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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

My Lords, in our area people vote every year locally, and long may we continue to do so. I say ““we”” because local elections are ones in which noble Lords are allowed to take part. We are not banned from them as we are from general elections. The question that has to be asked is that if the Government are saying that there is no right to a referendum on a proposal for an elected mayor, why have people got that right now and why have they had it for the past seven years? Why was it thought suitable seven years ago and what has changed? None of this has been explained in any way. We do not in general have a presidential system in this country; we have a democratic system of electing legislatures; the elected bodies, the legislatures and councils, then choose the leaderships. When you move to an elected mayor at a local level, you move to a presidential system. It is not just a question of how the council works and makes decisions but a fundamental matter of the distribution of power in the local community. That is why it is probably right that there should be a referendum on such things. I do not want to get diverted into whether referendums are good or bad and in what circumstances they are but, in my view, the more local and specific they are the more relevance and value they probably have. The Minister said that if the people do not like the decision that the council makes they can have their say at the next election, but that will be too late because the whole system of electing the council and mayor will already have changed and it will be irrevocable in most places. The Minister said that she was pro-council—