My Lords, this has been a really important debate. This is such an important issue, yet it could be so simply resolved. We have heard about the Government’s call for evidence, but so far we have not heard anything from them, so it will be extremely interesting to hear the Minister’s response to that, particularly following the comments by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, about the freedom of information request, which were a bit disappointing to hear.
The Local Government Association was, unsurprisingly, one of the organisations that made a fairly detailed submission to the Government. It noted an enormous number of benefits gained by local councils from being able to meet virtually. It said strongly that it hoped this ability would be retained, particularly when it is locally appropriate. We have heard a lot about how appropriate it is in Yorkshire, and it is the same with me in Cumbria.
We need to remember, as has been said, the huge benefits to the democratic process that were brought by enabling councils to meet virtually. It reduced reliance on delegating decisions to officers if there was a crisis, for example, because everyone could get together very quickly. There was much more flexibility, better councillor attendance and better engagement with local residents at council meetings. We have also heard of the difficulties that disabled people often have, or those of people in rural areas who do not have a car. This managed to completely change their ability to attend meetings and take part in local democracy. As was said earlier, if we can have people attending this House virtually, why on earth can we not have the same for people at local government level?
It is also really important that the Government are not so ridiculously prescriptive about how and when councils can meet. I genuinely do not understand why there has not been any movement following the call for evidence. I can see no reason why this is not a good thing to continue with. The LGA added in its response that councils would need considerable flexibility for local determination as to how and when to utilise virtual and hybrid meetings to ensure that they realise the benefits of all the different meeting options that suit the local context. Again, that flexibility is hugely important for democracy. As I said, I find it completely baffling that this was not just automatically extended once the benefits could be seen.
We know that councils provide many different services to their communities. Their decisions obviously affect the lives of residents, so to have a system where you actively enable high levels of civic representation and where citizens’ voices are heard and taken into account in policy-making, local decision-making and planning—as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, particularly referred to—is surely of benefit to the whole of our society.
We need to address issues of underrepresentation, which we talked about during the passage of the Elections Bill. Encouraging participation in local democracy at every single level is more likely to encourage people to take part in elections when they come forward.
We have an amendment on this, because we think it is important. We strongly support the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, as hers is a really important amendment; I hope the Government will eventually come behind her. We support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, but if you allow virtual meetings only for planning meetings, I am not sure how much that helps parish councils, for example. I will wind up, because I know we want to break.
In our parish, virtual meetings and being able to meet remotely were an absolute godsend. I know that when we were told that was no longer possible, the parish council was not just deeply disappointed but pretty cross about it. It had enabled far more people to attend meetings, not just the councillors but the general public. Like Yorkshire, Cumbria is a very rural area. We have heard about the local authorities referred to by the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady McIntosh, but even just our parish covers a pretty wide area. For people to find out what was going on in their parish was of huge benefit. People logged into the meetings who had never attended before. Again, it is such a shame to have lost that.
Along with other noble Lords who have spoken, I am honestly of the opinion that this is such a no-brainer for this Bill. I really hope that, following this debate and taking away the thoughts that have come from it, the Government will consider coming back with a similar amendment on Report so that we can just get on with this.
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