Local Democracy, Economic Developmentand Construction Bill [Lords]

Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2009.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

I trust everyone had a good lunch and tea. No amendments have been selected in respect of clause 3.

Clause 3

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

Welcome to the Chair, Mr. Amess. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, as it always has been. Two Ministers new to the Bill are in the Committee, but we will find a certain repetitive quality to the debates. I will briefly address clause 3 in the same way that my Opposition colleagues addressed clauses 1 and 2.

It is obviously desirable in principle for local authorities to promote understanding of other bodies, including monitoring boards, courts boards and youth offending teams. Many Members of Parliament work frequently in our constituencies to promote understanding of such bodies, which is a worthwhile objective. However, we do not understand why the promotion of understanding has to be included in a Bill, as it is in this one. We did not receive much of an answer in relation to other bodies when we discussed clauses 1 and 2, and I suspect that we will get the same on clause 3.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) was far ruder about this clause on Second Reading than I intend to be now. We simply do not understand why it needs to be included in the Bill. It is separate from clause 2. Presumably, there is a reason why the bodies included in clause 3 do not fit in the same category as those included in clause 2.

As the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne pointed out this morning regarding the bodies listed in clause 2, we wonder whether there will be a reciprocal duty on the bodies included in clause 3 to promote understanding of local authorities or themselves. Local authorities will promote understanding of the bodies, but there is nothing on statute, as far as I am aware—the Minister may know otherwise—that obliges the bodies to promote themselves. By the Government’s logic, surely they should do so. I look forward to the Minister’s explanation of that, just as we are looking forward to hearing whether the bodies will have a reciprocal duty to promote local authorities.

Clause 3, like the others, is burdensome, bureaucratic and unnecessary. We see no reason why it should stand part of the Bill. We have tabled an amendment that would delete it, which was obviously not selectable. The Liberal Democrats have since withdrawn their names from it, and it is over to them to say what they have to say on the matter.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Amess. As the hon. Gentleman said, our concerns are in the same vein as those expressed about clause 2. It is not clear why only principal authorities should have a duty to promote the understanding of the organisations listed in clause 3, just as it was not clear in relation to the bodies included in clause 2. It is also not clear why there is no reciprocal duty for the bodies to promote an understanding of their own arrangements and local authorities’ arrangements.

That leads us to conclude that the clauses serve only to highlight what a dog’s breakfast the current arrangements are, and how confusing it is for a member of the public who seeks to understand not only what all these organisations do, but their complaints procedures, accountability processes and so on. They are completely different from organisation to organisation, but rather than attempting to streamline that process or to consider how complicated things are from the point of view of the people who receive those public services, it seems that the Government have simply palmed off the responsibility. Rather than explaining something that is complicated and incomprehensible to most people, they have given the responsibility to the local authorities, and said, “It is your job to explain that.”

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

The hon. Lady is making a very strong case. What would she say to my constituents, and perhaps hers as well, who look at clause 3 and may accept the premise on which it is based but at the same time are told that, for instance, they are not permitted to know the location of bail hostels? That, again, is the interface of locality with the criminal justice system. It has been outsourced to ClearSprings, for instance, and Ministers are not permitted to divulge, or choose not to, their location or set up structures where proper consultation can take place in residential areas when such hostels are proposed.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. It seems ironic that the Bill will defeat the object of what the previous Secretary of State claimed it would achieve when she first established in her White Paper “Communities in control” what it was designed to achieve: to get people engaged in how public services are delivered at a local level, and to try to see things from the perspective of the people consuming public services. What we have instead, unfortunately, is the silos that already exist, which the Bill seems to entrench. Instead of trying to look at the issue in a cross-cutting way, the Bill is suddenly lumping responsibility for explaining all the complications with the local authority. As I said, it seems to be entrenching the silos, rather than resolving them.

I turn to the point made by the hon. Member for Wycombe about the withdrawal of our amendments. My understanding is that we tabled amendments identical to his. Those have been withdrawn and our names added to his amendments, so I hope that makes it clear that we are of one mind on how extraneous the proposals are. We do not need them in the Bill. I do not see how they will simplify a very complicated set of arrangements. For that reason, we will oppose them.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

I welcome you warmly to the Chair, Mr. Amess. What a great pleasure it will be to serve under your chairmanship on this interesting Bill, which has already engendered a great deal of lively debate and I am sure will continue to do so.

Clause 3 requires principal local authorities to promote understanding among local people about independent monitoring boards for prisons and immigration removal centres, courts boards and youth offending teams in their area. Such information will be about how those bodies function, how a person can become a member of the boards and bodies, and how they can participate in some of the associated decision making and mechanisms.

If we want really to promote active participation in decision making in our local democracy, we need to look beyond just councils and councillors and to other bodies in which people can play a civic role. In making it as easy as possible for people to do that, we have clause 1, which is about promoting understanding of the role of the councillor. We promote civic roles in connected authorities under clause 2, such as a school governor or member of a police authority. Other key civic figures are set out in clauses 3 and 4, so people have the maximum amount of information available to them.

It is important that we look at some of the statistics on representation in those other important civic roles in our society. Only a third of courts board members are women. We talk a lot about getting younger people to play a part in their local communities, but 80 per cent. of magistrates nationally are over 50, and the average age is 57. Although 50 is of course a fantastic age to be, it is important that younger people, who, along with 50-year-olds, have so much to offer, become involved and interested in what is happening around them. Again, the proportion of black and minority ethnic members on independent monitoring boards does not mirror the composition of the local population.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

I draw the Minister’s attention to our earlier debate on how people are confused about the difference between a council and an officer, and about the different services councils provide. Does she not think that requiring councils to promote the understanding of those other boards could generate more confusion? If councils are responsible for promoting them, people might be led to believe that councils are also responsible for delivering those services. Can she explain how councils will be expected to promote understanding of those organisations, and should regard not be paid to other ways in which that could be done?

I draw the Minister’s attention to the Councillors Commission, which put quite a large responsibility on political parties to ensure that they raise awareness. It has supported political parties in promoting understanding to help tackle the lack of representation she has spoken about. That responsibility need not rest solely on the shoulders of councils, which, unfortunately, is the impression the Bill has given. Finally, how do the Government propose that both they and local authorities will assess the impact of the promotion of that understanding?

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

I want to stress that clause 3 is not an attempt to take away from the other bodies any responsibility for promoting what happens or how people can get involved in their organisations. It is an attempt to build upon that and to ensure that the roles available for our constituents are promoted even more widely. I challenge the hon. Lady’s assumption that that would become confusing because, when trying to increase people’s understanding of the possibilities of playing a role in civic life, it is a good idea to have information about all the possibilities in one place. We all know that people get confused and irritated by having to run to many different information points to get an idea of what they might be able to do, so having the information in one place is a good way of helping them to look through what is available and decide what is most relevant. That fits with bringing together into one information hub all the possibilities for people who want either to fulfil a civic duty, or to understand how they can best shape their local services and play a role in their local communities.

The opposite of what the hon. Lady is talking about is in fact the case: we want to broaden the number of people involved. It is true to say that people who get involved in one area of civic life often, as a result, get involved in many others. That is all very laudable, but we want to ensure that different people get involved in areas they feel are relevant to them, because sometimes—we need to be honest about this—a smaller number of people take on many roles. We want to ensure that a whole range of people get involved.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

The Minister is making a perfectly good case for the promotion of understanding—

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

Good.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

The right hon. Lady should not be quite so swift to assume that the rest of the sentence will be laudatory. She is making a perfectly good case for the promotion of understanding of the bodies. It is curious that the Bill slaps the duty on local authorities but not on the bodies themselves. She is making a perfectly good argument for local authorities promoting understanding of themselves. Surely, it must therefore follow that if they are going to do that to local authorities, the Government will place in legislation a similar duty on those bodies to promote themselves.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

As I have said, we do not want to take away the responsibility of other bodies to promote understanding of how people can get involved, but we are discussing a local government Bill, which is about the duties that fall upon local authorities. Where local authorities are entering into this exciting initiative to ensure that more people at local level are aware of the role that they can play in civic life and how they can shape their services, we are keen to ensure that there is the ability to gather all that information in one place.

