Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for tabling these amendments. My noble friend Lord Hanningfield and I have added our names to a number of them. Following a meeting with the noble Baroness between Grand Committee and today, she impressed on us that the Government had been looking again at the whole issue of petitions. I think that all of us who have followed the progress of this Bill knew that the Government would have to give ground and accept that they had not initially thought through properly the provisions contained in this Bill. We were particularly exercised by the Government’s peculiar notion of a Government-approved valid petition. In Grand Committee, my noble friend Lord Hanningfield gave an example of a petition which may not have been valid, but none the less should have been dealt with. He raised the obvious point that, if local authorities start throwing out petitions as not valid, that will alienate people—not help them to engage in the democratic process. We were also against the concept of a petition organiser. Indeed, my noble friend Lady Morris moved amendments and argued eloquently that, by designating a petition organiser, the Government risked creating self-appointed busy-bodies who would hamper, not help, the engagement of local people with genuine grievances with their properly elected representatives. The Government clearly were listening. These amendments as tabled may not have been exactly the amendments that we would have put down on Report, but the Minister has made a real attempt to deal with some of the sillier aspects of this Bill. The Opposition are relieved to support that. I would not like this to be seen, however, as carte blanche support for the Government: it is not. There are many problems remaining with the Bill, and although these amendments go some way towards dealing with some of our concerns, I reiterate our belief that some of these clauses are simply unnecessary. The Government have a little luxury of time; because of the parliamentary Recess, there is a longer than usual pause between the stages of this Bill. I urge the Government to use this time constructively. I have signalled my support for these amendments as far as they go; I do not wish to repeat everything said in Grand Committee. The Opposition made ourselves abundantly clear then about what we thought of this Bill. Those thoughts are recorded in Hansard for the Minister to refer to, and the Government could yet make a better Bill. I hope they will choose to do so.