Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

Amendments 54 and 55 clearly seek to limit the Secretary of State’s—or, in the case of Wales, Welsh Ministers’—order-making power in Clause 2, which allows government to amend the list of authorities that are considered connected authorities for the purposes of the duties to promote democracy. The purpose of the list at Clause 2 is to ensure that councils are clear on the minimum list of connected authorities about which we want citizens to be provided with information. We want citizens to be informed about the key decision-making bodies in their area, how they can influence them and how they can get involved in helping to make important local decisions. The order-making power included in Clause 2 allows the Secretary of State to keep the list up to date and relevant. We believe that this is a balanced and sensible approach. Similar order-making powers can be found in other legislation and the power builds in an important flexibility in relation to the duties related to the promotion of democracy. The power gives the Secretary of State the flexibility to add new connected authorities or remove them where principal local authorities no longer think a connected authority is relevant to them. To some extent I understand the noble Lord’s concern that the Secretary of State should not be able to remove bodies from the list willy-nilly, perhaps as a result of one of the bodies lobbying the Government because it is not happy with the effort involved in providing information. I appreciate the concern, but that is exactly why we have built into Clause 2 a requirement that any change to the list is consulted on with the local government sector and other relevant bodies; councils’ views on the matter will be clearly sought and listened to and changes will not be made in the face of obvious opposition from local government. In addition, any proposed change to the list of connected authorities will also be subject to the negative procedure. It will be scrutinised by Parliament, and noble Lords will be able to raise objections and have them debated in the House. In any event, as a matter of law the Secretary of State must act reasonably, and so would have to have a reasonable justification for any change. My main concern is that the amendment fails to recognise that there may be circumstances where removing a body would be perfectly legitimate. For example, local government itself might decide that a body is not relevant to the community and that it is actually burdensome on the council to have to continue collecting information that is no longer useful to local people. We also make the more technical point that if an authority ceases to exist in statute, references will be removed consequentially from the legislation, so the order-making process will not need to be used for this purpose. Amendment 55 seeks to amend Clause 2(6)(c). Let me explain what this paragraph does. The background to the wording is that one of the activities we have included in the list of connected authorities, the National Offender Management Service, is a function that is carried out by an agency of the Secretary of State rather than by a separate connected authority. This is brought in by reference to the functions of the Secretary of State under the Offender Management Act 2007, as set out in Clause 2(2)(c). Clause 2(6)(c) simply gives the Secretary of State the same power to add or remove activities from the list as she has in relation to other connected authorities. In this case, however, instead of adding or removing persons, the Secretary of State is able to add or remove her own functions. The legislation enables changes in the functions of the Secretary of State or for local circumstances to be taken into account, ensuring that information remains relevant and up to date. The amendment seeks to limit this power so that it can be used only if the functions of the Secretary of State change, but it ought to include the functions carried out by the authority in the local area. The aim here is the same as in the previous amendment—to limit the occasions on which functions can be added or removed from the list. Again, we think that this amendment would limit the legislation unnecessarily. Clause 2(6)(c) is needed so that should changes in circumstances in the future make it desirable to add additional functions to the Secretary of State, it could be done. We may want to add functions that are not new and which were not previously considered relevant to this duty, or to remove functions that no longer seem to be relevant to it. The amendment would not allow us to do either. Our intention is to ensure that the information remains as relevant to the local community as possible and that any such change is also subject to the requirement of consultation and, as I said earlier, to the parliamentary process to be undergone before the change can be made. Of course, the legal requirement to act reasonably also applies. With those assurances, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.