Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

This is a more substantive group than the last one I spoke to. In moving Amendment 14, I will speak to Amendments 15 and 19 inclusive in this group. They concern the definition of ““local people”” in Clause 1(3). The definition applies to Chapter 1, which concerns the duty to promote understanding of local democracy and does not specifically apply to Chapter 2, which relates to petitions, which we will discuss in due course. The issues relating to petitions are more important because a name or petition can be rejected if someone is not classified as a local person, whereas in Chapter 1, if information is being provided and promoted you cannot stop people receiving it. You cannot say that a person is not local and therefore cannot look at a website or whatever. It is more important later on. Nevertheless, the principle is first established here. It will be an important principle in any further legislation if the community empowerment stuff comes back in legislative form My first approach to this would be to say that it is better not to try to define who local people are and leave that to common sense. As we have said several times this afternoon, central Government have put too much effort into trying to tie everything down. If it is to be defined in legislation, it needs to be sensible and it needs to have a clearer, more specific definition which, I would say, does not exclude people, or perhaps excludes people according to who needs to be excluded. These amendments provide a series of options. No doubt, when the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, has analysed them with her legal mind, she will tell me that some of them are contradictory, which they are. This is a series of options to find a sensible definition of ““local people””. The definition in the legislation is, "““‘local people’ … means people who live, work or study in the authority’s area””." That would make it exemplary and not definitive. In other words, I want to remove the word ““means”” and replace it with the word ““includes””, which would mean that people are included, and not that others are not included. That would be perfectly reasonable. A second logical way to do it, although not necessarily reasonable, would be to leave out the words ““work or study”” and just apply it to residents of the local authority area. There is a logical reason for saying that the residents in the area are people who apply specifically to that local authority. However, why should not the people who work in the local authority be included, particularly if they are entitled to stand for the council? People who study in the authority—full-time students—are perhaps a reasonable group of people to include. They might include people who go to school or who go to college over the border. In the next group of amendments but one we shall be discussing over-border issues. That widens the situation considerably, but it means that if you are a 17 year-old student who happens to cross a border to go to school, you are included, but if you live just the other side, you are not included, although you might be part of the same community and use lots of facilities provided by that council. It is not clear why the words ““or study”” are there. It also potentially includes part-time students, people who do just an hour’s night-school class or whatever. I do not think it has been thought out very well. Amendments 16 and 17 add property owners. To use the words ““people who own property”” is probably not exactly the right wording; it should be people who have an interest in a property. Why should you not have a right in relation to a local authority if you own property in that authority’s area? You may well be a landlord who owns a dozen houses and have lots of dealings with the environmental health department or with the housing benefit department or whatever, or you might be someone who has interesting relationships with the local planning authority and you are trying to get planning permission for something. Why should you be excluded? If you are a property owner or a tenant, you have a right to stand for the local authority, so you already have a statutory right. I am saying that the more you include, the more you think others should be included. The real purpose of the amendments is to try to take away all the definitions and just say ““local people”” or if you want some definitions make it inclusive and not exclusive. Amendment 18 adds, "““or use facilities provided by the authority””." Many councils provide all kinds of facilities such as schools, leisure facilities, parks, subsidised bus services or whatever which are used by people who do not live in the authority but who have a perfectly reasonable interest in what the authority does, in making their own representations and in taking part in the local democracy of the authority which makes the decisions. Those of us who are members of local authorities get petitions from people who do not live in the authority because what we are doing affects what they are doing and their lives. Amendment 19 points out that the franchise is different from what the Government are proposing and that there are people who are entitled to stand for the authority who do not come within their categories. They surely have a right to make representations and take part in democratic debate in the authority. Indeed, there are people who are entitled to stand for the council who do not come within the category that the Government are putting forward. The purpose of these amendments is to suggest that the Government should be as general and inclusive as possible and should reject my detailed amendments that suggest additional categories in favour of removing all categories. They should simply say ““local people”” and leave it to common sense.