Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

I am delighted to say that I have never come across the situation of departments not talking to each other. In this instance, not only are we talking constantly, but I can assure the noble Baroness that we absolutely understand these concerns over the independence of the national parks. As I am sure the noble Baroness knows, on 19 June in the other place, my honourable friend the former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced that, where the creation of a unitary authority would result in that authority appointing more than eight members to a national park authority, the Government would review the membership arrangements with a view to reducing the number of local authority appointees. I am absolutely at one with the noble Baroness about the need to control the impact of unitary authorities on the membership both of the national park authorities and the Broads Authority. I hope that I can persuade her that we do not need the amendments, because they are unnecessary and because they would not have the effect that she seeks. Amendment No 15A would require an authority, in framing a unitary proposal, to have regard to any guidance that the Secretary of State had issued about the potential impact of the proposal on a national park authority or the Broads Authority. It is not for the local authority to consider matters; the Government are responsible for the membership arrangements in the national parks and the Broads. I refer the noble Baroness to the Written Statement of 19 June. The Minister went through all the actions that he would want to take in order to ensure the independence of the authority: "““I have decided that where unitary local government might lead to a single local authority appointing eight or more members on to a national park authority, I shall want to take action in advance to ensure the independence of that authority. If such circumstances arise, I intend to review the membership of each affected national park authority with a view to reducing the number of its local authority appointees.""Where I conclude that it is indeed appropriate to reduce the number of principal local authority seats on any national park authority, I shall also want to reflect on whether that should be ""allowed to feed through into a smaller overall size of authority or whether the number of ‘other’ seats—for example, those appointed by DEFRA—should be expanded so as to maintain the same overall size.""If I do conclude that it would be appropriate to add some extra seats within the ‘other’ category—for example, those appointed by DEFRA—I would envisage using those new seats to recruit particular qualities that are either under-represented at present or might become so””.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/6/07; col. 83WS.]" The Minister has certainly thought through the potential impact and how we might safeguard the parks’ independence. I am very happy to send the noble Baroness a copy of the Written Ministerial Statement. Amendment No. 22A, as drafted, would require the Secretary of State to be satisfied that appropriate measures were in place before she determined to implement a unitary proposal. I understand what the noble Baroness wants to achieve, but she has created a Catch-22 situation. The amendment would not allow us to decide to implement a proposal until we had put new membership arrangements in place. We cannot do that until we make the order to create the unitary authority et cetera. Amendment No. 42A would provide the Secretary of State with the power to make an order for the membership arrangements in the national park authorities or the Broads Authority. That is covered by the Bill in Clause 11(4)(e), which allows us to provide for the membership of any public body, including the national park authorities and the Broads Authority. I hope that this reassures the noble Baroness that we are absolutely serious about maintaining the very precious independence of the national park authorities and the Broads Authority. The Bill allows us to do that.