On the hon. Lady’s other question, we discussed in some detail this morning how we intend to ensure that monitoring can take place effectively in the ways that we talked about, whether through the comprehensive area assessment, the Audit Commission or otherwise. The usual ways in which that monitoring is done will ensure that we have a good, sound system that all our citizens will find effective, and which will encourage them to play a greater role in our civic society.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

Will the Minister give way?

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

I was just about to finish—I know that my Whip would like that—however, I shall give way.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

I am slightly concerned about the developing rather insidious nature of the clause. The right hon. Lady, in her eloquent and charming way, is effectively leading us to the idea that local authorities will have a new legal responsibility and duty, under which, one assumes, they will be punished for the inability of separate third-party bodies to recruit adequate numbers of women and people from black and minority ethnic communities, based on adverse decisions with respect to the comprehensive assessment prevalent in local government. That does not seem fair, and indeed seems rather iniquitous.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

It is not iniquitous at all. Obviously, if the hon. Gentleman had his way none of this would be done. If we took the “do nothing” attitude—where did that phrase come from?—we would make no progress whatever in gathering the information and trying to encourage our local authorities to get people more involved in playing a role in our civic society. It is always easier to say, “Let’s not try. Let’s do nothing. Let’s sit back”, and just hope that it all happens as if by magic. What we are doing is looking at where we feel there can be greater participation, encouragement for participation, and promotion of understanding. People will find that an effective and helpful way of encouraging them to shape services, to be involved in decision making, and to get involved in civic life. I hope that with those reassurances the opposition to the clause will crumble and the clause will have unanimous support.

Clause 4

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

When we were both even younger than we are now, Mr. Amess, and when all the other members of the Committee were younger, a famous politician got into a bit of trouble. I will not identify his political party, because, heavens, that would be too controversial, but his answer to all difficult questions was “ditto”, over and over again. Clause 4 is a ditto clause in that we will get the ditto answer from the Minister to our ditto objections. There is no reason whatever for the clause to be in the Bill. It is perfectly worth while for local authorities to promote understanding of a lay justice, but there is no reason why such promotion should be burdensome and bureaucratic.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

I have been trying to follow the hon. Gentleman’s remarks, but either I was too young to be aware of the politician he mentions, or I was not even born at the time. However, his theme is relevant.

In the Minister’s closing remarks on the previous clause, she talked about the “do nothing” approach. The Liberal Democrats are not saying that nothing needs to be done, but the Government’s approach seems to be, “If in doubt, legislate.” That seems to be the case in so much Home Office legislation, which has demonstrated that legislation is not a proxy for action. Putting provisions into primary legislation does not mean that we will end up with the results that the right hon. Lady hopes for. In fact, the Councillors Commission and the “be a councillor” campaign have shown that the most effective advocates for encouraging wider participation in civic life are individuals who recruit and head-hunt others, and explain the role to them. That is better than a corporate approach, although it is available as back-up, but all the campaign’s excellent work was achieved without the need for an Act to support it. The work was all about supporting individuals, but unfortunately the Bill is presumably about providing corporate material and putting a duty on councils, rather than stating that there should be a duty for everybody involved.

I strongly feel that such a silo mentality needs to be broken down. It would have been refreshing if the Bill had mentioned how some of the issues could be dealt with by cutting across different Departments. Perhaps the issues would be best addressed through guidance and a best-practice manual, but by trying to deal with them through primary legislation, the Government are boxing themselves into a corner, which will not achieve their stated aims.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

I will be very brief, because a lot of dittoing may be going on. In that respect, I can say only that the hon. Lady is not right to say that the issues should be spread wider instead of brought together under one hub. What I said was that we certainly believe that other organisations should promote how they work and how people can get involved in decision making, but we think it is a good idea for local councils to bring that information together.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

In which case, why is there not a requirement for local authorities to promote the way that democracy works in Westminster? If local authorities are to be the hub, why is there not more on the face of the Bill to explain how democratic institutions work at national level, and perhaps at European level? Why are there not other duties to promote understanding of all those bodies, such as the Child Support Agency, which was referred to earlier, where there may not be a local impact? How those services impact on an individual would certainly be of great interest to that individual.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

As I said, the measure is about services at local level. It is about people getting involved in shaping those services. It is about people understanding how different organisations work at local level; this is a local government Bill. I very much hope that with those reassurances the Opposition will again crumble, although I think it unlikely. However, I hope the Committee support this wonderful clause.

Clause 5

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

Subsection 6 was added in the Lords, if I remember rightly. I have nothing more to say about it. Generally, the aim of the clause appears to be—I hope the Minister will say a little more about it in a moment—to protect local authorities, up to a point, from some of the consequences of the earlier clauses that we debated this morning. Subsection (1) looks forward to a situation in which a local authority has apparently requested information from other bodies in order to promote understanding and so on, and those other bodies have been less than helpful. Someone somewhere—one of the many brilliant civil servants who work on the Bill—presumably said, “Look Minister, we need some protection for local authorities if all those many other bodies we have listed in earlier clauses turn out to act unreasonably.” That, returning to our leitmotif, illustrates the folly of putting all these things on the statute book at all, because having done so one then has to insert supplementary clauses such as this one in order to protect bodies that have been listed in earlier clauses.

I am not a lawyer, but I am quite interested in this. There will presumably be a legal definition that the Minister knows, or inspiration will provide an answer about the extent to which the other body has not provided the information for the local authority as required. I am curious to know how one judges the extent to which the body has provided or not provided the information that would enable the local authority to be protected by the clause.

Dan Rogerson (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

I echo the comments of other members of the Committee in that it is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr. Amess, providing a style complementary to that of your fellow Chairman, whom we had the pleasure of serving under earlier.

As the hon. Member for Wycombe pointed out, this aspect highlights the weakness in all that has gone before. It obviously felt unreasonable to ask the local authorities to do something over which they have no control—that is, where they need information to provide it to local people, they must be able to request it from the bodies concerned. If those bodies turn out to be far too busy or have other priorities and do not provide it, it is only reasonable that the local authority is not held to that duty.

However, it strikes me that it would be far more reasonable not to impose that duty in the first place, which is what we have been talking about throughout. This really highlights the nonsense that is the early part of the Bill—imposing a duty on a local authority rather than issuing guidance on best practice. As I and other hon. Members said during consideration of previous clauses, that would be a far more sensible way forward.

The Liberal Democrats see the clause as highlighting the problem with the whole of this part of the Bill. It is there so the Government can be seen to be acting and forcing local authorities to do something that in many circumstances they may not be able to do. This part of the Bill is pretty pointless and clause 5 serves to highlight that.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

The hon. Member for Wycombe has shown a sharp, razor-like understanding of what the clause is all about—ensuring that local authorities have the protection he referred to, and rightly so. Obviously, the words “to the extent that” have been advised by lawyers and parliamentary draftsmen to make the provision absolutely clear cut. It is also true that we think it important to have these safeguards in the legislation, which is why clause 5 is there. There is no point in going over the arguments we have already had about whether any of these clauses should exist. We think this an important part of ensuring that local people understand how to get involved in local institutions and play a role in civic life.

Clause 6

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

A moment ago, Mr. Amess, you may have heard one of the Ministers on the Front Bench mutter, “Are they going to vote against every clause of the Bill?” [Interruption.] The answer, of course, is, “Wait and see.” However, this is one of the more innocuous clauses, or would be were it not for the words

“the discharge of their duties under this Chapter”,

so many of which we think unnecessary for the reasons we have advanced. However, we are inclined to let it go.

Perhaps more constructively, from the Minister’s point of view I do not think that there can be any reason in principle to oppose issuing guidance on promoting understanding, although some people might argue that it is somewhat heavy-handed. I would be grateful if she said a few more words about what the consultation under the clause will consist of and when she expects guidance to be issued.

