Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

My Lords, this group of amendments is significant with regard to the debates we had in Committee about the nature of petitions. I do not want to reiterate the arguments that we had; I shall say simply that one of the reasons we brought this part of the Bill forward is that we know that only one in five councils makes publicly available details of how to submit a petition. Based on the evidence that I presented in Committee, we believe that information explaining how authorities deal with petitions is inadequate and unsystematic; that many people in many communities are disadvantaged by that; and that there is an appetite in the community to know more, to do more, to have an impact and to know that changes follow when people can be bothered to petition. So we have concluded that there is a role for central government to build on best practice, as many noble Lords reiterated in Committee, to embed it and to open up some new opportunities so that the community itself can drive public service improvement. That ambition starts by ensuring that citizens across England and Wales know how to petition their council and know that their petition will trigger action. The chapter will provide minimal frameworks that will give flexibility to authorities, protections for local authorities so that they are not overburdened, and guarantees of action and clarity for local people. To achieve that, we need to put some things in place, such as a definition of what a "local petition" is so that councils are not legally obliged to respond to every piece of correspondence they receive or to petitions on issues they cannot influence; a duty to acknowledge petitions and publicise responses to petitions and the authority’s petition schemes so that people know that their petition will be dealt with; a duty to respond substantively to petitions, including an ability for petitions to trigger full council debates on issues that a large number of people support; and a way for people to appeal if they think their council has not given due consideration to their petition. There are areas over which we diverge in principle as well as process, but I listened closely to concerns that there was too much detail in the Bill about what qualifies as a petition to which a principal local authority must respond. In Committee, noble Lords also made the important point that petitions that genuinely represent the concerns of the community should not be rejected for technical reasons, and I completely agree. Our amendments therefore make it clear that we expect councils to take petitions from local people seriously and to ensure that they are not rejected on technical grounds. They give greater flexibility and improve the Bill. More importantly, they will improve the petition process. I am grateful to noble Lords for supporting those improvements. I am particularly glad to have the support of noble Lords on the Benches opposite. We had a major debate in Committee about the notion of "validity". I was persuaded by the arguments that were put principally by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. Amendments 31, 41, 44, 54, 60, 68, 70, 78, 79, 80 and 94 therefore remove the label "valid". Noble Lords were concerned that that label might suggest that there was a class of petitions that fell into the category of "invalid", and we do not want to give any such impression; we never intended that there should be. The change clarifies that authorities will be legally obliged by this chapter to respond to certain petitions defined in Clauses 12 and 14. Any other petitions, however, such as petitions not signed by local people or those that relate to issues that the authority cannot influence, will not in any way be invalid. The difference will be that while local authorities can choose to respond to such petitions, they will not be legally obliged to respond to them. The change makes it clear that local authorities should consider how they will respond to all kinds of petitions, whether or not they are required by the law to do so. We are also clear that citizens must be able to know what to expect. Local authorities will set out clearly and publicly their commitment to dealing with petitions in their petition scheme. Again, if local authorities want to go beyond what is strictly required in the criteria of the petition scheme in the Bill, Clause 18(1) provides that petition schemes can include elements beyond the requirement of the Bill. That means that an authority could specify in its scheme that it will respond to all petitions on all subjects, no matter if the petition is signed by a local person or about a local issue. The scheme is a major step forward for local people. Whether they live in England or Wales, they will be guaranteed that their council will have a way of responding to petitions and, under Clause 11, they can find that on the council’s website. Clause 11(6) provides that whatever the scheme says the council will do, it will be legally obliged to follow through. If the scheme says that the council will acknowledge petitions within two weeks, people will know when to expect the acknowledgement. There will no longer be any mystery about what happens when you submit a petition, whether that is for more allotments or better flood defences, or about when people will hear the council’s decision on the matter. There were also concerns about other details in the clause. The role of the petition organiser is very important. They will receive the acknowledgement and response