Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

There is common ground between us on that point. People can put forward different models and the Government can make provision for them to be used, but I do not want prescription by the Government, whereby local authorities are saddled with a system that they cannot change after they have had some experience with it. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Joan Walley) mentioned the situation in Stoke, where the procedures make it difficult to change even if there is a consensus in favour of that change. The Bill is still loaded in favour of certain preferred solutions, and it would be much better if the Government, while keeping whatever models they want—including ones that I think are barmy—provided a procedure for local authorities to adopt a model but to be able to change it if it is wrong. We could also have a trigger mechanism that allowed the electorate to say that a model was not working, and hold a referendum to defeat it. That would be an improvement. However, the main purpose of my speech was to give the Minister some guidance on how he might view what almost everybody in Northumberland regards as an unacceptable bid to create a single unitary authority for the county.