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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

My Lords, I am sorry to intervene again on this, but there is an important point here. We all want these reforms and structural changes to be made with public support, but I agree with my noble friends that a referendum is exactly the wrong way to go about that. There are two fundamental dangers in using a referendum to test public opinion. One is that you get differential turnout. Any study of any election shows that people are much more likely to vote against something than to vote for it. If you are in favour, you assume that it is going to happen and you stay at home to watch the telly. It is those who have a really strong opinion who get out to vote, so you do not get the right result. The second danger, which was raised by my noble friend Lord Howarth and to which we need an answer, is: who frames the question? In a referendum, you expect a simple yes or no response. Therefore, the power lies in who frames the question. It is instructive to consider the views coming back from Cornwall from referendums framed by district councils. If the county council had framed the question, I am sure that it could have got a totally different result. Wearing one of my various local government hats, I am chairman of Greater Manchester Authorities. We have been through an interesting exercise recently. We have been looking to see whether to make a bid for the transport innovation fund, which included raising a congestion charge for Manchester. That is not uncontroversial, I can assure your Lordships. We realised that if you ask people the simple question: ““Do you want a congestion charge for Manchester?””, the answer is no. I would say no. But when you frame the question as: ““Do you want a £3 million injection into public transport and then you will have a congestion charge?””, you get a much different result. Opinion surveys done through the local newspapers show that. So it is about how you frame the question. As usual, my noble friend Lord Graham had it right. If people in local government want to test public opinion, they should do so through the normal election process. If people do not want the structural changes proposed, I am sure that they will reward, or not, those politicians who put them forward.