Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I agree with my noble friend Lord Greaves that the Bill is very prescriptive and it means that we are getting into a muddle. I am glad that the Minister has said that we will discuss some of the matters that noble Lords who have worked on local councils over the years think will create problems. I would like a couple of things to be put on the record. The Minister mentioned last week the ability of young people to sign petitions. She said in passing that young people could do it, but it would be nice to have it on the record, because I have been approached by the Children’s Rights Alliance about it. Will the Minister assure us that the regulations allow young people to organise and sign petitions, and that, if it must be done in the prescriptive way set out in the Bill, they, too, will be dealt with properly? The other issue raised by the Children’s Rights Alliance has been touched on in our discussion; that is, what happens if, for example, social services decide to take away your child, and you do not like it and raise a petition about it. Such issues would bring information about children into the public domain, so I trust that it would not be a valid petition in the normal sense. Will that be written down? It may be in guidance. The Government need to think about it if they have not already done so, because people are concerned. I am sure that the Children’s Rights Alliance has written to the Government on this issue as much as it has to us. The third thing I wish to mention—and I was not quite sure where to bring it up in this whole issue of petitions—was the situation that we have in Northumberland. We have no district councils any more. Berwick-upon-Tweed’s district council has another two months to go; that means that if someone wants to take a petition physically to the full council, they have to go 50 miles. Of course, we will have area committees; we have had them for years. I just hope that nothing prescribed in the Bill will prevent local people presenting their petitions to any devolved committees that the council may have. I am not very clever at legal things, and I have not been able to discover whether provisions in the Bill might rule things out. Will the Government reassure me that, if local people have a petition and go to their local area committee, that is quite acceptable? Common sense tells me that it is but, because the Bill is so prescriptive, I should like to make sure that a problem with that has not somehow crept in. Not that my friends on Northumberland council, as it is at the moment, would dare to refuse a petition. I ask those questions in the spirit of helpfulness.