Clause 1
Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]
10:45 am
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall, Liberal Democrat)
The right hon. Gentleman is right to point out that there is much that is superfluous in the Bill. As I said earlier, the duties being imposed on local authorities should not necessarily be achieved through legislation. I simply seek to underline the principle that democratically elected members themselves have an important part to play in the body corporate—the local authority—and we need to empower them and help them to do that. Rather than it being the job of the chief executive to tell people what local authority members are doing, we should be helping local authority members to do that themselves in their local communities. Many of them do that. They build up strong relationships with people in their local communities, organisations and so on in performing that representative function. I merely want to raise the principle that it is not so much a matter of giving duties to the councils—the corporate body—but of how we can help local councillors develop their role and to convince people once again that they are electing people who have their community’s best interests at heart and who can be an articulate voice for those concerns.
The amendment is merely an opportunity for us to raise certain issues around the distinction between the role of the local authority as a whole and those of individual members of that authority, particularly in a system where some are in opposition and some are in control of those local authorities. Opposition Members therefore have a crucial role to play in scrutiny as well.
In response to issues raised on Second Reading, new clause 3 seeks to set out more clearly the penalties for any local authority that fails to act upon the duties imposed on it, giving us a chance to debate what the appropriate penalties might be. This goes to the heart of something that I and others hon. Members have already mentioned, which is that we do not think these are the sorts of things which ought to be set out as duties under legislation, so the penalties are unnecessary.
Members of this House and the Government should be working with local authorities to develop the principles around which this sort of work can take place, to offer advice and to promote networking. Organisations such as the Local Government Association and the Improvement and Development Agency already do excellent work in helping to support local authorities and local members to do that. That is the route we ought to be taking. The new clause seeks to promote debate by considering at what level a penalty should be, but we do not need either a penalty or the duties. Rather we need to encourage local authorities to be as proactive as possible in their local communities, rebuilding that trust in democracy and hopefully heading off any further possibilities of protest votes going where members of this Committee would rather not see them go, as sadly happened last week in the European elections.
I will not press the amendment to a vote, but will seek the Committee’s leave to withdraw it later. New clause 3 is a useful point for debate, but not a serious consideration at this point.