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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

moved Amendment No. 48: 48: Clause 21, leave out Clause 21 The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this is a simple amendment. It would remove the powers in Clause 21 to allow invitations that had been issued and, more to the point, decisions that had been made on restructuring to take place until after the Bill had been enacted. Clause 21 bizarrely says that any proposal made before the enactment of the Bill should be taken to be constrained by the same measures in other clauses that what I will call the ““post-commencement invitations”” will be under. Therefore Clause 21 shows that the Government’s reasoning is not very sensible, and does not follow what we would expect the Bill to do. I and other noble Lords have moved many amendments this afternoon, any of which could be included in the Bill. If the provisions of any of Part 1 were to change—for example, the power to hold a referendum that I suggest, or the power in my previous amendments to widen consultation—any measures taken previously to the Bill would result in a much lesser deal for local electorates, and could even mean that some councils had acted outside the law as it would be applied retrospectively. Amendment No. 28 would remove Clause 21, the effect being that any current invitations could not be enacted until the Bill itself has passed through Parliament. There was something circular about the Minister’s arguments in Committee that the provisions included in Clause 21 are not retrospective. First, her argument ignored the fact that a retrospective provision does not simply make something valid that was not lawful or valid at the time. It can also make something invalid or unlawful. Amendments made to the Bill could change the make-up of Part 1 so as to render some actions being taken now unlawful in the future. That would be retrospective, and to allow for such an application prior to the Bill going through Parliament is contrary to the proper and appropriate passage of law through Parliament. Noble Lords should not have to sanction that. I beg to move.