Localism Bill

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 120B, I shall speak also to the other eight amendments in this group, which are in my name and in the name of my noble friend Lord Tope, who will arrive in a minute, I hope.

Although we have debated only two groups of amendments so far, we have made quite a lot of progress in discussing the issues around the proposals for referendums. These amendments address the question of who can call referendums under the provisions of this chapter. We approached the question of referendums with some scepticism—that has become obvious. Nevertheless, we understand that there is a localist case for referendums regardless of whether referendums themselves are a suitable part of local democracy. The case was made well by the noble Lord, Lord True, before the lunch break. We are troubled by referendums not just because they present various practical dangers and difficulties, which we talked about last Thursday and this morning, but because of the question of whether local democracy should be plebiscitary or deliberative. The problem with referendums is that they demand a yes or no answer to questions that very often require a great deal of careful discussion and deliberation and are not answerable in a yes/no sort of way; they are answerable in a much more complex way that requires amendment, mediation and compromise between different interests in the community. This is at the heart of the question of who should call referendums.

This suite of amendments would delete those parts of the Bill that allow referendums to be called by a small number of elected councillors. It would also delete the provision that an elected mayor, whether in London or elsewhere, could call a referendum. It would also, perhaps for different reasons, delete the provisions that allow a council itself to call a referendum. I will take those points in order.

In our view, the provision that allows a small number of elected members to call a referendum in their wards is open to a great deal of misuse and abuse. In particular, if,

“one or more members of the authority can make a request”—

in the words of the Bill—then the,

“member for an electoral area”,

or,

“a majority of the members”,

in a multi-member area can call a referendum. It is not clear whether councillors for adjoining wards could join together and jointly call for the same referendum in two or more wards. I put that question to the Minister.

Last Thursday we discussed the danger—so I will not go into it in great detail now—of councillors using referendums in their wards as a tool for re-election, calling a referendum on a populist issue on the same day as they are due to face the electors. An equally dangerous prospect is rivalry within a ward, if perhaps two out of three councillors called a referendum in order to do down the election campaign of a colleague of a different party. A further problem is that wards do not necessarily, and very often do not, match communities.

For all these reasons, many of us find undesirable the possibility that a small number of councillors—one, two or three—can call a referendum in their part of the borough and, as long as it fits the provisions of the Bill, the council will not be able to stop it. The arguments apply equally to elected mayors, who could quite easily call populist referendums to coincide with their own re-election or to boost their popularity. There seems no reason why a mayor should call a referendum about issues that relate to the mayor’s powers because the mayor can address them without a referendum.

As far as the resolution of the council is concerned, these provisions seem unnecessary. Councillors can call referendums at the moment under their existing general powers, and presumably they will continue to be able to do so. They are also able to make arrangements appropriate to the particular referendum that they might want to call. We were given an example in the King’s Lynn area where a referendum called by the district council cost £80,000. It resulted in an overwhelming majority one way, and then the county council ignored it. The argument for not having a referendum on the basis of the resolution of the council is that it is not necessary, and the council can do it anyway without being constrained by the detailed rules and regulations in this Bill.

My final point is that the Bill suggests that referendums can take place within a ward or an electoral division or they can take place in a whole area. However, if you think about towns such as Keighley, which is a clearly separate town within the city of Bradford, why should it not be able to have a referendum, if we are going to have referendums, in a clear community like that? In the case of Burnley, Padiham is a clearly separate town in the Burnley district, but it consists of two wards and bits of other wards; so why should it not be able to have a referendum in the natural community rather than the artificial wards? I beg to move.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I endorse most of what the noble Lord has suggested. In particular I entirely concur with his view that the provision for council members to requisition a referendum is apt to lead to mischief and is unnecessary. It is open to the whole council to choose to have a referendum if it wishes. Perhaps the Minister would confirm that it would even be the case in a mayoral council, that the council as a whole could pass a resolution for a referendum. However, to extend that principle to individual members is unnecessary and likely to be a source of considerable nuisance as well as expense. I hope that the Minister will feel, on reflection, that that particular part of the Bill can be safely abandoned without prejudice to the rights of the public at large.

