Localism Bill

I am grateful to the Minister for her reply, and I have no difficulty with the government amendments to which she spoke. However, I continue to have difficulty with the response to my amendment. The Secretary of State is clearly not prepared to trust local government with the powers that he is conferring on local government. He retains significant power to override the exercise of the general power which he has purported to confer or to impose conditions, admittedly subject to a parliamentary procedure. The whole case is redolent of the Government simply not being prepared to trust their partner in local government, a point that was made by the noble Lord, Lord Newton, when he was castigating me for being insufficiently robust on the previous occasion. I hope I have not failed his test today. On this and on the previous occasion the Minister referred only to some novel financial practices, as if these were the most likely candidates for the invocation of the powers conferred by the Act. So far as financial practices are concerned, if there is any suggestion that they are likely to damage the finances of the local authority, there are existing mechanisms to deal with that within and outside the authority in the proper financial officer and audit, albeit perhaps not for much longer under the auspices of the Audit Commission. There are perfectly proper safeguards, and the additional powers that the Secretary of State seeks to reserve for himself under this Bill are not needed. I still do not understand what is meant by the ““necessary protection”” to which Clause 6 refers. Protection from what, against what and to what extent it is necessary are entirely opaque. In these circumstances, I must test the opinion of the House. Division on Amendment 109B Contents 137; Not-Contents 220. Amendment 109B disagreed. Clause 6 : Limits on power under section 5(1) Amendment 109C not moved. Clause 9 : General powers of certain fire and rescue authorities Amendment 110 Clause 9 : General powers of certain fire and rescue authorities Amendment 110 Moved by