English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Committee (8th Day)

Debate on Amendment 222A resumed.

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken on what was—

My Lords, before we were interrupted, I was just saying that we are very grateful to all noble Lords who spoke on 11 February—it was as far away as that, and we have not met since then. If noble Lords think back, it was quite a substantial debate on quite a detailed group. It exposed three central questions, which the Government must answer before the Committee can be satisfied with Schedule 29. First, is community right to buy being strengthened, or is it being quietly diluted? Secondly, will the new way of doing it be workably practical? Thirdly, are we broadening community value or are we narrowing it?

I will begin with Amendment 222A in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas. However carefully drafted Schedule 29 is, community right to buy will not function without progressive funding, and that is simply a fact. Under previous Administrations, community right to buy was not merely a legislative gesture; it was always backed by dedicated financial support. That funding was increased year on year. It was recognised that if communities are to compete with commercial purchasers, they require practical backing and not statutory wording.

I ask the Minister directly: what funding will operate under this regime? Will there be a National Lottery partnership funding, or are communities now expected to rely entirely on their own fundraising capacity?

Schedule 29 makes significant changes to the way assets of community value are defined and protected under the existing localism framework. A number of amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Coffey quite rightly step back and ask a more fundamental question: are we improving the system that communities rely on, or are we making it more fragile? Her amendments probe whether protections could fall away too easily, whether designated periods are being weakened and whether the balance is shifting away from communities and towards expediency. At the heart, this is about certainty for communities.

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords and noble Baronesses for their amendments on the community right to buy and assets of community value, which I will refer to as ACVs. I know we debated this as far back as 11 February and, if it were not for the magic of Hansard, it would be a considerable memory test as to where we got to.

I hope I can reassure noble Lords of the determination of our Government to strengthen community right to buy and make it work. I will turn first to Amendment 222A tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, on the subject of funding for the purchase of ACVs. I assure the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, that we are already putting record investment into communities, supporting them to take ownership of valued local assets and ensuring that they can make effective use of the new community right-to-buy powers in the Bill. The noble Baroness rightly pointed out that if you do not do that, there is little point in having a community right to buy at all. Our Pride in Place programme is providing up to £5.8 billion over 10 years to support 284 places to regenerate and improve their communities. The Pride in Place impact fund will also provide £150 million of funding for up to 95 places to support the development of community spaces, as well as revitalising local high streets and the public realm.

The Government launched the £175 million community wealth fund in September last year as part of our commitment to put power in the hands of communities and deliver on the Pride in Place strategy. The community wealth fund is funded, as the noble Baroness indicated, through dormant assets and match funding from the National Lottery Community Fund, our delivery partner. Disadvantaged communities will receive funding pots of between £1 million and £2.5 million each over a 10-year period, building community power in the places that need it most. Local people will have a say on where the funding should be spent, be that community cooking classes, after-school clubs, improvements to the look and feel of neighbourhoods, sports facilities or many other projects that have come forward for that funding. We believe that providing funding directly to the most in-need communities and putting them in the driving seat is the right approach. Communities can use their funding on the projects that are most important to them, including protecting local assets.

I understand all that money coming in, but it is targeted to certain communities. The community right to buy was for communities across the whole country. They had the ability to ask for support to save their pubs, or village or town amenities. I worry that those not in the schemes that the Government have now set up are going to be left behind.

The point is that many communities have managed to raise funding for schemes themselves. We are trying to target those communities that are less able to do that, and that is the point of the way in which this is funded.

Turning to Amendment 222D, I share the desire of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, to ensure that communities do not lose local assets that are important to them. She tabled an identical amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and, as she will be aware from the debates on that amendment, it is already the case that the demolition permitted development right excludes many types of buildings that may be designated as ACVs. This includes pubs, concert halls, theatres, live music venues and so on. Local planning authorities are able to use Article 4 directions to remove permitted development rights in their area where they consider it appropriate to do so.

However, as the Minister for Housing and Planning acknowledged during Commons consideration of Lords amendments to the then Planning and Infrastructure Bill,

“we think there are justifiable arguments for removing demolition of ACVs from permitted development rights”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/11/25; col. 362.]