[Earl Cathcart]

My Lords, I may have misunderstood, but regarding this business about local councils calling for referendums, I thought the Minister said previously that,

“following a request from a member, a referendum may not be held unless the full council has resolved that it be held”.—[Official Report, 28/6/11; col. 1746.]

I therefore thought that we had moved on from that argument.

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[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, as a preliminary point I refer again to the issue raised this morning with regard to the Delegated Powers Committee, because Clause 54 gives the Secretary of State the right to make regulations. Given what he indicated this morning, I assume that the Minister is inclined to adopt the position of the Delegated Powers Committee; namely, that these regulations should be subject to affirmative resolution. I certainly hope that that would be the case. He nods assent, for which I am grateful.

The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, touched on an interesting issue when he talked about paying people to requisition a referendum. I do not know of a precise precedent but certainly an analogous situation arose not too long ago in Greater Manchester, where a large commercial concern, Peel Holdings, was, among others, very hostile to the notion of a congestion charging scheme for Greater Manchester. It launched a campaign in the metropolitan borough of Bury to call for a mayoral referendum in the hope and assumption that an anti-congestion charge mayor of whatever political affiliation would be elected, and because in the great scheme of things a single authority in Greater Manchester—only one authority—could veto the whole scheme, that would be sufficient to jettison this scheme, which the company felt was against its interests.

I understand that the company invested a considerable amount of time, energy and cash in securing the signatures to enable a referendum to be held. It was held and there was a low turnout—I recall that something like 11 per cent or so of people voted in the referendum for the holding of a mayoral election, which then took place. Happily, from my perspective, an equally small proportion of the electorate turned out to vote against having a mayor. That is an indication of the dangers that might arise if there was no restriction on what commercial interests might get up to in the context of securing local petitions. Of course, the difference is that that referendum was binding and other referendums would not be; nevertheless, there is a real danger in that regard. However, I take note of what the noble Lord, Lord True, has said—one must be careful about creating new offences. Although the matter is certainly worth exploring, I do not rush to an immediate view that creating another offence of this kind is necessarily the answer. Having said that, I find it difficult to think of a better solution, so one might have to have recourse to that.

I have an amendment in this group, the number of which escapes me, which relates to Clause 54(7) about the making of regulations, and would require the Secretary of State to consult not only the Electoral Commission but the Local Government Association as well. I hope that the Minister will accede to that. It seems sensible to me to involve the LGA in matters of this kind. However, I do not understand some of the provisions that Clause 54 makes for regulations to be made by the Secretary of State. This goes back to some of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, yesterday. Clause 54(4) states:

“Regulations under this section may make provision about—

(a) when, where and how voting in a local referendum is to take place;

(b) how the votes cast in a local referendum are to be counted”.

A simple assimilation of electoral law, in so far as that prescribes these matters, would surely be sufficient. The notion that detail of that kind needs to be made the subject of a Secretary of State’s regulation strikes me as absurd. On the other hand, if there are to be regulations, I do not quite follow the position of the noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Greaves, and, for all I know, his colleagues on the Lib Dem part of the government Benches, who wish to take out of subsection (6) regulations,

“about the limitation of expenditure … for the questioning of the result of a referendum by a court or tribunal”,

or for

“creating criminal offences”.

Those strike me—provided that we have the affirmative procedure—as matters that should or certainly could be included.

[Lord Greaves]

I may have misread the Bill, but my understanding is that the Bill states that they cannot be part of the regulations.

