Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful for that reply, to which I shall come in a minute. The noble Lord, Lord Graham, is quite right: people put forward petitions and proposals to councils and turn up to council meetings and say, "They did not listen", when what they mean is, "They listened but they did not agree with us". I think that he was actually agreeing with what I was saying, although he did not realise it. It is very important that people understand two things—this is where the Minister and I completely agree. First, they should understand what will happen to their petition—how it will be dealt with, how it will be discussed, who will decide on it and what processes the petitioners, or perhaps the organiser, can take part in to discuss and debate it with the people who will make the decision. That is perfectly normal procedure in councils that do it well. We do not disagree about that at all. Secondly, there is what the council does about the petition and how it decides what to do about it, whether to fill in the potholes or tell people to go to get a bucket and shovel and do it themselves, or whatever. It is true that the first stage—telling people how a petition will be dealt with—may end the matter there. If people are petitioning about a pile of rubbish, the council's operational services, or whatever they are called, may simply say, "We will remove it", and remove it the next day. They may have removed it before the arrival of the letter telling people that it will be removed, in a well ordered situation. There is no problem about that. That is exactly what I tried to set out in the rewrite of the clauses that I tabled for Grand Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Graham, says that it is unreasonable to expect the Government to do that. I would say that I have done that for them; all they have to do is to tweak my amendments and everything will be all right; but I would say that, wouldn’t I? I am not sure that there is any point in the Minister writing to me to tell me how things will work. I think that I understand how things will work. I have spent a lot of time reading the Bill, listening to the Minister and reading her correspondence. We all understand how it will work. My complaint is that Clauses 13 and 14 do not set it out clearly. They are a muddle and ought to be rewritten so that they do set it out clearly. That is my point and I request that the Government look at them during the Bill’s remaining passage through Parliament. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 59 withdrawn.