Lord Newton of Braintree: My Lords, perhaps I may briefly extend my support to my noble friend. I had better confess that I am in the same boat as the noble Baroness, who got back just in time. I had sneaked off for a while, in the belief that I deserved some respite from this suffering, but I was tempted back by my noble friend Lord Renfrew, having had the same representations from the same groups as he has evidently...
Lord Newton of Braintree: I apologise but whatever may be true in towns, perhaps I might give a direct illustration. My wife's ward on Braintree District Council is called Coggeshall and North Feering. The neighbouring ward is Feering and Kelvedon, and I need hardly say that North Feering almost certainly sees itself as more closely related for most purposes with Feering and Kelvedon than with Coggeshall, which is...
Lord Newton of Braintree: My Lords, I would still like to know how we will define the group of persons stated in the Bill as wanting to live in an area?
Lord Newton of Braintree: My Lords, so as to avoid the risk of upsetting everyone, I promise to be very brief. I want to make a totally different point, having had my attention drawn to it by the amendment of my noble friend Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, with which I have some sympathy. I should like to know-this is in the Bill-how it can be established that a body is expressly for the purposes of, "furthering the...
Lord Newton of Braintree: My Lords, in what people will no doubt regard as my characteristically generalist way, I rise not to move some clever amendment or ask some difficult questions but simply to express my support for what I take to be the basic thrust of my noble friend Lord True's amendment, which goes to the heart of one of the tensions in the Bill. This is called the Localism Bill, and it is supposed to...
Lord Newton of Braintree: I had not intended to speak in this debate and I ought to confess that-how can I best describe it?-I copped out on the previous debate as I found my noble friend Lord Marlesford and all the other speeches very persuasive until I heard my noble friend from the Front Bench who I thought made some significant points that undermined the possible practicality of that amendment. This amendment is...
Lord Newton of Braintree: My Lords, with even greater brevity, I just intervene to say that, having listened to the noble Lord, Lord Bilston, the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, and the noble Lord on the opposition Front Bench, I want to appeal to the sympathy of my noble friends on the Front Bench. It sounds like a good worthy cause for people who have been having a bit of a struggle. I know a number of them in my...
Lord Newton of Braintree: My Lords, I shall interject a question from a slightly more sceptical angle, while understanding where noble Lords opposite are coming from. I can understand how the proposal in Amendment 116 might work in a police authority where there is only one local authority. What I do not understand is how it would work in a police authority such as Essex, where there are, if not quite 17, at least...
Lord Newton of Braintree: All I will say, if I am allowed to treat that as an intervention, is that I found it pretty messy and I would like to know what is to be done in councils where there is no overall control.
Lord Newton of Braintree: My Lords, I am sorry to get ahead of the right reverend Prelate. There are least three pieces of major legislation currently going around that have an impact, as is perceived, on vulnerable people, including children, disabled people and others. I refer to the Welfare Reform Bill, this legal aid legislation and the housing provisions of the Localism Bill. Has anyone carried out an overall...
Lord Newton of Braintree: Prompted again by what I have heard-I hope that this is not out of order, because it raises a point about the clause with which we have just finished-this is the first reference I have seen to town councils as distinct from parish councils. Town councils are not specified as relevant bodies in the previous clause; they are included in the new clause. What is the position of town councils...
Lord Newton of Braintree: My Lords, I knew it was a mistake to mix with these experts. I had better apologise for not understanding the point about parish and town councils and indeed for stirring up the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, with his well- informed speech. I want to make two observations, one of which builds on that. Town councils, in terms of their size and perception of themselves, can be, as in his example of...
Lord Newton of Braintree: I hope that I may hop in before the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, sums up, because I have been left in a state of confusion-as, I suspect, has the opposition Front Bench. I understand the point that this provision is not intended to let in large, multinational companies. We probably would not want to do that and in any case it seems to me that the number of large, multinational companies that...
Lord Newton of Braintree: Can I be absolutely clear about that? I am sorry; I am becoming as talkative as the noble Baroness. I do not apologise for that as I think she is doing rather well. If a profit-making company were involved with a community body, would that be all right, even though it was making a profit?
Lord Newton of Braintree: I am very encouraged by that.
Lord Newton of Braintree: My Lords, I want to build with a couple of questions on what my noble friend Lord Greaves and the noble Baroness have said. Definition seems to me to be quite an issue on my scanning of this clause. The question that has just been asked about what community you have to be in, so to speak, is at least worth asking and it will be interesting to see the answer. The other question is that I...
Lord Newton of Braintree: My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Suffolk Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust and the immediate past chairman of Help the Hospices. I agree with my noble friend Lady Oppenheim-Barnes. Indeed, this has been a running sore throughout my entire political lifetime since I was first elected as an MP in 1974. The right metaphor now might be a ticking time bomb in one of those James...
Lord Newton of Braintree: My Lords, I apologise to my noble friend but tempted again I have been-on this occasion just to show how even-handed I am-to join in a little bit with the noble Lords, Lord Beecham and Lord McKenzie, with due apologies to my noble friend Lord Jenkin. It is the third arm of this that worries me most. It says, "any other person whom the authority considers to have an interest which is likely to...
Lord Newton of Braintree: Before anybody says anything else, may I pick up on something which my noble friend Lord Greaves said? I understand that it has not been raised, even though I admit that I have not been here throughout the debate. My question has been illustrated in what my noble friend was saying: what is the position of the party agent in all this? That question has not been specifically addressed. It...
Lord Newton of Braintree: Before my noble friend sits down and the experts start coming in, I welcome the clarity of his statement about planning applications, leaving aside the more complex high-level issues raised by my noble friend Lord True. Thinking back on my time as an MP, I see that it would sometimes have been very pleasing to have been able to point constituents aggrieved by the granting of an application in...