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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord is completely wrong in his reading of the Bill. If it is enacted in its present form, and if a leader of a council who is the leader of the majority group is elected for four years, and if the majority group on the council loses confidence in the leader halfway through, it will be unable to remove him if he does not want to go, unless it can get a motion to remove him through the council, which it may not be able to do. If one of us was leader of the majority group and we had fallen out with our own group and joined forces with the opposition, the opposition might keep us in office and refuse a vote of no confidence. The only way in which the majority group could remove its leader within the four years would be either by persuading that person to resign, which they might not do, or by moving a vote of no confidence in them at a council meeting. Expecting a majority group to move a vote of no confidence in its own leader at a council meeting is a step too far. If a majority party has no confidence in its leader, it should be able to change them and the leadership of the council as it can now. The Bill would prevent that. I beg to move.