Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

I shall certainly try to help the noble Baroness. Clause 107(1)(c) is drafted very broadly because it must cover the broad range of providers of public services outside the list of named partners in Clause 106. By definition, therefore, it includes voluntary, community and private sectors. It permits these sectors to sign up to targets in the local area agreement which they can help to deliver. That, in a nutshell, is what the partnership with these other bodies will seek to deliver. As we said in the local government White Paper, in order to deliver the ambitions set out in it, local authorities will be required to work not only with other statutory bodies but with the third sector. We could just as easily have said that about the private sector as well. I need tell no one in this Chamber—we will have opportunities to develop this theme—how pivotal the role of charities, the third sector and businesses is across the field, whether we are talking about health, education or housing. The richness and diversity of the voluntary sector lies in the way in which we deliver as effectively as possible in so many areas. It would make absolutely no sense to leave them out in any way if they were not positively held to be important partners. A major employer might wish to sign up to the targets in a local area agreement that reflect corporate social responsibility in volunteering or in reducing waste. Housing developers may want to sign up to affordable housing targets. Churches or other community groups may sign up to youth improvement schemes or looking after the elderly. When we talk about signing up, we include voluntary sector partners in the local strategic partnerships who have a very important iterative role in articulating not only their ambitions for the area but how they will contribute, talking through the targets as they are derived from the whole business of negotiation. The effect of this amendment would be that a local improvement target could never relate to a person other than a named partner, and so could not relate to a charity or other not-for-profit organisation or to a local business. Such organisations could not sign up to a local improvement target, so the amendment would prevent the recognition that we need. I am sure that the noble Baroness would not want that. We will discuss how those organisations will be involved when we discuss a later group of amendments. To reiterate, if local partnerships are to succeed, they must include representatives of the local voluntary and community sector bodies and local business. That will be made very clear. By that we mean not only the large, powerful charitable organisations but the little, nimble ones across the country that are doing essential work in some of the interstices of local areas. On Amendment No. 209AA, Clause 107(3)(b) seeks to ensure that a person to whom a target relates has given consent. This enables that target to be included in the local area agreement. The noble Baroness asked what the term ““person”” covers. It covers partner authorities, as one can see from Clause 106, which sets out who the named partners are. Clause 106(1) refers to the persons set out in the rest of Clause 106. I hope that that will help the noble Baroness and that she will be able to withdraw her amendment.