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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

My Lords, it seems to me that one of the reasons why we are having this debate with such passion is the deficiencies of the process that led us here. It was not very clear what the framework was in which local authorities were putting forward their bids and making their decisions. That has resulted in a lot of disgruntled people in some of the areas subject to reorganisation. In a sense, with nowhere else to go, the fallback is to say, ““Well, we will have a referendum””. From these Benches on this occasion, we are not in favour of referendums for dealing with this. It is a sad fact that 30 years of central government emasculating local authorities has led to a situation where a lot of people do not understand what their local authority does. What is worse, they do not care all that much. That is a desperately sad state of affairs, but I am afraid that that is where we are. Turnouts in local elections can be quite low. It is worrying to consider what might happen in a referendum in which a decision could be made with a turnout as low as 15 per cent of the public. A referendum is not the same thing as opinion polling because of the differences in the ways that they are carried out, so getting a 27 per cent turnout in an opinion poll would not mean that you would get a turnout anything like that high if you were to have a referendum. I agree absolutely with the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, about interest groups. People who have more of an interest in what a local authority does and who are able to articulate that more will be disfranchised by this process. It also strikes me that, even if one were to agree to the principle of a referendum, it would be very difficult to implement it in practical terms. In the case of Norwich, for example, if you only allowed the voters of Norwich to vote, all the people from the surrounding areas who rely on Norwich for services would be unable to vote. If, on the other hand, you have the whole county, the wishes of people living a long way away who perhaps visit Norwich only twice a year could outweigh the wishes of those who live in the city. Whichever way you look at that, it is almost impossible for a referendum to reflect the views that are held in a county as diverse as Norfolk or, indeed, my own county of Suffolk. For those reasons, we do not believe that referendums are the right way to go forward, although I have a lot of sympathy with the intentions of the noble Baroness in dealing with what has been a deficit of local input into the process.