Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I am grateful for the opportunity offered by the clause stand part debate to explain why we have included these bodies and, I hope, to answer the questions that have been raised by both noble Lords. I hope that I did not offend the noble Baroness by describing her amendment as destructive. I certainly did not intend to denounce her—she is far too reasonable to invite denunciation—and I apologise to her if she felt that I have. I shall explain why the clauses are there as they are. I take the point about the amendments, too, and will address them in what I am going to say. In Clause 3, we seek to require local authorities to promote an understanding of what people in these roles do, how a person can be a member of these bodies or take part in them, and what is involved in doing so. The noble Lord said that he did not think that local authorities should do that in respect of these bodies, and he asked why the youth offending teams were not included. The three bodies identified in the clause all have lay civic roles, so there is a distinction between them and the youth offending teams. We can talk about those teams outside the Committee if he is concerned about that. It is very important to distinguish between the two types of duties that we are discussing. The duties in Chapter 1 are aimed at citizens’ understanding of two things: first, the democratic arrangements of those public bodies—the governance and decision-making arrangements—which we discussed yesterday and which are covered in Clauses 1 and 2, and, secondly, the civic opportunities for citizens to play a role as a lay person on a range of public bodies, which are covered separately in Clauses 3 and 4. I want to be clear that we are looking not for information about democratic arrangements, but for participation. Why have we included these bodies? Quite simply, they are important local bodies. What they do has an impact on the local community. We are dealing with independent monitoring boards, which help to monitor the day-to-day life in local prisons or removal centres and ensure that proper standards of care and decency are maintained; and with courts bodies, which make recommendations to improve the administrative services provided by the courts. We want the public to be aware that they can serve as magistrates or IMB members. There are an important number of lay roles that can be filled by people from the local community. There are quasi-judicial or inspectorate roles or roles that relate to the administration of justice. It is the same challenge again: to ensure that a more diverse range of people put themselves forward for these significant posts. These are the people who ensure that prisons and immigration centres are properly run. The posts are created to give people from the local community an input to reflect local values. If we mean to do this, surely we should get people on to these bodies who reflect the full range of the local community: young and old, a wider range of ethnic and faith groups, disabled people and so on. At the moment—