---

Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I wonder whether I could pick up on phrase that the noble Lord has just used and suggest that the Government might try to find a way not to use it. I refer to ““organising a petition properly””. If the Government want people to be involved in what their local authorities are doing or not doing, which is what we all want, is not the best way to leave it to local authorities to treat what comes to them in a normal, human, straightforward, practical fashion? If I were to go to a local authority with a petition and be told that it was not organised properly, my faith in the local authority would be reduced, not increased.