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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

My Lords, we have returned to a question that was raised in Committee. I can advance the argument a little further, for reasons that will become clear. Let me briefly explain why the requirement is needed. On the progressive point made by the noble Baroness about the future, the amendments would certainly limit the kind of unitary proposals that councils would be able to make in response to invitations. Specifically, were the amendments to be accepted, councils would only have the option of submitting a proposal that was contained within a county area, whether a county unitary based on the existing county boundary or a sub-county unitary for part of the area. They would not be able to propose a unitary council that crossed existing county boundaries. We have made it clear on countless occasions that we are not telling councils what to do. Councils will have to submit their own proposals and they are best placed to propose a model that works for their local area. So we have to provide the maximum flexibility to invite and implement structures that make the greatest sense for local areas. The noble Baroness is right: we have said and continue to say that we do not believe that there is a case for restricting the options open to councils in that way. That is the overriding principle. The only proviso is that any new unitary should use existing district boundaries as the building blocks. The Bill will allow local authorities a wide range of options to put forward proposals for unitary local government. Crucially, they will not be constrained in considering how best to administer local government functions in their areas. At previous stages, noble Lords were concerned that people identify with shire counties and that cross-unitary proposals would be unlikely to command public support. Noble Lords said that there is still confusion where some of the shire counties became London boroughs. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, who is not in his place today, making a powerful statement to that effect. However, as the noble Baroness says, not all boundaries are old anyway. As I have stated, because this is devolutionary, it is not for us to restrict proposals but to allow sufficient choice because that may be the best solution for an area. Noble Lords are right that no cross-unitary proposals are currently proceeding toward implementation. Significantly, although it did not proceed towards implementation, we received a cross-county boundary proposal from East Riding, proposing a unitary authority comprising East Riding and Selby district council, part of the county of North Yorkshire. So it is not beyond the bounds of possibility. In addition, if an area has undergone significant population and housing growth that results in the unitary boundary for that area no longer making sense, we might need to issue an invitation to enable councils to propose a new unitary area that crossed existing boundaries—again, a type C proposal. That is a potential eventuality. When we debate the invitation itself, I shall explain at more length that there are no proposals for major rounds of invitations, but we recognise that, in exceptional situations, there may be appetite for change where it would be right to respond to a focused and targeted invitation. I will talk about that when we debate later amendments. For the moment, on these amendments and in this situation, I hope noble Lords will accept that all we are doing is providing for a choice, which was validated because in the end we had a proposal in the final washout.