Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

moved Amendment No. 166: 166: Clause 67, page 42, line 21, leave out from beginning to end of line 17 on page 43 The noble Lord said: The amendment would leave out proposed new Section 40B of the Local Government Act 2000, which is set out on page 42. To some extent, we discussed this yesterday and I do not want to go over that ground in understanding how it would work. Thinking about it over night, it occurred to me that many councils that may go for an elected executive model, especially those in more scattered areas—perhaps county councils or scattered districts that consist of a lot of different communities—they may be tempted to put up the maximum number of people that they are entitled to under the rules. The reason for that would be to put up their leading supporters, their leading members, their leading councillors, in the different communities in their districts. I was thinking about that over night and for some reason I thought of Macclesfield. I used to live in part of what is now Macclesfield. In Macclesfield district, there is the large town of Macclesfield and the smaller towns of Knutsford and Wilmslow, where I used to live. Then there are places such as Poynton, Prestbury and Disley, Bollington and Alderley Edge, which at the moment have one ward or more than one on the council. I was trying to work out how I would organise the fighting of elections in that area. Fighting local elections is something that I know about. I would want someone on the ticket from each of those areas. Therefore, I would go for the maximum number possible and there would inevitably be more people who would be elected as councillors and then more by-elections. I merely advise the Committee, based on that experience, that if the Government go for an elected executive in areas such as that, it will almost certainly be as big as they can get away with purely for electoral reasons. The situation may be different in a more compact authority of just a town, but there are fewer of those around now. In practical terms, the proposal will skew things towards the higher end rather than the lower end, simply because each party will mobilise itself in the best possible way to maximise its votes. I do not know whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, but it does mean that the by-election problem will be acute. I beg to move.