Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, for not moving her amendments so that we can avoid a repetitious debate. It is very sporting of her. On Amendment 178A, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked me a specific question taking me back to comment on what the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said in his intervention at the end of the previous debate. We do not for a moment underestimate the challenge that the consultation poses, especially the consultation across the regions. It is hard to make it a meaningful and effective process within local authorities. One needs careful and innovative strategies these days to reach beyond the usual groups, and so on. As for the community involvement that we have had in place since 2004, I asked about it myself. There have not been any issues raised with us or the regions, as far as we have been able to find out, on the quality of the public consultation on the regional spatial strategies or of the current statements of community involvement that form part of the test of soundness for RSSs. That is not to say that they are working as well as they might; as we discussed in our debates on planning, if we take public consultation seriously we have to find new ways of doing it. We have to ask the people whose job it is to get the views and the voices of the communities raised so that we can hear what they are saying to find new ways of doing that. In the policy document, we said that we would clarify in guidance what we expect from statements of policies. What we should be looking at is who is doing this. None of them may be doing it brilliantly; none of them may be doing what the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, thinks can and should be done—but some regions and some areas are doing it better than others. Having districts represented on the leaders’ boards will give the districts a louder voice and more purchase on the system. We have to do the very best we can in making sure that we set out some standards and expectations here. The amendments that the noble Baroness has tabled are perfectly proper. She will not be surprised to hear me say that what she wants is already covered, because the Secretary of State is already required to consult if she wants to modify the draft regional strategy. Clause 72(3) provides for that. The Secretary of State can consult whoever she wants, but, more importantly, any person can make representations to the Secretary of State and she must have regard to them, under Clause 72(4). We do not want to limit the Secretary of State’s access to information, expertise, advice or opinion in any way; certainly, we do not want to limit her access to consultation in that sense. That is what we have provided for in the Bill, for that reason. Amendment 180B concerns the requirement to give reasons when publishing the regional strategy. That is already well established practice. It is currently the case that applies to the regional spatial strategies, so far as I am aware. We will, however, also set out such a requirement more formally in accompanying regulations, which we will be consulting on later on in the year, so the noble Baroness should be satisfied in that respect. It will be there, and people will see that that is the expectation and that is what the Secretary of State will be required to do.