Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

I thank the noble Baroness for her reply. I am pleased about one thing in it, which is that my reading of what the Bill proposes is correct. However, I am not pleased about being correct, because the Government are fundamentally wrong. With the words ““where possible”” and so on, the noble Baroness makes it sound as if there will be a few exceptions here and there, but not very many, and that, where there are exceptions, the wards will be bigger to accommodate communities rather than smaller. I am not happy about that. It is a substantial, fundamental change for a number—I do not know how many, but I will find out—of shire district authorities that elect by thirds at the moment and have wards ranging from one to three members. Those authorities will find a significant change in their arrangements when we next have a boundary review. The arrangements that exist at the moment are there for good reasons, and usually accommodate the reasonable needs of rural areas. People do not feel cheated because they do not vote as often as other places, but if you ask them to weigh up the relative benefits of having their own councillor for a group of villages or having three councillors as part of a much larger rural ward, many like the arrangements as they are. What the Government are trying to sneak through—it is not widely understood that this change is being put forward—is wrong. There may be circumstances where it is appropriate to have bigger wards in rural areas, but in many places people deliberately go for small two-member or single-member wards in those parts of a district where that is appropriate. I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying that my reading of the Bill was correct. For the moment I beg leave to withdraw this amendment, but some of us might like to have further discussions about this and come back to it on Report. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendment No. 96 not moved.] Clause 56, as amended, agreed to. Clause 57 [Duty of local authority to provide Boundary Committee with information]: