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London Local Authorities Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thought that that was a powerful speech on Clause 112. I hope that the Bill’s sponsor will take careful note of it. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, that the Bill is sponsored by all of the London boroughs. We can see from a glance at the table of   contents that it covers a huge variety of local government concerns, from graffiti, litter and noise to street trading, hostess bars and dealers in second-hand goods. It is a great mélange of proposals, in many cases seeking to add to or alter both private and general legislation passed by Parliament quite recently. The proposed individual powers each call for a great deal of justification. I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, expressed surprise—I do not see how he could be surprised—by the fact that 26 organisations have been moved to petition against the Bill. I have a connection with two of them: Three Valleys Water plc, of which I am a former non-executive director, and the National Joint Utilities Group. The water company makes a particularly strong case against Clause 120—though I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, for mentioning that clause and saying that he expected me to be an opponent of it. Clause 120 says that before a water company may lower the mains water pressure in its water mains and other pipes used for domestic water purposes, the company must consult the relevant borough council. That in itself sounds perfectly reasonable. However, let us look at the existing requirements on water companies. The Water Industry Act 1991 puts a legal duty on the water companies to maintain water pressure. This new obligation seems an unnecessary, superfluous and burdensome obligation. Section 65 of the 1991 Act imposes a duty on every water company to supply water for domestic purposes,"““at such pressure as will cause the water to reach . . .  the top-most storey of every building””" in its area. In addition, the powerful water regulator—and nobody has suggested that it is a feeble institution—usually known as Ofwat, sets a minimum water pressure in the condition it imposes when licensing water companies and has powers of enforcement. I am pretty sure that Ofwat, the specific industry regulator, is in a better position than any local authority to impose operational standards on a water company; and it has enforcement powers, as I indicated. The proposed additional criminal sanction in Clause 120 seems to me to be superfluous. Water pressure management is a complex specialist issue and particular problems can arise following burst water mains. An additional requirement to consult one or more local authorities, or to give local authorities an opportunity to second guess the industry regulator, would only hamper operational needs to control quickly the results of pipe busts. Having begun my perusal of the Bill by looking at the problem posed in Clause 120, I then looked at several other provisions. Often they seek to increase the stringency of existing statutory requirements before enough time has elapsed to review adequately the effectiveness of existing law. Clause 14, for example, deals with the cleanliness of billboard surfaces, which is already covered by the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003. Clause 20, on graffiti defacing buildings, reduces the compliance period, set only 10 years ago, for people served with a notice to remove graffiti. Oddly, Clause 20 also decreases further the period allowed for the removal of graffiti in London, compared with the rest of England and Wales. That exemplifies the general point that London borough councils seem to want to continue increasing their powers and the stringency of those powers without explaining why there should be one law for London and another for the rest of the country, including major cities with many of the same   problems such as Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle and the like. Why is a Private Member’s Bill needed and taking up parliamentary time, with its great complex of powers, when national laws have been enacted, often quite recently and after the more normal parliamentary process of Public Bill scrutiny? I look at the Liberal Democrat Benches in mentioning my final point. Last Thursday one of their leading lights, the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, opened a debate in this House calling for decentralisation and greater local autonomy. With the exception of my noble friend Lord Desai, speakers seemed to blame central government for all the evils of regulation. Having listened to some of that debate and read the rest of it, I believe that local government can be just as prone to over-regulation. This amazingly detailed Bill, with its 120 clauses and so on, seems an example of that tendency. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, that I welcome the Keeling schedule, Schedule 3, and will deduct it from my comment on the huge number of pages giving all those powers. Of course I welcome some of the   provisions. As my noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton says, although the chewing gum provisions deserve questioning, nobody doubts that there is a problem in our cities, perhaps particularly in London. We will consider that very carefully. Ultimately, all the proposed powers would result in   a huge number of detailed regulations. It is a responsibility of local government, and I question whether one wants so much additional local regulation on top of the existing national regulation.