Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I shall also speak to Amendments 154B, 155 and 155A. Amendment 154A speaks for itself. Such is my awe for the drafting abilities of my noble friend Lady Hamwee, I spent many hours trying to understand the legislative purpose of Amendment 154B. I felt sure that there must be some difference that I had not quite grasped between ““a part of”” and ““some of””. Then it was revealed to me that it is blindingly obvious that ““some of”” should be in a different place in the line. We are not talking about ““some of the area”” but ““some of the inhabitants””. I apologise to the Committee, wherever this went wrong. If these two amendments were accepted, the subsection would read, ““affects a part of the area of the group of partner authorities or some of the inhabitants of that area””. I do not suggest for one moment that the drafting error came from my noble friend Lady Hamwee—I find that a conceptual impossibility—but that is what it means. Now that we have had that explanation, the intent and purpose of the amendment is fairly clear. Amendment 155 stands in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, and the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, as well as my noble friend Lady Hamwee and myself. We added our names to it. It is an amendment suggested by the Local Government Association, which we are happy to support. I assume that the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, will speak to it in a moment. As his name is before mine on the Marshalled List, I will leave him to explain its purpose more fully, but it is intended to provide a general power for any two or more councils to set up joint overview and scrutiny bodies should they wish to do so and extends rather further the provisions of the Bill. It will be a useful amendment in areas which have county and district councils, about which the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, knows far more than I do, having been a member of a London borough council That brings me to Amendment 155A, which, for my noble friend and I, is the substantial amendment in this group. I need to refer to the debate we have just had on the previous group of amendments. I should say that I have served on a scrutiny committee in a local authority and I have always been on the receiving end of them—as an executive councillor, I am scrutinised, it seems, very frequently. I know, recognise and experience effective scrutiny—and, just occasionally, not very effective scrutiny. I should also say that, with my noble friend Lady Hamwee, I served for eight years on what must be the best resourced scrutiny body in the country, the London Assembly, whose sole purpose is scrutiny. This is not the place to discuss its resourcing, but it is significantly greater, I would think, even than the kingdom of Essex in its scrutiny functions. So some experience is there. I share and understand the intentions of the Government in this chapter of the Bill. All of us would wish to raise the status and visibility of scrutiny and its effectiveness. However, it is also frustrating to be on the receiving end of a scrutiny committee that is not working very effectively, so it works on both sides. I said right from the start that for scrutiny to be effective the committee must have its own, independent—in the sense that it is not part of the department that is being scrutinised—scrutiny support. That is enormously important. The proposal to designate a scrutiny officer will not have any effect on that. I would think that most of the authorities to which it applies—because it excludes district councils—will already have scrutiny officers. All that will happen in most, if not all, authorities, I am sure, is that they will designate an existing officer with the title of scrutiny officer, just as has happened everywhere with monitoring officers and Section 151 officers. They are not new posts; they designate existing posts. The Minister said that additional money was ring-fenced. That is welcome news for those who are going to receive it.