Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for the manner in which he has spoken to these amendments and I hope that I can allay his concern that we have moved away from the concept of devolution in this part of the Bill, which we most certainly have not. This group of amendments deals with a number of points related to community governance reviews. I shall deal with each amendment individually. First, on Amendment No. 204CF, when a principal council makes a reorganisation order under Clause 88, it may also provide for any new parish to have an alternative style. The amendment would prevent principal councils making this recommendation, and the noble Lord set out reasons why he felt it necessary to table the amendment. A community governance review that recommends the creation of a new parish needs to make an initial recommendation as to the style of that parish. This is simply because, until the parish is actually created, there is no parish council or parish meeting to make that decision. That recommendation is very much a technical step in the process of creating the parish and does not take away the autonomy of the parish in deciding its style. At all other times, after a new parish is created, it will be for the parish council or the parish meeting to decide if they wish to adopt a different style. Therefore, once the parish council or parish meeting is created, it will be able to decide to adopt a different style immediately, if it so desires. I hope that the noble Lord will be satisfied with that explanation and that he will feel able to withdraw Amendment No. 204CF. We believe that Amendments Nos. 204CG and 204CH are simply not required. In relation to Amendment No. 204CG, the Bill currently states that the council must make a recommendation, "““as to whether or not the name of the parish should be changed””." Amendment No. 204CH relates to the same drafting of the question as to whether an existing parish is to have a parish council. The amendment seeks to change that so that the council ““may”” make such a recommendation but is not required to do so. We do not believe that these amendments add anything to the Bill. If the council decides that no change to the parish name is required, it will simply make such a recommendation under the Bill. Equally, if the council decides that a parish with a council should retain that council, it will make that recommendation under the Bill. Surely it is preferable that those interested in the review are aware that a decision has been reached on any relevant issue so that they can, for example, retain the existing name rather than not address the issue in the review or the recommendations, as the amendment would allow. Amendment No. 204CS is a probing amendment, which, again, we do not believe is required. I shall set out how Clause 98 details the steps that a principal council must take to publicise the outcome of any review of community governance that it has conducted. Subsections (1), (2) and (3) require the principal council to notify those who may have an interest or who have already shown an interest in the review or the outcome of the review. The council must also inform such interested parties of how, if at all, it intends to implement its decisions on the review. If the council makes an order implementing the results of its review, it will be required to take other steps. Subsection (4) simply makes it clear that these steps are not required when an order is not made: you do not need to publicise implementation if you are not making a decision to implement. Indeed, it will be impossible for the steps to be followed as they will all be dependent on an order being deposited, being made available for inspection and being sent to other bodies. In relation to Amendment No. 204CV, it is important that guidance is issued to assist local authorities when conducting community governance reviews. Some authorities do not have recent experience of conducting these reviews. Issuing guidance will ensure that there will be some basic framework within which local authorities can carry out reviews for their area, and a combination of the legislation and guidance will provide that framework. Obviously, it is more appropriate for the Electoral Commission than the Secretary of State to issue guidance on electoral arrangements. However, it is currently our intention that this guidance will be combined with guidance issued by the Secretary of State on non-electoral matters. I hope that that meets the noble Lord’s concerns about the extent of the Electoral Commission’s role. Finally, Amendments Nos. 204CQ and 204CR would require principal councils to consider their electoral areas, district wards and county divisions when deciding whether the parish should be divided into wards. If the amendments were accepted and a principal council decided to divide a parish into wards, it would have to have regard to the boundaries of the electoral areas when setting parish ward boundaries. We believe that it is questionable whether the amendment is needed, as we would expect local authorities to have regard to district, ward and county division boundaries. However, we will happily take that away for further consideration. We will look again at Amendments Nos. 204CQ and 204CR and seek the views of the Electoral Commission on them. Therefore, in view of that undertaking, we request that the noble Lord withdraws this group of amendments.