from the authority; they will have the right to ask the Overview and Scrutiny Committee to review the adequacy of the response. It is vital that there is one person with whom the authority can deal to avoid the need, self-evidently, to contact all signatories individually. We listened to concerns that petitions should not be rejected simply because they do not nominate a petition organiser. So Amendments 45, 52 and 93, taken together, provide that, if the petition does not identify an organiser, the petition will not be rejected. Instead, the authority will be required to contact signatories of the petition to agree with one signatory that they will act as the petition organiser. That is sensible: it avoids the local authority being able to give in to any temptation to reject a petition on technical grounds. We also debated in Committee the merits of the requirements in Clause 12 that petitions must be addressed to the authority. Members of the Committee were concerned that "address" is an ambiguous term, and our intention was simply that the petition would need to be presented to the authority in order for the authority to consider it and take action. This is a little obvious, as it would not be reasonable to expect an authority to respond to a petition it has not received—we are getting into the realms of the surreal here. We therefore concluded that there is no need for an explicit provision on this subject. Amendment 42 removes the requirement that petitions must be addressed or presented to the authority. That will make the legislation clearer, and remove a potential obstacle. Amendment 49 removes the requirement that petitioners must add the date along with their signature. Amendment 51 is consequential to that, and we were convinced by the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, on this point. Indeed, he has tabled Amendment 50, which has exactly the same effect as my Amendment 49. I am very pleased that we agree on this major issue. I prefer to stick with my drafting: I think it neatly achieves the same effect. We want these proposals to make it as easy as possible for citizens to express their views. Adding a date beside a signature may be a small request, but we agree that the loss of response from the council is a high price to pay for petition organisers who simply forget to add a date column to their form. In a similar vein, Amendment 61 removes the provision that petitions on the same subject as another petition received in the previous six months do not qualify as active. We are convinced here by the argument that it would be easy enough for authorities to respond to such a petition, but if no new information were available, they could simply say no. But it may be that, in that period of time, the situation has changed and it would be useful for the authority to reconsider the issue. The Government believe that removing this exclusion will not place significant burdens on authorities. We are persuaded of that; it will ensure that petitions are dealt with transparently. So I hope that will be welcomed by noble Lords. During our debate in Grand Committee, Liberal Democrat Peers urged that e-petitions should be dealt with in exactly the same way as paper petitions. We are entirely in agreement here: we do not want people to be disadvantaged just because they signed an e-petition or visa versa. I should make it clear that the drafting of this chapter, where electronic petitions are provided for in a separate clause, does not mean that electronic petitions will be dealt with differently from paper petitions. It is a matter of drafting. I can reassure noble Lords that both electronic petitions and paper petitions will be part of a local authority’s single petition scheme. There is, however, one inherent difference, which we discussed. Principal local authorities will become aware of electronic petitions at an early stage, when someone first decides they want to set up an e-petition and asks the council to host a petition on its e-petition facility. At that point, by definition, there will not be any signatures. In contrast, authorities will first become aware of paper petitions when they are completed; the signatures will be there when the petitions are presented to the authorities. So, for instance, at the point the authority receives a request to host an e-petition, it cannot tell the organiser how it intends to deal with that petition. Given that it does not yet have any signatures, the authority will not be able to tell, for example, what the strength of local feeling is on the issue. The Bill’s drafting is intended to recognise this single difference, but that is where the differences should end. Amendment 58, therefore, remedies an inconsistency in the Bill’s treatment of electronic and paper petitions by providing that electronic petitions should be acknowledged once they are completed, and that means that they will both be treated exactly the same. I believe that this package of amendments will help to ensure that these provisions put the needs and convenience of local people first. These provisions should be there to support communities so that they can express genuine concerns. They must avoid the potential for petitions to be rejected on technical grounds; they must build on good practice. In Grand Committee, noble Lords worked hard to identify what could be done to streamline the process and to create a better system. I am very grateful for that work and am also grateful for the positive support of noble Lords opposite. I commend our amendments to the House.