I know that we have had a letter on that point from the right hon. Member for Wentworth (John Healey), who is now Minister for Housing, but frankly, it came rather late. A brief exposition from the Minister on the subject of guidance would be helpful for those following the proceedings of this wretched Bill.

Dan Rogerson (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

I quite agree with the hon. Gentleman that guidance is what it should be all about. Therefore, we would be happy if not for the fact that the sensible proposition that Government might issue guidance to local authorities on how to promote public involvement in democracy in their areas is, sadly, nestling within a nest of other proposals imposing duties on local authorities.

For all the reasons that we have outlined in our discussions on previous clauses, which I will not revisit, we do not believe that imposing a duty is a sensible way to proceed. Therefore, regretfully, we disagree yet again with the measures proposed in the clause.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

On when the guidance will be published, we will obviously undertake consultation with relevant bodies, principally local government representatives such as the Local Government Association family, those representing the parish sector and the connected authorities, and representatives of those carrying out the roles covered in clauses 3 and 4.

We would very much like to take into account the views of community sector, for example, as well as those of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Office for Disability Issues and the Government Equalities Office. Again, it is important that we take into account, as we have during discussions on the Bill, the views of the Committee and any relevant amendments, so it is obviously wise to wait until Royal Assent before publishing final guidance. It is important to have that guidance and consult widely on it.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

I can understand why it would not be appropriate to publish final guidance until the Bill has become an Act and is on the statute book, but I cannot understand why draft guidance, or even the terms of the consultation, might not be available. Surely that would have aided our understanding of exactly how the Government intend local councils to deliver on the responsibilities being imposed on them through the Bill.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

Let me try to be helpful and assure the hon. Lady that the guidance will include topics such as how the duties relating to the promotion of democracy link to other legislation. There will be guidance on what we mean by the various types of information that should be made available and what is meant by “promoting understanding”. Those are all issues that have rightly been raised by the Committee.

There will be guidance on what is meant by “how to become a councillor”, the limits of what a council should do in attracting people to stand, what constitutes support for a councillor, which bodies are involved under clauses 2, 3 and 4, and what minimum information should be covered. There will be an explanation of the power to amend the list of authorities.

Barry Gardiner (Labour, Brent North)

Does my right hon. Friend share my incredulity at the fact that only a few hours ago, during our morning sitting, Opposition Members were asking for—nay, insisting upon—the Minister giving guidance on precisely which commuter would get which piece of information from which local authority, while they now appear to be about to vote against a clause that lays an obligation on the Government to give it?

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

I could not have put it better myself. My hon. Friend is right. This is meant to be a helpful clause that makes it clear that we will issue guidance without being prescriptive. I see no reason whatever for the Opposition to vote against this helpful clause.

Clause 7

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

I am trying to imagine a situation in which the Opposition or others voted successfully to delete all the rest of the clauses in this chapter but—out of sheer whim, caprice and mischief—decided to leave clause 7 standing just to satisfy Ministers that we were not opposing every clause in the Bill. I think that would be a piece of whim, mischief and caprice too far. For that reason, I see no logical reason why the clause should stand.

Dan Rogerson (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) would be delighted that we are taking a close interest in matters that affect the Isles of Scilly and the people of the Isles of Scilly. It strikes me that we are talking about potentially applying such duties as may be imposed through guidance to authorities as large as cities and, equally, to a council the size of that for the Isles of Scilly.

My hon. Friend has talked about the number of inspections of local authorities that need to be undertaken in line with statute, and I understand that although things may have been simplified a little, the very same inspections all had to be undertaken of the Isles of Scilly council. That may well have been a popular brief for the civil servants who were required to visit the Isles of Scilly to undertake in-depth evaluation of the council and its discharge of its responsibilities, but it highlights the problem with the provision.

Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne and I were discussing earlier—while paying all due attention to the debate as it proceeded, of course—the fact that such an exercise might involve employing just about all the citizens of the Isles of Scilly to discharge such duties as may be imposed on the council by the provision. Although that might be a worthy attempt at job creation in the Isles of Scilly, I suspect it might not be very efficient.

Yet again, we consider the proposals—as set out in previous clauses, as they pertain to the Isles of Scilly—somewhat ill thought out.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

The order-making power under clause 7 allows the Secretary of State to apply the duties relating to the promotion of democracy to the Isles of Scilly, where local government arrangements are slightly different. It might be necessary for the provisions to be applied with modifications, but it is vital that we include the clause, so that the Isles of Scilly will not be missed out by the duty.

Peter Lilley (Conservative, Hitchin and Harpenden)

May I ask a little more about the phrase “with or without modifications”? I think that the terms are loosely worded and badly drafted, because it is not clear whether the Act can be modified, or whether statutory instruments introduced under the Act can be different from legislation relating to the Isles of Scilly or elsewhere. It has already been said that the statutory instruments can differ between local authorities, and different wording was used. The legislation implies that the Minister is given freedom to mould the Act—the primary legislation—according to her whim and fantasy, to fit the people of the Isles of Scilly. I do not think that those people should be left to the caprice of Ministers. It should be for Parliament to lay down what the primary legislation is, rather than saying that it may or may not be modified.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

I will not be subjecting the Isles of Scilly to any whims or fancies. The measure is included simply to ensure that the duty is applied properly to the Isles of Scilly.

Clause 8

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

I assume that this clause is one of a kind that is often found in Bills and is a sort of belt-and-braces exercise for Ministers that allows them to shovel in statutory instruments at a later date to amend the legislation. There is a great deal of debate and discussion in Parliament about whether, over many years, the Executive have tended to use statutory instruments too often. I will not get into that argument this afternoon, but as a signal to the Minister, I will point out that clause 8(1) contains the fateful words

“under any provision of this Chapter”

and, therefore, we are not disposed to look on it with a favourable eye.

Clause 9

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

After all that, Mr. Amess, it would be most irresponsible of us to let this clause stand, harmless though it is on its own.

Clause 11

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

I beg to move amendment 38, in clause 11, page 7, line 26, after ‘with’, insert ‘the statutory provisions of’.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 39, in clause 11, page 7, line 27, after ‘Chapter’, insert—

‘(a) prevents a principal local authority from relaxing the requirements of its petition schemes so as to apply it more widely than is required by this Chapter of the scheme, or

(b) ’.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

May I begin by seeking guidance on whether we will be considering whether clause 11 stands part of the Bill at the same time? I see you indicate, Mr. Amess, that that is so, which will be useful.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

Order. I have just been advised that, because these are slightly unusual proceedings, we will be dealing with things separately, so there will be a clause stand part debate.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

Thank you, Mr. Amess; that is helpful.

I shall confine my remarks to the amendments tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall. They would ensure that local authorities will not be penalised if they seek to go beyond the base line of the scheme established under the Bill. Amendment 38 would amend subsection 6 of the clause, so that it reads:

“A principal local authority must comply with the statutory provisions of its petition scheme.”

Essentially, therefore, if an authority wishes to go beyond the scope of the statutory provisions and then fails to meet its ambitions, it will not be penalised for having done so.

As with so many other things, including planning guidance, the lowest common denominator is established and local authorities are averse to the risk of going beyond that, which means that people are not encouraged to go further. I hope that the Government want councils to do whatever they can to be as responsive as possible and that, rather than penalising councils that are slightly over-ambitious and are unable to deliver on those ambitions, they ensure that a minimum requirement is delivered. Similarly, amendment 39 would ensure that, if the requirements are applied more widely, there will be no impact on councils if they wish to go further.

The amendments are straightforward, and I hope that the Minister will take them in the spirit in which they were tabled—they are all about seeking reassurance that authorities that wish to go further and, perhaps, push best practice even further will not be penalised for doing so.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

These amendments express, I think, the hon. Lady’s concerns that the requirements in the Bill may open the way for increased numbers of judicial reviews or complaints. I hope that I can reassure her on that and persuade her to withdraw the amendment. We do not believe that the petitions regime will be onerous for local authorities. When a council gets a petition, it must acknowledge it and take appropriate action in respect of it.

