Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

In declaring my interest as leader of a local authority, I reassure the Committee that if somebody asked me for more staff to implement the Bill’s provisions, they would be laughed at. Frankly, it would not happen. I do not know what kind of local government world the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, occupies, but we are not like that anymore. We are concerned about keeping down council tax, working out what we are going to do with regard to the next Comprehensive Spending Review and making sure that we protect our front-line services. Duties on local authorities come and go. Clearly, there will be a duty to set up this measure and get it going but, once that has happened, it will fall back and the task will become fairly routine. Life in local authorities is no longer as the noble Lord describes; we have to deal with real-world situations. I did not hear the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, say how she intends to measure benefits. What would she regard as the benefit of giving people information that enables them to be better citizens? It sounds simple in practice but I am not sure how she would measure it.