Paul Goodman (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Wycombe, Conservative)

Subsection 6 was added in the Lords, if I remember rightly. I have nothing more to say about it. Generally, the aim of the clause appears to be—I hope the Minister will say a little more about it in a moment—to protect local authorities, up to a point, from some of the consequences of the earlier clauses that we debated this morning. Subsection (1) looks forward to a situation in which a local authority has apparently requested information from other bodies in order to promote understanding and so on, and those other bodies have been less than helpful. Someone  somewhere—one of the many brilliant civil servants who work on the Bill—presumably said, “Look Minister, we need some protection for local authorities if all those many other bodies we have listed in earlier clauses turn out to act unreasonably.” That, returning to our leitmotif, illustrates the folly of putting all these things on the statute book at all, because having done so one then has to insert supplementary clauses such as this one in order to protect bodies that have been listed in earlier clauses.

I am not a lawyer, but I am quite interested in this. There will presumably be a legal definition that the Minister knows, or inspiration will provide an answer about the extent to which the other body has not provided the information for the local authority as required. I am curious to know how one judges the extent to which the body has provided or not provided the information that would enable the local authority to be protected by the clause.

Daniel Rogerson (North Cornwall, Liberal Democrat)

I echo the comments of other members of the Committee in that it is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr. Amess, providing a style complementary to that of your fellow Chairman, whom we had the pleasure of serving under earlier.

As the hon. Member for Wycombe pointed out, this aspect highlights the weakness in all that has gone before. It obviously felt unreasonable to ask the local authorities to do something over which they have no control—that is, where they need information to provide it to local people, they must be able to request it from the bodies concerned. If those bodies turn out to be far too busy or have other priorities and do not provide it, it is only reasonable that the local authority is not held to that duty.

However, it strikes me that it would be far more reasonable not to impose that duty in the first place, which is what we have been talking about throughout. This really highlights the nonsense that is the early part of the Bill—imposing a duty on a local authority rather than issuing guidance on best practice. As I and other hon. Members said during consideration of previous clauses, that would be a far more sensible way forward.

The Liberal Democrats see the clause as highlighting the problem with the whole of this part of the Bill. It is there so the Government can be seen to be acting and forcing local authorities to do something that in many circumstances they may not be able to do. This part of the Bill is pretty pointless and clause 5 serves to highlight that.

Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Pensions Reform; Minister for Yorkshire and Humber), Department for Work and Pensions; Doncaster Central, Labour)

The hon. Member for Wycombe has shown a sharp, razor-like understanding of what the clause is all about—ensuring that local authorities have the protection he referred to, and rightly so. Obviously, the words “to the extent that” have been advised by lawyers and parliamentary draftsmen to make the provision absolutely clear cut. It is also true that we think it important to have these safeguards in the legislation, which is why clause 5 is there. There is no point in going over the arguments we have already had about whether any of these clauses should exist. We think this an  important part of ensuring that local people understand how to get involved in local institutions and play a role in civic life.