Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

The issues that have been raised in the debate go far beyond the technical amendment. I am happy to address the range of issues, which have been about the process in which we have been engaged—the relationship between the invitation process and the legislative requirement and the current ways in which things are being worked out as part of the consultation process. Several questions have been asked. Why did the Government pre-empt legislation in the way that they did? Is there an element of retrospection here? Why was it a general invitation rather than an invitation to relevant authorities—although it is not clear from what the noble Baroness said what ““relevant”” might mean? Then we have had a set of questions about the process of bids being made against the criteria that have been set. I want to set some minds at rest. I have had to abandon my speaking notes as they are too narrow for the event. But I will start with what it is that we did. Two years ago, almost to the day, the then Secretary of State opened a conversation with local government about the improvements that it wanted to see. It is true that most of that conversation was framed around the benefits that improved working would bring, either as enhanced two-tier authorities or as unitary authorities. They spoke about the some of the benefits of avoiding duplication, which we do not need to rehearse. It was a long conversation, and was followed up by the invitation process, which was facilitated by the general powers of the Secretary of State—it did not need legislation. The invitation process led to a consultative process, of which we are now at the second stage, with the Secretary of State looking at the bids that have come forward. It has been a long, careful and thorough process. If we had started with legislation, which we did not need to do, questions such as those asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, about whether we could not speed up the process, would have been much louder and much more insistent. We have been driven in this process by what we know must be a better way of doing things than the way in which we have restructured local government historically, which has been extremely protracted and debilitating. Yes, it has put pressure on local authorities to think about what they want, but, my goodness, it has meant that they have had to do their thinking and come forward with many proposals for improving what they do which they would have been thinking about anyway. It is about functions; it is about services; it is not about structure. However, there was no way in which we would have wanted to curtail the process of discussion in legislation; it was just that this was a way of enabling local authorities to move ahead speedily while allowing sufficient time for them to consider the invitation to develop and submit proposals, for a full period of consultation by the Secretary of State, and for proposals to be implemented as soon after commencement as possible in order for the new unitary authorities to be up and running by May 2009. The overwhelming message that we received from local government was that it wanted this process to be over quickly and not drag on for years, as it had in the 1990s. It was part of the devolutionary principle that we did it in this way. The noble Baroness mentioned retrospection. There is nothing retrospective about the Bill. A retrospective provision makes valid something which was not valid or lawful at the time when it was done. The Bill provides that an invitation issued or a consultation carried out not using the powers of the Bill can lead to unitary proposals to be implemented by it. I am sure that we will have the debate again when we discuss Clause 21, but I reassure noble Lords about the matter because I know that the House takes it very seriously. I have dealt with the wide-ranging prerogative and common law powers of the Secretary of State which enable the invitation to proceed without legislation. The way in which the invitation was made to local authorities was raised. If we had said that it was available only to some, we would have been in even worse trouble. We always made it clear that it was unlikely that there would be more than a small number of proposals which would eventually find favour. Originally, we said eight, but, because of the high quality of submissions and the good value for money that they offered, we have confirmed that 16 proposals will go through to consultation. There was nothing loose or sloppy about the way in which this was done. The criteria set out in the invitation made absolutely clear what we were looking for, and what local authorities should look for by way of consultation. I cannot account for the nature of local politics, but it was inevitable that there would be anxieties in areas where proposals would be inimical to local politics, geography and history, but it is not the process that was at fault. The 16 proposals which have come forward for consultation are being extremely carefully considered according to all the processes that we have set up and the guidance that we have given to local authorities. Local authorities have been in no doubt, not least once the primary consultations were made, that it is an iterative process. Those local authorities have consulted long and hard with Ministers and officials during the past few months. They have not been left to work out what to do; it has been clear. A question was asked about the role of Parliament. We have made provision for affirmative orders when the proposals come forward for implementation. Each will be subject to a vote of both Houses of Parliament. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, raised criteria in relation to the size of communities. We have said nothing about size; we have said nothing about who should qualify. We have said only that they should meet the criteria set out in the invitation. Those are the sole conditions that we have imposed. We have tried to make that as clear as possible. I hope that I have addressed most of the issues that were raised by noble Lords in this short debate. I hope that noble Lords will feel that the amendment, as well as the objection to the clause standing part of the Bill, can be withdrawn.