Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I particularly support my noble friends in talking about how many councils actually respond to petitions. Not only have I been a councillor, but I worked as a regional organiser for the national party and for the national Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors. In that time, I assure the noble Baroness that I very rarely came across a local authority that did not deal with a petition. The lifeblood of campaigning locally in the way in which Liberal Democrats have done over the years relies on petitions and the effect that they have. Before I was first elected to Southampton City Council, one of the things that may have contributed to my success was presenting a petition to the local council for a pedestrian-crossing in a dangerous place. That was local democracy at work. It went to a local committee—we all had committees in those days—with responsibility for that policy. I remember the shocked audience at the dismissive way with which one of the local councillors dealt with it. That is how democracy works, and it has been working like that for many years; I am going back to 1982 or 1983. We all have experience of that, as my noble friend said. I ask the Government to listen carefully to what we are saying. It is happening out there; we do not need all this.