Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I want to address briefly the question that Clause 15 should stand part of the Bill raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and her colleague on the Front Bench. At this stage I do not intend to go over the points which have already been made so expertly. I simply want to ask a simple question. Clause 15 sets out the functions and the shared duties of local authorities and the Secretary of State to improve public health. What is not clear is which duty falls to the Secretary of State and which to local authorities at any one time. What would be the trigger for an intervention by the Secretary of State? It is quite important that noble Lords should understand this as we go ahead. Would I be right or wrong to assume that it would be exceptional, rather than the norm, for the Secretary of State to intervene? Is that what the department thinks? If it were exceptional, can the Minister set out under what circumstances it is envisaged that the Secretary of State would intervene? For example, if a local authority unilaterally decided to cut its entire funding of sexual health services, would that be regarded as something which would cause the Secretary of State to intervene? If a local authority came up with a good argument for why it should not fund such services, or there was a major outbreak of an environmental nature, would the Secretary of State intervene under additional powers? I can understand the logic of this in that both the Secretary of State and local authorities need to have powers, and those powers should be shared, but I would welcome further clarification on how these powers will be exercised both jointly and separately.