Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

Following what my noble friend said about local strategic partners, if I remember rightly, when we considered Chapter 2, the Minister accepted that there was a need to review the accountability mechanisms for partnerships, including local strategic partnerships. Again, we are on the same issue. As my noble friend said, they exist but they do not exist. Was his wonderful phrase, ““a conduit of preference””? Whether we like it or not, they are increasingly important in the local scene in their role and funding, yet because they are not recognised as a legal entity, they do not exist, so they are an obvious omission from the Bill. I thank the Minister for his reply. He made the case for what we are saying. If they are prescriptive, as the Government wish to be, albeit with a light touch, inevitably and logically they start down a road that gets them into more and more difficulty. I wrote down a few phrases that the Minister used. The Government want the list to be as short as possible. So do we; we want it to be extremely short. Later, the Minister said that local authorities should have the scope to decide for themselves. If that were the case, it would be an extremely short list; maybe that is the answer. It may be a view that the police authority, the CDRP and the other bodies are not listed because they are not major economic players. It puzzles me that a fire and rescue authority is considered a major economic player in the Bill, but a police authority is not. I do not understand that logic. The Minister says, rightly, that a local authority can and certainly will consult the police authority, the CDRP and so on. Indeed, they will be represented on the local strategic partnership, which is probably the issue on which most of this debate will take place, except that it does not exist in law. I am sure that we will return to this issue. I hope that before we do so the Government will consider further the difficulties they are getting into, which are similar to those on Chapter 2. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 162ZA withdrawn. Amendments 162A to 164 not moved. Clause 63 agreed. Clause 64 : Partner authorities Amendments 164A to 165ZB not moved. Clause 64 agreed.