Janet Finch-Saunders:
I thank Mark Isherwood for opening up this debate, focusing on effective public service delivery by means of co-production and the importance of empowering our communities and our residents too. Julie James and Peter Black endorsed the co-production part of our motion, and, in some parts, the community right to bid.
Today’s debate is about setting out our stall on handing power back to our communities. The Conservatives believe that power belongs at the most local level, but in recent history, here in Wales, this has coalesced at too high and too central a level. A process of decentralisation is now needed to give this power back to our communities where it rightly belongs.
In Wales, the right to empower communities has not become a central thread within the Welsh Government as regards our communities. On the community asset transfer allowing local authorities to transfer publicly owned assets to communities, there are no publicly available case studies to demonstrate its success, or otherwise. The community facilities and activities programme has provided funding for 860 projects, and yet it has not undergone a single review since 2007, with sparse information on its future.
I was heartened to hear that Rhodri Glyn Thomas AM endorsed and agreed with the main thrust of the community rights and co-production principles that we advocate today. The successes of localism include abolishing regional strategies and the comprehensive area agreements. Suzy Davies eloquently talked about silo working as negative, and evaluation partnerships and the better use of our resources for our communities. This is about the removal of some 4,700 top-down targets associated with local area agreements. We want to see a Wales where local communities are given greater control over their own destinies.
The Localism Act has established community rights, empowering communities and protecting and developing what is important to them. The community right to bid enables communities to list local amenities, such as pubs, as Mohammad Asghar very eloquently pointed out, leisure centres and post offices, as assets of community value on local authority registers, offering protection for communities when community assets are faced with closure or demolition through a six-month moratorium enabling local groups to bid or challenge these decisions. The right to bid allows community groups to develop a business plan and obtain funding or grants to take over and run a much valued community asset. The Campaign for Real Ale has highlighted the beneficial effect of this on saving local pubs, with over 100 listed this year alone in England as part of its List Your Local campaign. Compare that with Wales, where this right does not exist: between September 2012 and March 2013, two pubs closed here every week. It is shameful.
On our high streets, where Wales has the highest shop vacancy rate at 17.5%—
Nick Ramsay :
Will you give way?
Janet Finch-Saunders:
Yes.
Nick Ramsay:
You mentioned the valuable work of CAMRA in this area. Would you also recognise the valuable work of the Pub is The Hub—[Interruption.]—to try to increase the amount of work that it is doing in Wales in order to save rural pubs and help them to diversify into community centres, libraries, et cetera?
Janet Finch-Saunders:
Absolutely. It is organisations such as that that need our and the Welsh Government’s support.
On our high streets, where Wales has the highest shop vacancy rate at 17.5%, community rights could be used to safeguard these properties from becoming empty husks. They could be reinvigorated, providing sources of local employment and prosperity that would restore the economy of our Welsh high streets
The right does not apply exclusively to rural communities. In London, the proposed redevelopment of the Southbank undercroft would have meant relocating the skate park. The campaigning group Long Live Southbank was unhappy with this and started a petition to save it, attracting 64,000 signatories and successfully listing the park as an asset of community value in July this year. That cannot and will not happen in Wales.
The community rights agenda empowers all communities to tell local authorities what is important to them. Russell George highlighted that currently we have state delivery, implemented by this Welsh Government, and it is considered now to be some 40 years out of date. He also highlighted our calls to devolve more power right back to the people. The Localism Act 2011 has also empowered the children and youth action committee in Milton Keynes to obtain feasibility study funding to tackle poverty and improve the outlook for young people on the Lakes estate, where 51.5% of children are classed as living in poverty. This has only been possible since the passage of the Localism Act.
I have to say that there is a difference between us and the Welsh Government. During your contribution, Minister, you mentioned communities twice, yet you mentioned public services and service users several times. We believe that it is about communities, about the person and about the people within these communities—power to the people. You believe in power to your own Government. Having such an approach as the Localism Act in Wales could have saved the Welsh National Tennis Centre in August for the 40,000 people in Cardiff who were inspired by Andy Murray’s historic Wimbledon victory.
In Scotland, communities have been handed greater powers to buy land, leading to new landowners managing 500,000 acres of formerly publicly owned land. The community right to buy land was introduced under the ethos that, when Scottish communities purchase the land on which people live and work, they are free to reinvigorate and improve the prospects of future generations. It is so popular that discussions are currently ongoing about expanding it to include communities of over 10,000 people.
The Localism Act has also rooted out a greater priority for transparency by establishing a statutory duty to publish senior salaries, requiring councils to publish spending of above £500, very much like Monmouthshire does already, encouraging more open procurement through Contracts Finder, and allowing access to town hall accounts for 20 days a year. You do not even want this transparency. As a result—
Presiding Officer:
Your time is coming to an end
Janet Finch-Saunders:
As a result, 80% of local authorities in England reported that the Localism Act had increased their public accountability. The Welsh Government must look at how communities in Wales can be empowered to protect their pub, save their shops and retain their recreational facilities. We believe in giving people the chance to determine for themselves the things that matter. We believe that the community rights agenda is one such way of handing power back, and I ask you to reverse your decision not to support our communities, and to back this motion.