As the law currently stands, if the council received a petition and responded in a wholly unreasonable manner, it would be liable to challenge by judicial review. Although what we seek to do will not look fantastically different from the current situation, the profile of petitions will be raised. People will know more clearly where and how to submit petitions and, crucially, they will know that there will be guaranteed a response. That is what is so important about the changes.

It is also true to say that, if all councils have a clear procedure for dealing with petitions, they will be protected from any accusation that they have acted in an unreasonable manner. Again, that is not necessarily very different from what councils do in relation to any other function that they discharge. I hope that that reassures the hon. Lady.

Amendment 39 proposes to insert that nothing in this chapter

“prevents a principal local authority from relaxing the requirements of its petition schemes so as to apply it more widely than is required by this Chapter of the scheme”.

Again, the hon. Lady’s concern is that, once a principal local authority has a petition scheme, it would be considered unreasonable and therefore a waste of resources for it to act in response to petitions that fall outside that scheme. I can give her some reassurance on that. I do not think that any aspect of the Bill’s requirements could be interpreted as imposing any sort of exclusive set of obligations for the handling of petitions. Therefore, we would not get the kind of criticism that she fears.

What we have tried to do in this chapter is make it very clear that the authorities are given a very wide discretion about what to include in their schemes and how to respond to petitions. Although local authorities must do at least what their petition schemes say they will do, they will continue to have discretion to go wider if they wish, and the provision will not prevent them from responding to any petition that they receive. With that reassurance, I hope that the hon. Lady will withdraw her amendment.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

I will not seek to push these amendments to a vote, but I would like to respond and reflect on some of the comments that the Minister has made. The Minister initially said that these were not onerous requirements. If that is the case, I wonder whether the Minister’s own Department will be taking on such a policy in relation to petitions. I understand that it does not count the number of petitions that it receives. If best practice is so straightforward, I see no reason why the Department for Communities and Local Government should not improve its efforts to ensure that it too abides by similar best practice.

The intention of the amendments was to raise questions about the sanctions in the Bill imposed on those local authorities not complying with the requirements on petitions. It seems that there will not be any. However, as was the case with the duties in the previous chapter that would promote democracy at a local level, I wonder whether it is another example of compliance being monitored by yet another key performance indicator. Once again, we are seeing mission creep: the Government say that they are reducing the number of key performance indicators but are increasing them through the back door.

I still have serious concerns about why this more general point is included in the Bill, but I shall not press the amendment to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

As ever, Mr. Amess, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

Clause 11, like the chapter, is similar to the previous one in its complete vacuity. One has to ask the deep philosophical question, “If this clause did not exist, would local government in Britain be demonstrably the poorer for it?” I suspect that the answer is no. It forcefully makes the case that the Government have run out of ideas. After 12 years of Labour Governments, the clause is a triumph of trivia. I am amazed that Ministers and Labour Members should be surprised that councillors feel undervalued from time to time. With such legislation, their decisions, their authority and their autonomy are circumscribed.

The important question is why it is necessary for such provisions to be made in primary legislation, reaching as they do into the nooks and crannies, and the minutiae of local government. Effectively, it is an assertion writ large that local councillors cannot be trusted to administer their areas properly—and, more importantly, that local electors are frankly too stupid to realise that their councils are either very good or very bad, and that they have to be drawn to water like the proverbial horse.

The irony is that things could have been different. When the White Paper “Communities in Control” was published in July 2008—it followed the Green White Paper “The Governance of Britain”, published by the Prime Minister in July 2007—there was a real opportunity to empower communities. To give the right hon. Member for Salford (Hazel Blears) her due, the late and not much lamented by the Labour party Secretary of State was committed. Some people made hay in the other place about the lack of petitions in Salford. I would not dare to make that point again, but the fact is that it would be a wasted opportunity.

The real problem is the accretion of power to unelected quangos and other bodies. The Bill makes no mention of that. As we all know—reference has been made to this before—people are concerned about the Child Support Agency, the Border and Immigration Agency, Jobcentre Plus and CAFCASS to name but a few, but where is the opportunity to petition them for immediate action? It is much easier for the Government to beat up on local government and make the assertion that councillors are not fulfilling the functions for which they were elected. That is wrong.

There is no empirical or academic evidence to underpin the clause, but a rather dodgy survey, the provenance and robustness of which we have never established, was debated in the other place in January. A Local Government Association survey apparently showed that 30 per cent. of councils fail to deal properly with petitions. That is the only evidence of the need for this intrusive, prescriptive and draconian clause to force local councils to do what they are already doing.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

Does my hon. Friend believe that the force of the Government’s argument is that there is a case for requiring Departments to respond to petitions? To give the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne her due, she pointed out on Second Reading that the Department does not have a good record in responding to petitions, and I am sure that she will make great play of that later. If the Department cannot get it right, why are the Government putting these cumbersome and burdensome duties on local authorities?

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

My hon. Friend makes his point powerfully, and I suspect that the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne is no longer on the South West of England Development Agency’s Christmas card list. Nevertheless, she made a strong point.

The clause is a displacement activity to cover up what the Government should have done, but have not done, to empower local people and to give them real financial autonomy and democratic powers. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden made the important point that many of us have constituents who have issues with housing and arm’s length management organisations, but instead of providing them with the capacity to petition, we are concentrating on other third-party bodies. Those responsibilities are falling to local authorities unfairly.

Looking back at House of Lords debates shows that there was significant consensus about the possible efficacy of the clause. It is interesting that many people with years of direct experience in local government held forth ad infinitum on the matter, and made some powerful points. Lord Greaves, the sage of Pendle said on Report:

“I would much prefer that the entire chapter on petitions did not exist. It is unnecessary.”— [Official Report, House of Lords, 17 March 2009; Vol. 709, c. 179.]

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

Is my hon. Friend aware that the noble Lord is not the only person who seems to be of that view.

“Part 1, chapter 2 deals with petitions, and probably the less said about that the better. Petitions provide one mechanism for citizens to highlight concerns, but one must question whether 11 clauses are necessary. It looks to me suspiciously like micro-management.”— [Official Report, 1 June 2009; Vol. 493, c. 65.]

Those were the words of the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich on Second Reading. Does my hon. Friend hope, as I do, that the right hon. Gentleman will rise frequently to give us the benefit of his views?

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

The right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich is being uncharacteristically taciturn. As an hon. and fair-minded Member, he cannot reconcile the dichotomy between commitments in various Green and White Papers and by Ministers for real localism and the top-down centralism of the Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles), who knows what he is talking about with his expertise, said in response to the White Paper on 8 July 2008:

“If petitions are to play a more important role, does the Secretary of State realise that listening to them will be all the more important? The Government have ignored petitions on post office closures, polyclinics, a referendum on the European treaty and the congestion charge. What is the point in a council having a duty to respond to petitions if it has been stripped of its powers to make any difference?”—[Official Report, 9 July 2008; Vol. 478, c. 1415.]

That is important. Furthermore, Ministers pray in aid the support that they have received from the Local Government Association. The Minister will know that the LGA believes that the clause, and its associated clauses, is a turkey. It says that

“the LGA does not accept evidence of widespread public dissatisfaction with the way petitions are currently handled by local authorities.”

It also says that it foresees

“problems with the introduction of a prescriptive process for handling petitions, leading to a greater bureaucracy for dealing with them...The LGA does not therefore agree with the proposal to impose a duty to respond to local petitions as outlined in the consultation paper”.

Furthermore, as Ministers will know, the LGA offers an alternative which we would have supported had Ministers themselves brought it forward as an amendment. That is to update

“the model constitution published by CLG following the Local Government Act 2000, along with updated guidance under S31 of that Act, setting out best practice guidance on handling petitions and deputations.”

That leads me to another important point. Given that these powers, duties and responsibilities are new to local authorities, I fail to see how any realistic impact assessment can be made of the cost of the proposals. They are plucked out of the air. We have no idea. In this age of difficult fiscal decisions and a lack money in terms of the grants given to local authorities, we will be piling even more responsibilities on them to deal, particularly, with petitions.

