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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

moved Amendment No. 79A: 79A: Clause 62, page 35, line 7, leave out subsection (6) The noble Baroness said: My Lords, with Amendment No. 79A and the long list of amendments grouped with it, we return to the question of directly elected executives. When I first read the proposal in the Bill, I thought that it was a pretty daft idea. As time has gone on and we have had more debate in this place, the flaws in the model have—to me and, I think, to a number of colleagues—become even more apparent. Like my noble friend Lord Greaves, I have spent quite a lot of time this summer meeting council groups, which I do all the time, and I have talked to them about the Bill. I can confirm, as my noble friend said, that they have no idea what is down the road. I think that, partly because they have been exercised by the restructuring part of the Bill and by whether they will be involved with that, they have rather taken their eye off the ball in terms of structures. I do not believe that the Local Government Association has helped, because it has had nothing to say publicly about these matters. I would not expect it to take sides; nevertheless, publicising the fact that the Bill is on its way would have been part of its core job and it would have been very helpful to local authorities. I have found a remarkable degree of ignorance about what is proposed here. I can tell the noble Baroness that, when I talk to members of local authorities about the directly elected executive proposal, their jaws begin to drop as they wonder how on earth that will work. I thought long and hard about moving the amendment today. To an extent, my initial thought was that it should form part of the Bill if the Government wish because, if a local authority is daft enough to choose this model, it should be able to do so. However, as time has gone on, I have come to the view that it is verging on irresponsible to have an option for governance in the Bill that is fundamentally unworkable. First, we have the problem that people are allowed to—and will—stand for election both as slate members of a Cabinet and as councillors. It is inevitable that they will run for both. If they are successful in getting elected to the Cabinet they will immediately have to resign as councillors. Therefore, as soon as we have had an election, there will be multiple by-elections, depending on the size of the slate. If the turnout in all-out local government elections is low, I hate to think how low it will be for a by-election within three weeks or so of the main election. The model may well result in the executive being under different political control from that of the rest of the council. I fail to see how that could possibly work. We would not think of running this country under a system whereby we had a Labour Cabinet and a Conservative or Liberal Democrat Parliament. It simply would not work. But this model could foist such a system on to local government. In such a situation a leader and Cabinet could struggle to get their budget past the council, and there could be difficulties regarding their development and local community plans given that both sides—the executive and the council—might have legitimate but different political aspirations. That is not a recipe for strong leadership, which I know the Government want. The other solution would be to emasculate the council to the extent that it has no real check on the executive, and local people will then wonder why they bothered electing councillors. There is a further set of problems with the model. If the leader resigns, becomes ill or dies, the whole Cabinet will have to be re-elected. If one member of the Cabinet disappears for some reason, their work will be spread out among the remaining Cabinet members, thereby increasing their workload, or a by-election for that one place will have to be held. That could result in someone from another political party being elected to the Cabinet. In Committee, the Minister thought that in some circumstances it would be a good idea to have a government of all the talents. After my experiences as a local councillor I find it inconceivable to imagine how a sole person of one party could sit in a Cabinet made up of other parties. How on earth does the noble Baroness think that collective Cabinet responsibility would work in those circumstances? For all the reasons I have outlined and probably for some more that I have not thought of, we have come to the conclusion that this model is unworkable and really should not be in the Bill. I beg to move.