Localism Bill

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes an extremely valid point, and I am sure Members of all parties can think of such examples. The hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) made a valid point about premises that cater for people with mental health difficulties. I accept that local authorities have very difficult decisions to make in such cases. I can recall there being such a decision in my ward six or seven years ago, and if a referendum had been taken in the street in question there would certainly have been an overwhelming vote against such an establishment. However, it would be open to local authorities, as it is under the 2003 Act, to determine the arrangements for a referendum —whether it should be held in a ward or within the authority as a whole. There are ways of broadening the electoral base to cover such circumstances. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park made good points about turnouts. I accept that there should be an increase to 20% in the proportion of signatures needed to trigger a referendum, which would be a way of weeding out the frivolous requests. So would the other criteria that would be used to determine whether a referendum should go forward. My hon. Friend's amendment is an obvious move forward. We argue about referendums—only a couple of weeks ago we debated whether we should have one at national level. They are a natural development of the democratic process if we are to give our voters really meaningful power.