The clause—and others—is superfluous and unnecessary, as my right hon. Friend said. It is at the end game of a drive to a unitary state—not federalism, not localism, top-down Stalinist, draconian proposals which force people to do the bidding of Government. It stands as a disreputable rebuke to the best interests of local people and to democracy in this country.

Ian Stewart (Labour, Eccles)

How can a Front-Bench spokesman from a party that imposed a poll tax on the people of Scotland talk about a draconian exercise within this country?

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

I have respect for the hon. Gentleman and the question was fair. However, at that stage, ultimately, the sanction of the voters of Scotland and the other parts of the UK came into play. That is not any kind of analogy.

In the Bill, the Government seek to take away what authority and autonomy local government have left by forcing them into prescriptive schemes for petitions on the basis that they do not know what is good for their local area. For that reason, we want to divide the Committee on the stand part debate.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

I am not sure that I will be talking in quite such hyperbole as the previous speaker. However, I wonder whether the Labour party will draw some lessons from the example just raised, in which an unpopular policy was introduced that resulted in the Prime Minister losing her job and being replaced by somebody else. Perhaps this is the policy—perhaps this is the one—that will drive people to revolt. I suspect not.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

I would not push the analogy too far because the party in question won the election afterwards.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

I will not push the analogy too far. The only analogy that I begin my remarks with is that, once again, it is groundhog day because the first question has to be: why is this in primary legislation? If No. 10 can introduce an e-petition system on its website without the need for primary legislation, it begs the question of why we need to have this set-up for local authorities in primary legislation. I doubt whether anyone in this room thinks that it is best practice for councils not to respond to petitions. Everyone thinks it is a good idea to ensure that councils are as responsive as possible in whatever way possible.

Dan Rogerson (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the Bill says nothing about how councils should respond to a letter or a telephone call? Perhaps we need some primary legislation to inform council offices how long they should take to respond to a letter, which paper they should use and whether it is in the right sort of envelope.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

My hon. Friend is exactly right. If we are going to specify how councils should respond to petitions, why not specify how they should respond to debates, after how many rings they should answer the phone, what their working hours should be, how many times a year they should sit, the details of their scrutiny committees and how many visits planning officers should make? If this is where it starts, where does it stop in terms of the Government ensuring that local authorities fulfil their duties and are as responsive as possible? That is something that should be decided at the ballot box. If people feel that their council is inaccessible, they will have the opportunity to elect members who will stand on a platform to make their councils more responsive. The more responsive the members are, presumably the more likely they are to get elected.

Ian Stewart (Labour, Eccles)

Does the hon. Lady, in her calmer moments, not realise that there have to be certain basic standards across local government? Surely it is the role of national Government to help to set those basic standards.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. To follow the logic of that argument, one would expect central Government to be setting those standards and abiding by them themselves. Instead, the very Department that imposes these standards on local authorities, has no policy for dealing with petitions. It does not even count the petitions that it receives. There is no common standard set for any Government Department and even this Parliament has no clear procedure for dealing with petitions. Most of the petitions that get presented ultimately disappear into a beige sack; no one ever sees what happens to them.

If the hon. Gentleman’s argument is that we need consistency, why are we not applying the measure across the board? Why are we not setting down standards that ensure that all public bodies respond to petitions in the same way so that if people submit a petition to Parliament, a Government Department or the Prime Minister they know that there will be consistency in the response that they receive? Should not the same be true of other bodies making decisions about public spending in their area, such as strategic health authorities, primary care trusts and all the other organisations we discussed in respect of previous clauses? If there is a need for consistency, and if that consistency would help people to understand how the process should work, why not apply the measure across the board? Why are we singling out local authorities in this way?

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

The hon. Lady and I are in danger of agreeing on too many things. Is there not a huge chasm between this micromanagement, interference at local level and the undermining of local autonomy and what we see in our casework in dealing with organisations such as the UK Border Agency? We routinely receive letters as Members of Parliament acting on behalf of constituents telling us that it will be two years before cases are even looked at. Is that not a huge chasm that the Government should be looking at?

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

The Government should be looking at that. If this is about trying to get people to understand how the process works and to have an impact on it, it should cross cut all Departments. The hon. Gentleman implies that the Government’s motivation behind all this is that they cannot help but centralise. That might be one of their tendencies, but I wonder whether the reason the provision is in the Bill is that we have so little on the legislative agenda. They thought that they could throw that in to provide an afternoon’s debate—it was an act of desperation to get something on the legislative agenda. We thought that a general election might have been and gone by now. So very little is on the agenda.

My main concern is that, by singling out petitions, the Bill might give people the impression that, if they have a problem, petitions are their only possible recourse. In reality, however, many other options are open to them, should they receive a service with which they are dissatisfied or a decision be made with which they do not agree. As will be seen in the discussion on later clauses, councils’ complaints procedures might be far more effective in resolving problems with individual officers. By putting petitions at front and centre, people might get the impression that they are the only way in which to register discontent. In some cases, however, they are not the most effective way in which to highlight or to resolve problems that individuals might encounter.

It comes back to a fundamental misunderstanding by the Government. The problem with petitions is similar to that with consultation, which has become a dirty word, because people think that it simply pays lip service to the decision-making process. For example, during the Post Office consultation, people had no impact on the outcome. They were basically told, “You will have an opportunity to have your say, but then we will do what we planned to do anyway.” That is why people are frustrated. There is no lack of understanding of how the process works. Petitions are not a miraculous way in which to address people’s frustrations.

The key thing that people want is this: if they have a problem or disagreement, their involvement must have the potential to impact on the outcome. However, the provisions in the Bill do not provide for that, basically because it is impossible for primary legislation to set out how people’s involvement, through petitions or anything else, will impact on the decision-making process. That is what people care about. Clause 11(7) reads:

“Subject to that, nothing in this Chapter affects the powers or duties of a principal local authority in relation to any petition to it.”

Basically, that means that councils will have a duty to respond to petitions, but not to ensure that they have any impact on any policy or decision.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

Again the hon. Lady makes a strong point, and it was made also by the Local Government Association: it is disingenuous of the Government to refuse to devolve further powers to local authorities while, in this Bill, making more onerous commitments on their behalf. In its response to the Bill, the LGA wrote:

“If the government is transferring power and influence to local authorities and citizens then councils should have the ability to take up issues on behalf of their residents with other public service providers.”

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

The key issue is not that councils should be required to respond to members of the public in their area; it is about what we can do to enable councils to be more responsive to the wishes and needs of the people living in the area. This part of the Bill, especially clause 11, does not address that point. I fear that it is just another example of how the Government, in their proposals, are missing the point. They are not hitting the target. People want the ability to impact on the decision-making process. They do not want to feel that they have simply been consulted to death, only for the original decision to be taken anyway.

That key issue has not been, and cannot be, resolved through primary legislation. It can be resolved only by genuinely devolving more power and resources to local authorities. We then have to give people the power at the ballot box to make their choices, if they do not feel that their council has done the right thing. It seems that the Government are terrified of letting go and allowing local authorities to be masters of their own destiny. To me, that is what is so depressing about so many of the provisions. I never doubted the willingness of the right hon. Member for Salford (Hazel Blears) to engage with people, but if these proposals are the answer, I wonder what the Government think that the question is.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

Apart from the slightly odd intervention about draconian, dictatorial imposition on local authorities and individuals, what has emerged from the debate is that the Committee believes that petitions have a role to play in allowing local people to express their views and to hold their local authorities to account. Indeed, the Conservative document, “Control Shift—Returning Power to Local Communities” talks about petitions signed by more than 5 per cent. of local residents within six months being able to trigger a referendum. Obviously, the Conservative party approach to petitions recognises their role and, in that case, talks about being able to have a referendum. Therefore, I hope that there is not a huge difference of opinion on petitions having an important role to play.

Lots of remarks have been made about central Government. The CLG website clearly signposts people to how we deal with petitions, confirming that the Department already responds to all petitions and aims to do so within 20 days. From 9 July details of petitions received by CLG will be published on the site alongside the response. The Downing street e-petition has been extremely successful—something like 27,000 petitions have been accepted for response. The Downing street petition system does not respond to petitions that are offensive to sections of society, but all petitions are acknowledged and, once petitions have closed, they are either passed to the Prime Minister’s office or sent to the Department. Where a petition is signed by at least 500 people, signatories receive an e-mail detailing the Government’s response to the issues raised. We are certainly setting an example at the national Government level.

