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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

As the Committee knows, I have sat through most of these debates. It strikes me that noble Lords, especially from the Liberal Democrat Benches, are filled with the possibilities of chicanery and deliberate misinterpretation. They obviously have experience of all those things. We all have. I know the illustration about the six months. When a councillor retires or resigns, as noble Lords very well know, the date on which the vacancy is declared is a moveable feast. Very often, in my experience and that of other Members of the Committee, that sort of thing has happened. The Minister—and the Bill in general—has sought to put flesh on the bones of revolutionary ideas, every single aspect of which can be questioned. Everybody can bring their experience, but I wonder whether we are spending rather too much time on the minutiae of the Bill, when a mass of work is still waiting to be done. That may well suit some purpose or other, but I cannot quite see it myself. The Minister is saying to us, ““Trust the models that we have put forward and trust the good sense of the people we are trying to assist: the elected councillors, who represent the local populace””. If the view is held that whatever is put forward is capable of being improved or changed, we will not get very far. I think that I have provoked the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, enough for me to sit down.