Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

The new clause proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, catapults us straight into the heart of the part of the Bill that deals with petitions. It is a useful contribution, and the contrast between this proposal and the finicky detail set out in the Government’s dozen or so clauses is quite striking. I was interested to hear about the absence of any scheme in Salford, and I am sure that the noble Baroness will bring this to the attention of the Secretary of State. I hope that this Bill will not turn into a case of nimbyism on the part of Mrs Blears: petitions everywhere else but not in my back yard. If accepted, the new clause would replace all the other petition clauses and allow the Government to point to it and say to the audience that the Bill is intended to impress that they have thought about local democracy and have come up with a sympathetic response. I assume that the Government have gone to such lengths to set out every last detail in the Bill to give the impression of doing something. The fact that they are prepared to go to such ridiculous lengths to prescribe when and how a local authority can and cannot accept a petition, when a petition can be deemed valid or not and what steps must be taken, suggests that they are more concerned about projecting an air of industry and activity than they are about the workable effects of their legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has managed to set out all that is necessary while allowing for common sense to stay where it belongs—with local authorities. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, achieves much the same result in a different way. Amendment 83 simply deletes the unnecessary elements in Clause 11, thus allowing local authorities to set up a petition scheme of their own design. Members on this side of the Committee believe that politics is best delivered when it is close to the people that it serves. For local democracy to flourish, powers held by Whitehall must be devolved downwards and the hands of local government strengthened. Unfortunately, the Government lay out in the Bill schemes that do the complete opposite. The overly prescriptive nature of Clauses 11 to 24 not only ties the hands of local authorities but puts forward such a centralised, bureaucratic approach to responding to petitions that this side fears that it will have the opposite effect. The Government say that in the Bill they want to keep statutory guidance to a minimum and that they are introducing the Bill to devolve more influence, power and control over local services to citizens, communities and councils. They claim that communities have the ingenuity and common sense to have a real say in how local services are run. In the light of the prescriptive nature of the Bill, those are empty words, and so are the Government’s claims that they are the party of devolution. This side cannot understand why we are going down this road. We understand and support the move towards localism, but localism will be effective only when local solutions apply to local communities. Bureaucrats sitting in Whitehall determining ideal schemes will never be able to deliver the stronger and more involved communities that apparently we all seek. This side of the Committee believes that, yes, it is right that local authorities respond to the local petitions that they receive, and it is right that they are responsive to local communities’ wishes. Local councils up and down the country are already delivering on this, because plainly it is in their interests to do so. Each local authority should be given the freedom to respond to petitions in ways that are relevant to them. Local authorities know their communities best, understand them and have democratic accountability. The example of the new clause succinctly highlights the many flaws of the Government’s approach.