Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

moved Amendment No. 215ZAA: 215ZAA: Clause 121, page 77, line 12, leave out from beginning to ““enables”” in line 13 and insert ““Provision for a person for the purposes of subsection (1) is provision which”” The noble Baroness said: I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 215ZC and 215ZD. It is helpful to have time to read parts of the Bill and to hear explanations on them. As we have debated today, I have realised the error of my ways in tabling Amendment No. 215ZAA. I shall not speak to it, as I now understand the clause. Amendment No. 215ZC provides that an OandS committee or sub-committee can ask for information from members of the public. Here we are dealing with the so-called community call for action: the opportunity for a ward councillor to bring the matter to an OandS committee. It took me some time to find this clause in the Bill; I knew there was to be a clause that allowed the public this extra right but there is no mention of the public in the clause and I thought there should be one. An overview and scrutiny committee inquiring into an issue will want to hear from the people who are affected by it and possibly the people who brought the matter to the ward councillor. However, others might feel that the ward councillor is making a case that it applies to only one or two people, but there is a wider and different interest which needs to be aired. I speak to that amendment with some feeling. Amendment No. 215ZD adds to the provision that if a committee decides not to exercise the powers that we have heard about, it has to tell the member that it will not do so and give the reason. I am saying that it should publish its decision and its reasons. Local authorities are used to publishing things; that is the way in which the system works. Notices of what will happen are published and records of what has happened are published. This amendment should fit in with that. I beg to move the amendment and I do not expect an answer from the Minister.