My Lords, I will add a brief comment about this, because from the perspective of the general public it is a very important issue. I understand that the Secretary of State has made a statement, published in the Local Government Chronicle, that a change will be effected in two years’ time. However, we need to be a bit clearer about what this might mean because of the rights of people to know what statutory notices are being placed that they might be interested in.
As I understand it, newspapers can still be used, which I welcome because newspapers in many parts of the country still have a role in publishing statutory notices. However, that will become a matter for a local council to decide. Let us also note that in the second part of this amendment my noble friend Lord Tope is saying that a local authority has to use a means of publicity that will bring it to the attention of the greatest number of people in the area. I hope no local authority thinks that that means it need not advertise on local lampposts and notice boards. If you are going to get to the greatest number of people, using local lampposts is a very effective means of achieving that.
I think the Secretary of State was quoted as saying that he prefers websites to be used in future. However, I will make three proposals to the Minister that might be thought about when the time comes to issue guidance. It is very easy for information to be lost on websites. There has to be a link to statutory notices from a council’s main page, and the website has to be easy to navigate to get the information off it. I also ask the Government to introduce an automatic postcode search facility so that someone who wants to inquire, as they do on a planning matter, can input a postcode, as they can in most local authorities, and get a straightforward list of current planning applications in that area. I propose that the same thing should happen for statutory notices.
Other than that, the world is changing around us. While I quite like to read statutory notices in newspapers, I understand the need to move with the times as long as the interests of the general public are protected and information is not hidden from them when lampposts, newspapers and the web could all be used in relevant ways as decided by local authorities.