Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I would like to follow the last few comments in which a question was asked of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. It occurred to me as the debate moved on that the constructive amendment of the Liberal Democrats is quite reasonable. I am not sure that it is really useful, but it is certainly constructive to insert ““reasonable endeavours”” before ““duty to promote””. However, the Conservative amendment is completely destructive and not positive at all. I quite agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, that it is not a drafting amendment: it is not. It is a destructive amendment because it would remove completely the duty to promote and would insert words that may as well not be there at all. It states that the local authority ““must have regard to the desirability of promoting””, which means that anyone can do anything they like. You might as well suggest that the whole clause should go—not just Clause 1 but all the other clauses to which amendments in this group apply. Neither the Conservatives nor the Liberal Democrats have admitted in this debate or at Second Reading that at the moment, local government and local democracy are at a pretty low ebb in terms of public regard. It is not as if there is tremendous public regard for local government and tremendous participation, other than in the example given by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. When something is being closed down, everybody turns up at a meeting so long as it is reasonably well arranged, but in the normal course of things, the peoples’ vote at local elections is lamentable. I would have thought that other Governments—when in power as distinct from being merely potential Governments—would realise that something needed to be done in the form of legislation. There should be a duty to promote local democracy and a duty to do various other detailed things. I would not go so far as the Government in laying things down in such detail in the Bill—a point of criticism which I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Greaves—but there should be a duty to promote local democracy. Increasing the ways and means of public participation in local affairs is wholly desirable. I do not see why any of the amendments in this first group should be passed.