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Driving the agenda- using consultation to set the conversation

Having a bill introduced to Parliament that deals solely with consultation is a relatively rare occasion (so much so that we have been able to find only one example of it, and even then it was in a broader sense of the term than we usually use it), so we were delighted when one came across our desks last week.  The Duty to Plan for Terrorism (Consultation) Bill, brought by Lord Harris of Haringey would mandate the creation of a consultation dealing with the introduction of a ‘duty to plan’ for terrorist threats upon custodians of public venues across a wide range of areas.

Although a private members bill and therefore unlikely to pass, it does raise an interesting question about the use of consultation in pushing certain viewpoints and items onto the political agenda.

On one hand, proposing a consultation on a matter is an easy way of bringing up often difficult or contentious matters, as it doesn’t come alongside an obligation to act in a particular way, and can be used to ‘start a conversation’ in a broader sense. It might also be usefully used when there is a genuine dearth of information on a topic, as an inquisitive exercise to gauge the strength of public feeling.

On the other, there is the argument that issues should be tackled directly and not by what could be seen as cynical use of democratic engagement exercises to push an agenda. Is potential reputational damage to the idea of consultation damaged by it being put in the public eye to push debate, without any real intent or belief that it should actually go ahead? At the Institute we’ve not yet come to any firm conclusions, and we’d be interested to hear your thoughts.

One thing’s for sure, now that is has been used once, it will be interesting to see if anyone else attempts the same thing to bring about conversation on other difficult topics.

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