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Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

In moving Amendment 197B, I shall speak to Amendments 197C, 197D, 198A and 198B to 198K. We have moved to Part 7, which deals with multi-area agreements. All the amendments in this large group relate to concerns about the provisions for them in the Bill. I will try to resist the temptation to make a speech more properly made at Second Reading on the nature of multi-area agreements and so forth. Speaking personally, and with a little experience, on the whole I favour them. If done properly and correctly, they offer a great opportunity. That said, we need to stress and recognise that they must be voluntary and we therefore have some concerns in this part of the Bill as we creep towards some statutory provisions which start to question the voluntary nature of such agreements. We also need to recognise that partnerships, by their very nature if they are to be successful, are organic and need to grow over time. Some areas, my own included, have a long record of partnerships. They have matured and there is a feeling of trust that is necessary to make them work. In other areas, that is not so. That is a brief background to my view about multi-area agreements in general. I turn now to the specific amendments. There are a lot of them and I will try to get them all right. Amendments 197B, 197C and 198G each relate to targets. Targets have become an obsession: there is frequent reference to targets in these clauses. The amendments also question the reference to improvement targets. Of course improvement targets are always desirable and everyone strives for improvement. I happen to be a member of the executive of a local authority that is not only graded by the Audit Commission as excellent, but is also improving strongly, so I am probably the last person to question the need—