Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

Apart from Amendment 77, which is slightly different, I have Amendments 4, 6, 13, 26 and 28 in this group. Effectively, they are all the same but relate to different parts of Chapter 1. I shall deal with Amendment 77 first, which I tabled because there appears to be some duplication in the Bill. In Clause 9 at the end of Chapter 1 there are definitions of ““principal local authority””, ““democratic arrangements”” and ““local people””, which, according to the clause, all have, "““the meaning given by section 1””." I imagined that the definitions refer to Clause 1, but they do not. The definitions in Clause 1 refer to the full definitions of ““principal local authority””, ““democratic arrangements”” and ““local people”” and apply to the whole chapter, so the definitions of those three phrases appear twice in the same chapter. To encourage the Government to make the Bill three lines shorter, I have tabled Amendment 77. The Government could make my day and accept it, although it would not make any difference to anything because it is there already. The other amendments relate to adding the words ““and decision making”” to wherever the phrase ““democratic arrangements”” occurs in Chapter 1 to make it mean what the Minister has said it means. Clause 1(3) defines ““democratic arrangements”” as being, "““arrangements for members of the public to participate in, or influence, the making of decisions””." There is a wide range of agreement in the Committee that we want to see the promotion of those arrangements, which in general terms is very good, but it is a slightly odd definition of democracy. There is no doubt in my mind that encouraging people to take part in local governance in all sorts of ways—going to council meetings and taking part, going to public meetings and going to the kind of meetings which the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, was talking about—is all part and parcel of democracy. But it is only part of democracy. The real bases for the structure of local democracy are elected local councils, as my noble friend just said. Without elected local councils, there would be no democratic structure for anyone to take part in. It is an odd definition of democratic arrangements, but I will not quibble because what is being put forward is a good thing. However, it is clear from discussion on the previous group of amendments that what is being proposed here is a duty on local authorities to set out the map for the structure of local governance in the area. The decision-making systems have to be set out and explained and people have to understand them before they can sensibly take part in them. That is the noble Baroness’s argument. But it does not say that here. It says that there is a duty to promote arrangements for members of the public to participate in the making of decisions. All that I am doing is adding the structure of the decision-making system to this part of the Bill that has to be explained and put forward to promote understanding of it. People first need to know how decisions are made and who makes them. When people know that, they can settle to and try to influence those decisions. If they do not know how the decisions are made and who makes them, they just fire off letters to the local press attacking everybody regardless of who does what. The week before last, I went to a meeting of a body called Lancashire Local—Pendle—I do not understand why Lancashire County Council puts adjectives and nouns the wrong way round these days, but it is a bit like Team GB, I suppose. Lancashire Local—Pendle is a six-weekly meeting that Lancashire County Council holds for the district of Pendle. It holds one for each of the 12 districts in the county at which local things are discussed. Anything that the county is doing can be discussed and a few things have been devolved to these meetings to be decided. It is a joint committee consisting of all the county councillors representing the borough and the same number of borough councillors in each county. It is a step forward towards devolution in a very widespread county. At this meeting, a gentleman made a vitriolic attack on Pendle Borough Council and Pendle councillors for the appalling mess that we had made, he said, of clearing the snow and ice in the bad weather we had before Christmas. The service that was put forward in Pendle was appalling—far worse than it has ever been in the past—but it was the responsibility of Lancashire County Council. It used to be run by Pendle. Two years ago, the county took the service back despite vigorous opposition from people including me—the whole of Pendle Borough Council, in fact. Nevertheless, we had it taken from us. The county said ““No, we’ll do it. We’ll do a much better job””, and they made a complete botch of it. But the person who stood up and the various people who complained to the paper attacked Pendle Borough Council. Unless you know who does what, you do not know where, as the Government would say, to engage with the system. The purpose of the amendments is entirely constructive. It is an attempt to make this part of the Bill say what I understand the Government mean it to say.