Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

Once again, the Committee will be grateful to the noble Baroness for her reply. I am glad that work is currently going on with the Local Government Association on how a transparent and fair system of funding of LINks could be best established. That is good news. I am sorry that the noble Baroness could not go further and give the Committee some idea as to what levers might be pulled by Ministers or others to prevent a situation arising where the activities listed in Clause 222(2) are performed in only a minimal way as a result of inadequate funding in a given instance. Like the noble Baroness, I am no advocate of ring-fencing, but there are dangers when ring-fencing does not apply—the obvious one being that the activities in question are not safeguarded Nevertheless, the noble Baroness has shed some useful light on this area. There are questions that remain open, the principal one being the quantum of money that will be directed to this area, which for obvious reasons she cannot be specific about at this juncture. But it was helpful to hear that it will be comparable to the sum currently directed towards patients’ forums and we can take comfort from that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.