Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I support the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. I thank him for the forensic analysis he has done of this part of the Bill. Without him going through this in tremendous detail, some of these matters would not have arisen. I am grateful to him. This is getting a bit ridiculous. I do not like doing this anecdotal stuff, but I received a petition yesterday from about eight people on Canvey Island about a roundabout between two roads, and I will try to deal with it. I would not like to find any reason to rule it out of order. As a leader of a council, I would not like to find any reason to rule any petition out of order. I would want to try to help and deal with the problem, whether the petition was signed by four, 10 or 5,000 people. To a certain extent, some of the regulation here is contrary to the first part of the Bill, which tries to promote local democracy, its popularity and the way it works. If we were to rule all these petitions out for various reasons, it would be harmful. Any good authority would try to deal with problems that come in. I was grateful that the Minister said she will have discussions, but they need to be not simply with the LGA but with practitioners in the field—officials, not necessarily elected people—who, in large authorities, have petitions about something or other coming in every day. Some of this could harm dealing with the public on a day-to-day basis because there is more regulation than necessary.