. It worries me that we are heading in this direction and that, despite a lot of this being good, we end up going the wrong way. I turn now to the issues to do with sports in Amendment 234ZA. I have particularly picked on this because the original Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975, which is referred to in the Bill, has this definition: “‘sports ground’ means any place where sports or other competitive activities take place in the open air”— so far, so good, but it continues— “and where accommodation has been provided for spectators, consisting of artificial structures or of natural structures artificially modified for the purpose”. I anticipate that a lot of this is really about local football clubs and rugby clubs that have stands or similar, as opposed to the many more sports fields around the country that do not. Communities could erect one, or the owners, under the permitted development rights, could demolish one, therefore removing it, technically, from protection under this provision, which will be for life. I am concerned that we are not covering that. I anticipate that the Minister will say, “Well, that’s provided for under the NPPF”, but I think this needs to go further. I have also tabled Amendment 222E. If we are getting rid of the five-year limit for sports grounds, why not do it for all assets of community value? There is no point in having an arbitrary differentiation. I have a question for the Minister. I have not been able to work out when Clause 63 and Schedule 9 will commence. It is not mentioned specifically in Clause 92, so I do not know whether it comes under subsection (1)(c) or subsection (7)—whether it will be on the day the Bill passes or whether it will be by regulations.