Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

moved Amendment No. 113: 113: Clause 62, page 33, line 6, leave out subsection (2) The noble Baroness said: I will also speak to Amendments Nos. 113A and 125. This group, which also contains Amendments Nos. 121A and 126, covers two separate issues. I apologise to the Committee if I have contributed to the muddle—there was an attempt at degrouping last night, which does not seem to have stuck. Some of issues were over whether one of the amendments was acceptable, but I do not think that that should prevent us from debating the principles involved. The first of the two issues is whether an authority should have complete flexibility and a complete menu of choice in the arrangements that it puts in place to undertake and discharge its functions. Our Benches think that it should. Earlier in Committee, my noble friend Lady Scott referred to Henry Ford saying, ““Any model as long as it’s black””. To continue the analogy, there are one or two different models here, but not the whole range of vehicles. We believe that local authorities should have the choice. The Government talk a great deal about freedoms and flexibilities and about devolving decisions and so on. In short, why do the Government feel the need to prescribe? The second issue is about what the 2000 Act calls ““alternative arrangements””. I find that terminology bizarre, because those arrangements were the norm; when they became characterised as ““alternative””, that in some way debased and devalued them. It is only so-called small councils, serving populations of fewer than 85,000, that have been entitled to operate the so-called alternative arrangements, which are closer to the old committee system than the executive/scrutiny model. In practice, these arrangements are not now quite the same as the old committee system. Why are the Government so intent on blocking that system? What is the problem? I have not heard any arguments for the structure itself being inherently faulty. I do not recall hearing arguments at the time of the 2000 Act that it was such a bad structure that it should be restricted to small councils. Ensuring that small councils need not go through the upheaval of creating an executive/scrutiny split and enabling them to continue in their old ways was something of a concession. However, it is becoming the accepted wisdom that those old ways have something wrong with them. In the debates in the Commons committee, the Minister talked about the ““devolutionary and pragmatic approach”” taken in 2000. As far as I can see, he did not argue why that was right or wrong then or whether it was something that the Government gave in to. As I was very much involved, I happen to know that the figure of 85,000 was the subject of some trading between the Government and these Benches; we got it up from the original figure to increase choice at local authority level. A lot of what we have heard is not argument but assertion. I hope that tonight we hear argument—about the merits or demerits of that system and of giving local authorities greater choice than the Government seem prepared to accept—not simply assertion, which has tended to be the case in a number of answers to earlier amendments. Ministers have said, ““We don’t agree with the noble Lord because we don’t agree””, instead of taking us through all the arguments and enabling us to understand how the Government arrived at their conclusion. Of the other amendments in the group, we might have tabled Amendment No. 125 as a consequential amendment. However, this is now one of those God and Robert Browning moments. Browning is said to have said, ““When I wrote this, God and I knew what it meant. Now only God knows””. If the Minister feels that it is difficult to respond, I will have considerable sympathy. I beg to move.