Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

Yes, we will make that available. I will be brief. Amendment 87 proposes a change to Clause 11(7), which provides that nothing in the Bill affects the existing powers or duties of a principal local authority in relation to any petition presented to it. Clause 11(7) will not have any major impact. It is simply a helpful clarifying measure to remove any room for doubt about the impact of this Bill on the existing powers and duties of local authorities in relation to petitions. Nothing in this Bill would affect those powers. I am advised that the amendment, which proposes removing the words, ““Subject to that””, from the beginning of the subsection, would have no substantive legal effect when considered with Amendment 88. Amendment 88 would remove the references to duties. There would be no point imposing a duty on councils to respond to a petition while providing that the chapter imposes no duties. That would be a real problem. It is possible that in certain situations an authority would be under some form of legal duty to respond to a petition in the sense that it would be irrational to ignore it. It is not surprising that we would want to avoid undermining through the Bill any existing provisions that relate to local authorities’ approach to petitions. It is therefore wise to maintain an explicit reference to duties in this part of the Bill. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 90 concerns the remedies available in law in the event that a local authority fails to comply with the provisions of its petition scheme. It was not entirely clear before the debate whether the intention of the amendment was to deal with public or private law. The noble Baroness has helpfully clarified the position. It is open to anyone to seek judicial review of a local authority’s conduct if it fails to comply with its petition scheme. The noble Baroness has made it clear that she is concerned to avoid a charter for litigation, with petitioners seeking damages in the event that the local authority did not concede to their calls for action. This is an important point, but I hope that I can reassure her that it is addressed by the existing provisions. Damages for a breach of statutory duty are available only where the statute imposing the duty specifically provides for them to be paid or where an obligation is necessarily implied. This is not the case with the existing provisions, which require local authorities to carry out certain procedures in relation to petitions but in no way imply that local authorities must concede to the calls for action made by a petition. This is properly a matter for local authority members to decide. I fear that including a provision of the kind proposed by this amendment would have unintended and unfortunate consequences. No such formulation is in place in other local authority legislation, and as such its inclusion here could throw into question the ability to claim damages in relation to a range of existing local authority responsibilities. The noble Baroness made a couple of other points about district auditors. If she will allow us, we will read very carefully in Hansard what she said and respond to her in a letter.