Clause 2
Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]
12:00 pm
Paul Goodman (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Wycombe, Conservative)
It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon who has, as ever, put his finger on some of the problematic aspects of the clause.
I presume that this clause will also give rise to a performance indicator that a local authority may or may not choose to accept. It is likely that most of them will not and it is very hard to see why this is in the Bill at all. If the Minister’s answer had been other than it was, I concede that it would have been heavy-handed on the part of central Government. Like so many of these clauses, it veers between heavy-handedness and being completely unnecessary. On that theme, let me turn to the clause itself.
As my right hon. Friend said, the clause sets out a duty to promote understanding and names a number of bodies. The inclusion of the bodies concerned and the exclusion of others was heavily debated in the Lords. Then, near the end in subsection (6), we are told that this list which we are now debating properly—as we should be able to—can be amended without any democratic consideration whatever. This is a point to which I will return. My right hon. Friend raised the point about the promotion of understanding so I will not go over that again, but the Committee will be curious, as was the Lords, to hear the justification for the list of these bodies before us today.