My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One could argue that it should be the other way around: companies such as Network Rail are not accountable to the public in the same way as the planning authority or as responsive to the public mood. Surely we should expect the consent of the relevant local authority to be obtained.
The point is—I am sure we all have examples of this in our constituencies—that the public have completely lost faith in consultations, and this Bill reinforces that. People are conned into thinking that statutory consultations are meaningful and that they matter and will make a difference, only to find that their views are completely ignored and overridden. People lose faith in the whole process and end up not engaging in anything, because they think it is a waste of time.
I am afraid that this clause reinforces something that does a great disservice to our democracy: sham consultations which people go through simply because there is a statutory requirement to do so. Nobody takes notice of them, because the decision has already been made and they are a minor inconvenience. People say, “We’ve got to waste a bit of time on this consultation, go through the motions and look as if we’re doing something,” knowing full well that not a blind bit of notice will be taken of what anybody says. The only thing worse than not consulting people is to consult them and take no notice of them. I say to the sponsor of the Bill that if there is no requirement to take any notice of the consultation, do not have a consultation in the
first place. The local authorities should be open and honest about the fact that they do not care what local residents think and plough on with what they are doing, without going through what we all know is an absolute sham which does a great disservice to public life and public bodies.
9.15 pm
My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is therefore absolutely right to say through amendment 37 that consent must be obtained to ensure that the process is democratic and locally accountable. I believe that the sponsor of the Bill is, like me, a big fan of the Government’s localism agenda. It seems to me that clause 18(1) flies in the face of localism. If we really believe in localism, we should seek to gain the consent of people as low down the chain as possible and at the most local level. If the sponsor is a supporter of the localism agenda, he should want to ensure not only that local people are consulted, but that their views count. Their decision should be final in matters that affect them. It should not be possible for a much wider and greater London authority, such as Transport for London or whoever it might be, to ride roughshod over those local views.
As a keen supporter of the Government’s localism agenda, I have to support amendment 37. I hope that, on reflection, the sponsor of the Bill will see the merits of that. That would save an awful lot of aggro later down the line. If he wants to see the effective roll-out of electric vehicles and charging points, and all the infrastructure that goes with that, he should realise that it would be done best and probably quickest if it had the consent of the local people who would be affected. The best way to stop such things in their tracks is to create the uproar that occurs when local people see that their views have not been taken into account. That will stop other people from going down the same route and will probably end up slowing down the roll-out of these things. I know that his priority in clause 18(1) is to speed up the process and ensure that the roll-out happens as fast as possible, come what may, but I think that it will slow down the process in the long run as people say that they are not satisfied with being consulted and then ignored.
With amendment 38, we are back on to authorised people. Again, that amendment is not something that I can support. The same applies to amendment 39.
My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch made a compelling case for amendment 40, which would leave out clause 19. He can always be relied on in debates such as this to find something that, when put under scrutiny, collapses before our very eyes. If there is one amendment in this group that shows part of the Bill to be utterly ridiculous, it is amendment 40. As he made clear, existing statute suffices. We should not want to add extra offences to the statute book. My understanding is that the Government’s agenda is to remove unnecessary offences from the statute book. Given that my hon. Friend has pointed out how unnecessary this offence is because it is covered elsewhere, this is a perfect example of where the Government can deliver on what they say and strike out an offence before it even comes into effect. I hope that the sponsor of the Bill will support the Government’s agenda of striking out unnecessary offences and show them that he means business.
However, I think that clause 19 is worse than that, as I set out in my intervention. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch that we do not need this offence, but some people may still think that we do. Whether or not people think we need the offence, the way in which the clause is drafted makes it a complete nonsense anyway, because it focuses on making somebody not guilty of the offence if they
“had the permission of the person who operated the charging apparatus at the time”.
Who is operating the charging apparatus at the time is neither here nor there when it comes to whether any electricity theft is taking place, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has set out. Anybody could be operating the charging apparatus, but it is the person who is paying for the charging apparatus at the time who should give permission. Who is holding the baby or operating the machine at the time is irrelevant; it could be anybody. Therefore, even if an offence is necessary—I am convinced that it is not—the measure gives a get-out-of-jail card to the wrong people on the wrong premise. If my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East, the Bill’s sponsor, thinks about clause 19 logically, he will realise that it is defective, that it will not achieve what he wants it to achieve, and that, at best, he needs to go back to the drawing board, although I am with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch in believing that it should be struck out altogether.
I worry that, if some of my hon. Friend’s amendments on facilitating a speedier roll-out are made, he would end up using up the budget provided by the Government in London and deprive other areas of the country such as Yorkshire of any available funds. In their recent document “Driving the future today: a strategy for ultra low emission vehicles in the UK”, which has only just been published, the Government say that they have funded the Office for Low Emission Vehicles to co-ordinate Government support with
“a provision for £400 million funding to 2015”.
The problem is that if my hon. Friend’s amendments were accepted, the Government funding could be used up quickly in London and there would be little left for elsewhere. On that additional basis, I hope he will reconsider his amendments.
I do not intend to detain the House any longer. In summary, I hope that my hon. Friend thinks again on amendments 21 to 26; that he knocks on the head amendments 32 to 36 and amendments 38 and 39; and that he focuses his and the House’s attention on amendments 27, 28, 37 and 40—amendment 30 has already been accepted—which have an awful lot to commend them. The logic of those amendments is with my hon. Friend, and if he pressed any of them to a Division, I would enthusiastically support them. However, if he sees fit to press the other amendments, and particularly amendment 21, I am afraid that, albeit reluctantly, I would have to part company with him, which is a rare occurrence for me, and support the Bill’s sponsor. I absolutely could not support amendment 21.