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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

moved Amendment No. 100: 100: Clause 59, page 30, line 12, at end insert— ““( ) The meeting required by subsection (2) shall not be held unless the authority has given not less than two months’ notice of the proposal or proposals.”” The noble Baroness said: This amendment takes us to the clause dealing with the change of name of an electoral area. It would require the local authority to give at least two months’ notice of a proposal to change the name. I was prompted to pursue the matter because of my experience at London borough level. The ward that I represented for 20 years disappeared as a result of ward boundary changes, and so did its name. I was quite startled by the number of times local people asked me what had happened to the ward that was under that name. The name is important—it is an identifier—and people can be quite strongly wedded to it because it expresses at a political level the place that they feel is theirs. Again, this is perhaps not the most important part of the Bill but, with a Government who talk a great deal about place shaping and so on, it is not insignificant either. I beg to move.