Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

First, I broadly welcome the thrust of the Government’s actions, which are to devolve power to parish and town councils. I suspect that, when the power is implemented, local authorities will conduct a review of the authorities in their area, especially if they are brave. I remember that, as a county councillor, I had approximately 15 parishes in my county council ward. Some of our areas—I think especially of Wiltshire—have hundreds of parish councils. Many have strong links but, because of the passage of time, many villages have died out since the parishes were instigated. There will, therefore, be a good argument for a review. I shall outline my only concerns about the regulations. There is a duty on local authorities to respond to a petition within the terms that the Minister set out. It is, effectively, after two years, but I believe that that is not long enough. Two years is not a great length of time for reviewing all the parishes in an area. Some parishes meet only annually and might have had two or three meetings between the time of the review and the time someone brings forward a petition to change the arrangements yet again. I suspect that petitions are most likely when a town has expanded and a new estate finds itself in a parish but wants to belong to the town to which it is appended. Even over a period of two or three years, one could easily foresee substantial change in house building as strategic planning takes place and planning permissions are granted, so two years is much too quick. My concern is that the local authority will always have to undertake a review or respond to a particularly vociferous group that is regularly raising petitions. In those circumstances, a longer term of more than two years—perhaps five or 10 years—would be more sensible. Nothing changes substantially, except perhaps where a town is growing and a new estate is expanding into a parish adjacent to a new town. The Government are too generous in allowing these petitions, which may well cause a problem for some authorities. Is a petition time limited? Clause 60(3) stipulates that if the area has"““fewer than 500 local government electors, the petition must be signed by at least 50 per cent. of the electors””." Various requirements and thresholds are set out for a community governance petition, but I did wonder whether a petition would be time limited. Could a petition last three, four, five or six years, eventually reaching a point that triggers a response from the council? If so, that would be wrong. If someone is to gain a significant amount of support for a change in the parish arrangements, there should be a time frame within which they should have to raise the petition. Otherwise, someone could raise petitions over a much longer period. If an authority is having to deal with a petition of 2,000 names, the council concerned should at least look into the number of names on it to establish before undertaking a community governance review whether they are fairly current. Presumably, under the clause, they would have to be local government electors, so to qualify, the petition should include an electoral number or an address against the names. Are we talking about the current electoral position? In other words, if someone wants to raise a petition for a community governance review, will they have to use the current year’s electoral register in order that people qualify? The provisions are still not clear, so the Government should provide some reassurances about how petitions will be raised. If we are placing a duty on a local authority, which may involve a cost to that authority, it is perfectly proper that a petition should be raised quickly in the appropriate manner and responded to accordingly. The petition should be time limited. Two years is far too short a period for the council to respond. It should be rather longer; otherwise, vociferous groups could be rushing around to raise petitions in order to change arrangements, causing all sorts of difficulties for local authorities, which have a duty under the Bill to respond.