Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]

That is precisely the point, is it not? The title of the Bill is a misnomer. It is yet another Bill that should be entitled "Interfering with local government", rather than having its title suggest that it is about local democracy. The hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy) was right to ask what the difference is between leaving the determination of a policy on toilets to local authorities and telling them how to deal with petitions, with informing people about councils and with many more important issues. That explains why I wish to speak to new clauses 16 and 15. New clause 16 deals with a general competence power, about which there has always been a debate. I recall serving on a national executive sub-committee in the 1980s and discussing what a new Labour Government would do for local democracy—we were doing that because the huge rows about rate capping and the abolition of the county councils had taken place. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) was on the same working party. Many of us thought then that a general competence power should be given to local authorities—I still think that—but he came up with this stunning argument: if there were such a power, what would there be to prevent Islington from making an atom bomb? I do not know why he chose to use Islington in that absurd example, but if seriously intelligent and respected people such as he come out with absurd arguments such as that, there really is no argument against giving a general competence power to local authorities. Unless local authorities have the ability to do things unless they are specifically prohibited from doing them, the converse of that will occur and there will be regular interference in very important local matters—beyond those relating to public conveniences—that are better determined locally. I could give three quick examples that apply to my constituency. It is blighted by appalling private landlords, whom we have fought for a long time. We now have a scheme that regulates them, but because the Department does not like it we suffer terrific interference from the centre in the detail of the regulation. It is completely unnecessary because the scheme is beginning to work and the local authority should be left to decide the best areas for the scheme to operate in and how to implement it. The product of interference is always inefficiency and extra cost. When the Select Committee on Transport examined local transport plans, it found that the Department for Transport was getting into the detail and interfering in the definition and placement of puffin crossings. That is not something that central Government should be doing. We have had big rows in Manchester about the tram system. The Department for Transport examines the number of seats on trams, but that is not what central Government should be about. Until central Government they stop doing such things, local government will not achieve what it is capable of achieving.