Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

My noble friend Lady Hamwee is recovering but is not yet recovered enough to be here. Therefore, I rise to move Amendment 24, which is in her name and mine, and I shall speak also to Amendments 27 and 29. Given the nature of the amendments, I should probably declare an interest as a member of the local strategic partnership board in the London Borough of Sutton and as a member of the crime and disorder reduction partnership board in the same borough. Until a few months ago, I was on similar boards in the London Borough of Croydon for seven years as a representative of the Metropolitan Police Authority. On Monday, we debated under Amendment 5 the nature of partnerships and the extremely important role that partnerships—the LSPs and the CDRPs, but also many other partnerships—now play in the local authority world. They are very much significant and major parts of the local authority landscape now; indeed, ““local landscape”” is probably a better expression. Yet 15 years ago, they were virtually unknown and they certainly played very little part. I know that the Minister recognises that, because she went to some length in her response on Monday to stress the important role that these partnerships play. The partnerships are relatively recent developments and they are still little understood by local people—the public. Indeed, I suspect that most members of the public do not even know of their existence, let alone of the very important work that they do. I fear that that may be true of a number of councillors as well. An even more recent development arising through these partnerships is the local area agreements and much more recently there have been the multi-area agreements, which again are playing an increasingly important part in the work of local economic development and so on. My noble friend and I therefore feel that the fact that they are not specifically referred to in this part of the Bill is an important omission. I know from the clues that we had on Monday that the Minister is likely to say that these partnerships are intended to be included under what is already in the Bill and that reference to them will be included in the guidance that will be forthcoming. I am sure that all of that is right. However, these partnership boards now play a greater role in their own right than any of the constituent members of the boards. Although the local authority may well describe the functions and arrangements of the local police service or the local health service, that is not the same thing as talking about the role of the local strategic partnership board, for example, never mind the other boards that are rather less well known. The purpose of the amendment is not simply to rely on guidance—guidance is just guidance—but explicitly to put in the Bill our recognition that partnership working and the partnership boards, to which all local authorities now belong, are extremely important to the democratic life of every area of the country. The complexity of the boards and the fact that often they do not meet in public, or certainly not with the same degree of public understanding, make it more important that their functions, operation and arrangements are explained in a way that I suspect does not happen now in many areas. I believe that this is the most necessary aspect of what this part of the Bill seeks to achieve. Most people think that they understand local authorities; even if they do not fully understand them, at least they are aware of their existence and have some idea of what they do. However, I suspect that the very existence of many of these partnership boards is not known, let alone understood. The Minister may not concede this point today—I am not that optimistic—but I hope that she will agree to think more seriously about how we address these very important partnership arrangements as we consider the Bill. Amendment 27 is self-explanatory. It would simply add the words ““(if any)””, to recognise that some of the bodies that are listed do not have democratic arrangements—that is a simple statement of fact—and by their nature never will have. The amendment proposes a simple addition to the Bill that recognises a reality. Amendment 29 would allow a principal local authority not to have to duplicate work that may be and probably is already being done by a number of the connected authorities. If those authorities are already explaining their functions and their democratic arrangements, as many of them do, a simple reference to that fact from the principal local authority should be sufficient, to avoid the necessity of repeating the whole lot again. The amendment would make that explicit. I beg to move.