I want to draw the Committee’s attention to a Local Government Association survey of 102 councils in England—something like a quarter of the sector— which found that only 28 per cent. of councils guarantee an automatic response to petitions. However, at the same time a YouGov poll found that, if a response were guaranteed, 84 per cent. of people would be more likely to sign a petition to their council and more than half of people would be more likely to organise a petition.

With regard to the point made by the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne, if a petition is simply ignored—there is, as I said, rather a lot of evidence that that happens—people will not know whether the points raised in the petition have been responded to. She was saying, “Well, they can make up their minds at the ballot box”, but if they do not know what response there has been to their petition, it is very difficult for individuals to know whether changes have been made—sometimes, frankly, changes might well have been made. However, if people do not know about it, because no response was given, it is more difficult to make that judgment. That is why we are setting out a procedure that enables people to respond to a petition. That is one of many procedures that we have brought forward to ensure that petitions become an effective way for local people to express their views.

Clause 12

Dan Rogerson (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

I beg to move amendment 40, in clause 12, page 7, line 36, after ‘enactment’, insert

‘or relates to a planning or licensing application’.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 41, in clause 12, page 7, line 36, after ‘enactment’, insert

‘or relates to a planning or licensing application, or to a matter on which the authority is at the time of the presentation of the petition, carrying out a formal consultation process in which the petition may be included’.

Dan Rogerson (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

Casting your eye over these amendments, Mr. Amess, it should strike you that they cover, at least in part, the same issue. Although they are related, amendment 41 goes slightly further. My hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne and I tabled these amendments to seek clarification from the Minister about the intention of the Bill, particularly in relation to petitions submitted concerning contentious planning or licensing issues.

Planning and licensing are covered by other legislation. I feel, and many of our constituents feel, that their views are not always taken thoroughly into consideration. The planning system needs reform further to recent Acts in order to reassure people that their views are being taken into account on issues that affect the development of their local area. The system needs some change to engage them with that process. As my hon. Friend said earlier, people are beginning to believe that what they say has no effect—planning is a prominent example of that. That is not to say that local authority members should not be free to make decisions based on the information available to them—information that might not be available to petitioners, who may bring forward other issues. Objectors feel that they do not have enough say when considering the possibility of a third-party right of appeal—an issue that I debated with the Minister’s colleagues during the passage of the Planning and Energy Act 2008. Such changes would reassure people that their views were being taken into account and that the planning system was more democratic than it currently is.

There are issues pertaining to planning and licensing that could necessitate a different approach. When we move on to discuss what local authorities should do when dealing with petitions, we ought to consider that certain issues, notably planning and licensing, are different from function and need to be handled differently.

Amendment 41 relates to how petitions on proposals that are already being considered by a principal local authority should be dealt with. Should they trigger the procedure that a principal local authority would have to follow under the Bill or could they simply be accepted and responded to as part of the existing consultation process? When such things are put on a statutory basis, I, like my hon. Friend, fear that they will become the main route for interaction with the local community. People on both sides of the process might try to slow the planning or licensing process by triggering lots of petitions that would all have to be considered in the same way.

My contention is that we ought to be cautious in imposing standardised ways of dealing with petitions because particular factors pertain to planning and licensing. It is possible that existing consultation processes will be cut across. Sadly, as my hon. Friend pointed out, consultation has become a devalued concept. However, it does go on. I would hope that local authorities take more account of consultations than central Government and there is evidence that they do. In places where that is happening properly, it would be a shame to do something that cuts across the good work.

The amendments prod the Minister to defend the use of a standardised petition for considering petitions right across the functions of a council, even what some would call the quasi-judicial functions such as planning and licensing.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

The hon. Gentleman has made a good case and has explained the rationale behind the Liberal Democrat amendments. I would fight shy of anything that reduces the validity of petitions in the remit of quasi-judicial bodies. As a London borough councillor, I served on the licensing panel and the planning and regulatory committee in the good old days when we had a proper committee system and did not have first and second-class councillors, as we do now. I was always mindful of the importance of a petition in informing the debate, even when further judicial determinations were necessary.

A practical ramification of the Licensing Act 2003 and the secondary legislation attached to it is that the consultation procedures on matters such as varying the opening times of licensed premises and restaurants are very prescriptive. It is important that we have—to use a ghastly term because I cannot think of a better one—an holistic approach. To give a simple example, the McDonald’s in Peterborough city centre sought to open virtually 24 hours a day. As the constituency MP, I did not think that that should happen. I was told that as a result of case law and regulations, I was not permitted—even as the MP for Peterborough—to comment on that because I was not a local resident. However, had I organised a petition it might have been a different matter. If there were local residents on the petition, it would have been a valid objection to those proposals.

I am in sympathy with the idea that petitions need to be complementary to quasi-judicial processes, and the Minister should take that into account when responding.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

Amendments 40 and 41 relate to the Government’s public commitment to use the order-making power under clause 14 to exclude planning and licensing applications from the scope of the duty to respond to petitions. I want to make it clear that the list of issues excluded from the duty to respond to petitions should be very limited. We believe that building petitions into council decision-making processes will empower people, so we want to minimise the issues that are excluded and keep the scope of the duty as broad as possible. Obviously, there are some issues that it makes sense to exclude, such as licensing and planning applications, because we do not want to set up parallel routes for considering local people’s concerns in such circumstances. There are already extensive processes for public involvement in planning and licensing applications.

I have a technical reservation about amendments 40 and 41, although they capture the broad aims of our intention. For instance, we want to ensure that, in addition to planning applications, planning enforcement decisions and the decision not to enforce would be excluded. To explain the sort of extra detail that we need to look at, it might be helpful to refer the Committee to Statutory Instrument No. 3261, the Overview and Scrutiny (Reference by Councillors) (Excluded Matters) (England) Order 2008. That order took the same approach for the councillor call for action, as we intend to take for petitions. However, it is quite long—30 lines—and adding such provisions to the Bill would not be the right approach.

Amendment 41 contains one additional exclusion. It provides that issues on which the authority is currently carrying out a formal public consultation should be excluded. That is an interesting idea. The rationale is the same for excluding planning and licensing applications. However, it would be important to reflect further on such matters and particular discussions with local government on how an exclusion might work in practice. The issues need to be thought through in detail, and using secondary legislation allows us to do that. We intend to consult on which issues should be excluded from the duty to respond to petitions after the Bill has received Royal Assent.

As I have said, we want to keep exclusions to a minimum, but it is also important that, in drawing up further legislation, we consult local authorities. I therefore cannot support amendments 40 and 41, and ask that they be withdrawn.

Dan Rogerson (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

I am pleased that the Minister is considering such issues in detail. I confess that I would not have expected her to have accepted them straight into the Bill. I wish to clarify that it is not my intention to imply that councils should not respond to petitions on planning or licensing issues. I am sure that the hon. Member for Peterborough was not implying that it was. It merely is that matters might be done differently from more standardised petitions on a matter of policy for a principal council.

Following the hon. Gentleman’s McDonald’s reference, a particularly contentious issue in part of my constituency is a lap-dancing club. I know that a number of hon. Members from all parties have contended with that issue in their constituencies. There is some dissatisfaction among local residents about how the petitions may have been submitted on that and whether current licensing powers mean that their local authority is able to respond to the wishes of the local community. The Government will now hopefully look at that through the recent Act put through by the Home Office.

Taking into account that the Minister said she would take on board the fact that there are differences between planning, licensing and more general matters of policy, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 14

Dan Rogerson (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

I beg to move amendment 43, in clause 14, page 8, line 43, at end insert—

‘(4A) A principal local authority’s petition scheme must secure that where a petition is made to the authority that relates to matters set out by the appropriate national authority under section 14(4)(a) or by the Secretary of State under section 14(4)(b), the authority must within the specified period—

(a) forward the petition to the relevant department of state it considers responsible for the matters,

(b) notify the petition organiser in writing of this and of the authority’s reasons for doing so, and

(c) publish a notification on the authority’s website.’.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 42, in clause 14, page 9, line 23, after ‘to’, insert

‘the appropriate cabinet member or leader of’.

