Sustainable Communities Bill

Does my hon. Friend agree that, regardless of whether decisions on local NHS services could be included within the Bill’s remit, one of the reasons it has such fantastic cross-party support is that the public’s appetite for local decision making has never been greater? The threats of closures and the downgrading of acute services, such as at the Royal Surrey County hospital in Guildford, have heightened the public’s concern about local services and their understanding that they need local NHS services if they are to have the sustainable communities that they so badly want.