Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

This has been an interesting and useful debate, although it has made me quite nostalgic for Chapter 1. Amendment 94 would delete the reference to the types of people who can sign valid petitions, while Amendment 84 would widen the existing definitions so that people who use a local authority’s services and facilities could also sign a valid petition. I shall set out the rationale, but briefly, because I do not want to make a meal of this. This is another provision that balances our first two principles—that people should be able to have a say and receive a response, with our third—to minimise burdens on local authorities. The definition also guards against the risk of local issues being hijacked by people who do not have a real stake in the area. It is an important protection when it comes to electronic petitions, which anyone in the world could sign. It would not be reasonable for councils in England and Wales to have to spend their time conducting research or holding full council debates on issues that were of concern to people living in another country. We need some way of identifying local people, to whose petitions councils should pay attention. In Clause 1 we discussed the term we have devised—those who ““live, work or study””. During our exhaustive consultations some people thought that only council taxpayers should be eligible, which would have meant that only one person per household could be registered. Others suggested the electoral register, but 8 to 9 per cent of people are not on the electoral roll, with a disproportionate number from disadvantaged backgrounds. Young people are often not on the register and they need to be represented. Using the term ““live, work and study”” seems to be a good solution. It is a common-sense term that is normally known and, more importantly, is one with which local authorities are very familiar. For example, anyone who lives, works or studies in Bury St Edmunds can nominate an individual for Bury Metropolitan Borough Council’s employee achievement award. The Green Guardian awards are open to anyone who lives, works or studies in the boroughs of Sutton, Croydon, Kingston, Merton, Richmond and Hounslow. Individuals who live, work or study within the authority boundary can join libraries in Warwickshire, the city of Nottingham, Rochdale and Dorset. I could go on but I will not. I am just saying that this is a term that is familiar to local authorities. We have taken the definition from the experience of councils themselves, as noble Lords opposite are always telling us to do. The definition of a ““local person”” could have been left to principal authorities to decide—that was an option we considered—but there are many ways in which a local person can be defined and we wanted to avoid a situation where, for example, some local authorities responded only to people on the electoral register. We needed a definition that was wide enough to bring as many people within councils’ catchment as possible without overburdening them. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, pointed out that some market traders were signing petitions, but they would not be able to if we did not have ““live, work and study”” in the definition.