Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton. If he wants me to, I shall be more than happy to do so. The amendments are spread throughout this part, but they are all intended to make the same point: to either remove or qualify and restrict the powers that the Bill would give to the Secretary of State. The Local Government Association states: "““As one of the central tenets of this piece of legislation is that authorities are empowered to work together to come up with a strategy best suiting to the local area, then it does not follow that the Secretary of State should have the power to amend or scrap the work that has been done and enforce an alternative Regional Strategy””." Earlier, the Minister said that the Government want to keep central Government out of the process as much as possible. I have no doubt that she will assure us again of the Government’s good intentions, that these are reserve powers to be used only as a last resort, and so on. However, the Bill gives the Secretary of State considerable powers—not just the present Secretary of State and not just the present Government, but any Secretary of State and any Government—for as long as it remains on the statute book. Therefore, I ask the Minister not simply to assure us of the Government’s good intentions, which we all readily accept, but to explain what safeguards local authorities have should we have a future Secretary of State and Government who wish to centralise or control rather more; it is hard to think that that may happen. If we pass the Bill as drafted, future Secretaries of State will have considerable powers to intervene if they should so wish or deem it necessary, with very little qualification or control to prevent their doing so. As I have said in relation to so much local government legislation, we legislate for the worst councils—we have been debating that at great length throughout the Committee. I want some reassurance about how we prevent legislating for bad Governments. That is what I want to hear from the Minister: not the good intentions of this Government, which I happily accept, but how we safeguard local authorities from the bad intentions of future Governments. I beg to move.