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Mr. Wilshire: We try to parcel out the responsibility. The Chairman: I should look to see who wants to speak. Mr. Wilshire: Whether you were in the Chair or not, Miss Begg, I do not know, but it has been pointed out that the official Opposition team contains three very eminent people and a Whip. You will get the idea of what we are doing. Turning to amendments Nos. 176 and 178, the Minister will have a sense of déjà vu because these are things that I regularly talk about. Clause 20(1) reads:
it can do various things. I do not like the idea that an ''appropriate national authority'', late on a Thursday or a Friday afternoon, can, on a whim, decide that it will do something. It should have good reason to do it. Column Number: 128 I should prefer the provision to include the wording ''reasonable grounds to believe'', rather than simply ''considers''. That authority could ''consider'' for all sorts of reasons, be they bad or not, or no reason at all. I have used that argument regularly, and I have heard the Minister's answer regularly. He did not persuade me last time, and I predict that he is unlikely to do so now. Amendment No. 176 makes that point, and amendment No. 178 to clause 20(4) would mean that any national authority ''reasonably considers'' information specified in the notice, rather than just ''considers''. Otherwise, I envisage a situation in which someone simply says something—on a fishing expedition for information that they fancy obtaining—that is neither sensible nor reasonable. Under the amendments, such a statement would have to be reasonably connected with the purpose of the clause. The other amendment in the group is No. 177, to which I spoke earlier. Mr. McNulty: As the hon. Gentleman suggests, I shall leave amendment No. 177 to one side. In the five minutes since we last discussed it, we have not convinced each other, and we are unlikely to do so now. On amendments Nos. 176 and 178, I would agree with him, were it not for clause 18. We shall be issuing guidance on the network duty and the criteria for intervention, which will outline completely what is and is not worthy of consideration by the authorities. It will not be a case of someone, late on a Thursday night, receiving a bad phone call from another person and thinking, ''I know, we'll go and intervene in Dorset, just to get my own back and to make me feel better.'' Clear guidance has been set down on what the national authorities can appropriately consider the local traffic authority to be failing properly to perform. I hope to show, when the guidance emerges and we discuss later clauses, that we see intervention as a last resort. We envisage a series of discussions, and perhaps mentoring by other highway authorities that are in a far better position to recapture the failing nature of the highway authority, as well as a series of other measures, some in guidance and some that will be agreed by local government. Everything possible will have been done before intervention is considered against guidance criteria. The word ''reasonably'' would be otiose because, in law at least, all public authorities act reasonably, although our experiences may beg to differ. If they do not, scope and redress are laid out clearly in broader administration and case law. We do not need ''reasonable'', but the reasonability and the detailed criteria against which to measure the success or failure of the network management duty will be clearly laid out in guidance. It will not be as arbitrary as the hon. Gentleman suggests, although I fully understand his reasons. Of themselves and on their own, and with nothing standing behind them, I might have a degree of sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman says about those amendments and how he wants to change the nature of the provisions. However, with the guidance and the regulations outlined in the document that I Column Number: 129 gave to the Committee this morning, as well as what we think will be the network management duty prior to our discussion with all interested parties and the criteria for intervention all underpinning the clause, I suggest that the language offered by the hon. Gentleman is unnecessary. I ask him to withdraw the amendment. As for amendment No. 177, we have been there, done that—I just say ''ditto''.
3.15 pmMr. Wilshire: I have the wonderful feeling, because of what the Minister said, that I am within an inch of winning the argument. If I understood correctly, he said that if it were not for clause 18, he would have some sympathy for the amendment. I take that to mean that he would hold his nose while agreeing with me. That suggests to me that if there were a reference to clause 18, he would be right, and I would agree with him. However, it seems that what I suggest for clause 20—that the appropriate national authority acts if it has ''reasonable grounds to believe''—is a way of doing things that the Minister does not like. I think that the Minister said that the appropriate wording would be ''if the appropriate national authority, having regard to the guidance contained in clause 18, considers''. I think that that is what he said, but he added that that was unnecessary because of clause 18. We need a reference to clause 18, because reference is made to clauses 16 and 17. That is why I feel so close, and I do not want to spoil it. In the circumstances, I am prepared to accept the Minister's choice of words in order to establish the point on which he and I agree. I shall be happy to withdraw, in the hope—perhaps he will confirm it—that he will come back with an amendment on Report to pick up on the point about which we both agree. Mr. Redwood: I am prompted to rise because I think that my hon. Friend is on to an even more important point than I realised at the beginning of this extraordinarily interesting debate, and we need to see it through. There could occasionally be political disagreement between the national and local authorities—it has been known in this wicked world—and we need to protect both sides from politics. We need to legislate for all the nation in a non-partisan spirit, so that the legislation works. That means that the national authority should be able to intervene only for the good reasons set out in the legislation. It should not be able to intervene on any other basis, such as, for example, because it disagreed with the mix of objectives and policies that a particular local authority was following, even though they were entirely reasonable in relation to the electoral balance of that area. If anything, my hon. Friend has underdone his case with the words that he has chosen. However, the Minister should think again, because the Bill offers no protection at the moment, and we need to protect duly elected councils from politically motivated intervention by the national authority, which I am sure is not the intention. Mr. McNulty: I understand that point; again, however, it is not necessary. We may be close, but I Column Number: 130 am going disappoint the hon. Gentleman: with the best will in the world, I shall not come back with anything on Report. Clause 20 clearly refers to the power to intervene if a local traffic authority fails properly to perform any of its duties under sections 16 and 17. Those two clauses are all about the duty and the arrangements for network management.Clause 18(1) states:
The reference to clauses 16 and 17 in clauses 18 and 20 means that the thing is double locked, so we do not need to refer to clause 18 in clause 20. It is there by virtue of the reference to the principal clauses 16 and 17. Without my going into the issue of public administration and the capricious application of national laws, there are any number of ways to achieve the balance, or, as some would have it, the wicked ways, that are well beyond the scope of this Bill and this Committee in terms of a difference between the national and local perspectives, the national guidance and the clause being imposed, on a local authority of a different hue. During the lifetime of this Government—I cannot remember much about the last Government, who used to abolish things without intervening on them—I do not think that any scrutiny of how we have intervened, regardless of the success or otherwise, has been marred by some skewed partisan choice. I suspect that the record will show that the Labour Government has imposed and intervened on Labour local authorities at least as much as on Liberal Democrat or Conservative authorities. With the triple lock between the reference to clauses 16 and 17 and their backing, the points that the hon. Gentleman made are clearly covered, for the reasons I outlined earlier. That is I why I ask him to withdraw his amendment and not to hold his breath waiting for me to come back with something on Report, because he will be bluer than he is now if he holds his breath too long—blue in the political sense. Mr. Wilshire: I am impressed by that, although it was not quite as impressive as the praise from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham, which is praise indeed. I subscribe to the Texas principle of politics, particularly when it comes to tabling amendments, which is that if enough holes are drilled in Texas, oil comes out of one of them. Every so often I come up with a gem, and my right hon. Friend has identified one this afternoon, for which I am grateful. I do not intend to hold my breath. The Minister has realised that he has not persuaded me. It is always easy for an incoming Conservative Government—as we will be—to abolish things, because the current Government sets up so many silly things with so many targets to abolish. We look forward to doing that. Nevertheless, the Minister has told me what I have to do between now and Report stage. If he is not going to come forward with the words he prefers, I will. In order that I may go away and draft something different, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Column Number: 131 Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
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