Localism Bill

Yes, that is precisely what I am suggesting. There would be nothing to prevent a local interest group starting long before an asset came on sale. We should also remember that assets of the nature we are talking about usually come up for sale only because the local population, or community, has not been using them. As someone who has subsidised his local shop for the past 30 years, I can tell you that there is a frightful squeal if people think that it will close, but while it is open they all go off to Tesco or Rainbow or wherever and never use the shop, so my sympathies are rather more limited. I think that six months is a perfectly adequate amount of time for people to put together such a bid, bearing in mind that they could start long beforehand. In my view, it would be perfectly adequate to allow three months, which I hope is the time limit that will appear in the regulations. My amendment mentions six months as a maximum only so as to give the Secretary of State room for manoeuvre. I might also say that, whatever period of time is chosen, the point that people would feel rotten if they missed the target by two days would still apply—if we made it 20 years, people would still say, ““Oh, how terrible if it was 20 years and two days””—so that is not an argument.