[Lord Beecham]

I beg the noble Lord’s pardon: that is right. I withdraw my last remarks and accept the noble Lord’s amendments to my comments. However, whatever we have in the regulatory framework, the key thing is that the minimum should be prescribed and that whatever is prescribed should be done in conjunction with the Local Government Association and subject to affirmative resolution.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, perhaps I may start by saying that the Government are inclined, as I indicated, to accept the concept of affirmative resolution for the regulations. I can also say that the inclination of the Government is for a light touch in this area. We have already seen that there are tensions between a rigorous procedure for the collection of names and the necessary legal restrictions placed on the conduct of elections. The difference between the two is that a referendum is not mandatory, it merely advises a local authority and it is therefore not unreasonable to say that it may be covered by a lighter touch than an election whose outcome is definitive, where the problems to which noble Lords have referred apply. I have spent a lifetime in active party politics, and I know how important it is to try to create a proper framework. I was grateful to both my noble friend Lord True and the noble Lord, Lord Collins, for pointing out the problems that could arise if we tried to set up regulations that criminalised activities in collecting petition names, and the like.

Amendment 129E creates a criminal offence, and Amendment 129C broadens the Secretary of State’s regulating powers to allow the regulations to provide for referendum results to be questioned in court. The creation of criminal offences is simply unnecessary for a regime that is, effectively, non-binding.

One problem that the coalition is trying to deal with is the profusion of unnecessary criminal offences on the statute book. I suggest that the incurring of expenditure to pay someone to campaign to collect signatures falls well below the hurdle that needs to be cleared before persons should be at risk of receiving a criminal record.

I have not examined the situation fully, but my first impression was that the noble Lord, Lord Collins, might well be right, because the reason why it is possible to pay people to work in elections is that their fees are part of the election expenses. It could create problems if they were also involved in a referendum.

Amendment 129B expands the scope of the Secretary of State's power to make regulations on the conduct of referendums to include regulations about the limitation of expenditure in connection with a referendum. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is right about what the Bill states on that. We will be discussing the wider issues about publicity arrangements for referendums in a later group.

Clause 46(6)(b) distinguishes between the procedural regulations that may be made in respect of local referendums which are not binding and those which may be made in respect of binding referendums, such as whether to have an elected mayor. We intend that local referendums should be more light touch, given their non-binding nature. The intention behind the amendments may be to limit restrictions on authorities in connection with the question. In fact, the equivalent provision in regulations for binding referendums is used to impose spending limits on petition organisers and those opposing petitions, and they are invariably accompanied by criminal offences for breaching spending limits. We are not convinced that such requirements are necessary for this scheme of non-binding referendums.

We will discuss publication arrangements in a later group and our intentions on that issue. In the mean time, Amendment 129E, which, in hindsight may have been better grouped with Amendment 129D, seems to have little practical effect. It would remove the words “of the referendum” from Clause 55(8). These words may be considered unnecessary but they do not cause any harm and to a small degree remove any doubt that may exist. I cannot say that I am convinced that it is worth making the amendment.

The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, would insert a statutory requirement to consult the Local Government Association in making regulations about voting in, and the conduct of, local referendums. The Electoral Commission is expressly included in the Bill as it is standard practice in all such electoral matters. I neglected to say in reply to the previous debate that we are consulting the Electoral Commission. However, I can assure noble Lords that we intend to consult widely before making regulations, which will include local government associations. I hope that noble Lords will see these non-binding referenda becoming a very different category from ordinary electoral law and I hope that with these assurances, my noble friend will withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I am happy we should also discuss my Amendments 128EA and 129CA. So far in this discussion of referendums we have tended to see it almost in a bilateral way between the public, who might petition and support a referendum, and the local authority, which might be disposed to agree to hold a referendum and have to deal with the results. These amendments are concerned with the third party: a person or company whose activities may have been the cause of suggesting that there should be a referendum. Putting it briefly, they should be involved in some way in the process, being consulted at the different stages and having the opportunity to have their say. This is what these three amendments are about.

