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Localism Bill

My Lords, I will be brief. First, can I say how much we appreciate the effort that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, is making to try to get some of the bureaucracy out of this Bill? We would be very interested in staying in touch with his considerations, with the LGA and the Minister, to see what progress is being made. That would certainly help the passage of the Bill when we come to Report and subsequent stages. On the separate amendments, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord True, that we should not be in a situation whereby you can designate a neighbourhood forum only if you are asked to do so. There ought to be flexibility for an authority itself to do that, as long as there is sufficient community support. I will not go into the arithmetic of how the 5 per cent works. We support the thrust of that. The idea of two or more parish councils joining together has been supported. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, in seeking to deal with overlap with parish councils, made a very valid point. He is right in the sense that the best solution would be for it all to be a parish council, or more than one parish council. But even if that is not the case, I do not see why that overlap could not be part of the flexibility that is around these provisions. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, wanted a suitability test. I am not quite sure why that is not encompassed within the desirability test, but perhaps we should not at this hour get into the semantics of that. I see what he is seeking to achieve, and I certainly support the noble Lord in seeking to delete a lot of the regulation-making powers in the provisions.