Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

moved Amendment No. 238ZFA: 238ZFA: Clause 193, page 134, line 15, at end insert ““and shall do so if a reference under subsection (3)(b) is withdrawn”” The noble Baroness said: Clause 193 concerns reports made by ethical standards officers. The ethical standards officer can refer a matter to the adjudication panel and it appears that the Secretary of State can and therefore no doubt will make regulations for the withdrawal of the reference. This amendment probes the circumstances in which the ethical standards officer will be over-ruled, because that is what this amounts to. My notes say that Amendment No. 238ZFB relates to an interim ethical standards officer report. I cannot now make sense of the amendment because grammatically it does not seem to fit. I realise that the people who make sure that our amendments normally make sense when we put them down—the Clerks to the House—must have been as tired and rushed as I was. I apologise to the Committee for what may be a nonsensical amendment—I wish that my noble friend would stop giggling—but my point about the relationship between the ethical standards officer and all the other dramatis personae in all this still stands. I beg to move.