Dan
Rogerson: Casting your eye over these amendments,
Mr. Amess, it should strike you that they cover, at least in
part, the same issue. Although they are related, amendment 41 goes
slightly further. My hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne
and I tabled these amendments to seek clarification from the Minister
about the intention of the Bill, particularly in relation to petitions
submitted concerning contentious planning or licensing
issues. Planning
and licensing are covered by other legislation. I feel, and many of our
constituents feel, that their views are not always taken thoroughly
into consideration. The planning system needs reform further to recent
Acts in order to reassure people that their views are being taken into
account on issues that affect the development of their local area. The
system needs some change to engage them with that process. As my hon.
Friend said earlier, people are beginning to believe that what they say
has no effectplanning is a prominent example of that. That is
not to say that local authority members should not be free to make
decisions based on the information available to theminformation
that might not be available to petitioners, who may bring forward other
issues. Objectors feel that they do not have enough say when
considering the possibility of a third-party right of appealan
issue that I debated with the Ministers colleagues during the
passage of the Planning and Energy Act 2008. Such changes would
reassure people that their views were being taken into account and that
the planning system was more democratic than it currently
is. There
are issues pertaining to planning and licensing that could necessitate
a different approach. When we move on to discuss what local authorities
should do when dealing with petitions, we ought to consider that
certain issues, notably planning and licensing, are different from
function and need to be handled differently.
Amendment 41
relates to how petitions on proposals that are already being considered
by a principal local authority should be dealt with. Should they
trigger the procedure that a principal local authority would have to
follow under the Bill or could they simply be accepted and responded to
as part of the existing consultation process? When such things are put
on a statutory basis, I, like my hon. Friend, fear that they will
become the main route for interaction with the local community. People
on both sides of the process might try to slow
the planning or licensing process by triggering lots of petitions that
would all have to be considered in the same
way. My
contention is that we ought to be cautious in imposing standardised
ways of dealing with petitions because particular factors pertain to
planning and licensing. It is possible that existing consultation
processes will be cut across. Sadly, as my hon. Friend pointed out,
consultation has become a devalued concept. However, it does go on. I
would hope that local authorities take more account of consultations
than central Government and there is evidence that they do. In places
where that is happening properly, it would be a shame to do something
that cuts across the good
work. The
amendments prod the Minister to defend the use of a standardised
petition for considering petitions right across the functions of a
council, even what some would call the quasi-judicial functions such as
planning and
licensing.
Mr.
Jackson: The hon. Gentleman has made a good case and has
explained the rationale behind the Liberal Democrat amendments. I would
fight shy of anything that reduces the validity of petitions in the
remit of quasi-judicial bodies. As a London borough councillor, I
served on the licensing panel and the planning and regulatory committee
in the good old days when we had a proper committee system and did not
have first and second-class councillors, as we do now. I was always
mindful of the importance of a petition in informing the debate, even
when further judicial determinations were
necessary. A
practical ramification of the Licensing Act 2003 and the secondary
legislation attached to it is that the consultation procedures on
matters such as varying the opening times of licensed premises and
restaurants are very prescriptive. It is important that we
haveto use a ghastly term because I cannot think of a better
onean holistic approach. To give a simple example, the
McDonalds in Peterborough city centre sought to open virtually
24 hours a day. As the constituency MP, I did not think that
that should happen. I was told that as a result of case law and
regulations, I was not permittedeven as the MP for
Peterboroughto comment on that because I was not a local
resident. However, had I organised a petition it might have been a
different matter. If there were local residents on the petition, it
would have been a valid objection to those
proposals. I
am in sympathy with the idea that petitions need to be complementary to
quasi-judicial processes, and the Minister should take that into
account when
responding.
