Sustainable Communities Act 2007 (Amendment) Bill

I support at least one of the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope), namely amendment 5, which would require the Secretary of State to take action on each proposal within six months. I mean no criticism of my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), the movement or the Bill because it is no doubt entirely worthy. However, there is a regrettable tendency with legislation, particularly Back-Bench legislation, for grandstanding to take place and for worthy causes to be trumpeted by the Government when they could take action by other means. We already have an Act that was passed in 2007. The Government could have taken action, had they wanted to. We are now told that another Bill is necessary to make things more flexible so that action may be taken. The House owes my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch a service. But for him, such Bills would go through on the nod and with no proper scrutiny in the wash-up. The House listened carefully to his remarks on a series of amendments relating to proposed new section 5B(3). We are told that we have to make things more flexible, but subsection (3) will introduce all sorts of regulations that put more onerous burdens on local government. In a powerful point, my hon. Friend referred to the extraordinary paragraph (h), which states:""Regulations under this section may, in particular, include provision…enabling the Secretary of State to specify one or more persons who must be consulted, and with whom the Secretary of State must try to reach agreement, before making a decision in relation to a proposal"." When I spoke on the Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Bill yesterday, I drew the House's attention to a clause that was gobbledegook and paragraph (h) is another example of that. It means nothing. The Secretary of State, in one of the most centralised states in the western world, can do what he or she wishes. We are, willy-nilly, on a quiet Thursday morning, passing meaningless legislation that gives the Secretary of State powers that he already has. Why are we doing that? We are supporting a Bill not to achieve something, but to make a point. We all believe in sustainable communities and want local councillors to be given the powers and individual responsibility that they had many years ago. If the Bill will achieve that, I wish it well. In the meantime, I hope that my hon. Friend will at least press amendment 5, as it will put the Government on the spot. It says to the Government, "If you really believe in this, when you receive this proposal you should take action within six months." I hope that my hon. Friend will press the amendment to a Division so that we can make that powerful point.