Clause 1
Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]
10:45 am
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall, Liberal Democrat)
This is my first opportunity to echo comments made by other Members welcoming you to the Chair, Mr. Illsley. However brief our deliberations might be, I am sure they will be all the more focused because of you, so it is a delight to serve under your chairmanship again.
As the Minister will anticipate, I will not press the amendment to a vote. I simply seek to discuss the roles and duties that the Bill places on local authorities. There was some debate in the other place about the need to clarify that the democracy that we have the honour of defending and functioning within is a representative one, and it is important that the roles of elected members are set out clearly.
On Second Reading, the hon. Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) said that there is still a lack of understanding in much of our electorate about what different people do within the democratically elected structures of our country—just what councillors are responsible for and the role of Members of Parliament. In the recent European election the turnout was not incredibly high, and there was, perhaps, a lack of understanding about just what Members of the European Parliament are able to achieve and how they interact with the other tiers of Government.
To that end, clause 1 sets out clearly the duties placed upon local authorities. However, I share the concerns of other Members about imposing unnecessary duties on local authorities. Clearly, these are things that good local authorities are dealing with anyway and could therefore be covered by best practice. As my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne said in her introductory remarks, a great deal in the Bill could be achieved by best practice guidance, encouraging local authorities rather than imposing duties upon them through legislation. Subsection (2) talks about how the local authority has
“a duty to promote understanding of the following among local people...how to become a member...what members of the principal local authority do”.
That is very good, but it refers to the body corporate, and we need to recognise the tremendous role played by local authority councillors, many of whom are now newly elected and some of whom are on entirely new authorities. They have a huge amount of work to do in familiarising themselves with just what they have let themselves in for, working with new colleagues to set out visions for their authorities.
I cannot emphasise enough how important it is for us to support local authority members in their roles within local communities, giving them the tools they need and helping them to start rebuilding trust in the electoral system, which, sadly, has been undermined by recent events, or rather, recent revelations of events in this part of the democratic system and perhaps elsewhere too.