Ms
Winterton: Amendments 40 and 41 relate to the
Governments public commitment to use the order-making power
under clause 14 to exclude planning and licensing applications from the
scope of the duty to respond to petitions. I want to make it clear that
the list of issues excluded from the duty to respond to petitions
should be very limited. We believe that building petitions into council
decision-making processes will empower people, so we want to minimise
the issues that are excluded and keep the scope of the duty as broad as
possible. Obviously, there are some issues that it makes sense to
exclude, such as licensing and planning applications, because we do not
want to set up parallel routes for considering
local peoples concerns in such circumstances. There are already
extensive processes for public involvement in planning and licensing
applications. I
have a technical reservation about amendments 40 and 41, although they
capture the broad aims of our intention. For instance, we want to
ensure that, in addition to planning applications, planning enforcement
decisions and the decision not to enforce would be excluded. To explain
the sort of extra detail that we need to look at, it might be helpful
to refer the Committee to Statutory Instrument No. 3261, the Overview
and Scrutiny (Reference by Councillors) (Excluded Matters) (England)
Order 2008. That order took the same approach for the councillor call
for action, as we intend to take for petitions. However, it is quite
long30 linesand adding such provisions to the Bill
would not be the right
approach. Amendment
41 contains one additional exclusion. It provides that issues on which
the authority is currently carrying out a formal public consultation
should be excluded. That is an interesting idea. The rationale is the
same for excluding planning and licensing applications. However, it
would be important to reflect further on such matters and particular
discussions with local government on how an exclusion might work in
practice. The issues need to be thought through in detail, and using
secondary legislation allows us to do that. We intend to consult on
which issues should be excluded from the duty to respond to petitions
after the Bill has received Royal Assent.
As I have
said, we want to keep exclusions to a minimum, but it is also important
that, in drawing up further legislation, we consult local authorities.
I therefore cannot support amendments 40 and 41, and ask that they be
withdrawn.
Dan
Rogerson: I am pleased that the Minister is considering
such issues in detail. I confess that I would not have expected her to
have accepted them straight into the Bill. I wish to clarify that it is
not my intention to imply that councils should not respond to petitions
on planning or licensing issues. I am sure that the hon. Member for
Peterborough was not implying that it was. It merely is that matters
might be done differently from more standardised petitions on a matter
of policy for a principal
council. Following
the hon. Gentlemans McDonalds reference, a particularly
contentious issue in part of my constituency is a lap-dancing club. I
know that a number of hon. Members from all parties have contended with
that issue in their constituencies. There is some dissatisfaction among
local residents about how the petitions may have been submitted on that
and whether current licensing powers mean that their local authority is
able to respond to the wishes of the local community. The Government
will now hopefully look at that through the recent Act put through by
the Home
Office. Taking
into account that the Minister said she would take on board the fact
that there are differences between planning, licensing and more general
matters of policy, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment. Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn. Clause
12 ordered to stand part of the
Bill. Clause
13 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause
14Requirement
to take
steps 6.15
pm
Dan
Rogerson: I beg to move amendment 43, in
clause 14, page 8, line 43, at
end insert (4A) A
principal local authoritys petition scheme must secure that
where a petition is made to the authority that relates to matters set
out by the appropriate national authority under section 14(4)(a) or by
the Secretary of State under section 14(4)(b), the authority must
within the specified
period (a) forward the
petition to the relevant department of state it considers responsible
for the matters, (b) notify the
petition organiser in writing of this and of the authoritys
reasons for doing so, and (c)
publish a notification on the authoritys
website..
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss
amendment 42, in
clause 14, page 9, line 23, after
to, insert the appropriate
cabinet member or leader
of.
Dan
Rogerson: The amendments in my name and that of my hon.
Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne relate to a couple of
issues on which we, again, seek clarification about the
Governments intention.
Through
amendment 42, we are seeking to explore what the appropriate route
would be for a petition to be considered. We have a system in which
executive members are responsible for the functions of an authority and
who have a particular role in setting out those functions and presiding
over the delivery of them, as was alluded to by the hon. Member for
Peterborough with regard to the old committee situation. The way that
we do things now in local authorities means that particular members
have responsibility for the delivery of functions and so, through
amendment 42, we seek to explore whether it is appropriate for
petitions to be directed to those responsible members and for them to
respond as to what the councils policy is and what the response
is. Amendment
43 covers an issue that is certainly missing. If we acceptas we
seem to have done following a vote on an earlier clausethat
provisions will set out what the response to a petition should be,
under the clause we are now considering, the local authority is
committed to deciding whether the petition is a matter for that local
authority or for a local partner body. So, if a petition on an issue is
submitted to a council, it can say, This is for us and is
something to which we must respond or, This is
something for another local body and it must be passed on to
them.
