Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

My Lords, I think that this is my last big blast at the whole principle of these petition clauses. There will be one or two later amendments but they and the stand-part measures will cover the detail. Amendment 40 seeks to leave out Clause 11, which sets up the petition schemes. All the succeeding clauses concern their details and procedures; Clause 11 is the principal clause. It seems to me that throughout our debates on these matters we have tried to put forward four broad themes as being the reasons why this approach to a petition scheme is not the best one, and could be dangerous. First, these are detailed, top-down rules set by central Government and laid down in legislation and in guidance which will apply to all local authorities. They will apply in all circumstances, in all types of localities and types of councils, and in all circumstances in terms of the issues that the petitions concern. Despite the Government’s response that the whole thing is flexible, and that local councils will be able to deal with the matter as they wish, and despite some of the very useful changes which have been made between Committee and Report, we submit that this is still a top-down, bureaucratic, legalistic, inflexible system. It will cause problems because people will have to spend a lot of time working out how to deal with it, whether this petition comes within the rules, whether that one does not, and if so, how it will be dealt with, whether the petition is about subjects which the council can legitimately deal with, and, if not, whether it should be passed to somebody else, and other issues. If only two or three petitions a year are presented to a council, these issues will not matter too much, and will be sorted out. However, if 500 petitions a year are presented to a council, it will have to employ at least one person, and probably two, to deal with them, whereas in the normal circumstances petitions are simply acknowledged and passed to the appropriate body in the council to deal with, which might constitute a committee, the executive, a lead member or the full council, or it might simply be a letter from a council officer saying, "We have understood this and this is what we are going to do"—or are not going to do. At present, petitions are dealt with sensibly and flexibly. We do not oppose the Government’s general view that there ought to be a better system in many councils. Indeed, it is widely thought that Hazel Blears is the Minister really pushing petitions. She made a speech about this only last week. Salford is one of the councils whose method of dealing with petitions we are having difficulty finding out about. It does not appear to have a scheme or to deal with petitions very well. However, I believe that Hazel Blears should sort out her own council rather than imposing this measure on the rest of us. Detailed, top-down rules are not the way forward. Secondly, the detail of the rules and of the legislation is ridiculous. I have said this before and I say it again because I have spoken to a lot of councillors and a few council officials from around the country. I have asked every one of them that I have talked to at conferences and other places, and in e-mail discussion forums, "Do you know that this is being landed on you? Do you know it is happening? Have you been consulted about it? What do you think of it?" First, they do not have the slightest idea it is happening; secondly, when I tell them what is in it, they are horrified; and thirdly, they say, "Why don’t you do something about it?", to which I say, "I have been trying but we really need to persuade the Government that a change of approach is necessary". The detail and extent of the scheme is not the approach. In Committee, I tried to get the Government to accept a more framework-based approach, with a page of legislation at the most, and then trust councils to get on with it. The third problem is that it is too bureaucratic and too legalistic, with the result that it will cost money and resources. There is no doubt that it will be expensive to run. It is not clear where councils are supposed to get those extra resources from to deal with the schemes in this legalistic and bureaucratic way. The fourth danger is that it will restrict people and it will impose a straitjacket on informal and spontaneous activity. Some of the amendments brought forward by the Government have dealt with that. Nevertheless, a great deal of the devil is in the detail and the detail will be in the guidance to be put forward by the Government. We should ask ourselves what will be in that guidance. We do not know. The guidance may reverse some of the improvements to the Bill. I am sure that the Minister does not want that to happen. There are three ways to do this. The first is to do it through what I call gullible legislation, which pins people down and does not let them move unless they do exactly what you want. The second way is through best practice, advice and encouragement, which we would prefer. We believe it could be done perfectly adequately without legislation, if only the Government were prepared to let go and trust local authorities. The third way is through genuine framework legislation, which still leaves a great deal of leeway for local authorities to be trusted. Regrettably, the Government have rejected that. If the Government were talking about framework legislation, we would not be totally opposed to going further than petitions and making a legal right of residents to attend meetings to put a point of view when councils are making decisions. Many Liberal Democrat councils now do that, as do others. That would enable people to talk to the decision-makers when they make decisions. Every month of my life, I take part in meetings like that and they are very successful. If the Government were serious about it, they would roll the whole thing up in a community empowerment provision in the draft Community Empowerment Bill, but they will not do that at the moment. The noble Baroness set out four principles in Grand Committee, reported in Hansard at col. 39 on 26 January 2009. The first is that people should be able to have their say about the services for which they pay. We agree with that; we have no problem with that; and we have no problem with the important role that petitions can play in that. Secondly, they have a responsibility to listen and give feedback on petitions. We have no problem with that; sensible councils do that already. If the Government want to put it in legislation as a general duty, we do not have a great problem with that, although we would prefer a voluntary approach. Thirdly, there must be a clear process for dealing with petitions and responding to them but there must also be flexibility and autonomy. We believe that the words of the Minister in Committee do not tally with what is written in the Bill. Fourthly, we should all build on best practice. I return to the basic principle that if you want to build on best practice, you have to know what best practice is. You will never know what it is unless there is diversity of practice across the land. As long as everyone does the same thing, in the same way, under government regulations, best practice will never break through because the authorities with the ambition, enthusiasm and vision to create best practice will be prevented from doing so. My final point is that it is very important that a petition system is not a sham; that petitions are seen to be dealt with seriously; and that, even if they do not get what they want out of it, people see that it has been discussed and dealt with properly. There is nothing between us on that. We do not believe that the way to do it is through eight pages and 3,000 words of prescriptive legislation. We believe that there should be a much more flexible and voluntary approach. At this stage, we will not agree on this, but I put the case again in the hope that someone may listen. This Bill has a long way to go. Once it has gone through your Lordships’ House, it has to go to the Commons, and by that time people in local government around the country may realise what is in it and what is happening and pressure may be put on the Government to cause them to change their mind. I hope so. For the moment, we can only argue the case. I beg to move.