Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]

My hon. Friend makes a very valuable point, which draws my attention to a specific example in my constituency. There was a debate about the transfer of upper gastrointestinal cancer surgery from the only acute hospital in Cornwall to Derriford. There were real concerns about the impact that that would have and, obviously, there was a debate about safety, and the petition that went to the overview and scrutiny committee contained 30,000 signatures. Of course, the council has an overview and scrutiny committee but does not make any decisions on what happens to that service. As a result, people feel massively frustrated, and not only because the petition was not acknowledged. We need a process for acting on such petitions in a way that will make a difference, rather than simply responding with a cursory acknowledgement. Before the Government start putting forward proposals on how local authorities should deal with petitions, they should probably consider not only how the House deals with petitions, whereby they end up in a baize bag at the back of the Speaker's Chair, but how Departments deal with them. I notice that in answer to the questions tabled by my noble Friends, only the Department for International Development, the Cabinet Office and the Northern Ireland Office said that they even knew the number of petitions submitted to them in the previous year. Those that said that they did not know included the Department for Communities and Local Government. Only DFID and DEFRA publicise the petitions that they receive. Basically, once again, local authorities are leading the way while central Government Departments fall behind—yet suddenly the expert on all this is the Department that does not have a policy on how to deal with petitions. Although there have been some improvements in the Lords—we now do not have the lengthy specification of what a valid petition is—there are clearly proposals that should not be before us at all. What strikes me is that this shows the Labour central-controlling tendency that we saw with the whole Damian McBride affair, when No. 10 Downing street attempted to control the left-wing blogosphere. In the same way, Whitehall is trying to—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) says he is very pleased that Mr. McBride can no longer control what goes on in the Labour blogosphere. What also surprised me, looking at the progress of the Bill in the Lords, was the lack of enthusiasm among those on the Conservative Benches for tackling the issue. Again, that seems to run counter to the words they use to describe their zeal for local autonomy.