Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

This is a useful debate because the way in which the principal authority relates to its partners, the connected authorities defined in the Bill, and to bodies which are not strictly speaking its partners is complicated. The example of the petition given by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, demonstrated exactly what the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, said about the complication of a two-tier authority. People do not know who is responsible for what, or to whom to direct their petition, and part of the purpose of the Bill is to make that clear and to publicise it. On some of the broader issues about our approach, Clause 12(1)(b) certainly does not stop councils passing on petitions to partner authorities or to anyone else. That is part of their responsibility. I shall come back to that issue in a moment. Clause 14 requires principal local authorities in England and Wales to take steps in regard to petitions relating to their functions. It also requires unitary and top-tier principal authorities in England to take steps in response to petitions relating to an improvement in the economic, social or environmental well-being to which any of the partner authorities can contribute. That is there for a purpose. It means that unitary and top-tier councils which co-ordinate the local area agreements—and therefore have the identified partners represented in this Bill, but in a slightly different form from the 2007 Act, which we discussed at some length—bring everyone involved appropriately into the net. There are also performance indicators around the local area agreements which are shared and promoted by partners. This means that if, for example, a local person were to raise an issue such as GP opening hours or crime and present it to the local authority, they would then—because of the local area agreement and the way in which the connected authorities work in partnership—have the right to ensure that the local authority acted and that it presented and stated their case to partner authorities. That is basically what we are trying to achieve in this part of the Bill. It is possible that people will contact directly the organisations responsible—they might go directly to the PCT in the case of GP opening hours—because that clearly will be quicker and easier. However, if they are not happy with the response they receive or they do not know about the PCT’s own arrangements, they can go to the local authority; they have that further option. It will then be up to the authority to decide how to respond, and it can do so in a wide number of ways. I do not want overstate what the authority could do. It might hold a meeting with the public body concerned to enable its constituents to put across their views. It might simply ask a PCT for a response to the petition and send it on. It might respond to the petition organiser and say that it does not think that the action called for is necessary and that it does not intend to take the matter forward. It has an enormous amount of options, which we would not in any way wish to prescribe. I do not want to overstate the extent of the burden which might be placed on the councils by the new duty to take steps after receiving a petition relating to functions of partner authorities, because the obligation is to do what is appropriate. I stress that we are not trying to put councils under any duty to deal with matters over which they have no effective control, but it is important to make sure that they can act more than as a post box, that they can act as advocates and make that connection with a partner authority. Amendment 92 would provide that valid petitions, those that trigger an acknowledgement, would include those requesting authorities to make representations to any other bodies in support of the matters referred to. It would require them to act as advocates. It is right that that is provided for, but the aim is better achieved by Clause 14 because it places a requirement on the unitary and top-tier authorities to respond to petitions on issues of economic, social or environmental well-being as well as those in relation to functions. Those types of principal authority are well placed to respond to that. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, made a telling point about Network Rail. If a private-sector company—or a public-sector company such as Network Rail—acted in a way that damaged a local community’s economic, social or environmental well-being, the appropriate authorities should be required to respond to petitions on those issues. Under Clause 14(2)(b), they are. They can take them up on behalf of their constituents even though we are not there talking about connected authorities. The problem with Amendment 92, however, is that it would extend that requirement to any body irrespective of whether it discharged functions over which the principal local authorities had any influence, or where they were. We might find, for example, a pressure group urging a local authority to act as an advocate to improve conditions in a sweatshop—there is no end to the possibilities that might come under the term ““any other body””. It does nothing for the efficacy of petitions or for a local authority’s reputation to bring the local authority into effective engagement such as that, as I expect they would agree. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 111 proposes almost the opposite approach. It provides that, instead of putting the case for their communities’ wider concerns, principal local authorities would simply forward petitions on wider issues to the relevant bodies—in fact, they would wash their hands of them. That is not in the spirit of what we are trying to achieve. A single point of contact is beneficial, particularly with two-tier authorities, but it does not achieve the wider objective of increasing the community’s involvement in the interaction between principal and partner authorities. It would also lead to some practical problems. The Bill achieves a similar outcome but more effectively. Clause 20 gives the Secretary of State the power to make provision for the handling of petitions by any type of local authority on the list. The Secretary of State could therefore place a duty on those bodies to respond to petitions, but she would do so only if there seemed to be a real need for it or the need had been driven by the bodies. Moreover, she would do so only after consultation, devising a system that would take into account the governance structures of the relevant bodies. I believe that the Bill will ensure that people can petition on a wide range of local issues. It also ensures that provision for the handling of petitions by other local authorities can be made, if needed, in a way that takes into account the nature of those organisations. I am advised by the invisible people behind me that there is a slight inaccuracy in what I said a little while ago. A principal authority is only required to respond to a petition relating to economic, social or environmental well-being as defined in the Bill if any of its partner authorities could contribute. Under the flexibility allowed in Clause 19, they could of course respond in any way in any event, but they are only required to do so under the conditions I have described.