Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

My Lords, I shall not press my attempt to remove the clause because that would destroy the architecture. I would like to destroy the architecture but not in this way. The Minister talked about a threshold. I do not understand how you determine different thresholds for different issues in the same council or even within the same department. An authority might have a threshold for street lighting but there might be a petition from people in one street who want a new street light. In looking at that petition, the authority will have to take into account how many people live in that street. A petition for better lighting on the main road or the local motorway is a different matter altogether and many more people may be required to make up the threshold. If only 10 people come forward, the authority will say that it is less important. Potholes are a topical subject following the winter weather that we have had. There might be five huge potholes in a dead-end street. A petition about that signed by all the residents in that street might have 20 names on it, but people in the rest of the county are not going to sign it. The point that I am trying to make is that the issues on which people petition are so varied that it is not just the subject of a petition that might be liable to different thresholds but the context—that is, the number of people who can legitimately sign it. I do not think that the concept of thresholds is at all sensible. Thresholds are rigid and councils will have enormous difficulty with them. Those who do not want petitions will set high thresholds, whereas those who are quite happy to deal with petitions will set low ones, which will be meaningless. In a big county or big city, a threshold of 10 for a petition of any kind is meaningless. It indicates that the council will accept everything. Therefore, I believe that the Government have to think again about this. They have time and I hope that they will do so. I have done my bit to try to persuade them to do so, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 53 withdrawn.