When we come to it later, the Bill is perfectly clear on how and why a referendum might be held. It is also clear that it would not be binding on the local authority, but the processes are not as clear as they should be. I will take the example of an airport. I have had the advantage of consulting the company that runs Gatwick Airport, but the issue could apply to similar projects and institutions around the country. Of course, if the proposal is of the major kind that comes within the purview of the Infrastructure Planning Commission, or the MIPU that will take its place under the Bill, there is a separate procedure: I will not touch on that.

In the case of airports, the level for application of the processes of the IPC is if a development would involve more than 10 million passengers a year. That is a pretty big hurdle. A great deal of what goes on—this may apply to power stations or even reservoirs, but will certainly encompass airports—including a great deal of the ongoing development that falls below that limit, will therefore have to be considered by the local authority.

I am not referring now to the question of planning, which we will deal with later when we debate the next clause. The question is whether a project may be put forward that has aroused opposition and may therefore provoke a referendum. Gatwick Airport is a good example because it exemplifies exactly what might be expected. Gatwick is the UK's second largest airport. As I have learnt in the course of my discussions, it has the busiest single runway in the world. That is an astonishing fact, but it is what I am told. The airport serves 200 destinations in 90 countries, with around 33 million passengers a year. The airport recently had a change of ownership. The new owners are very busy developing the airport so that its potential can be properly utilised for the benefit not only of the local economy but of the country as a whole. The airport provides around 25,000 jobs on campus and another 13,000 across the region. It generates a very large amount of wealth, as noble Lords may imagine.

The airport does not operate in a vacuum. It is surrounded by local communities and is close to a number of towns. The owners are very conscious of the need to be responsible developers and to take account of local opinion. They have always done that and I suspect that the new management are doing it rather better than their predecessors. Therefore, we are talking about how to achieve a balance between the very desirable objective in the Bill of giving local residents a bigger say in what happens in the areas in which they live, and giving investors the confidence that is necessary if they are going to develop their business. That is the issue. Hitherto we have been talking about the first aspect: the question of how local communities can have a say. The second, of course, is what these amendments are intended to address.

One should remember that a commercial institution like Gatwick Airport often has to work to extremely tight timetables. It has to raise finance and have regard to its regulator. An economically regulated airport such as Gatwick can face severe financial penalties if the targets set by the regulator are not met. Investors need the certainty that there will be no potential obstacles to meeting those timetables so they can be reasonably sure of avoiding the penalties.

How is this new system going to be applied to them? How are you going to deal with this? The purpose of my amendments, as I said at the beginning, is to provide the clarity which the Bill does not have at the moment. They would provide for a transparent consultation between a local authority and an affected third party—in this case the company running the airport—which might be named in a local referendum as to whether it is appropriate that a referendum should be held at all. Further, if a referendum is to be called that relates to it, it should be notified.

Finally, Amendment 129CA would ensure that a named third party—in this case the manager of the airport or it might be any of the other investors with ongoing development requirements—should be consulted before the local authority chooses whether to give effect to the result at all. We have already discussed that the referendum is not binding: it is a decision the local authority would have to take. All the clause asks is that the affected third party should have an opportunity to have a say and that the local authority should have regard to any representations.

It might be said that these things are so automatic they ought to happen already. I am sure that is not always the case. People can sometimes plough ahead. It may be an unpopular development. I have not been told, but I suspect that around major airports there are communities deeply hostile to what goes on there; it would not surprise me in the least. I used to live near Stansted Airport and, as we have all seen, the opposition to the expansion has been immense. There has been intense opposition. Every airport will have that but they need to be reasonably sure that the managers and the developers can have a proper opportunity to have their say and for their views to be taken into account.

