Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

I am sorry that the noble Lord cannot give a warmer welcome to this, because so much of what he said is reflected in what we are trying to do. I have a lot of sympathy with the points he raised about why people stand for the council and what it is that makes them want to represent an area and offer public service. What we have done here is to find ways of strengthening the role of the ward councillor by giving greater visibility, raising profiles and making clearer the expectations that constituents should have of ward councillors. The noble Lord is right to say that many local councils undertake a version of this as a matter of course, but he is also right to say that not all do. We have tried in the Bill to flag up that it should be the expectation of local electors that their council is there to raise issues that concern them and that can be acted on in ways that are above and beyond the normal processes of the council. I think we are right to express that in terms of the citizen’s right to be able to make a community call for action. So although I think that there is much we agree on, I am sorry that we do not agree on the significance of this. It is a mechanism that allows local councils to escalate issues of concern to their local community by referring them to the OandS committee. It is certainly for the committee to decide whether and how to proceed, but once an issue is raised, it must put it on the agenda and address it. If the committee chooses not to pursue the matter, then it must let the member know the reason, which is a new and very important power to pass on to the constituent. If it does take a matter up—and it has a lot of flexibility in how it does so—it has to let the member know what recommendations it ultimately makes. We have seen in the development of OandS committees over the past few years how some are turning into policy and development committees. It is often the case that an issue raised by a constituent can reflect either the failure or success of a policy, and how it might be developed. So what we are looking at is also a way of OandS committees becoming more proactive and growing. The clause also provides for excluded matters, which I want to address now. Amendment No. 215ZA, taken with Amendment No. 215ZE, would change the effect of the clause by enabling any member of a local authority to refer any matter. This switches the focus away from the community call for action. The noble Lord himself said that if they were to raise a matter of improving a railway, for example, they would know that they could not do anything about it. To raise matters over which the council has no control not only diminishes the purpose of the community call for action, but also reduces the credibility of the councillor as well. Secondly, I detect a contradiction in what the noble Lord said. He was extremely focused on the ward councillor, and the first function of the councillor is to represent the ward and how things affect people in the ward. He is right to do that, and to speak of the direct influence of the people in the ward. But Amendments Nos. 215ZA and 215ZE together would mean that this measure would empower the elected member to go beyond the ward. Our intention is that the elected member is able to force a committee to address an issue of concern to the community in the area that he was elected to represent. That is what gives him his locus and his credibility—if and only if those concerns are about the way the council is doing its job in that area. Yes, ward boundaries are arbitrary and often people do not know where they fall. That area-based responsibility is important. The two amendments open the door very wide to people who are not as scrupulous as the noble Lord. This could become an opportunity to trespass across boundaries and issues in ways that would not be helpful to local people.