Clause 19
Local Democracy, Economic Developmentand Construction Bill [Lords]
6:30 pm
Julia Goldsworthy (Falmouth and Camborne, Liberal Democrat)
I do not propose to detain the Committee for long. The amendment repeats a point that has been made many times already. Earlier in this chapter, there were discussions about how councils could formulate their own policy on responding to petitions. However, clause 19 then basically says that the Secretary of State can do whatever he or she likes anyway and that the Government can impose whatever schemes they like.
The amendments would withdraw the provisions in the clause that allow the Secretary of State to do whatever he or she likes. Subsection (1) allows the appropriate national authority to make provisions as to what a petition scheme must or must not contain, which seems exactly the opposite of what the Minister says the Bill is intended to achieve, because it involves central diktats. Subsection (6) states:
“The appropriate national authority may direct a principal local authority to make such revisions to its petition scheme as may be specified in the direction”,
and so on.
Other aspects of the clause are quite helpful. I do not see any problem with providing a model petition scheme to make it easier for local authorities to decide what they wish to take up, and I do not see any reason why local authorities should not be provided with guidance, but I see no reason why any national body should seek to dictate exactly how any local authority should respond to a petition. For that reason, I commend the amendments to the Committee.