Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I shall try not to repeat anything that I said in our previous debate, although many of the same issues have arisen. I shall try to allay some of the fears that have been raised in relation to the magistracy. In Clause 4, we are trying to require local authorities to promote understanding of what people in the role of lay justice do, how a person can become a lay justice or magistrate and what is involved in doing so. We are concerned only with promoting the civic governance roles listed in Clauses 3 and 4. I say to my noble friend Lord Borrie that it is very important that we make a distinction. Local authorities are not recruiting magistrates; they are simply promoting the role and opportunities for people to put themselves forward to become magistrates if they so choose. I leave to stand all the arguments that I deployed on the previous debate about how that was seen as useful by the bodies representing magistrates. I take the point raised by the noble Lord; I will read carefully what he said about some of those relationships. Amendment 62 is about ensuring that the information provided about lay justices is appropriate for dissemination—that it is relevant to the local area. The noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, took up the same point. Of course we want that to be the case. We will be setting out in guidance that we do not expect anything more than the general role of a lay justice—what they do and how to become one—to be disseminated. The clause does that. The amendment is intended to ensure that the functions of a lay justice are explained by a council only where the functions are of a public nature connected with the principal local authority. As the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, said, that is intended to address the concern that judicial case-specific functions, which would not be appropriate to be explained publicly, should not be included in the duty. We agree. As I said, the clauses distinguish between public bodies that are meant to reach out to citizens and involve them and others, such as inspectorates or lay justices, who should make decisions independent of public preference. That is one reason why Clauses 3 and 4 differ from Clauses 1 and 2. That is why they focus on promoting information about specific civic roles.