Clause 68
Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]
11:45 am
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall, Liberal Democrat)
The Government’s position is now on the record, and I am sure that it will be evaluated by all. No regional policy can move forward along any other line than that relating to the boundaries that were set fairly arbitrarily a decade or so ago.
Similarly, we now move on to a discussion about leaders’ boards that began briefly on our last amendment to the previous clause. The issue is whether leaders’ boards represent the appropriate mechanism for all areas of the country to have input into any emerging regional policy, or strategy. On reading the Bill, our view is that saying that a leaders’ board must be the way to go for everybody is too prescriptive. That is why we suggest taking out the word “must” and inserting the word “may” in its place. There might well be other ways in which we can have a representative element to considering regional policy that would work alongside the regional development agency, interact with it and reassure people that elected representatives have a say in what the policy is. To that end, I am happy to move amendment 102, which seeks to allow greater flexibility in determining what the democratic arrangements should be in terms of moving forward with regional policy.