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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Ironically—although perhaps it is not so surprising—we are having a topsy turvy debate. The hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire claims that his proposals would benefit devolution, even though they do not. To be fair to the hon. Member for Hazel Grove, his proposals do promote devolution, although I think that they go too far. However, we should not be surprised at all that: the Conservatives are centralists, while the Liberal Democrats are devolutionists without responsibility. I guess that explains where we have ended up. I must try to rebuild the consensus that I have been crafting so carefully for the past two years and which I may have destroyed in the last 10 seconds. This debate has revealed the divergence of view between the Liberal Democrats and the main Opposition party, whose proposed new clauses would reduce the range of choice that the Government are offering. Neither I nor the Government claim, as the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire suggested, that councils are ““clamouring”” after the elected executive model. I readily concede that they are not.