Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I support what the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said. When I read the Bill, I thought that the Government were trying to kick these petitions into touch because overview and scrutiny committees do not take decisions. They scrutinise the executive and what is going on, and sometimes they can take six months to produce a report. They normally set up a working group and things such as that. The Government set up the legislation under which we operate. My authority, which is a large authority, has an executive that takes all the decisions. The council deals only with the budget, and perhaps the waste plan, and everything else is decided, by the Government’s orders, by the executive. If decisions are to be taken about these petitions or about something to be done, as we heard earlier, the cabinet or the portfolio holder does it. That is the only way to get things done. Referral to the overview and scrutiny committee is a way of kicking most petitions into touch. If we wanted to get rid of one for a while, we would refer it to that committee. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is right on this. I do not understand why the Government put that in. I have tabled many amendments to legislation in this House, and many times I have been told that detail is not put in legislation but in regulations or guidance issued later. The detail in the Bill about petitions is ridiculous and I ask the Government to think again. They cannot really mean to prescribe all that detail—that is a job for officials—rather than give a clear duty and clear guidelines. I ask them to please think again.