Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

We have already spent goodness knows how many hours on this chapter, yet I see to my horror that we are barely a quarter of the way through it. One hopes that the remaining three-quarters will move a little quicker. The debate that we have had on the many amendments has made it crystal clear why both at Second Reading and at the start of the debate on this chapter, people with experience of petitions in local government from all three parties, joined by the Local Government Association, urged the Government as strongly as we could not to go down this path. If they must make it a duty, that is fine, but they should not try to be prescriptive. I have been wondering why the Government want to go down this path, since, once you start down it, it becomes a bit like that snowball going down the hill—you have to add more and more to it. Many of our amendments have done just that to illustrate the point. A lot of what was thought about in drafting this Bill has, inevitably, been based on national rather than local experience, for understandable reasons. It tends to be the case that what I will call national petitions are to some extent organised, usually by some body with experience—often an organisation but it may be an individual. They are a lot more structured. Petitions at local level, however, are exactly the opposite; most of them are spontaneous; they are created by a resident feeling concern about a relatively small issue, who wants to go out and do something about it. That is exactly what all of us here, the Government included, want to encourage. The more we try to be prescriptive about it, the more we try to explain that even if it is not valid it is not actually invalid and we can do what we want with it, the more complex it becomes, the more of a barrier we create and the more uncertain petitioners become in dealing with it. I think that all local authorities, or certainly the vast majority, are very experienced in dealing with petitions. We have been debating who is the petition organiser. Many of these spontaneous petitions do not come with someone designated as petition organiser. If it is not clear who the petition is from or who the organiser is, it is normal practice to write to the first signatory of the petition. What else can you do, if you do not know to whom else to apply? Those people do not automatically feel thrust into the limelight, in the Minister’s words; if they do not want to be thought of as the organiser, believe me they say so very quickly—and they may well point you to the person who is actually initiating the collection of signatures. Many local authorities—I should like to think, most—give petitioners the right to address the committee or full council when considering the petition. I would hope that all authorities that do that, such as my own, leave it to the petitioners to decide for themselves who is going to address the committee or council. The person who goes from door to door collecting the signatures may well not feel articulate or confident enough to speak to a committee in public, which can be quite intimidating, and would prefer to have one of the other signatories do it on their behalf. That is perfectly normal, and indeed usual, practice. Ninety-nine times out of 100, this all works very well. The more we try to prescribe it, whether in legislation or even in guidance, the more difficult it becomes and the more barriers are put in the way of those who, probably for the first time and possibly for the last time in their lives, are getting together a small local petition about a local matter on which they have some concern. Therefore, we will continue to pursue this issue. Like my colleagues, I look forward to discussing with the Minister how we go forward, but I do not think that we will move from our position that by far the best way is to accept that the Government wish to make it a duty but we should leave it to the local authorities to do it in the best way that they can. Most of them will have provision for doing just that.