Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

This takes us a little further—and a little further afield, too. Amendment No. 26 seeks to materially change our process of restructuring by requiring that a unitary proposal cannot be implemented unless there has been a local referendum for support. The arguments that we have heard for referendums and for this new clause suggest that there is still some misunderstanding about the processes that we are seeking to establish for restructuring. The amendment talks of what happens if a referendum rejects the Secretary of State’s proposals, but we need to be really clear that there is no question under the new processes of there being a proposal from the Secretary of State. Every proposal submitted comes from a democratically elected council, accountable to the local people, and that is the democratic process. It is right that local councils should be free to consult and engage in their communities in the way they believe is most appropriate. Some local authorities have already held a referendum, but it is not appropriate to impose one. Where a democratically elected council takes a decision, it should be validated in the normal way through a local election—the most significant referendum of all. In our representative democracy, it is surely up to a democratically elected council to make a decision that the electorate can always contradict at the ballot box. I recognise that in some areas different councils with their own mandate can reach opposing positions on restructuring, but seeking to resolve such differences between councils—which, in any event, will have a different electorate—is not the right way to proceed. We should ask whose electorate would be participating in the referendum. As I have set out, the process which we are putting in place allows for councils in that position to provide evidence to the Secretary of State to support their case as part of the consultation process, and they will be tested on that. Crucially, any decision for structural change will ultimately be for Parliament to vote on through the affirmative procedure. I was not involved in previous attempts at restructuring but noble Lords may well have been. It is significant that in the Banham reviews of the 1990s there was no question of a referendum. The previous Administration created the approach that a proposal would be made by the commission they had appointed, and, if approved, it would be implemented. That contrasts with the bottom-up approach that we seek to adopt in the Bill. I accept that the Bill also provides that the Boundary Committee, having been asked for advice on a unitary proposal made by a council, can make its own alternative proposal. A referendum in such circumstances would in truth have been asking the local electorate to arbitrate between the views of its council and those of an independent expert committee. That is not a very sensible or practical way forward. The right way to proceed is for decisions or recommendations from the independent Electoral Commission to be subject to debate by the democratically elected Members of this House and the other place. Our approach is devolutionary; it allows local authorities to come forward with proposals to demonstrate that the criterion has been met with a broad cross-section of support. Imposing referenda on local proposals would confuse, duplicate and disrupt. I am sure that is not what local authorities or noble Lords would want. I hope that the noble Baroness can withdraw her amendment.