---

Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

The Minister used the phrases, ““open, inclusive and appropriate”” and ““inclusive and transparent”” but I cannot make the conceptual leap from what she said to the resistance to this amendment. Admitting the public and ensuring that papers are open to them becomes bureaucratic when one has to put in a lot of Freedom of Information Act requests. They should be the last not the first resort. They are new arrangements, so to my mind we should get them right from the beginning. I will have to read what the noble Baroness said about leaders’ boards to understand what happens when a leaders’ board which applies these rules and an RDA which does not do so join together as a responsible regional authority. That would be a separate entity. However, I feel an amendment on Report coming on.