That is what these three amendments do. They provide a level of safeguard against what one might call the unintended consequences of what is otherwise a desirable development. It is people having more of a say about what happens in their own areas. When I questioned the people from the airport they told me firmly, “We agree it is right and proper that local people should be able to express their views on issues specific to their area”. I come back to the point that it is a question of holding the balance. My amendments simply intend to provide reasonable procedures which would enable a better chance with the local authority holding the balance as it should. I beg to move.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, with respect to the noble Lord, the first amendment is an unnecessary addition to the responsibilities of local authorities. On the kind of issue the noble Lord has addressed, such as a very controversial issue like an airport or major development, it is inconceivable that a prospective developer would be unaware of a petition doing the rounds. On the other hand paragraph (b) of Amendment 126ZA says,

“any person who is the owner or occupier of any land to which the petition or request relates”.

I can think immediately of situations in my own ward where we have empty properties about which there is considerable concern. There might well be petitions coming to the local authority to do something about them but very often it is impossible to know who the owner of the property is or how to contact the owner. Again, that would create a significant burden and, with the best possible motive, it is overegging the responsibilities of the authority.

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[The Earl of Lytton]

My Lords, I had not expected to speak on this amendment, but I think the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, raises a very valid point. I live within what is known as the Gatwick Diamond economic area, so I know very well what he is referring to. I know of situations where, for instance, residential development takes place near to industrial premises through normal course of development and re-use. Gatwick Diamond, along with many other areas, is now a 24/7 operation. It is near enough to coastal ports for large lorries to be coming along and near enough to all sorts of aviation-related and other downstream industries.

Local residents may not much like 44-tonne lorries coming along in the wee small hours of the morning. I can quite see that, but it is not fanciful at all to suppose that they might not wish to procure a cessation via triggering a referendum with a view to protecting what they see as their interests. Nor is it a planning-only issue because it may relate to a whole raft of regulatory functions for which local authorities and other bodies have responsibility. While I cannot vouch that the wording that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, uses is cohesive, I think there needs to be some regard for the economic consequences of what is being sought by a referendum. It seems that a referendum can be formulated on quite a narrow premise. If that is the case, it is quite possible for it to concern things of a much broader spectrum. It is worthy of consideration by the Minister.

[Lord Beecham]

Does the noble Lord not agree that in matters of the significance and complexity to which he and the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, have referred, a referendum is probably the least effective way, in terms of time, of drawing the matter to the attention of the local authority? There are ways of doing that through petitions or by addressing local councillors through the local media that would be much quicker and more likely to have an effect than the necessarily rather cumbersome processes that would be involved in a referendum. In those circumstances, therefore, is there perhaps less urgency and potency in the noble Lord’s amendment than might otherwise have been the case?

[The Earl of Lytton]

In response to the very wise comments of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, it may well be a cumbersome way of doing it but the point is that we do not yet know what the precise trigger is going to be, or the subject matter. The provisions of the Bill cover a very large spectrum of possibilities and we are effectively empowering the Secretary of State to make orders. It is legitimate to lay down a marker as to what the parameters might be—I suspect that is all the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, is doing at the moment—and just to sound a word of warning. It is timely in that context.

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[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I have been listening to the wonderful words of the Minister about how important it is that local government should not be encumbered by lots of detailed rules and regulations and thinking that at least we are on the same wavelength. Tongue in cheek, I wonder if he will take a pristine copy of the Bill home with him this weekend, and a nice big red pen, and annotate the Bill in appropriate ways to strike out a large number of the detailed regulations and the 140-odd provisions for yet more detailed regulations for local authorities, and hand it to a civil servant next week and say, “This is your job for a week; get rid of it”. I live in hope.

I move Amendment 126A and the seven amendments in my name and that of my noble friend that are set out in this group together with Amendment 128A, as I announced earlier. There is a useful Labour amendment in the group but I will let the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, speak to it.

Clause 47 is an important clause because it sets out the grounds on which the council should make its decision when it receives a petition or indeed a request from a member about whether a referendum takes place or not. This is not a trivial decision. We have heard that referendums across London might cost many millions of pounds; but for any big councils in big cities, we are talking about millions of pounds. Even for smaller councils, it can be an important item in their budget, or one that is not in their budget, which nevertheless they have to find a way of covering. In the present financial circumstances this might well mean cutting other useful services.

