Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

Okay. I am not sure that I ever rest assured about anything until I see it in black and white, but I am grateful for that. It would be very helpful if half a dozen sample authorities of different sorts could be provided as evidence and we could know whether they think that it is a problem or not. There may be no problem at all about this, and all these organisations and trusts may all be operating the impeccable financial and other arrangements that will be set out already in the regulations. If they are, I am not sure why we need the regulations—but they will not make any changes. But there must be a potential problem that in some cases really good projects, schemes or trusts will be halted in their tracks and have difficulties as a result of the need to comply. I have no idea—but I am asking the question. The Minister said that the new regulations will enable the proprietary controls to operate on a tiered basis according to the degree of control that the local authority has. That sounds sensible, but I put it to her that it might be a good idea, instead of looking at the degree of control, to look at the degree of financial liability, which might be different. I speak from knowledge of a joint venture company, which I assume will come within these regulations, between a local authority and a private sector company. The degree of control is 50:50 but the financial liability is more like 30:70 to the local authority’s advantage. In other words, the local authority is putting in 30 per cent and the private sector 70 per cent—and that 70 per cent will probably grow over time. That is a specific technical question for the Minister to consider—whether financial liability is more relevant in some cases than control. I was very grateful for everything that the Minister said. I look forward to reading Hansard and the article on the web when I finally get home from my holidays.