Localism Bill

My Lords, I would also like to warn against this. Although I have some sympathy with some of the amendments spoken to by my noble friend, I think that Amendment 128A could cause great difficulties. As is emerging in this Committee, I am rather more enthusiastic about or tolerant of referendums than my noble friend perhaps appears to be. The reality is that when local authorities are being forced to restrain their spending, as they are at the moment—in our case £30 million was taken out of the budget—the last line, "““taking into account the resources available to the authority””," would mean that, at a time of contraction, a local authority would effectively be able to say no to any referendum on the general basis that, ““We can't afford what you're asking for””. That could be used by some authorities simply to say, ““We can't do any of it, so bye-bye””. Equally, it would be quite difficult to resist calls for referendums, per contra—if ever that day comes; I do not expect to see it in the foreseeable future—when there are more resources coming into local authorities. I would be nervous about that and I rather agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. Let us say, for example, that a community wished to see its local school expand but it was not possible at that time. Why would it not be reasonable for them to put their case forward in a referendum and put a marker down for some time in the future? I could not follow my noble friend on that amendment. I think that Amendment 126CA, which was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and states, "““determined to be so by the principal local authority””," is also in this group. I must tell my noble friend that I have some sympathy with this amendment as it emerged in earlier discussions. This is linked to the power that we discussed for individual councillors or pairs of councillors to launch referendums. Unless the local authority is able to determine what is a local matter to that authority, we could perversely be creating a situation where, for example, in its standing orders the local authority forbids discussion of the wars, perils and plagues around the world and yet a member of the council who wishes to have that matter discussed could use the referendum power to say, ““Let’s have a referendum on this subject””. They might get some support and it could be a way of getting round it. Again in the cause of localism, it should be open to the local authority to determine in every respect the way in which matters to be discussed impact on it, either directly or indirectly through a referendum. It should be left to the local authority at least to be able to have enough influence to align the mechanisms with a simple, coherent definition of what is a local matter. Apart from my liking for localism, the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, may have at least a useful argument there.