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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

My Lords, I do not see the provision of resolution periods as a draconian attempt to impose central control. By making this framework in this way, we are simply trying to provide a predictable, limited and orderly window within which an authority can resolve to change its governance arrangements, because a resolution is required before there can be a change in governance arrangements. I argue that, by removing this framework, the noble Baroness’s amendments would constitute a far greater recipe for chaos. However, I shall run through the argument for the permitted resolution period set out in new Section 33P(5). It provides for a time-limited resolution period from the day after the council’s annual meeting until 31 December in the year before the relevant election when the change will be implemented. The initial resolution period will, however, run from commencement to 31 December in the year before the election when the change takes place for that class of authority. Where councils decide that they want to change their governance model, this can be given effect at the relevant election. Let me be clear: where there has been no referendum in an area to approve an executive model, change to a new governance model can only take place three days after the relevant election. Clause 75 defines the relevant election years. As noble Lords will see, those are every four years. We have tied a change in governance arrangements to those relevant election years to ensure that there is consistency with the four-year term of the leader. That is only sensible. Given that change, not prompted by a referendum, can only take place every four years, it fits that the period in which a council can pass a resolution for change is a limited time period that ends just before the relevant election year. Noble Lords will recall that when we were debating Part 2, my noble friend Lady Morgan explained that we have also decided by amendment to extend the resolution periods in this part of the Bill, aside from the initial resolution period, which is longer anyway. That will mean that the resolution period will run from the day after the council’s annual meeting until 31 December, effectively extending it from three months to approximately six months. In the case of a metropolitan district wishing to change its governance arrangements in 2013, for example, it will be able to pass a resolution between the day after the council’s annual meeting and 31 December in that year and give effect to that change in May 2014. It is important that there is only a limited period within which a council can pass such a resolution for change, as there is a risk that without that limitation, despite everything that the noble Baroness said, a council could become virtually obsessed with change and pass numerous resolutions for different models throughout a four-year period. That is not good for anyone. We want to reduce levels of uncertainty. We have been talking about that in different ways this afternoon. The level of uncertainty that this free-for-all would bring to an authority would surely have the effect of undermining the leader or mayor of that authority, making it difficult for them to be able to provide any leadership and direction. It would be very distracting for the council as a whole. We spoke in our first day of debate about the debilitating effect of change. Councillors and officials would not know whether they were coming or going. The amendments are not a good idea. Probably most importantly, this would also be confusing for the electorate. They would have voted in, for example, a leader and Cabinet executive, and perhaps thought that the model was operating very effectively, and then two years into the leader’s term the council might resolve to move to a mayor and Cabinet. There is nothing to stop them under the amendments resolving to move back to an elected executive, and subsequently back to a mayor. All that one is left with is the local community wondering what on earth the council is doing and why there is constant change. That is what the amendments would allow. I do not think it is a good idea to introduce such a distraction. The framework is deliberate, it is generous, and it creates flexibility for change balanced with the stability of a four-year cycle. The resolution periods are an essential element of that. I hope that the noble Baroness is persuaded and will withdraw her amendment.