Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I shall not ask the Minister to respond now but in a letter which may be getting longer as we talk about it, but perhaps she can explain how political proportionality will be applied in the case of a board which contains non-councillors. The Minister is clearly taken aback and distressed by the attacks that have come from this side of the Committee. I started today—or certainly this part of the Bill—by saying that no one doubts her own good intentions and those of the Government, but the problem is reconciling what she says with what is on the face of the Bill. This leads me to my next request. Will she justify, in writing, each order-making power as expressed in the Bill? None of these says expressly—although some might be linked to this—““an order-making power at the request, and only at the request, of the EPB””. We are being told that that is the situation. It may be that if one joins some bits one can arrive at that, but I do not think that it applies to everything and it is not always entirely clear. On justifying an order-making power, it would not be sufficient to say, ““because this is how we normally do this sort of thing””. This is a serious request, because the problems that this side of the Committee has with this part of the Bill are perfectly obvious. The further the Government can go in justifying the way in which they are setting about this, the greater the chance they will have of it sticking. At the moment, there is not that much of a chance.