Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

My Lords, I hope that I can give a response without interruption on this occasion. Amendment 100A is concerned with those partner authorities set out in Section 22A of the Local Government Act 2000 that must provide information to overview and scrutiny committees. The amendment would add "connected authorities", as defined under Clause 2 of this Bill, to Section 22A so that those partners would be under a duty to provide information to overview and scrutiny committees once this provision and the necessary regulations came into force. It would seem, from what the noble Lord says, that he believes that this amendment would provide overview and scrutiny committees with the power to require partners to attend. It would not. This issue of partner attendance was discussed at length during the passage of the 2007 Act. Parliament agreed that partners should be required to provide information but that attendance before a committee should be optional. We said at the time, and I say again now, that we firmly believe that it is not necessarily appropriate to impose a blanket requirement on partners to attend in person. Where councillors are working in partnership with such a broad range of public service providers, some of whom are not based locally, it is not necessarily appropriate to allow overview and scrutiny committees to compel attendance. We must also be mindful of the potential burdens that are placed on partner authorities, some of which will have limited capacity to respond. It is, of course, important to provide overview and scrutiny committees with the powers that they need to carry out their work, but we must strike the right balance. We think that we have achieved this. This is evident from our recent Improving Local Accountability consultation. We have consulted on the regulations that will provide overview and scrutiny committees with the power to require information from relevant partner authorities. We are now in the process of drafting these regulations. The proposals that we set out in that consultation were broadly welcomed by local government stakeholders. In fact, a significant number of responses opposed overregulation on the issue of attendance, taking the view that such matters should be left to local discussion and agreement, on the basis that it would not always be necessary, or cost-effective, to require attendance in person by partner authorities. Given my explanation and the evidence that I have presented from our recent consultation exercise, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment. A careful balance must be struck between giving overview and scrutiny committees the powers that they need to carry out their work and recognising the limited capacity of some partners to respond. Noble Lords will remember that this issue was discussed in detail during the passage of the 2007 Act. I believe that we have achieved the right balance of powers and that we should not seek to add partners outside those named under Part 5 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 without proper justification and detailed consideration of the potential new burdens. I hope that the explanation will be sufficient for the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.