Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I declare an interest as a councillor for a mere 31 years. I also sit on various regional and sub-regional bodies, although I have just resigned as chairman of 4NW. I also sit on the regional development agency, on which I think that the noble Lord, Lord Tope, has tabled an amendment. I believe that all sides honestly are saying that there are problems about local democracy. Members of the Committee on the opposite Benches have referred to two ways in which people can get involved. One is participation, which can mean two things. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is right. The opportunity for people to get active in influencing local affairs probably has never been higher. Never in my 31 years have we been involved in more local committees and local activities to give people an opportunity to have a say on things. Unfortunately, those people who get really involved are a minority. Probably, the same people who get interested in one issue then get involved in other aspects of consultation. So there is a need to drive up those numbers and, again, we would want to share best practice. My noble friend mentioned voting, which is a problem both locally and nationally. Whatever we do locally, we need to bear that in mind. In the case mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, there may be higher participation. But, inevitably, that is the nature of making decisions in local government. People have to make tough decisions. As many Members of the Committee may know, recently, I was involved in running a referendum in Greater Manchester on improvements in public transport, but it became a referendum just on whether there should be a congestion charge. There was a 55 per cent turnout. In particular, young people, who do not normally take part in local elections, voted. Whereas the average turnout in Greater Manchester probably is about 30 per cent, for this it was almost twice that figure. On an issue about which people really feel involved and feel that they can influence, we can get participation in terms of voting. But I am not a great advocate of referendums, particularly after that experience. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, referred to the complexities of local governance. We are not talking about only local government, but about getting involved in partnerships and other agencies, and about collaborating with other authorities, which is probably for the better. This Bill includes something on that. I wonder whether it makes sense to do things beyond local boundaries for the good of the people who we are elected to represent. These things are complicated, but we need to explain them in ordinary language that people can understand and not in the language of the Bill. Members of the Committee have mentioned the great danger of the Government trying to be too specific. But let us be honest and acknowledge that there is a problem which we must try to tackle.