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Localism Bill

My Lords, I support the principle behind the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. I cannot speak to the wording, even less to the typos I am afraid, but noble Lords will of course know of my interest in parish and town councils. At present a parish council is the only community-based organisation that combines a democratic base, truly local roots and a statutory status. So it has a special cachet from that point of view, and indeed many communities aspire to that status. Crucially it is independent of other local government bodies in having its own power to precept, and that of course gives it a financial independence as well. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has touched on this, and it is certainly no reflection on the borough—which I think has an exemplary record towards communities in its area—of the noble Lord, Lord True, who I see is no longer in his place, but some local authorities have been obstructive to the formation of new parish and town councils, and I do not think that there is any point in overlooking that. That has happened on occasions despite an authentic and well-argued local desire having been put forward. I would put one caveat in here and that is that the geographical template for new parishes in unparished areas needs to be a reasonably good fit. I am concerned not so much about the precise geography as about the cohesion and the identity which is to some extent reflected, as it must be, in geography. Size is clearly not the main issue because, up and down the country, we have very large and very small parish and town councils. One feature that they benefit from is that they serve the needs of the community and have grown up to reflect that community, whether large or small, over very many years. I welcome the sentiment behind this amendment, which I see as a way of effectively creating, to some extent, the possibility of a fast-track route to parish and town council creation. It enables neighbourhood forums that wish to to migrate to the statutory basis where they can join and become one of the family of democratic structures that form the first tier of local government. I welcome the principle behind this amendment and I hope that the Minister will be able to give a positive response.