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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

My Lords, I thank the Minister and the Government for taking notice of a number of points made from these Benches and elsewhere at the last stage. I understand with regard to the resolution period that the Government would not want to see a controversial resolution made eve of poll. However, if I came across any of our councillors suggesting that they should be spending eve of poll doing this sort of thing, I would tell them what I thought of them. The proposal about changing the name of an area is also welcome. I am also glad to hear that the point made by my noble friend Lord Greaves about a two-thirds majority has been taken. I have written down ““welcome””. I do not want to purport to read his mind totally because he may have reservations about the way that it has been done, but I was glad to hear acceptance of that point. There are provisions in three different places for members of the council for various purposes, including an elected mayor or elected executive. It says a lot about confusion with the language that when I read that members included the mayor and elected executive I thought that the Bill must mean the mayor and the elected executive and started to write some very furious notes, but I think that it means ““include”” in the normal and natural meaning of the term. I will mention now, so that the Minister is aware of it, that I was comforted when I found Amendments Nos. 117 and 118—it is very sad to be comforted by such things is it not? Those provisions show me that it is explicit that a reference to a member excludes the elected mayor. We will come to those amendments in a future group. I will ask at that point whether the way that those are dealt with means that the Secretary of State can change at will who is in and out of the definition of members. That is for another day. I am assuming that the officials, being very thorough, have done a great trawl of the Bill and could, if we asked, advise us who is a member for any given purpose. A little note about whether the elected executive—a mayor, directly elected leader or whatever—falls within or outside of the definition of member could be very useful for authorities.