Localism Bill

My Lords, when I put down this clause stand part debate, I might have anticipated that the previous group would cover a great deal of the ground that I wanted refer to, so I shall be extremely brief. I shall begin with a bouquet to my noble friend on the Front Bench. It is very helpful that she has sent us in her document her letter to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton of 13 July setting out the purpose and thrust of the many government amendments which have been tabled. However, that is the end of my bouquet, because the fact that, on this part of the Bill alone, my noble friend has tabled well over 30 amendments illustrates what I have been referring to during the passage of the Bill; that is, that the Government are trying to micromanage the whole process. I remember hearing my right honourable friend the Secretary of State proclaim that the localism legislation would be the end of top-down micromanagement. I just wonder how it has all crept into this Bill in the way that it has. I shall say two things about this. The first is that I have been sent a large number of amendments by the Local Government Association, which is as appalled as I am by the extent of the detailed bureaucratic interference by central government. It has asked me to table a list of amendments—I have 40 of them. I simply said, ““I am not going to waste the time of the House by tabling these amendments. I will send the list of the amendments to my noble friend, so that she can see what they are getting at””. More positively, I have had a discussion with my noble friend's honourable friend Greg Clark, the Minister of State in charge of the Bill, and he has agreed—I am very grateful for this—to a meeting with me next week, together with representatives of the local government associations, to see what can be done to try to remove much of this top-down micromanagement, of which we have heard a great deal in the last hour and a quarter. The Local Government Association has sent him a long list of what it thinks could be properly removed from the Bill without affecting its main general thrust of localism and devolving power down to local authorities and local communities. Happily we have enough time before Report for the Government to ponder these matters. I hope we will see many amendments which do not add to the complications, of which we have heard so much, but remove substantial chunks of the Bill, leaving more to be decided by elected local authorities without the detailed prescription with which we have been furnished. I could give a number of examples from this part of the Bill of an absurd amount of detailed prescription, but I will not do so. This is a clause stand part debate, with which a large number of amendments have been grouped, and I do not wish to weary the Committee further. Your Lordships know my views on this and I am trying to do something about it between now and Report. I recognise that my noble friend is doing her best to reply to a mass of amendments, but these have been provoked by the fact that there is a great deal of top-down micromanagement even in this part of the Bill. Of course noble Lords will table amendments—as I did myself—if they want to change this or they want to change that. It should not be there—and that is the point that I seek to make. I apologise for getting a bit hot under the collar about this but I know my views are shared widely across the House. I hope my noble friends will recognise that I do this with the best of motives to try to improve the legislation with which we have been confronted.