---

Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

We have some sympathy and agree that councils should be able to determine their own cycles or arrangements under proper electoral procedures. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, could clarify whether he was trying to insist that they had to wait two cycles? If they were to be left to their own arrangements and wanted to have an all-out election fairly rapidly, they should be allowed to do so. I was not quite clear when he was moving his amendment whether we should support it. He almost seemed to be prescribing one fixed system, when we all thought that we should allow a local council to decide for itself what it was going to do.