---

Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

The Minister is saying that if a local authority decides to seek unitary authority for a county or district council and it cannot make the situation work without involving a district, a county or a few wards, the Minister will direct that it will be brought together under a new unitary authority, presumably jammed in to the proposals that the council puts forward. It seems to me that that is a recipe for disharmony. Most of Clause 2 and 3 are a recipe for disharmony and if the Minister has received the letters we have had—and I am sure that he has—he will understand how much agitation and angst there is over these proposals by some people who do not want them and find themselves scooped up within in them. The Minister said that if there are areas left over, ““untidy ends”” is what I think it is called, the direction will be made that those have to be put right. If that work cannot be done voluntarily and amicably, no amount of direction by the Secretary of State is ever going to make that work. Therefore, I remain of the view that direction should not be part of the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.