Councillors

Robert Neill
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government pursuant to the answer to Baroness Hamwee of 7 May 2009, Official Report, House of Lords, column WA134, on community empowerment, housing and economic regeneration, for what reasons her Department has decided not to proceed with proposals on (a) remote attendance and voting by councillors, (b) payments for councillors on loss of office and (c) incentives to vote in local elections.

Mr. Khan
Most of the proposals for change in the White Paper “Communities in Control” do not require legislation. For those where legislation is required, the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill, which is currently before Parliament, contains the major provisions, including a number added since introduction. Given the stage of the parliamentary cycle, we have decided to concentrate our energy on this, and not to publish a Draft Community Empowerment Bill, which would have contained only a few more minor proposals.

Substantial progress has been made since “Communities in Control” was published. We plan to publish a “Communities Progress Report” soon.