Clause 37 - Best value grant: communities
Local Government Bill
10:00 am
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight, Conservative)
I should like to explore some of the types of information that the National Assembly for Wales might seek to obtain under the provisions of the clause. It may be difficult to envisage that in the context of a regime under which no best value requirements are placed on any parishes or communities in Wales. However, can the Under-Secretary indicate whether the information that a community council may be required to provide is limited to that which it has obtained in connection with best value purposes? Or might it extend beyond such purposes to information that it might perhaps have acquired for other purposes; or, indeed, that it might not have acquired had it not been for the desire to obtain the grant that is or might become available under the clause?
Let me give the Under-Secretary some examples. Is it the intention of the Assembly to obtain information about the linguistic make-up of communities in Wales, the languages spoken by people buying houses or the ethnic origin of people in Welsh communities? Is it intended that the Assembly can require community councils to use the grant in such a way as to either distort or maintain the ethnic or linguistic composition of particular communities in Wales? Is it within the power that will be conveyed by the clause for a community council to make grants to schools or rural post offices? For example, in Cardiganshire there is argument about whether new houses should be built in its communities because they may be purchased by incomers who being more likely to be English than Welsh, would distort the balance between Welsh and English speakers. The contrary arguments are that the houses should not be built, in which case the viability
of local services, such as post offices and schools, would be reduced, or that the houses should be built only on condition that they are occupied by people who speak Welsh. Is it within the powers of the clause for the National Assembly for Wales to require that the grant be spent in any of those ways?