Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]

I did not intend to speak in this debate, until it became clear that the Government were making what can only be said to be a wholly unacceptable proposition. I ask the House to consider clause 2, entitled "Democratic arrangements of connected authorities", which includes the phrase:""The principal local authority has a duty to promote understanding of the following among local people"," and the second of the matters that the authority has a duty to promote is""the democratic arrangements of those authorities"." Subsection (3) lists those authorities, and they include the strategic health authority. How can any organisation explain the democratic arrangements of a strategic health authority? There are no democratic arrangements of a strategic health authority. In my constituency, the strategic health authority has just told my constituents that if they are going to have a heart attack they had better move somewhere else. They are going to be transported from Leiston or Felixstowe all the way across the countryside as far as the no doubt excellent hospital on the other side of Cambridge. That is a journey of more than 100 miles and they will be given 90 minutes in which to do it on the A14, which is often closed. When the health authority was asked whether the public could comment, the only person who supported it was the hon. Member for Ipswich (Chris Mole), who seemed to say that whatever it said was perfectly all right. There was no public inquiry; there was no opportunity for the public to make any comment at all.