Dan Rogerson (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

The amendments in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne relate to a couple of issues on which we, again, seek clarification about the Government’s intention.

Through amendment 42, we are seeking to explore what the appropriate route would be for a petition to be considered. We have a system in which executive members are responsible for the functions of an authority and who have a particular role in setting out those functions and presiding over the delivery of them, as was alluded to by the hon. Member for Peterborough with regard to the old committee situation. The way that we do things now in local authorities means that particular members have responsibility for the delivery of functions and so, through amendment 42, we seek to explore whether it is appropriate for petitions to be directed to those responsible members and for them to respond as to what the council’s policy is and what the response is.

Amendment 43 covers an issue that is certainly missing. If we accept—as we seem to have done following a vote on an earlier clause—that provisions will set out what the response to a petition should be, under the clause we are now considering, the local authority is committed to deciding whether the petition is a matter for that local authority or for a local partner body. So, if a petition on an issue is submitted to a council, it can say, “This is for us and is something to which we must respond” or, “This is something for another local body and it must be passed on to them.”

The omission there seems to be in relation to matters for central Government—a Department or an agency of a Department—and therefore amendment 43 would provide the extra option of passing the petition on to the responsible Department. That is important. If we are in the business of encouraging people to understand what the different levels of government do, what their functions are and how they interact, it would be rather strange for a local authority to be forced in some way to consider a policy matter that is clearly determined by a central Government Department. The amendment would be a sensible way of resolving that situation.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

I shall make a brief general point; I hope that you do not rule me out of order, Mr. Amess. In respect of clause 14, I think that hon. Members across the House might be concerned about the loose definition of subsection (1)(b) in respect of petitions that are vexatious, abusive or otherwise inappropriate. In practical terms, we have seen the recent controversy in Mid Bedfordshire district council—as it then was—over a petition concerning Gypsies and Travellers. I understand that a value judgment was made by council officers without recourse to elected members—or, at least, elected members were sent the letters but did not read them—that branded petitioners potentially racist. I know this is rather tangential, but perhaps the Minister will dwell on the value judgments that are made about what is inappropriate or vexatious.

I shall come back to order, Mr. Amess, and return to the point of the hon. Member for North Cornwall point concerning the appropriate cabinet member or leader. If we are to be consistent in our philosophical approach to the Bill, we are not predisposed to support this point simply because there is a practical issue with it. I should like to quote the good Lord Greaves again on that. If a small cul-de-sac wants its pavements to be looked at by the local authority or highways maintenance and has 15 signatures, or if there is a petition against the third runway that has 75,000 or 100,000 signatures, it might not be practical to remit that petition or all petitions, through the Bill, to one named individual or office holder. That would set a dangerous precedent and it would not be consistent with our ideological and philosophical approach to accept that.

We are minded to look favourably on amendment 43, which was tabled by the hon. Member for North Cornwall. I think that he seeks, by a circuitous sleight of hand, to do what we pressed the Minister and the Government to do earlier and practise what they preach. If local authorities are to have responsibilities cascaded down to them, they should not be responsible for discharging duties in relation to people for whom they have no democratic influence or accountability. On that basis, if the hon. Gentleman presses the amendment to a vote, we will support it.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

I shall deal first with amendment 42. I am sure that the hon. Member for North Cornwall did not intend it to create a barrier, but I fear that what has already been said is correct and that it would make things difficult for people who are petitioning. Local people do not always know who their local councillor is, let alone who the cabinet member is, so the amendment would create a problem and I do not want to accept it.

On amendment 43, I understand that the hon. Gentleman is trying to increase the transparency of the way that petitions are dealt with, and I am in favour of that, but the amendment is not necessary because in many ways its aims have already been achieved. Members of the public can already ask the Secretary of State to call in planning applications. Recently published direction on that prioritises the cases that we think most appropriate for the Secretary of State to consider, such as those affecting green belt land, but the Secretary of State can call in any application.

In some cases, the aims of the amendment are already achieved, and in others I am not convinced that it would be useful. We have yet to consult on the issues that should be excluded by order under the clause 14 power, but depending what the exclusions are, the relevant Department may not always be able to act on the petition. Again, we cannot pre-empt the consultation that we are going to undertake in this case, and there is therefore a risk that the amendment proposed would put an additional administrative burden on local authorities without having the effect that we are trying to achieve of empowering petitions. I am sorry that I cannot ask the Committee to support amendments 43 and 42, but I hope that I have been clear as to why.

Dan Rogerson (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

I should like clarification from you, Mr, Amess, that the selection list shows amendment 42 and then amendment 43. I believe that when you began a debate was called on amendment 43.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

Apparently, there has been a misprint on the selection list. Amendment 43 is the correct amendment.

Dan Rogerson (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

Thank you, Mr. Amess, that is helpful. As we have already heard that other Committee members might be willing to support a vote on amendment 43, that would make life a little easier—rather than having to withdraw amendment 42 and attempting to move 43.

I am pleased that the Conservative spokesman was supportive of the idea that petitions should be referred to central Government Departments. That would be a helpful additional to the Bill. If strictures are to be placed on local authorities when dealing with petitions, it is unreasonable that they should be asked to deal with issues that are not relevant to them. Indeed, local people’s understanding about which level of government is responsible for which function—the issue that we were debating this morning—would not be increased if there were not the facility for petitions to be referred back to the authority that can best consider them.

On amendment 42, I accept what the Minister said about the matter going to the appropriate cabinet member or leader, although that would be consistent with the approach to local democracy that the Government have advanced, which puts the executive function in the hands of a certain group of members. If that is not the correct way to do it, perhaps another way could be arrived at that would allow those executive members to consider petitions that are referred to the authority, after which the appropriate cabinet member or leader would be able to respond to them, with support or information provided by officers. So although we would not expect all the work to be done by the poor cabinet member, they would certainly have a role in justifying the position of the authority in line with the office that they hold.

I am pleased that some Committee members, at least, believe that amendment 43 is worthy of further consideration and I wish to push it to a vote.

Clause 15

Clause 16

Dan Rogerson (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

I beg to move amendment 47, in clause 16, page 10, line 22, leave out from ‘means’ to end of line 25.

Clause 16 relates to a particular kind of petition, namely the requirement to call an officer to account. In the debates in another place, it was felt that the matter needs to be handled carefully and sensitively. Officers of all grades in authorities work day to day with local people in local communities and may have to take decisions or make judgments that make them unpopular with those people. If it were possible for officers to be called to account by the public, in a very public way, perhaps when the petitioners do not have all the facts available to them, it would be stressful and difficult for them to do their jobs. Therefore, amendment 47 seeks to limit officers who can be called to account to those at the highest level in authorities and those who take the ultimate responsibility for many of the functions delivered by the paid service. That seems far more reasonable. That group is of a position and authority—indeed, they will have the support behind them—to be able to deal with a public debate on whether they have fulfilled their role.

I do not seek to detain the Committee for long, but this is an important point. We want to encourage people to come into public service, to work for local authorities and to continue to do good work, and it is important that only those of a senior grade are affected by such a measure and that only they will be called to account in such a way.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

My concern about the clause is that we are beginning to blur the lines of responsibility between elected councillors, who must regularly be held responsible to their electorates, and paid professionals, who serve in a civil service role at local level.

Any of us who has attended public meetings over contentious issues such as school closures, noise from industrial units or telecoms masts will know that members of the public can become upset and angry, and that they can direct some of that energy towards officers. I feel profoundly uncomfortable about absolving councillors of the responsibility of having a coherent policy and answering to their constituents. Under the Bill, it would almost be as though they could pass the buck to officers. The measure is the thin end of the wedge.

