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Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

This has been a very interesting debate. I am always grateful for the interventions of my noble friend because he speaks not only with a lot of authority but from experience of innovative practice. It was extremely interesting to hear about what is happening in Manchester. These are important amendments. I take the point that the Local Government Association is behind some of the arguments, but three things are happening in the amendments. In Amendment 155, we have what seems to be a search for greater flexibility and scope in terms of what the joint committees can do. Amendments 154A and 154B have now been helpfully clarified. Amendment154A is about the scope involved. Other amendments look at the definition of ““partner authorities””. Perhaps I may give a bit of history. In 2007, we made provision for setting up joint overview and scrutiny committees as a means of enabling district and county councils to work together so that they could scrutinise local area agreement issues of shared interest, and I think that that was very welcome,. The idea was to reduce the potential for duplication and overlap. Obviously, we all share the same— Sitting suspended.