This is a list. Whenever we put forward lists, we are always told by the Government to be very careful because, if we put things in the list, they are in, and if we do not put them in the list, people might think they are not in. In this case, we know that they are not in because Clause 47(1) says:

“A principal local authority may only determine”—

I emphasise “only determine”—

“that it is not appropriate to hold a local referendum in response to a petition or request on one or more of the following grounds”.

The list in Clause 47 is extremely important because it ties the hands of the local authority. It does not say to it, as the Minister has pointed out, that if it is in the list, it cannot have a referendum; however, it provides grounds by which a referendum can be refused. Regardless of whether we agree with referendums, I think that everybody agrees that we do not want a proliferation of them. We do not want dozens of referendums taking place all over the place. We want them held on important and useful things.

These grounds are vital. Amendment 126A refers to the first ground. It is a probing amendment to find out what the words mean. Clause 47(2) says:

“The first ground is that the authority thinks that action taken to promote or oppose the referendum question is likely to lead to contravention of an enactment or a rule of law”.

When I read this, I thought, “What does it mean?”. The phrase,

“action taken to promote or oppose the referendum question”,

refers to something happening during the referendum campaign. It is not about the question itself—what the effect would be of carrying out what the referendum wants brought about; it is about action taken during the campaign which,

“is likely to lead to contravention of an enactment or a rule of law”.

I can only think that this refers to the possibility of public disorder of some sort. Will the Minister say what the Government think it refers to? It is very difficult to see how this could be made to stick if it was challenged, because how would you know that the referendum question would be likely to lead to an unruly campaign? Alternatively, what else does it refer to? If it refers to a referendum question that is, for example, overtly racist, it would be easy to reject it, but the chance of getting such a referendum question is very small indeed. Racists who want to use a referendum to promote their cause are going to be more careful about how they word the question. So this is a probing amendment to find out what it means.

Amendments 126B and 126C challenge the word “influence”, and again are probing amendments. We suggest that this should be brought in more tightly to a council’s powers; that is, the things it can do. Even the general power of competence might be very wide. It is difficult to think of things that people might want to hold a referendum on but over which the council does not have some sort of influence. I suppose that a referendum about the melting of the Arctic ice cap might be thought out of order, but even then it might be tied to the council’s climate change policies, so it is difficult to think of areas where the council has absolutely no influence. Some clarification of what the influence of a council is, in this sense, would be helpful.

Amendment 126D refers to subsection (4)(b):

“a principal local authority or a partner authority has an influence over a matter if the authority can affect that matter by the exercise of any of its general or particular functions”.

That is very wide indeed, and I assume that it includes the new general power of competence. Is that true, because it means that it does go very wide? Amendment 126E seeks to insert a new subsection:

“The third ground is that the action requested by the question is unlawful or discriminatory, or would contravene the authority’s codes relating to equality of treatment or its financial regulations”.

Other noble Lords may think of other things that should be included, but this is clear. Surely it should be laid down that if the action requested by the petition and the referendum question is actually unlawful or clearly discriminatory against an ethnic group, the disabled, men, women or anyone else, and would contravene all the codes an authority has on equality of treatment, or if the council could not do something because of its financial regulations, then it should be able to be thrown out without question. Indeed, anything which it would be impossible for the council to do but is being asked for in a referendum should be more clearly set out.

I turn to Amendment 126F. However, as the Minister has already moved an amendment today, this amendment is not needed, and we are grateful for that. Amendment 126H refers to the grounds set out in the Bill. At the moment they do not seem to be sufficiently wide. A council ought to be able to refuse a referendum if it judges that it concerns a trivial matter and spending money on it would simply not be worth the candle. Similarly, if the council or someone else is doing something anyway, the referendum would be a waste of time because the decision has been made. The Government have already moved an amendment to deal with repetition which provides that another referendum on the same subject cannot take place for four years. That, too, is extremely welcome. Our definition of “disproportionate” is that the cost of holding a referendum is excessive when bearing in mind the cost of carrying out the proposal in question. If a council is being asked to spend £80,000 to hold a referendum when to do what the referendum is asking for would cost only £15,000, it is a pointless waste, whether or not the council wishes to do it.

