Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

My Lords, my comments go back a stage earlier than the points that the noble Lord has just raised. These amendments, which were added to the Bill in response to the London Authorities Mutual Ltd case, seem to address a symptom, not the underlying disease. The analogy that occurred to me this morning was that the Government have just managed to fling one parcel on to a train as it is leaving a station headed for the destination of Royal Assent, but they have left what matters on the platform. I had a go at amendments in lieu of these amendments. I understand that the Public Bill Office said, "Good try, but not within the scope", as these amendments are limited to mutual insurance. The Minister will not be surprised that I had tried to give the Government a legislative base on which to build either a power of general competence, although I knew what response that would get, or—this is particularly important—a base for any other discrete power that may turn out to be needed because the power of well-being does not cover it. Legislative opportunities for this sort of thing are not that frequent. It is a matter of chance that this Bill was available at the time when we had the judgment in that case. I cannot say that insurance would have been my first choice of activity, but that is not the point. Local authorities should be free to undertake activities that they judge to be appropriate. Like others, I thought that the well-being powers were sufficient and felt a considerable sense of dismay at the judgment in this case. Looking for the judgment was a case of, "Be careful what you wish for". I asked the Library to find it for me and it turned out to be 91 pages. We find that we have not escaped the fine analysis of local authority powers or the line of cases arising, starting with the interest rate swaps and so on. Also, what is "incidental to the incidental"? The leading judgment in the case—to pick out a couple of short comments—said: ""Promotion of well-being is not an expression one would normally associate with a somewhat complex arrangement to save money, such as the LAML arrangement, rather than with action directly to promote or improve a healthy or prosperous condition"." The judge said later that, ""taking steps to improve the authority’s general financial position is not to be treated as something that will of itself promote or improve the wellbeing of its area"." There needs to be a direct connection for the powers of well-being in the earlier legislation to be sufficient. We are left with local authorities not being clear about the boundaries of their autonomy and with a rich seam to be mined by particular third-party interests that oppose a proposed activity by the local authority. The Government talk a lot about local autonomy and every so often one finds passages that make clear the philosophy that underlies what they say. I will refer to two. The first is in their response to the Communities and Local Government Select Committee report, The Balance of Power: Central and Local Government. The Government, at paragraph 27, talk about holding constructive dialogues on the need for extra powers. They say: ""Where specific evidence is provided to us, we will consider this on its merits"." I emphasise the words "on its merits". Secondly, in the recent paper Strengthening Local Democracy, question 8 asks: ""How best should any reduction in numbers of LAA targets ensure that services are responsive to"—" and again I stress the following words— ""the most important local needs as well as national entitlements"." All that begs the question: who is doing that assessment. I could go on, but those two extracts display a philosophy that we on these Benches do not share. As I said, I have not been able to table the amendments that I would have liked concerning not just the power of general competence but giving the Government the opportunity to respond to a problem such as the local authorities’ mutual problem. Of course, we do not oppose the amendments, but we would have liked to be able to move from the particular to the general and turn the Bill into something much more worth having.