I rise to support Amendment 70, which was eloquently articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and to illustrate the problem of district councils that sit in boundary positions between county councils and, in some cases, regions. I live in Bassetlaw, and in Bassetlaw District Council the health authority extends into South Yorkshire. Therefore, representation in terms of the hospital trust comes from one district council, and, in terms of local governance, from the county of Nottinghamshire.
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Health is a pretty big and complex issue. If I had had my way in the past, it would have been coherent for the ambulance service to have been restructured to follow suit. Indeed, I argued that some of north Derbyshire, such as Chesterfield, north-east Derbyshire and Bolsover, should have been part of an ambulance service with Sheffield and South Yorkshire, because that would have far more coherence, in terms of the geography, industry and some big risk factors. That did not get as far as it should have, and successive Governments have chosen to stick with the rather enforced status quo. I say enforced because some of Bassetlaw’s key strategic aspects were shifted to South Yorkshire in the 1973 Act. There is the idea of a lifelong boundary that is relevant, but when one takes an entire international airport and moves it, and moves the entire minerals deposits for Nottinghamshire in, these are pretty big things. Therefore, the principle of having the district council voice in the middle of things seems essential.
There is a mania in government that bigger is automatically better with local government. I do not mean this Government specifically, but they seem to be falling, perhaps with Civil Service advice, the way that other Governments previously have. The policy and action are true in some areas but not others, where the locality and geography are far more vital. The Bassetlaw district is bigger than Greater London. When one says “tiny” about the population, one is not talking about the critical infrastructure and the land-mass. These kinds of peculiarities exist elsewhere in the country. I have illustrated with this one because I live in it and know it best.
There is huge merit in Amendment 70, albeit with the caveat that the noble Lord, Lord Foster, himself made on what actual voting percentages and so on should be. I do not underestimate the importance of those matters in democracy, but the principle seems absolute: the districts have to be at the table.