Localism Bill

My Lords, there is a gentle sense of irony in the representative of the workers’ party, and my noble friend who is yearning for the days when his party stood for worker control, expressing so much concern at the prospect of employees, however few—less than half, I gather, is unacceptable— expressing an interest in undertaking a function. It seems to me that we are witnessing major change in communities and local government and that it is perfectly reasonable, indeed it is already happening all over the country, that groups of workers and employees are coming forward with propositions to set up social enterprises, to take on existing bodies and to take on other activities. I am sorry that I was not in the Chamber to welcome the withdrawal by my noble friend of regulation in the previous group of amendments, which I do welcome. Yet here we are being pushed to prescribe and put blocks in the way of people putting forward expressions of interest simply on the basis that they might be employees of the organisation and, still worse, that they might secretly be in cahoots with capitalism.