This is not a partisan issue. When the Bill was debated in the other place, Baroness Hamwee made similar points, but Baroness Andrews, the Minister, did not sufficiently assuage her genuine concerns and those of others. I invite the Minister to touch on those concerns in her remarks.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

I certainly have some sympathy with the amendment and its attempt to protect junior local authority officers from being required to attend meetings under the clause. The hon. Member for North Cornwall mentioned some of the meetings that we, as MPs, have attended, where junior officers have been put under considerable pressure. I think that brings home to us the importance of ensuring that the correct safeguards are in place.

We want to ensure that certain officers can be required to attend meetings, and to start with, we have set out some methods. For example, in subsection (3), the authority’s petition scheme must specify how many signatures will be needed to require an officer to attend a public hearing. That gives the local authority some discretion. We are also looking at other provisions. For example, under the Local Government Act 2003, any officer of the authority can be required to give evidence at a meeting of the overview and scrutiny committee. That is one way in which local authorities call officers to account.

At the moment in the Bill, it is for authorities themselves to determine which of their officers will be liable to be called to give evidence by petition. If the petitions are to have a meaningful impact, it is important that the most senior officers can certainly be called upon. That is why under the clause, as a minimum, petition schemes will provide that the head of paid service—often known as the chief executive—and the most senior officers responsible for the delivery of services can be required to provide information on their activities at public meetings of overview and scrutiny committees.

We certainly want to ensure that, in our guidance, when we have consulted closely with local authorities and others, we reach a situation where junior officers would not be subjected to inappropriate public pressure as a result of the clause. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we will make that clear in the guidance that we intend to issue to aid local authorities in interpreting the legislation. I hope that that offers some reassurance to him.

Dan Rogerson (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

I find that somewhat reassuring, and I think that it is important that we have had the debate. I know that those who will implement the legislation will have regard to the discussions that we have had here in Committee and on the Floor of the House. It is important, therefore, that we put on the record our concerns for junior officers.

I have some sympathy with what the hon. Member for Peterborough said about the whole idea behind the clause—calling officers to account—but it is not totally unreasonable to expect the most senior officers of an authority to come and give evidence on an issue to a meeting of that authority. I am talking not about a public meeting arranged in the community by a pressure group, but about meetings of that authority. People would particularly like to see the chief officer there, giving evidence while an issue was being considered. I think that that is a reasonable way to proceed, but there are concerns about junior officers, as I said. They might not be supported or, indeed, paid well enough to be expected to take the heat at a public meeting in that way. I am glad that the Minister has considered it. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 17

Clause 18

Clause 19

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

I beg to move amendment 48, in clause 19, page 12, line 29, leave out subsection (1).

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 50, in clause 19, page 13, line 1, leave out subsection (6).

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

I do not propose to detain the Committee for long. The amendment repeats a point that has been made many times already. Earlier in this chapter, there were discussions about how councils could formulate their own policy on responding to petitions. However, clause 19 then basically says that the Secretary of State can do whatever he or she likes anyway and that the Government can impose whatever schemes they like.

The amendments would withdraw the provisions in the clause that allow the Secretary of State to do whatever he or she likes. Subsection (1) allows the appropriate national authority to make provisions as to what a petition scheme must or must not contain, which seems exactly the opposite of what the Minister says the Bill is intended to achieve, because it involves central diktats. Subsection (6) states:

“The appropriate national authority may direct a principal local authority to make such revisions to its petition scheme as may be specified in the direction”,

and so on.

Other aspects of the clause are quite helpful. I do not see any problem with providing a model petition scheme to make it easier for local authorities to decide what they wish to take up, and I do not see any reason why local authorities should not be provided with guidance, but I see no reason why any national body should seek to dictate exactly how any local authority should respond to a petition. For that reason, I commend the amendments to the Committee.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

There are two principles here. We want to ensure that if it is necessary to intervene in particular circumstances—in extremis—that will happen. I assure the Committee and particularly the hon. Lady that we do not intend to use the power unless very particular problems occur. Obviously, all these issues would be discussed with local authorities before any intervention.

With regard to amendment 50, it is important that we recognise that legislation is not always a precise science. Some things are much too detailed to put in the Bill and it is important that we have secondary legislation to assist us. So I hope that, in these circumstances, the hon. Lady will withdraw her amendment.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

I am afraid that I will have to disappoint the Minister. These aspects of the clause seem to assume the worst of all local authorities and the best of central Government, which is a very dangerous assumption to make.

Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Peterborough)

We can call this the BAA amendment. Let us imagine that it was in place in a Bill when we were considering public consultation and petitions with regard to the third runway. For what possible reason would the Secretary of State wish to intervene in the powers and duties of a local authority to tell it how to have a petition? It seems to me that the provision is insidious and I am delighted to support the hon. Lady on this issue.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. There are serious questions to be asked about why the Government should seek to specify how councils respond to petitions, let alone why they should reserve the right to do so further in the future.

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

I want to clarify one thing quickly, because I believe that I may have said that we do not intend to exercise the clause 19 power. What we intend to do is to stipulate a 5 per cent. figure to trigger a debate. It is very important that I put that clarification on that record.

Clause 20

Dan Rogerson (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

I merely rise to point out, once again, that we are talking about all sorts of bodies other than central Government Departments. That is a problem with this system, other than the fundamental flaw in the whole premise that the Government should determine how local authorities respond to petitions. I find it striking that local authorities and other bodies, but not Departments, are being asked to look at things.

Clause 21

Clause 22

Clause 23

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

Well, another clause, another duty. The succession of duties in clauses perhaps explains why so far only clause 16 has gone through unopposed.

Clause 23 is curious because, if one reads it closely, it does not appear to have a great deal of confidence in itself. It begins by describing a number of bodies that are not local authorities at all. Earlier, the Minister was making a great deal of saying in her responses to points raised and in her remarks that, after all, the Bill was about local authorities. Yet here is a clause that is not aimed at local authorities at all, which rather belies the drift of her earlier remarks.

The clause states that an authority may consider it appropriate to involve interested persons—who, let us note, is anyone who may appear to the authority to be a representative of interested persons—but it does not specify on what basis such appearance is to be judged, which is part of the nonsense that one gets into, I am afraid, when such clauses are tabled.

Subsection (1) states that once an authority considers it appropriate to involve interested persons,

“it must take such steps as it considers appropriate”.

Note the word “must”. Once again, the essential heaviness of the duty—its burdensome nature—is revealed in that word. Then a whole series of bodies is listed. I will not make a great meal of asking why they are there, because I am sure that that was discussed in the Lords and that the Minister will tell us. However, what follows in the Bill seems to demonstrate a certain lack of confidence in the clause.

Subsection (4) states that subsection (1), which is the foundation on which the whole idea rests,

“does not require an authority to take a step”—

in other words, to do anything at all—

“if the authority does not have the power to take the step apart from this section”.

That seems to indicate that the Minister thinks that the section is not enough to compel the duty to come into being, which does not seem to show a great deal of confidence.

Subsection (5), which is a further safety section, makes it clear that the whole bang shoot

“does not apply in such cases as the Secretary of State may be order made by statutory instrument specify.”

It is an unsatisfactory clause, so unless the Minister can give a better account for it than for most clauses that we have considered so far, we intend to divide the Committee.

Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat, Falmouth and Camborne)

I shall make some brief remarks on the clause. I cannot see it doing anything other than contradicting everything the Minister has said previously. The first clause that we debated gives the principal local authority a duty to promote an understanding of the functions and democratic arrangements of an authority and of how members of the public can take part in those arrangements. We had a long debate on why regional development agencies should not be part of the authorities that local authorities were trying to promote an understanding of. However, clause 23 specifies the regional development agencies, but under a kind of power that says, “You can do what you like, really: if you would like to engage with people, you may do so, but if you do not, then do not worry about it.” If some regional development agencies are coming forward to involve people in the exercise of that function, I still do not understand why they have been excluded from previous clauses. Why have they been included in this clause when they have been excluded in previous clauses? That just points to some wider flaws in the Bill. It seems that the clause is nothing more than legislative filler, so I will vote against it if I get the opportunity.