Clause 23
Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]
9:30 am

Sarah McCarthy-Fry (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Communities and Local Government; Portsmouth North, Labour)

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Amess, on this my first outing on the Bill. I look forward to considering the clauses that fall under my remit.

Before we finished on Tuesday, the hon. Members for Wycombe and for Falmouth and Camborne raised questions about the clause and asked for an explanation of why it is in the Bill.

David Curry (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)

On a point of order, Mr. Amess, would the Minister mind moving a couple of seats to her right, because the light is behind her and it would be much more pleasant to see her face than to see a black blur.

David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)

Again, this is an unusual start to proceedings, but the Clerk has advised me that we are going to adjust the blinds.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Communities and Local Government; Portsmouth North, Labour)

Much as I should love the right hon. Gentleman to see my face and not a black blur, I am afraid I need the additional table here for all my bits of paper. I am sure we will sort something out with the blinds.

To begin, I will explain the logic behind what we want to achieve with the clause—[Interruption]—if anyone is listening. In 2007, we introduced the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act, under which best value authorities were given a duty to involve. That came into force from April this year. There has been a positive response to that, and local authorities welcomed the duty to involve. Many already do so as part of their usual duties, and are keen to increase the level of involvement as a result.

The duty to involve is not stand-alone legislation. On considering how to take forward community empowerment, we took the new local performance framework that we were introducing as our starting point. It became increasingly obvious that to be most effective, the duty ought also to apply to partner organisations that are under a duty to co-operate with councils to agree local performance targets—namely, local area agreements. The proposal was discussed and agreed with the relevant partner organisations; we subsequently announced, in the “Communities in control” White Paper, our intention to extend the duty to involve to those organisations.

We will also add the new Homes and Communities Agency to ensure that principles of involvement apply to it. Since we have established that agency, it, too, has a duty to agree local performance targets with the local authority.

The clause seeks to place a duty to involve on a wider set of authorities. It represents a simple, logical extension of the local community’s ability to have its say, and to be informed about and become involved in a wider range of local services, as appropriate.

The question was asked why this list is not the same as the duty to promote democracy list. It is not a question of having the same lists; it is a different process. This list is for those partner organisations that form part of the duty to co-operate and part of the local area agreement.

The hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne asked whether subsection (4)(a) gives an authority any powers. The clause is worded to mean that new duty does not grant a public authority any new powers; it is intended to exist alongside other statutory duties. It does not enable authorities to pass on duties or responsibilities to another body beyond any powers set out in legislation governing that authority. With that explanation, I hope we can agree that the clause should stand part of the Bill.