The Minister has, therefore, already committed to consult on this matter. We intend to include this proposal in the next consultation on permitted development rights, which we will publish in due course.

I turn now to Amendment 222E on the listing period for ACVs, which was also tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. Under the provisions in the Bill, a local authority must remove an asset from its list of ACVs after a period of five years, with the Secretary of State able to amend this period through regulations. Although we want to ensure strong protections for ACVs, we do not think that it would be appropriate to remove this requirement and thereby make the listing period indefinite. Our intention is to empower communities at the same time as protecting the rights of asset owners. Indefinitely subjecting asset owners to the sale restrictions created by community right to buy would not be justifiable, given that the value of an asset to a community may diminish over time. There is also a risk that local authorities would be incentivised to make tougher judgments on requests from the community to list ACVs if listings are indefinite. This would conflict with the intention of the policy to allow communities to protect as many locally important assets as possible.

Is the department still looking for feedback on this? It may not be complete yet, so I thought I should ask that question.

Indeed, I would very much welcome the noble Earl’s feedback as we start to develop the statutory guidance on that. He is very welcome to comment further on the issues around this use of cultural assets.

Amendments 223A, 224A, 225, 226 and 228 are on assets that further the environmental well-being of local communities. I reassure the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle and Lady Freeman of Steventon—I am sorry that she cannot be here today but I will send a draft of my speech to her—that the community right to buy will empower communities to protect a broad range of assets that are important to local life. That includes environmental assets. Communities will be able to nominate an extensive range of environmental assets, where they further their social or economic well-being, through the current provisions in this Bill. This could include allotments, playing fields, woodlands and farms, to name but a few. Statutory guidance will make clear that local authorities should accept nominations for such assets that meet the criteria.

However, the scheme is not intended to be used as a vehicle for general environmental protection. While excluding land allocated in local development plans will be helpful in preventing the scheme being used to block development activity, it is important that it remains focused on those assets that have an existing or historic role in community life. Environmental problems are best tackled through effective regulation, and this scheme should not act as a fallback or proxy for that.

I feel that, once you have left the environment out of the legal safeguards on this particular aspect, you are inviting people to ignore them. I am very concerned about that. I am not just talking about sorting out problems; opportunities for local people could be completely disregarded.

As the noble Baroness will be aware, there is a whole range of safeguards in the planning system for environmental purposes. This asset of community value is there for communities to enable them to protect particular assets that they find of value in the environment. We will be developing the guidance for this and I hope the noble Baroness will take part in that guidance. She asked me earlier today if I will meet her and I am of course very happy to do that.

I turn to Amendments 232A and 232B. I agree with the noble Baroness’s sentiment that as many assets as possible should come into the scope of the policy; however, we have to recognise that there are some types of land that it will not be feasible or justifiable to designate as ACVs, as other interests may take precedence. That includes private residences and operational land used for statutory undertakings such as water, gas and electricity. It is right that the policy prevents the listing of land in these limited circumstances, which is why the Secretary of State has the power to set out land that is not of community value in regulations. We will continue to keep the list of exemptions under review to ensure that it is not unnecessarily restrictive and that communities can protect a wide range of assets.

Amendments 234ZA and 234A seek to broaden the definition of a sporting asset of community value. The current statutory definition of a sports ground in the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975 explicitly states that the ground must have a spectator facility, so that provides a clear objective framework to help councils assess eligibility for listing as an SACV. There is no comparable alternative legislation that provides a comprehensive or universally applicable statutory definition. Broadening this definition would place a considerable burden on local authorities to identify grounds they consider to be eligible for SACV listing and to retain up-to-date lists of them. Any ambiguity could lead local authorities to being less confident about listing these vital assets.

If a council decides to designate, say, Hackney Marshes or some other area like that and it is clearly for sporting value, will it then get the same protection even if the council has not initially designated it because it did not have spectator facilities? Will it then get the same protection for life?

That is a very good question. Because those are sporting facilities, I would imagine that they come under the ACV scheme or the SACV scheme. I feel that they should be because they are all sporting assets but I will check that and respond to the noble Baroness in writing.