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Localism Bill

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 122 and briefly make the case for a 10 per cent trigger. There seems to be general agreement in your Lordships’ House that 5 per cent is too low. That is for two reasons. First, when you have an actual referendum—as opposed to simply a petition on an issue—you ought to have a clear demonstration that there is significant public support for the question. Secondly, referendums cost money and if there is going to be a substantial cost to holding the referendum, it is legitimate to expect that a higher threshold than 5 per cent is generated to merit the cost of holding the referendum. Seeing this now from the perspective of those who are gathering the petition, is it reasonable, given that there could be a referendum, to ask people to collect more than 10 per cent of the relevant area? That would be quite hard to do. First, I believe that 10 per cent is a reasonable figure in all the circumstances. If it was 20 per cent and all the people signing it were all in favour of the referendum question, a turnout of 40 per cent would mean that in effect the 20 per cent is almost a majority. Presumably some people would sign for a referendum even if they were unsure which way they might vote, but I think 10 per cent is a reasonable trigger. Perhaps more importantly, it strikes me that if people can gather 10 per cent it is actually not that difficult for them to gather 20 per cent. You might just as well accept the fact that at 10 per cent the trigger has been achieved. That is my view and that of some other noble Lords. The other method of triggering a referendum is through members, then a petition and potentially a percentage threshold. I do not understand why members are treated differently from the general public. We should have a single system and as a rule of thumb the best and most reasonable figure that I could think of is that 10 per cent would be publicly understood as a reasonable number in all the circumstances, whether or not members are involved.