Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I am overwhelmed by the welcome that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has given the clause in both its purpose and its drafting. I am delighted, because it is good to get on to Part 2. I will reserve my explanation of the principles behind the provision and our problems with what perhaps I may call the short version. I shall save all that up for the next amendment and respond just on why e-petitions are important, why they are in the Bill in the way they are and how, in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, they lock in within the general petition scheme. I shall also talk about the differences between e-petitions and paper petitions and why the Bill addresses them slightly differently. I shall pick up the GLA point first. Clause 20 provides a power to use secondary legislation to extend provision on petitions to the GLA. We do not think that the duty to respond should be extended to the GLA, as we might need to devise different provisions. We had that debate in the noble Baroness’s absence. As she pointed out, the GLA does not have an O&S committee as such, because the Assembly performs those functions. Different provisions might also be necessary to reflect the different role of the mayor. We have no plans to exercise the power, but I am interested in her proposal and would like to discuss it further with her between now and Report to see whether we can arrive at an accommodation. Clause 10 provides that the principal local authority must make available a facility for submitting e-petitions. Subsection (2) sets out that the authority must give a reason if it decides to reject an e-petition submitted through its facility and subsection (3) defines the types of authority covered by ““principal local authorities””. E-petitions are a recent but invaluable armoury in the backpack of the citizen. We only need to look at the No. 10 e-petitions site and local authorities such as Bristol and Kingston upon Thames to see how effective they can be. It is right that this legislation should make provision for such petitions, but the way they work is slightly different and so the Bill is drafted to reflect that. The process begins when the petition organiser puts a proposition to the local authority. He or she does not have a petition that is signed by hundreds of names; he or she simply has a topic or a title that he or she wants to gather support for. They put the proposition that they would like a petition hosted on the council’s website and submit the details of the petition to the local authority online, calling for what they want to see, along with the petitioner’s contact details. The local authority can then review the e-petition before it publishes it or makes it available online to be signed. This extra preliminary step in the process is the essential difference between an e-petition and a paper petition. A paper petition will normally come to the attention of the local authority—often in a rather scruffy form—only at the end of the process, when collection of signatures is complete. It is this difference that Clause 10 attempts to address. The principal local authority, having seen the subject matter of the petition, can, as provided in subsection (2), decide not to grant the request to host the e-petition. It must, however, give reasons for this refusal. The reason might be administrative—for example, if the petition is the same as one already available for signature, or if it is not clear what the petition is calling for. That opens up opportunities for dialogue, to ensure that the petition is as effective as possible. Bristol is a good example of how that works. There may be other situations where the local authority will not be able to put the petition online, because the content would go against the authority’s responsibilities elsewhere—for example, not to publish certain types of information. Again, the provisions in Clause 10 require that the principal local authority should give an explanation, which will in turn give the petitioner the opportunity to revise and resubmit the petition. In all other respects, an e-petition is dealt with in the same way and has the same status as a paper petition, which is why it is locked into the petition scheme. I hope that that addresses part of the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. It is assessed by the same rules as when a paper petition is made to the principal authority. Whether it is valid depends on whether it fulfils the simple criteria in Clause 12. Whether it is active depends on whether it fulfils the criteria in Clause 14 about, for example, relevance or vexatiousness. I understand the concern in the amendment that this may be a way for local authorities to avoid responding to petitions. The amendment provides that local authorities could refuse a request to use the facility only if the e-petition would not be valid or if the wording was offensive, contravened an enactment or called for anything that was unlawful. As with everything that I will say about petitions, we are not in the business of making things more difficult. We are in the business of making things more effective in these clauses. A principal local authority’s e-petitions facility will be part of its petition scheme, and authorities will be subject to a legally binding duty to host petitions unless there is a good reason for not hosting them. They can set out in their petition schemes the criteria for acceptable e-petitions and, if they are too restrictive, the appropriate national authority has powers in Clause 19 to rectify the matter. The obligation to give reasons for refusing to host a particular petition is a powerful tool that will mean that legitimate requests are treated properly. Councils have to act reasonably—that is the central assumption—and they will not give ridiculous or bizarre reasons in writing for refusing to host a particular petition. The provision ensures that a petitioner will receive prompt feedback if the proposition is not publishable, which introduces an iterative and useful process as far as the petitioner is concerned. However, the guidance that we will publish will also help local authorities to deal with the obviously provocative and will explain what we mean by ““reasonable””. Again, we are using the guidance as a helpful tool for local authorities—simple suggestions about the sorts of things that they might watch out for. Guidance is not about excluding things about which people can petition, but some of the issues that are raised in petitions are the sorts of things that neither noble Lords opposite nor I would want, such as issues that might raise community tensions. I would be very happy to discuss with the noble Lord before Report the nature of the guidance and how it will work so that we can be clear about it. As I say, the local authorities will be under a legally binding duty to host petitions unless there is a good reason for not hosting them. The guidance will further clarify that. Amendment 79 states: "““Nothing in this section prevents a principal local authority from … allowing the use of its internet facilities for petitions other than those made under””," this petitions duty, or from, "““using its internet facilities for the purposes of consultation with local people””." Again, I have great sympathy with the noble Lord’s amendment and I assure him that the spirit of the petitions requirement in Clause 10 is to ensure that local people can create, sign and submit petitions to their principal local authority electronically. We want people to be able to use e-petitions to raise all the concerns that they currently raise on paper with their principal local authority. This includes petitions that might be submitted in relation to the regulations under Section 34 of the Local Government Act 2000, which call for a change in governance, such as having a mayoral referendum. We are currently consulting on this. Nothing in the clause, therefore, prevents a principal local authority from using its e-petitions facility for petitions other than those covered by the chapter. Nor does anything prevent it from using its internet facilities to consult local people. We want to encourage that. Amendment 101 deals with the conditions in Clause 12 that need to be met for a petition to be valid. We will come to that a little later. Clause 12(1)(c) provides that valid petitions must be signed. Again, the amendment is probing. It would remove the provision that, for electronic petitions, the principal authority can determine what counts as a signature. There might, for example, be an electronic box to indicate that the authority wants the petitioner to sign it, or the petitioner might be required to give an e-mail address. This might not be the most vital provision in the Bill, but it adds legal clarity. Given that, in electronic petitions, people will not be able to sign their name in the usual way, we need to be clear that something can count as an electronic signature. It will be up to individual authorities, in setting up their e-petition facility, to work out what this is. Clause 12(4) is therefore useful. Having explored some of the amendments’ implications, I do not think that the noble Lord is quite right to say that this will be a minimum requirement that a local authority will use as an excuse either not to take a petition seriously or to do the minimum. This will be an extremely important facility for the future, because this is how most young people in particular communicate. People are becoming increasingly familiar with the use of e-petitions. Local authorities know that they cannot be cavalier about them or dismiss them. There is nothing in the Bill to stop them dealing with petitions that do not fulfil the criteria in other ways. In fact, they will have an opportunity to do so, as Clause 19 makes clear. I know that I am the Minister and am optimistic, but I do think that we have provided a very important new facility for people. On the basis of the No. 10 website and the local authorities that are already doing this, I think that it will be very well used and very helpful.