Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]

I wish to speak to new clauses 10 and 11. As we discussed in the previous debate, the Bill is in a very real sense a lost opportunity to deal with the relationship between local, regional and central Government and to allow local government to deal with many of the problems that it faces. It surprises me, given that the Bill deals with petitions and consultations, some of which I believe are best left to local choice, that it misses out a matter that has become increasingly demanded by local people when there are difficult issues: the regulation of referendums. Referendums are difficult matters. It is difficult to know where they should begin and end in a democracy that, at both local and national level, has been predominantly representative for its whole history. In parts of the world, referendums have been used by extreme right-wing Governments. They have been used to death in California so that local or state democracy fails to work, because referendums can come to opposite conclusions. They can both reduce expenditure and increase the demands on it at the same time. They are therefore particularly difficult issues. What is clear, however, is that all parties have now accepted referendums in principle. All three parties had in their manifesto a commitment to a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, or the European constitution as it then was. My party had in its 1997 manifesto a commitment to referendums on devolution, which it carried through with a positive result. There was also a commitment to referendums on elected mayors, which have been used in a number of districts, and there have been referendums on a regional assembly in the north-east and congestion charges in Edinburgh and Manchester. Although I start from a moderately sceptical point of view on referendums, having participated in the debates on both regional assemblies and the congestion charge in Manchester, it seems to me that done properly, they can involve a lot of people and bring about an outcome that people accept, whichever way it goes. At some times and in some areas, referendums are the right path to take. How strange, when we have had all that experience of them, that there is not a specific responsibility in local government Acts to allow them to take place and to regulate them. When the congestion charge referendum was agreed to in Manchester, it was not clear whether it would be held under section 45 of the Local Government Act 2000, section 116 of the Local Government Act 2003 or section 170 of the Transport Act 2000, all of which were introduced for different reasons but were not satisfactory. Although it was called a referendum and everybody recognised it as such, it was not technically a referendum within the legal meaning. That meant that the promoters of both the congestion charge itself and the referendum were one and the same person, which is not satisfactory. Although that experience turned out to have no bad consequences, it was wrong in principle, and it is the reason why I have tabled the new clauses. I shall not press them, but I am interested to hear what my right hon. Friend the Minister says in response. What happened in Manchester, apart from the fact that people made it clear that they did not want the congestion charge, was that the promoters of the scheme appointed the person who ran the referendum. He was given an office in Manchester town hall next to the people who had done the detailed work on the congestion charge and the transport innovation fund bid. During that period, he accepted undisclosed hospitality from the promoters of the scheme. When I put in a request, I found that that was not part of the declared expenses. When it came to determining the question to be put on the form, the only people who were talked to were the promoters of the scheme. Most bizarrely, although again with no actual consequences, when it came to the result of the referendum on the congestion charge the only people allowed to speak were the losers, the promoters of the scheme. Those of us who had been on the other side were not allowed to speak. It was as though there had been an election for a Member of this House and the only person allowed to speak was the loser. It was the most extraordinary circumstance. In that particular case, the issues involved and the bias of the returning officer were so clear that they probably helped the no campaign, but it would not always be that way. In a much closer referendum, a biased returning officer, such as the one we had in Manchester, could affect the result. I therefore think that when there is an increasing appetite in our democracy for referendums on difficult issues, the Government need to find the right space in the legislative programme to regulate them, first so that people can ask for them and, secondly, so that there is a clear framework so that people cannot try to fiddle the system. I will be very interested in my right hon. Friend's response to that point.