Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

It is inevitable that in a series of amendments on this clause we will have a series of interlinked debates, because they are all, in a sense, about a group of issues that relate to connected authorities—that is, bodies that in the Bill the Government think are sufficiently close to local authorities to require the council to include them when it is producing its documents or whatever to promote understanding. Amendment 31 is grouped with five other amendments, which are in effect exactly the same amendment to different bits of this part of the Bill. I want to replace the word ““person”” as a description of connected authorities, or as a requirement to be a connected authority, with the word ““body””. The reason for doing that is that ““persons”” are legal persons: they are corporate bodies, individuals or whatever. For all the reasons that my noble friends have just been talking about with regard to partnerships, which are sometimes not legal persons although sometimes they are, ““person”” seems to be an inappropriate term. We want to replace it with a neutral term and ““body”” was the best that I could come up with. If the Government have a better one, that is fine. There is a lot of talk about these being authorities. I am not too happy with the word ““authority”” in these two lists of connected authorities. Perhaps the Government can look at that as well. Some of the bodies that we would like to see included as connected authorities are arguably not authorities. For the reasons that the Minister has given, they are voluntary partnerships rather than corporate bodies and we need a word that describes them. The Minister, when she was describing what connected authorities are, on the previous group of amendments, said that they are those local organisations—she did not use that word—that have arrangements for involvement and deliver local services. It is our submission that there are a large number of bodies that have arrangements for involvement and, whether or not they technically deliver services, in practice, in the real world, they certainly make important decisions that affect the delivery of services. They may not be the people who go out and empty the bins—if we can talk about that again—but they are certainly people who have a real influence on what happens locally, which is what matters. I shall digress slightly and talk about a partnership of which I am a member—I declare an interest. It is the Whitefield Regeneration Partnership, which had the privilege of a visit by the Minister last spring. She came to look at everything that we had not yet managed to do and things that we were hoping to do; things are moving slowly. The partnership is chaired with great distinction by my noble friend Lord Shutt of Greetland. That partnership has no powers to do anything, but it meets usually once a month. It consists of a series of partners, including the local authority, Pendle Borough Council, the other local authority, Lancashire County Council, important providers of funding, such as English Partnerships, and a number of heritage bodies. It covers a rather interesting area, where there is an attempt to regenerate an old 19th-century industrial area and terraced streets in a heritage-based way—a sort of mini-Saltaire, I suppose. There are also a number of other bodies. It includes local residents, representatives of local businesses and probably quite a few others that I have forgotten about. A number of other bodies that are not members come along to take part in the meetings and contribute to what happens. In practice, the powers for a great deal of what the partnership does—such as for declaring a compulsory purchase order on an area of land, for, we hope, changing the pattern of the local streets, for traffic calming and for deciding on the materials and the nature of the local streets and so on—are by and large held by the two concerned local authorities: the district council and the county council. Some of them are not. Some of the powers are held by the funding bodies, because they decide what they will fund and what they will not fund. English Partnerships, in its previous incarnation, played a very important role in deciding what can and cannot happen. It has used some of its powers to provide funds for some of the schemes in the area. The point that I am making is this: the partnership itself is not a corporate body and cannot go out and do anything, but it is the partnership that makes the decisions about what happens in the area. Therefore, it is wrong not to include the Whitefield Regeneration Partnership in a map of who makes decisions in the area and how decisions are made, as well as in relation to how people can get involved. The partnership has a local community forum in which all the local residents can be involved. Some of those residents come to the partnership meetings representing the forum. That kind of partnership is absolutely crucial to what we are talking about. If you are making a list of bodies in Pendle, my area, it is essential that the body should be included, and yet there is no requirement in the Bill that that body should be included. The Minister may say, as she said on the previous amendment, that if local authorities or connected authorities are on a partnership, the provisions of the Bill will apply to the partnership. However, there is nothing to say that the authority has to say what the Whitefield partnership does, how it works, who the members are or how they have been appointed, other than those who relate directly to the council. We do not understand why the Government are so reluctant to put these pervasive partnerships, which have burgeoned in recent years, into legislation. There seems to be a total reluctance to do that. Are there legal reasons why it cannot be done? The Minister has said that she will take this away and look at it, so I shall say no more about it. My amendment would simply change the word that describes the organisations in this list from ““person”” to ““body””, which would allow non-legal persons to be listed. I do not want to go on at great length again about local strategic partnerships but, if you cannot put them into the Bill, these provisions are meaningless. You have to put them in if you are going to have these lists. I may not be proposing the right word, but you need a word to describe them. I beg to move.