The omission
there seems to be in relation to matters for central
Governmenta Department or an agency of a Departmentand
therefore amendment 43 would provide the extra option of passing the
petition on to the responsible Department. That is important. If we are
in the business of encouraging people to understand what the different
levels of government do, what their functions are and how they
interact, it would be rather strange for a local authority to be forced
in some way to consider a policy matter that is clearly determined by a
central Government Department. The amendment would be a sensible way of
resolving that situation.
Mr.
Jackson: I shall make a brief general point; I hope that
you do not rule me out of order, Mr. Amess. In respect of
clause 14, I think that hon. Members across the House might be
concerned about the loose definition of subsection (1)(b) in respect of
petitions that are vexatious, abusive or otherwise inappropriate. In
practical terms, we have seen the recent controversy in Mid
Bedfordshire district councilas it then wasover a
petition concerning Gypsies and Travellers. I understand that a value
judgment was made by council officers without recourse to elected
membersor, at least, elected members were sent the letters but
did not read themthat branded petitioners potentially racist. I
know this is rather tangential, but perhaps the Minister will dwell on
the value judgments that are made about what is inappropriate or
vexatious. I
shall come back to order, Mr. Amess, and return to the point
of the hon. Member for North Cornwall point concerning the appropriate
cabinet member or leader. If we are to be consistent in our
philosophical approach to the Bill, we are not predisposed to support
this point simply because there is a practical issue with it. I should
like to quote the good Lord Greaves again on that. If a small
cul-de-sac wants its pavements to be looked at by the local authority
or highways maintenance and has 15 signatures, or if there is a
petition against the third runway that has 75,000 or 100,000
signatures, it might not be practical to remit that petition or all
petitions, through the Bill, to one named individual or office holder.
That would set a dangerous precedent and it would not be consistent
with our ideological and philosophical approach to accept
that.
We are minded
to look favourably on amendment 43, which was tabled by the hon. Member
for North Cornwall. I think that he seeks, by a circuitous sleight of
hand, to do what we pressed the Minister and the Government to do
earlier and practise what they preach. If local authorities are to have
responsibilities cascaded down to them, they should not be responsible
for discharging duties in relation to people for whom they have no
democratic influence or accountability. On that basis, if the hon.
Gentleman presses the amendment to a vote, we will support
it.
Ms
Winterton: I shall deal first with amendment 42. I am sure
that the hon. Member for North Cornwall did not intend it to create a
barrier, but I fear that what has already been said is correct and that
it would make things difficult for people who are petitioning. Local
people do not always know who their local councillor is, let alone who
the cabinet member is, so the amendment would create a problem and I do
not want to accept it.
On amendment
43, I understand that the hon. Gentleman is trying to increase the
transparency of the way that petitions are dealt with, and I am in
favour of that, but the amendment is not necessary because in many ways
its aims have already been achieved. Members of the public can already
ask the Secretary of State to call in planning applications. Recently
published direction on that prioritises the cases that we think most
appropriate for the Secretary of State to consider, such as those
affecting green belt land, but the Secretary of State can call in any
application.
In some
cases, the aims of the amendment are already achieved, and in others I
am not convinced that it would be useful. We have yet to consult on the
issues
that should be excluded by order under the clause 14 power, but
depending what the exclusions are, the relevant Department may not
always be able to act on the petition. Again, we cannot pre-empt the
consultation that we are going to undertake in this case, and there is
therefore a risk that the amendment proposed would put an additional
administrative burden on local authorities without having the effect
that we are trying to achieve of empowering petitions. I am sorry that
I cannot ask the Committee to support amendments 43 and 42, but I hope
that I have been clear as to
why.
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