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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

My Lords, we have heard two sorts of passion in the past half an hour—one to wreck the Bill with a simple wrecking amendment and the other from the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock. She is such a powerful advocate of what may be a remote corner of the north-east and of Northumberland, but she does it proud—and what she has put on record tonight will serve a purpose. I listened intently to what she said. Before I deal with some of the issues that the noble Baroness raised, on the general principle she will not be surprised that I cannot accept the amendment, which would simply mean that the current round of restructuring was brought to an end and that all the effort that the councils had made in putting forward their proposals was wasted. In this Chamber we see eye to eye most of the time but sometimes we do not—and in accepting the amendment we would abort the restructuring process. Clause 21 is sensible and necessary and simply means that we can respond to the wishes of local government and run the invitation and the Bill process in parallel. It ensures that there can be no doubt that a proposal received prior to commencement of the part can be implemented after commencement. I take the point that local councillors, while the Bill is outstanding, are bound to have concerns—so it is much better that we proceed quickly to ensure that this is not the case. When we debated this clause in Committee, I said that it was not retrospective. The noble Baroness quoted me accurately. It does not make valid something which when it was done was not valid. However, noble Lords will be aware that judicial review proceedings have been brought by Shrewsbury and Congleton district councils in relation to the current restructuring process and the issue of the meaning and effect of Clause 21 was before the court. We expect judgment in those cases shortly and it would be inappropriate for me to comment further at this time. As we have said many times in our discussions with local government about restructuring, the consistent message from councils was to get it underway and completed as soon as possible in order to prevent a period of debilitation, blight and disruption. We were aware—noble Lords have spoken about the effect on various areas—that this process would create anxiety and disquiet among local government. There will inevitably be tensions when there are proposals to abolish local authorities. That is why the approach that we followed was designed to minimise the way in which those tensions might foment. The invitation was issued in October to allow sufficient time for councils to develop proposals, to allow for consultation and to proceed towards implementation as quickly as possible after Royal Assent. So we are doing only what local authorities asked of us—to decide if we are going to go ahead with restructuring and if so to press ahead as quickly as possible. The invitation was issued ahead of these provisions of the Bill under the Secretary of State’s common law powers. Those common law powers derive from the Crown’s status as a corporation sole. They are often relied on as a legal basis for government action. Indeed, in responding to a question from the noble Lord, Lord Lester, about the Ram doctrine some years ago, my noble and learned friend Lady Scotland referenced some of the situations where common law powers form the basis of governmental actions. These include entering into contracts or employing staff. So we have done nothing unlawful in issuing an invitation ahead of the Bill and all this clause seeks to do is make it very clear that it is immaterial whether the Secretary of State issues an invitation, or guidance, or receives or consults on proposals received prior to commencement; she can implement such proposals after commencement of this part. I turn to the situation in Northumberland. As the noble Baroness said with regard to the discussions on the future of Northumberland, in the decisions in July our judgment was that having regard to all the information that was available, the district’s proposal for two unitaries was not reasonably likely to achieve the outcomes specified in the criteria and therefore should not proceed towards implementation. The proposal for a single unitary was judged as reasonably likely to achieve the criteria. Here we are minded to implement the proposal if and when the Bill is passed. But as we move to the next step in the implementation process we set out in the document which has now finished its consultation process one of the fundamental things that we said; namely, that we should like to take the opportunity to encourage all potentially affected local authorities to begin work together without delay. Clearly, the earlier the dialogue, the more likelihood there is of getting agreement on some difficult issues and reaching a successful conclusion. Therefore, we stress that in areas such as Northumberland, all councils need to work together on this fairly. We believe that a joint committee should be formed of representatives of all the existing local authorities in the area concerned. I said earlier that the implementation document was a living document. We are consulting on it. If the sorts of scenario emerge that the noble Baroness described, we shall no doubt learn about them in the consultation process. However, it is very important that she has put on the record what she feels is happening because we need to know how local authorities are approaching this. Clearly, the guidance is designed to be fair.