Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

Amendments 163A and 163B are also in this group, referring to the involvement of district councils in two-tier areas and their relationship with the county council. I support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, and I support everything he and my noble friend said. Amendment 163A refers to Clause 63(6)(b), which refers back to the duty on the local planning authority under the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, of which as I said, we all have fond memories. Clause 13(1) states: "““The local planning authority must keep under review the matters which may be expected to affect the development of their area or the planning of its development””." Clearly, the duty refers to the district council as a planning authority and to its functions in development and planning. As regards the economic assessment of an area, as opposed to land use or spatial planning—functions wider than those merely of a planning authority are involved. One of the things that a lot of district councils have done over the past 30 years is taken on new roles in the economic development of their area. That may be in town centres or industry, or working through their local strategic partnership in job creation and training, and economic stimulation. There are all kinds of areas that are not specifically related to district council functions, but districts have become involved in them because of the need and the because of what they can obviously do. Much of this Bill, particularly this clause, implies that districts really do not do that kind of thing. It implies that the county does it and that districts just do the planning and function as a housing or leisure authority, or whatever. But even in that, districts have important functions in the wider economic development and prosperity of their area. I am therefore proposing that rather than restricting the measure to this narrow interpretation of what districts may contribute as planning authorities, it should apply to anything that they think is useful—anything to do with the rest of their functions. In two-tier areas of the country—the districts at a town level and the borough level—the districts are more important than the counties as regards economic development functions. Finally, some parts of the country are getting these new strange things called ““multi-area agreements””—I declare an interest in an authority which has just signed up to one. MAAs exist specifically to promote economic development and the economic regeneration of areas. That is their single most important function and it is why they have been set up. Districts in areas such as Pennine Lancashire are playing a major part in that, alongside the unitary authorities and the county councils in their own two-tier areas. To omit them from this proposal seems silly. Nowadays, districts do far more than the Government understand and realise, going by much of what is in the Bill. Amendment 163B is fairly simple. The Bill states that the district council must co-operate with the county council. I merely want it to state that the county council must be reasonable in what it wants the district council to co-operate in, and to insist that it must co-operate when the county council makes a reasonable request, and not any old request that might have nothing to do with the issue in hand—or more likely is onerous.