Finally, we suggest that the fifth ground for the decision is that it is not appropriate because what is being asked for is the allocation of a disproportionate level of resource in one area when it is absolutely clear to the council that it is either not practical due to financial constraints or it would be unfair; that is, it would be possible but it would mean taking resources from existing schemes and services to put into a particular scheme or service that was being requested by an area in a way that would not be equitable across the authority. Knowing that before the referendum takes place, the authority can show that it is not financially viable and that holding a referendum would be a waste of everybody’s time and money.

These amendments may not be perfect but the criteria that the Government are putting forward at the moment in this clause are not sufficient to give a council enough flexibility to carry out the kind of localist decision-making that the Minister talked about not long ago—on a common-sense basis, without holding referendums which will simply waste a lot of time and money and not achieve anything. I beg to move.

[Lord Beecham]

I will speak to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, but also to my own Amendment 126CA, which would include on page 40, line 18, under grounds for determination in Clause 47, a definition of “local” which means that an issue can be,

“determined to be so by the principal local authority”.

In other words, in addition to the conditions for what is local, it gives the authority the power to determine an issue of locality.

The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has come forward with a mixed bag of amendments here. First, I will address his last proposition on the cost of the project relative to the cost of a referendum—or, indeed, the question of equity. That is Amendment 128A, to which he referred, on the deployment of extra resources in part of an authority’s area. I am not quite with the noble Lord on this. Actually, a petition for a referendum is an opportunity to debate an issue that might be of significance to that part of an authority’s area. Incidentally, I am not sure whether the amendment could extend to the whole of an authority’s area or just part, and if so how that part is to be defined, except perhaps by the petitioners.

If there is such an issue, it is proper that it should be debated. Initially, no doubt, those promoting the referendum would be invited by the council to explain their position and the council would respond. That is a sensible way of proceeding. If they then wished to proceed to a referendum they should not be prevented from doing so. That is an opportunity, certainly for the residents or petitioners to make their case but also for the authority to exercise some leadership and explain what it is doing and the constraints within which it operates. It can make that clear not only for the purposes of the particular referendum but as a matter of general interest to the area as a whole. We all face these decisions about priorities all the time. They are perhaps insufficiently acknowledged or understood by the electorate. If referendums are a way to bring home some of these truths, particularly as they are non-binding, I would not want to resist them taking place.

The noble Lord’s amendments include a reference to the question of influence as opposed to power. He cites the issue of the melting ice cap, implying that that is not a matter of local interest. The noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, is not in his place today, but if he were he might say that the residents of Norfolk have good reason to fear the melting of the ice cap. Saving the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, that issue might not be specifically related to the ice cap, but climate change and its impact on a community might well be a matter over which an authority has some influence and which it is relevant to ask it to look at. Influence would surely include a power, whereas the other way round it would not necessarily be the case. I would have thought that influence is actually a better way of looking at that issue.

I want to refer to one other amendment that the noble Lord spoke to. It is Amendment 128D, on the disproportionate cost of the referendum,

“bearing in mind the cost of carrying out the proposal in … question”.

Again that raises a difficulty, as a matter might be of considerable significance to people but not involve much cost. There might be, let us say, a traffic issue or something of that kind which might be felt to be of great importance in an area. The referendum might be more costly than the exercise of dealing with the issue but I would not like it to be precluded simply on those grounds. Again, I hope that the very process of getting to the point of a referendum might facilitate the resolution of matters. As I indicated in an intervention on the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, there are other methods. Given that this will be on the statute book, it seems wrong to define too narrowly the situation in which it might be used. This might be an example of going a little too far to restrict the right, so I would not support the noble Lord on that amendment.

