Public Bodies Bill [HL]

My Lords, I have a number of amendments in this group—Amendments 115 to 117, 128, 129 and 170 to 172. They are all amendments to the three government amendments that have been put forward. Noble Lords know what those amendments say and can judge my amendments accordingly. The amendments that I have put down are very much along the lines of the amendments that I usually put down on consultation. I listened—as, no doubt, did many other noble Lords—with great admiration to all the detailed legal analysis on Amendment 1. I congratulate the Minister on understanding it all. We are dealing with something much more basic now that I do understand and in which I have been involved all my life—that is, public consultation. As my noble friend Lord Maclennan said, these amendments put more detail on to the principles set out in amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Lester of Herne Hill and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. The former states that, "““the Minister must conduct a public consultation””," and the latter states that, "““the Minister must consult the public””." That fundamental principle has to appear in the Bill. It is absolutely right that consultation should be with all the appropriate organisations, interests and individuals that the Government can identify. In addition to that, consultation has to be open and transparent. That means that anyone who wants to be consulted should have the right to be consulted. In other words, the definition of who is interested ought to be made by the people concerned. The Government can never know who wishes to contribute in total and which contributions might be useful to them in improving what they propose, or in coming to the view that it is right or wrong. That principle is accepted in many areas, such as consultation over planning applications to a local authority. Local authorities all have a list of the people whom they automatically and systematically consult, such as neighbours—depending on what the proposed development is, people living within a certain radius of the proposed development or perhaps just people living adjacent to it. A whole series of organisations—some national, some local—also automatically get consulted. There is no problem about that; it is the kind of consultation the Government are talking about in the Bill. In addition, there is an open consultation. Traditionally, a site notice might be posted so that people who walk past can have a look and see that the application has been made. There may be newspaper advertisements in certain cases where the application is thought to be particularly important, or is specialist—applications for listed buildings, for example. Probably universally now, an open invitation is put on the council’s website for people to put their views forward, and an increasing proportion of people do so that way. That is an open consultation—it is open to anybody to take part and the council has to consider those representations. It does not mean that the whole basis of local government collapses; it is just a normal part of the process. There is no reason whatever why the Government cannot accept that principle on the kind of proposals in the Bill, which are often far reaching. In many cases, the Government act in this way; they may have a specific obligation to consult certain people and bodies, but in addition they put things on websites and take account of what people say. However, that is fairly ad hoc at the moment; whether it is done depends on the people involved. The principle ought to be in legislation. The internet makes the whole process far easier. The idea of advertising in national newspapers, the London Gazette or whatever—nobody ever sees it—has been superseded completely. All the information can now be put on the internet via the Government’s websites and people can respond in that way, or write in if they wish to respond in that way. There is no reason why that should not happen. My amendment is the standard one that I table whenever this kind of thing comes up in your Lordships’ House. I tabled it on the Academies Bill; we got a weak concession from the Government on consultation by school governing bodies proposing to become academies, which has turned out to be pretty feeble in practice. Consultation is not an option. It is essential and should be entrenched in the legislation. I can remember banging away on the same issue on the Marine and Coastal Access Bill and various local government Bills.