Localism Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, will doubtless have expected that the words ““parish council”” might cause this particular old pike to rise from the depths. I see where he is coming from, although I initially felt that this could loosely be reclassified as ““Son of Clause 56 stand part””. I appreciate that he has made a distinction which prevents me from pressing that in particular. I will leave most of my comments for the question on Clause 56, because there is a generic process about parishes and how they fit into the thing. I am a little concerned about inserting the principle regarding parish into something that relates to principal authorities. I question whether it rightly sits there, bearing in mind that the Bill proposes that the Secretary of State can make a separate set of provisions for parish councils. It seems to me that there are very good reasons for that, because we have to be rather careful about what template we are using for the purposes of referendums, so I question whether the insertion of the reference to a parish here is the right one, unless the intention is to eliminate Clause 56 altogether.