Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]

In which case, I shall begin by responding to the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) and new clause 2. In essence, he said that he wanted to update what happens at such polls in order to discourage any frivolous debate or vote. When wanting to update a proposal it is always worth asking the Minister about the law of unexpected consequences to see whether there would be any side-effect that could somehow result in ensuring that such legitimate debate does not take place. That is the reassurance that we would look for, as would the whole House, with regard to new clause 2. We have not yet had a chance to hear the case that the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central (Jim Cousins) will make on new clause 4. I want to listen to that carefully. We have received representations presenting the proposal that he wants to advocate as an equality issue. We will want to be sure that on the other side of the balance there is no question of unnecessarily restricting without very good cause what an independent body can do. I therefore look forward to hearing his remarks—almost as much as those of the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) on local authority areas, and those of the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer), who I thought at one point would serve on the Committee. Sadly, that did not happen; I do not know whether that was connected with the Government Whips. My main purpose is to speak to our amendments 24, 25 and 26 and new clauses 17 and 18. We have already been able to touch on some of the main themes that we explored in Committee, one of which is very simple. We do not see why it is necessary to write on to the statute book things that any decent local authority should be doing anyway—promoting democracy, responding to petitions, and securing the involvement of people in their local area. That seems likely to bring about the very opposite of the result that Ministers claim. We believe that the Government's mission, whereby everything and everyone must be micro-managed by Ministers and officials from Westminster and Whitehall, serves only to depress local government turnout and to demoralise local councillors. In Committee, we could scarcely find one person on the Government Benches other than the Minister who would defend in principle those three aspects of the Bill. The right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) is not here, so I will not embarrass him by quoting directly what he said on Second Reading, but even he, doughty defender of the Government though he was, made it clear that the petitions element, in particular, was merely micro-management. The Government, in their wisdom, chose to reject that consensus view, which we have already heard expressed in the debate on general competence. However, in July, just after the Bill came out of Committee, they took the notable decision to publish a consultation paper called "Strengthening local democracy", which announced:""This consultation explores whether local government has the powers it needs to meet today's challenges…It sets out a range of proposals to promote local democratic renewal."" When we read it, we found that some of the things in it are in the Bill before us today, as they were in Committee. For example, question 11 asks:""How can Councils best reverse the decline in confidence?"" Question 19 asks:""Should the duty to respond to petitions"—" a duty in the Bill—""be extended to sub-regional bodies?"" Section 162 suggests that the duty should apply to leaders boards:""Applying a duty to respond to petitions would also make these structures more directly responsive to citizens."" This is all the wrong way round. It might have been better had consultation on these matters preceded the Bill instead of the Government's having yet another consultation right in the middle of the Bill's going through the House—hence our amendments, which I hope the Minister will take in a spirit of due gratitude. They seek to give the Government time to look at the results of the consultation, which is not yet complete, and to consider whether Ministers want to amend any part of the Bill in the light of its findings. Then, after the election victory for the Minister's party that I know she is anticipating, she will have time to consider what the consultation has said and to produce any changes that she wants to produce by 1 July next year. We will be interested to hear her response to this moderate suggestion, which seeks not to obviate the provisions but to give her time to consider them in the light of the consultation that her own Department has issued. As an inducement for the Minister to consider the amendments seriously, I will deal with the Government's record in responding to petitions, which has been raised by the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy). This morning, I conducted an experiment by going to every Government Department website and punching in the word "petitions" to see what was the response. Only in a very few cases—the Downing street website is one exception to the rule; the Department for Communities and Local Government may be another—is there any indication that the Department is organising a response to the petitions that it receives. Surely, before laying down this duty on local authorities, the Government should put their own house in order so that when one types "petitions" into the website of the Foreign Office or the Ministry of Justice one is not referred to petitions that apparently have nothing to do with what that Department does.