Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

My Lords, I enjoyed the contribution that we have just heard, which comes from the coal face. The noble Lord is actively involved in and very knowledgeable about local government as it operates at this time. However, from my experience from long ago, my first question when I read, ""insert ‘to use reasonable endeavours’"," in Amendment 1 was: why is it necessary to put those words into the clause? Is it because, if they were not in it, there would be the fear that unreasonable endeavours would be used? I cannot imagine a council, council officers and those in the general milieu of the local government scene in any area not using reasonable endeavours. If the noble Lord, Lord Tope, is implying that no endeavours would be made at all without that phrase, I beg to differ. More than once in Committee and on Report, the spectre has been raised of too much prescription and too much law being laid down as to what one can and cannot do. The Minister is in the position of being damned if she does and damned if she does not. The clause and, indeed, the Bill make a reasonable endeavour to be clear. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, is saying, "That is all very well as far as it goes, but I want to egg the pudding and gild the lily". Where do we stop? There is no doubt that, from his experience and mine, the day we finish with this Bill we will think of 100 ways in which it could have been improved but we did not do so. In other words, the second thought is always there. I simply ask whether this amendment seeks to do too much. Amendment 2 would insert the words, ""the duty of members of the authority as democratically elected representatives"." All the members of the authority are democratically elected, unless the noble Lord, Lord Tope, can tell me of circumstances in which a member of a local authority is not democratically elected. Again, I ask—I do not want to make too much of this—why the noble Lord and his colleagues think that these amendments are necessary. I think that they are superfluous and I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say.