Localism Bill

My Lords, as I explained to the Minister earlier today, I think that Amendment 128E has largely covered my amendment. However, like all amendments, there was a supplementary purpose lurking behind it, which was to try to probe the wider interaction between the facility of referendums generally, especially in their cumulative effect—the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, who is not in his place at the moment, touched on that a few minutes ago—and the wider family of the statutory functions of local authorities. It is instructive to note Amendment 128C relating to transport. I have lost count of the number of times that the burdens on local authorities on the one hand and the need to get at the authentic voice of people on the other have been referred to in this part of the Bill. We are considering the effects for a democratically elected representative body whose functions might not work terribly well, or be effectively discharged, if a referendum is imposed. The Bill cannot be all things to all men. We have to have a balance between vox populi on the one hand and the effective administration of local government on the other. That balance needs to be explained. I hope that the Minister will be able to elaborate on some of these points, but I certainly think that there is an issue here, which was touched on in earlier debates in Committee. We need to be clear to what extent people within a community should engage with the representative and democratic processes of those who are set up to represent those community interests as opposed to reaching for some bypassing measure in the form of a referendum.