Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

I warmly support my noble friend. My local county council in Cornwall is currently engaged—successfully, I hope—in seeking unitary status. As a result, I hope that it will be taking on extra responsibilities. In those circumstances, the size of the executive could be extremely important, and it could become impossible for a number of councillors to serve on it because they would simply have too much responsibility to cover all the levels of service required in a council of that size. There is also the issue of geographical spread. In a geographically large county such as Cornwall, if a very small executive is effectively to take power on behalf of the whole authority, it will inevitably mean that members from a small number of geographical areas will be perceived to be taking full responsibility for all council services. Therefore, a little latitude on the Government’s behalf to enable the total on the executive to increase to one-quarter of the council membership would clearly give the flexibility that, in fairness, the noble Baroness was supporting so enthusiastically just a few seconds ago.