Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I am not clear why the Government think that whether a petition is legal or calls for anything unlawful should not be covered. The Bill refers to petitions which are vexatious and abusive, which is less clear, and the Government should consider again the lawfulness issue. I was interested in the noble Lord’s example. If I understood him correctly, he said that if a local company that employed 100 people was in danger of closing down, the employees of that company might petition the local council to intervene and do something about it. I do not understand why such a petition should not be considered. It may be that the council would say, ““There is nothing much we can do””, but my experience of both county councils and district councils is that if there is a local company in difficulty and there is anything the council can do short of intervening in a commercial way, it will do it. For example, if the problems are not necessarily financial directly but are to do with access to the company—it cannot get pantechnicons in and is therefore having to relocate to some foreign place such as Preston or Birmingham—the council might well step in and provide a grant or work out ways in which access to the company can be improved. So I am not sure that the noble Lord’s example was a very good one. Again, it comes from a lack of knowledge and understanding of what local authorities do nowadays—how they get involved in their local economy, how they talk to local companies and how, within reason, they try to assist those local companies to thrive and survive in their areas. This is not a major point and we probably will not come back to it, but nevertheless it requires a little thought. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 119 withdrawn. Amendments 120 to 122 not moved.