Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, for moving the amendment. I should like to speak to Amendments 95, 102, 108, 115 and 136. With one exception, they are about petition organisers. Once again, the Government are saying that unless there is a clearly defined petition organiser on the petition, it is not valid. This again is an undue restriction to put on primary legislation or, indeed in guidance. It can be left to councils’ common sense and ways of working. Some councils will want to codify that. I referred on Monday to councils that had provided me with advice on what they do. City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council has a sensible two-page protocol for petitions handed in at the council office. It states quite clearly: "““When a member of the public hands in a petition at any Council office, the Receiving Department will issue an initial written receipt””." It continues: "““The contact details of the lead petitioner must be obtained at this stage””." That is an entirely sensible thing for the council to make a rule about because the name and address of the petition organiser can be obtained when somebody is handing it in at a council office. That may not always be the case. For example, the East Sussex council constitution states: "““Where appropriate, the Chairman shall refer the petition to the Cabinet or relevant Cabinet member or, if appropriate, the relevant Scrutiny Committee, and, where he or she does this, the person signing the covering letter accompanying the petition or, if there is no such letter, the first signatory or another person nominated by them, shall be invited to address the Cabinet, the relevant Cabinet member””," and so on. Then it will go on to the person whom the council tells what it is doing about it. That is sensible practice. It means that petitions are dealt with sensibly and a common-sense decision is made about whom to communicate with. The Government say that the petition organiser has to be named, which is too prescriptive. It should be left to councils and they will be all right. Amendment 115 is rather different, proposing that the details of a particular petition should be placed on a council website. It states: "““When an authority has accepted a petition as being valid, it shall publish on its website the text of the petition, the name of the petition organiser, the number of valid signatures, and information about the way that the petition will be considered by the authority and, where appropriate, the democratic arrangements that will apply in its consideration””." The clear implication is that the decisions will then be put there as well. That is an extremely sensible use of a website. Whether it should be set out in that detail in national legislation is a question on which the Minister might chide me, but it is a sensible thing for councils to do. As with the previous matters relating to websites that we have discussed, councils need jollying along to make much better use of their websites for public involvement and participation in their decision-making side. The Minister chided me on Monday by saying that her officials had spent some time visiting Pendle council’s website to try to find out what it said about petitions and could not find anything. I have been a little more successful and have found what it says. It does not set down a general scheme, but the agendas of each meeting and the reports that go to them are put on it. The front page of the calling notice of the meeting states clearly that members of the public can turn up, speak to the committee and, if they wish, present petitions. The information is there, but, as I have said, Pendle, along with many other authorities, is not up to speed with the use of its website in these matters, and the Government should encourage them to be more so. However, they should not produce lots of detail on how to do it in national legislation.