Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I shall also speak to Amendment 111. We are still on the question of valid petitions and the hoops that a petition has to jump through in order to be declared valid. Clause 12(1)(b) states that a valid petition, "““requests the authority to take or cease to take action described in the petition””." That seems to fly in the face of the view expressed in the previous debate, that authorities can receive petitions that do not refer to their functions and on which they cannot take any sensible action, other than to pass them to another authority and express a view about them. I have already referred to the petitioners of Mansfield Crescent, who want a one-way system, and those of Chapel House Road, who want traffic-calming measures. The only sensible way that Pendle councillors could deal with those petitions was to pass them to the county council, probably to the Lancashire local committee of the county council, in order for it to deal with them. If they wished to do so, they could add recommendations, but I am not sure what they would be because it is not my area. That is the sensible thing to do, and Clause 12(1)(b) seems to prevent it. Therefore, Amendment 92 inserts, "““or to make representations to any other body in support of the matters referred to in the petition””." That may include taking other measures to back that up. It may be that the district council wants to mount some kind of information campaign in favour of the matter petitioned about. Perhaps the town council wants the matter to go up to the district council. It seems sensible to put this provision into the Bill to make it clear that not only can councillors receive petitions about things that they are not directly involved with, but they can take a limited amount of action on them and refer them. Amendment 111 inserts three paragraphs. The first states that, "““a principal local authority that receives a petition on a matter that does not relate to the function of the authority but relates to a matter which is the responsibility of one or more of its partner authorities may fulfil the requirements of this Chapter by referring the petition to that authority or those authorities””." The second states that, "““where such a reference takes place, the partner authority or authorities shall deal with the petition according to the provisions of this Chapter as if they were the principal local authority””." This is important because otherwise the body that receives a petition referred, for example, from a district council to the county council or from a district council to a primary care trust, may just shrug its shoulders and do nothing about it because it has not been addressed to it and therefore does not fall within the provisions of the Bill. The third paragraph defines ““partner authority””. These are important provisions in order for petitions to be taken seriously in an environment in which we have a lot of different authorities with different but interlocking and overlapping functions. Otherwise petitions will fall at the first hurdle by being given to the wrong authority.