Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I have two main points. Early in her reply, whether to my amendments or not, the Minister said that if people do not know who makes the decisions or how the system works that is an insuperable barrier to getting involved. I do not think that is so. It may be the case, but in many instances people do not decide they want to get involved over a particular issue or under some initiative to encourage them to get involved and then say what they are interested in or concerned about. Sometimes they do that in quite an inappropriate place, having regard to the way in which the system works technically, but they are pointed in the right direction or their concerns are pursued in the right channels, although initially they do not have a clue who does what. It is not true to say that getting involved is impossible if you do not know who is responsible for the recycling or gritting or the allocation of funds to schools or whatever. Once you start to get involved, you find your way around the system and there are plenty of people to help you. It is important not to deny that the central part of Chapter 1, the idea of providing people with the information about who does what in their area, is a good idea. I want to be quite clear about that. I am not in any way saying that that should not be done, but I just think that five pages of detailed primary legislation is not the way to do it. My second point relates to my amendments and decision-making. I thank the Minister for looking at the duplication issue. This is a crucial definition. It is the definition which forms the keystone to this chapter because the whole chapter is about promoting understanding in these democratic arrangements. The definition, as set out here, is not satisfactory. It says that, "““‘democratic arrangements’ means arrangements for members of the public to participate in, or influence, the making of decisions””." It does not say that it includes an explanation of the decision-making system in which they can get involved. If you want to get involved in things, you cannot necessarily turn up to a meeting and have your say because the decision may be delegated to an officer in the authority, or to another body, or to a private-sector body which may be doing it on behalf of the council. However, there are almost always ways in which you can, if you wish, have an influence, if only by writing a letter to the person who makes the decision or by getting some other body which does not actually have responsibility for making the decision to agree with you and pass on your views as part of the process of influencing the decision. What is in the Bill is therefore unsatisfactory as a crucial, central definition. It occurred to me when the Minister was talking that I had put down the wrong amendment. I should not have attempted to write ““decision-making”” everywhere, but simply have changed the definition of ““democratic arrangements””. The Minister said that she did not want to broaden it accidentally to include, for example, disciplinary procedures, appointing the caretaker, matters of commercial confidentiality et cetera. However, the advice that she is getting is contrary to normal practice and experience in local government. Local government is so at ease with the system that it operates that there some matters that, if they come to committee, are usually called ““part 2 items””; that is, decisions that are not made in the glare of publicity, and are not open to the press and public because they may be commercially sensitive or to do with individuals and their circumstances, be they personnel matters or otherwise. That applies right the way through. The distinction is very well understood in local government and at officer level. If I as a councillor try to put influence on an officer who has to take one of those decisions, I may well be out of order—although I may be able to put in some influence in other cases. That distinction is therefore is very clearly understood in local government. Setting out the decision-making system in no way broadens the ability of people to interfere in matters which are by their very nature inappropriate for general public debate. Even where there are issues such as that—for example, those which are commercially confidential or related to personnel, it does not stop the authority writing that down as part of the definition of the decision-making system. If part of the decision-making system is inaccessible to the general public for very good reasons, that is information that they should have, not least because they will then know that they cannot turn up and talk about the matter at a meeting and that, if they try to do so, they will, one hopes, be prevented by the chairman. I do not think that I am pushing the matter too far with the amendment. The definition in the Bill is not appropriate for what the Government are trying to do. I am trying to be helpful to the Government; I am not trying to be destructive. I would ask the Minister to look specifically at that decision to see whether it can encompass what we all want to see; namely, the map produced.