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[Lord Beecham]

Why could the local authority not say that it is not elaborating because of confidentiality or the Human Rights Act? Why should it not make that clear in those circumstances?

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, that is exactly my point. I thought that the Minister had just given the reason which the local authority would give in those circumstances for not accepting it. If I remember rightly, the question asked by my noble friend Lord Greaves was, “What are these exceptional circumstances?”. The example that has just been given is not one of them because the local authority would give the reason which the Minister has just given us.

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[Lord Beecham]

The noble Lord might look at Clause 52(4), which seems to give the relevant discretion.

[Lord True]

I noticed that but thought it an extraordinarily strange piece of drafting. It says that you must wait—but need not wait if you do not want to. I do not recognise that sort of drafting. Why not just leave both subsections out?

[Lord Beecham]

The noble Lord will become very familiar with that sort of drafting in the course of discussions on this Bill and others.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

First, I heard what my noble friend said about the word “misleading” in the Bill and will reflect on whether that might be improved in some way. I hope that he welcomes the general principle that the authority should be able to make sure that the question being put is relevant and accurately reflects the situation, in relationship with the petition organiser. The last thing that one wants is a matter of semantics, where the petition organiser has to go back and get all the names and addresses again. This gives a necessary flexibility. I hope that my noble friend will be able to withdraw that amendment.

My noble friend indicated that he will withdraw Amendments 128T and 128V. Amendment 128U would require the local authority to hold a referendum on the same day as an election or other referendum within the next 12 months. Our provision currently requires that the referendum will be held on the same day as a referendum or election in the next six months. As I have already said, we believe that the provision in Clause 52(3) as drafted is sensible and practical. Councils may not know 12 months in advance whether a poll will be triggered. Generally, local people will want a referendum to be held as soon as practicable. The amendment proposed by my noble friend would tend towards delaying it. We are sympathetic to my noble friend Lord True’s general approach of leaving this to the local authorities to manage at their discretion. We do not consider this amendment necessary. If there are good reasons to delay a referendum for more than six months then the council can do so.

I hope that with the assurances I have given, and in particular the agreement to look again at the word “misleading”, that my noble friend will feel free to withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord True]

I know that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, wishes to speak briefly: I, too, will speak briefly. I do not think that this is a matter that we can resolve in this Committee. It is important and perhaps in the period up to Report we may see some guidance and thoughts as to how the Government, the Electoral Commission and others see it developing. There is a difference between a national referendum about an unresolved policy question and certain circumstances of local referendums. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, is no longer in his place; he has rushed out to organise a referendum against the parking-charge policy of his own council. In those circumstances it is surely reasonable for the council to defend its policy against the proposition that is put on the other side, so I do not think that we can be absolutist on this matter. I do not favour the extensive spending of public money, but I hope that my noble friend, as we discuss these things over the next few weeks, will not rule out and disarm councils—elected representatives—from putting their case in referendums.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I echo the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord True. This is difficult territory. The Bill as it stands contains a provision that,

“enables the authority to incur only such expenditure as is reasonable”.

The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has already indicated that it is not at all clear what “reasonable” might be, but I put it another way: if expenditure is unreasonable, then, of course, it can be challenged by the usual audit processes. I think that that is sufficient safeguard in that respect. What is more complicated is the question of equal prominence. Amendment 128AA states that the decision is only to,

“be exercised following a resolution authorising the maximum amount to be spent”.

This raises some difficult issues. On the equal-prominence argument, who is to provide the case for the petitioners—for those who are seeking the referendum? It can hardly be suggested that the local authority should provide their case for them. There will be cases in which there is a well resourced, articulate group of people who can produce a substantial case. If, on the other hand, it is a community group, or some organisation which produces a three-line question for a referendum, it may not be able to do that. Is the council then constrained to reply to the three-line referendum with a three-line response? That would not be reasonable. The equal-prominence test is very difficult to operate in practice.