Clause 14
Local Democracy, Economic Developmentand Construction Bill [Lords]
6:15 pm
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall, Liberal Democrat)
The amendments in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne relate to a couple of issues on which we, again, seek clarification about the Government’s intention.
Through amendment 42, we are seeking to explore what the appropriate route would be for a petition to be considered. We have a system in which executive members are responsible for the functions of an authority and who have a particular role in setting out those functions and presiding over the delivery of them, as was alluded to by the hon. Member for Peterborough with regard to the old committee situation. The way that we do things now in local authorities means that particular members have responsibility for the delivery of functions and so, through amendment 42, we seek to explore whether it is appropriate for petitions to be directed to those responsible members and for them to respond as to what the council’s policy is and what the response is.
Amendment 43 covers an issue that is certainly missing. If we accept—as we seem to have done following a vote on an earlier clause—that provisions will set out what the response to a petition should be, under the clause we are now considering, the local authority is committed to deciding whether the petition is a matter for that local authority or for a local partner body. So, if a petition on an issue is submitted to a council, it can say, “This is for us and is something to which we must respond” or, “This is something for another local body and it must be passed on to them.”
The omission there seems to be in relation to matters for central Government—a Department or an agency of a Department—and therefore amendment 43 would provide the extra option of passing the petition on to the responsible Department. That is important. If we are in the business of encouraging people to understand what the different levels of government do, what their functions are and how they interact, it would be rather strange for a local authority to be forced in some way to consider a policy matter that is clearly determined by a central Government Department. The amendment would be a sensible way of resolving that situation.