Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

I have one amendment in this group, which is Amendment No. 209CAC. This group is about the bodies that will be consulted when the local area agreements are being put together. We are probing what, "““such other persons as appear… to be appropriate””," actually means. I previously suggested that local strategic partnerships should be a formal part of the local area agreement and among the partners, and I was given reasons why that should not be the case. I am now suggesting that they should be statutory consultees. I remind the Minister that we are talking not about one local strategic partnership in two-tier areas but about perhaps seven in Cumbria—that is six districts plus one county—about nine in north Yorkshire and 13 in Lancashire—that is 12 districts plus one county. So it is a lot of people. The Government themselves said in their statement of intent that district LSPs are expected to, "““act as the overarching co-ordinating partnership””" in that district, "““to take responsibility for cross-cutting issues””—" which presumably are all the partnership issues— "““and … ensure that district-level plans such as the Sustainable Community Strategy and the Local Development Framework take account of county-wide priorities””." If that is so then they ought to be consulted as of right. I have to say that ““ensure”” is a strange word to use there, but we will leave that for the moment. This is to probe further the status and role of LSPs at district level, in what are inevitably going to be horrifically complex and convoluted county-wide local area agreements, if that is what we get.