Localism Bill

My Lords, I am grateful for that. I realise that my noble friend has not had a chance to think about that question but I think that the issue of ““two or more employees”” is totally irrelevant in this case. We are talking about a challenge made by an outside body or organisation. The contract is put out to general tender and there is not a two-person or six-person challenge from inside the organisation. There is an existing department full of staff who are currently working for the council and who may or may not be able to take part in the competitive tendering exercise. The more I think about this, the more it seems to be a crucial point, and it would be very helpful if the Minister could come back to us on it. This is a very new point and perhaps some clarification of it at Third Reading, if only to put the Government’s view on it on the record, would be extremely helpful. I hope that that will happen. There are times when I listen to Ministers reading out their briefing when I think, ““If that is the best they can do, I must be on to a good point””. The attempt to rubbish my amendment concerning a service review by suggesting that it would involve consulting every single resident, which would not be possible, was really rather derisory. I do not blame my noble friend for that; he has his briefing to read out. Councils and other bodies consult users of services all the time and they know how to do it. It is not difficult and you do not have to be absolutely certain that you have consulted every single resident. You put out a consultation by whatever means are reasonable. It might be through the internet, leaflets, articles in local newspapers or whatever. Therefore, I thought that that response was a bit pathetic. The Trojan horse argument is important but the real problem arises when that Trojan horse is accidental. If you get a community that is really keen on taking over a service and it has real local support but the contract has to go out to tender and the community cannot possibly match what an outside commercial organisation can provide in terms of cost, then that community is not going to be very pleased. It is going to say, ““We challenged and these people from outside who have come in to make a profit have stolen our services away from us””. They might well have preferred the service to stay with the council rather than for that to happen. That kind of scenario will simply lose public support. It is not about rights for communities, it is about communities potentially being set up to provide rights for the commercial challenges from outside. The advice to councils is going to be absolutely vital. It has got to be clear, it has got to be strong and it has got to provide councils with all the safeguards they need—not to stop communities challenging and taking services over—but to stop it being abused. This process is going to be very closely watched by a lot of people, including the unions. I should pay tribute to the help I have had from Unison in drafting some of these amendments and discussing these issues. But I am all in favour of residents and citizens and local people taking over services. I am all in favour of groups of employees taking over running services, because they can do it very well indeed. What I am not in favour of is a process which is going to be misused and end up with things happening which ministers tell us they do not want to. I fear that this might happen. I am very grateful for all the time and effort that has been put in to providing briefings and answers and everything else over the last few weeks on this; the more briefings I get, the more worried and concerned I am. It may well be that it will end up back in your Lordships’ House if it all goes wrong in a few years’ time. For the time being, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 197EZA withdrawn. Amendments 197EA to 197ED not moved. Amendment 197F Moved by