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Local Authorities (Overview and Scrutiny) Bill

As so often, my hon. Friend makes a very important point. We are talking here about interfering with another elected body—local authorities—and we should not change their regime without giving proper notice and ensuring that we can have a proper debate in this House. We should pay due respect to such democratically elected bodies. We are also talking about the implications for other public sector bodies in respect of their interactions with local authorities, and that is another important issue. If we are going to change these regimes, we must ensure that there is a chance for proper debate. Although we would not be able to make any amendments, of course, there would be more chance of any consultation beforehand being meaningful if it were conducted in the knowledge that the statutory instrument could not just go through on the nod, and that there would have to be a debate in this place. I think that all my hon. Friend's amendments dealing with changing the way in which regulations could be amended are very important. Amendment 22 to clause 4 states:""page 3, line 20, at end insert—""(i) only where such compliance is reasonable within the resource base of the designated organisation or person.""(ii) only where such compliance is not in contradiction to part of an existing formal agreement"." That is similar to the one that I described earlier. Then we come to amendment 23 to clause 6, which states:""page 4, line 16, leave out from 'England' to end of line 17."" That is a sensible way of restricting the ambit of clause 6, which is the interpretation clause. It states:""'designated authority or person' has the meaning given by section 1(4);""'local authority' means—""(a) a county council in England,""(b) a district council in England, other than a council for a district in a county for which there is a county council'" ." Under the amendment, the reference would be to all district councils, rather than just to those in a county.