Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

A number of people in this Committee from across the parties, including one or two from the Labour Back Benches and the massed ranks of the Liberal Democrats, with strong support from the Conservatives, have spoken from personal experience and knowledge of how these things work. We have been saying, ““This is how it works in the real world. This is what happens. Don’t do things that upset it””. In response to amendments tabled with this intention, we get the response that the Government do not agree for this or that technical reason. The only silver lining to the cloud is that we are promised lots of discussions, so we will have those discussions. I am perfectly capable of being politically awkward to this Government or anyone else, as noble Lords know, and I shall be politically awkward about this petition scheme if my worst fears come about at the end of it because it is complete nonsense and will be a good thing to bash the Government with. However, that is not what we, across the parties, are trying to do now. We are trying to get the Government to do sensible things about it. We all believe passionately in grassroots involvement and grassroots democracy, whether it is comfortable for us or not. I hope the Government accept that. I have one or two specific points. The Minister said that people will be in dreadful shock if they are singled out because they are the first name on the petition. The first name on the petition is usually the person who has collected the names. In Newcastle, it is in the council’s constitution that that person is regarded as the organiser. I do not know how many petitions a year Newcastle City Council gets, but it must be well into three figures, and I am not aware that there are lots of people in Newcastle hospitals suffering from dreadful shock because the council has arbitrarily appointed them as the organiser of a petition. Let us have sensible arguments but not people thinking up arguments just to defend the original wording. A lot of councils, if they do not know who the organiser is, already contact, and deal with, the first person on the petition. That is what my council and lots of councils do; it is common sense. It should not be put in the legislation that such a petition is not valid. I accept that it might not be dismissed out of hand, but we are back to validity again. It is a question of stopping petitions being valid. Either ““valid petitions”” means something and creates an important distinction in the Bill—and it must, because there are lots of barriers a petition must go through to become valid—or it does not. If it does not, do away with it, but if it is important to the Government, do not put up artificial barriers. We would rather have no guidance. We like minimal legislation without guidance and prefer to rely on the local government community to spread best practice. That is our bottom line. The Minister said that to publish the name of the organiser could inflame community tensions. I said on Monday, giving an example in Colne, that there are some circumstances where people might not wish a petition to be made public. A council has to deal with that sensitively. However, the idea that, in general, the name of a petition organiser can inflame community tensions—presumably because their name has connotations for a particular community; for example, the Muslim community—is complete nonsense. I do not accept that argument one little bit.