text_body: --- DIVISION TITLE ---
  
  Localism Bill - Declines Second Reading 
  
  --- MOTION EFFECT ---
  
  @ MP voted no to devolve more powers to local councils and local people particularly in relation to social housing and planning. 
  @ MP voted aye against devolving more powers to local councils and local people particularly in relation to social housing and planning. 
  
  The majority of MPs voted to devolve more powers to local councils and local people particularly in relation to social housing and planning. 
  
  MPs were considering the key principles of the Localism Bill[1], and deciding if the Bill ought continue along the path to becoming law. The text of the rejected motion proposing the Bill's second reading be declined, stopping the Bill from progressing was:
  
  :That this House, 
  :whilst affirming its belief in the important principle of devolving power to local people and their elected representatives,
  :''declines to give a Second Reading to the Localism Bill'' because the proposed devolution of power to local authorities is undermined both by the extent to which the Bill hands powers to the Secretary of State to over-ride those devolved powers and by the extent of powers of the Secretary of State to direct local authorities in their governance arrangements, and because the community empowerment and neighbourhood planning sections of the Bill, which have been put together hastily and without adequate consultation with important stakeholders, would cause the planning functions of local authorities to become incoherent and ineffective and create new costly and complex systems of service procurement and would reduce the effectiveness of local authorities; and:
  :''is strongly of the opinion'' that the publication of such a Bill should have been preceded by both fuller consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny of a draft Bill."
  
  ==
  
  * [1] [http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/localism.html Parliament's webpage on the Localism Bill (now the Localism Act 2011)]
  
  
  --- COMMENTS AND NOTES ---
  
  (put thoughts and notes for other researchers here)
  