My Lords, as we have heard, this group of amendments addresses the application of the Bill to a parish meeting where there is no separate parish council. A parish meeting has only one elected member—its chairman—although it is suggested that all local government electors in the parish who are entitled to vote are members. There are more than 11,000 parish meetings for which the Audit Commission currently appoints auditors.
We accept the necessity of clarifying how various functions created by the Bill should be applied to parish meetings, and the principle adopted—that administrative functions should be exercised by the chairman on behalf of the parish meeting, and deliberative or decision-making functions should be exercised by the parish meeting itself—has our support. We note that NALC supports the amendments, and we do, too.