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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

moved Amendment No. 94: 94: Clause 64, page 38, line 43, leave out ““the end of the permitted resolution period in”” and insert ““an appropriate period of time during”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 95 and 109. These amendments apply to the provisions for a new executive or a move to executive arrangements and seek to remove the restriction on the time when a local authority may pass the relevant resolution. They are both directed at paragraphs which apply where a local authority is not currently operating a mayor-and-Cabinet executive or elected executive. Therefore, at this point I do not think that I need be too troubled whether they are affected by the Divisions that we have just had. Amendment No. 109 would take out the definition of ““permitted resolution period”” at the end of the clause. To my mind this is simply another aspect of maximum choice. In the amendment on directly elected executives, the noble Baroness teased us about not permitting choice, which was the opposite of what we intended. Had she accepted our amendments in the first long group we would not have needed to debate directly elected executives in the way that we did. This is a micro example. I can see that there may be good reasons for not taking resolutions to change constitutions at particular points in a council’s cycle, but that should be a matter for the council itself to determine. It should not be told what is good for it by central government. If a local authority wants to ignore what central government think is sensible in this regard, we should let it do so and then sort it out. On the part of the Bill dealing with elections, the Government have extended the period when certain resolutions can be made or perhaps introduced—I cannot remember which—which is welcome. Would the Minister defend central control in this regard? I beg to move.