Localism Bill

My Lords, the amendments in this group need not detain us for long. They have been tabled to probe the appropriateness of the word ““misleading”” as the criterion a local authority can use to change the wording of a referendum question. It must consult the people who have forward put the petition before doing so, but I am not sure that the word ““misleading”” covers everything. For example, an authority might want to improve the grammar of a question. As my noble friend Lord Tope said, petitions to councils even for something as important as a referendum are not necessarily written in the most appropriate phrases. If more felicitous wording can be introduced, it may be an improvement, but I am not sure whether that would make the question any more or less misleading. There may be inappropriate words in the question, which the council thinks are slang or rude, but once they are removed the petition remains perfectly valid. More substantively, a question might be asking for action from the wrong people. It might ask the council to do something which it cannot do, but the council might be able to do other things. I am trying to think of an example. There is a gap in the railway line between Colne and Skipton on the Lancashire-Yorkshire border, and a campaign called SELRAP is working to have it reinstated. Noble Lords might have had communications from the group because it is vigorous in pursuing its case with everybody. I am not sure whether I should declare an interest as a patron of SELRAP since I am talking about it, but I was bullied into it. A petition might ask Pendle or Craven council, or even Lancashire or North Yorkshire county council, to reinstate the railway line. Regrettably, that is not within the power of any of those local authorities. On the other hand, it is within their power to provide funds to SELRAP and to push the process of assessing proposals for the reinstatement of the line further along the road. The GRIP process is a series of steps that all cost money, and the authority could contribute towards it. A petition might come in asking any of the councils to put in a new railway line, but it would be rejected on the grounds that it had nothing to do with them. On the other hand, the councils could ask for a differently worded petition so that SELRAP could be funded to undertake the next batch of work necessary to get Network Rail, the Government and everyone else to pay attention. Alternatively, it might be a county council matter but the petition is sent to the district council, or vice versa. Those are helpful changes, and I do not think the word ““misleading”” describes them. Amendments 128T and 128V were meant to probe the question of holding the referendum on the same day as elections, and whether that is a good or a bad thing. We have discussed this in some detail so it is not necessary to pursue it any further. Amendment 128U looks at how quickly a referendum has to take place once a council determines that it should be held. If it is generally thought that in order to save money and for general convenience, a referendum should be held on the same day as an election, and that election is due within 12 months, the amendment would make it possible, at the discretion of the council, to delay the referendum for up to 12 months rather than only up to the six months provided for in the Bill. In most cases referendums brought forward during the summer and autumn would have to be freestanding and would therefore cost perhaps three times as much. I beg to move.