Localism Bill

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, in moving the amendment I will say how nice it is to see the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, in his place. The noble Lord could have his referendum on parking charges and the council would meet the cost of the referendum by increasing the charges even more. Who knows what unintended consequences may occur? I will now speak to the amendment before the Whips start glowering at me.

Amendment 128H is about the publicity that a principal local authority has to give to a determination that it is not appropriate to hold a referendum. Clause 48(4) states:

“If the determination is that it is not appropriate to hold the referendum … the notification must give the reasons for the determination, and … subject to subsection (5), the authority must publish those reasons when it publishes the determination”.

That all seems fine. But then subsection (5) says a quite extraordinary thing:

“A principal local authority is not obliged to publish those reasons if it thinks that in all the circumstances it would be inappropriate to do so”.

I cannot think of any circumstances in which it would not be appropriate to publish the reasons why the local authority has decided not to hold the referendum when it gets a petition which otherwise matches all the necessary conditions.

The grounds for determination are set out in Clause 47 which we have been discussing at some length and they are fairly clear—they would be even clearer if some of my amendments were passed. Even so, the Bill is going to include a clear statement of the reasons why a council can decide not to have a referendum even though it gets a petition.

Amendment 128Q is exactly the same wording in relation to a request for a referendum from a member. Whether it has to tell the member the reasons why it is not going to have the referendum the member is asking for, I am not quite sure, but it seems quite extraordinary that this is the case. It takes me back to my very early days in local government, which are far too long ago, when the council I was on—and no doubt many others—used to publish a minute for a decision that said something like, “That the action now mentioned be carried out by the officer now named”.

That sort of thing does not happen any more. My understanding is that local authorities are now under a general obligation to state the reasons for all the decisions they make and publish. That is certainly what the local authorities I know all do and I think that is now required. If a decision can be made not to hold a referendum without having to say why, then if the people asking for the referendum are rich enough it is a recipe for lining the pockets of a lot of lawyers. If they are not rich enough they will just get very angry and the whole process will be undermined.

I am challenging similar provisions in Amendments 129D and 129CAA which cover what a local authority does after a referendum and the action it decides to take. Again, it is suggested that if no action is taken then the authority has to publish the decision. In this case what the Bill says is right: the authority has to publish the decision and the reasons why if it decides not to do anything about a referendum that has been carried by a majority of people voting and calls for action. However, it does not have to say anything at all if it decides to carry out what the referendum wants or it decides partly to carry out what the referendum wants or to do something slightly different which might achieve some of the same objectives.

It seems to me that whatever the decision is on the basis of the referendum that has taken place, the local authority ought to make a clear statement of what it is going to do in response to the referendum, the decision of the referendum and give the reasons why. In this case, I suspect it is that the people drafting this have not thought through it 100 per cent. I would have thought the Government could have redrafted this part without any real problems. The first two, where it clearly says that you do not have to say why you are rejecting it, are clearly wrong and must be challenged.

Amendment 128J is the other amendment in this group and takes us back to some discussions we had on the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act when it was going through this House on the question of identification of the organiser of a petition. It was all very unsatisfactory when that Bill came to this House. We got it right. This is less unsatisfactory but it is still not quite right. Clause 48(6) states:

“In this Chapter ‘petition organiser’, in relation to a petition, means—

(a) the person designated in the petition as the person with whom the authority may deal in relation to the petition”.

It is possible that a petition will come in and the person is not actually designated in the petition but the person identifies themselves as the organiser, they turn up and hand it in, they have a covering letter that they have signed or something like that. Amendment 128J suggests a slightly better wording. Instead of,

“designated in the petition”

it suggests,

“notified when the petition is delivered to the authority”.

All the authority needs to do is to ask who the person in charge of the petition is. It might be the first name on the list; it might be the person who has simply signed the covering letter; it might simply be the person who turns up at the council offices or hands it to the mayor, or whatever they do, and identifies themselves as the organiser. The subsection just needs to be clarified a little. I beg to move.

[Baroness Whitaker]

My Lords, some noble Lords may think that my one question for the Minister might have sat more easily with amendments in previous groups, but I hope they will indulge me because then I had to be in the Education Bill Committee, to which I shall shortly have to return. My question can loosely be attached to this group of amendments.

The problem that has been brought to my attention is that when local authorities are bound to publicise and take the outcomes of referendums into account in decision-making, it could result in them being pressured by local communities into disregarding welfare issues and the rights of Gypsies, Travellers and others. We know that there is form on this. Local communities have had that kind of attitude. My question for the Minister is: is there any safeguard to deter that?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Perhaps I may help the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker. She may not be aware that one of the government amendments makes it clear that planning applications—it is often under planning applications that these matters arise—are excluded from the provisions for referendums. The noble Baroness will remember that we had a brief exchange about this earlier. The whole business of provision for Traveller populations is subject to direction and regulations as far as local authorities are concerned, so it is an area in which local authorities are obliged to act properly. It is also an offence for people to campaign on these issues in a way that breaks the law. I hope that the noble Baroness is content on that matter.

The amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, require the council at all times to publish its reasons for such a determination. We believe that the vast majority of local authorities—in fact, almost without exception—will publish their reasons for such a determination. They want local people to know why their petition or the request from their councillor was not considered appropriate. However, removing the discretion not to publish those reasons could mean that the council is required to publish details that may be confidential or otherwise inappropriate. For example, the petition could relate to an individual for whom it would cause further embarrassment to publish details of the petition or breach their human rights. In such a case, the authority would be able to report that the petition had been rejected but without any further detail.