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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

moved Amendment No. 121: 121: Clause 68, page 45, line 24, at end insert ““subject to removal from office by the elected leader”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I also speak to Amendment No. 122. The amendments probe the nature of the post of a member of an elected executive. The matter was raised briefly with the Minister privately but I think that two or three minutes might be spent on it in public. Being a member of an executive in some cases is becoming very close to employment. As we have heard, it is often the only activity, and a more than full-time activity, of certain councillors. We may be told that an elected leader cannot sack a member of his slate because that person has been elected. If so, it seems to me that there might almost be an issue over constructive dismissal where a member is part of a slate but the elected leader does not give him anything to do. In an employment situation, you could find all sorts of confusion arising over that. My main amendment is Amendment No. 122. It would be useful to have the Government’s view—not that that would necessarily be persuasive to a tribunal should there be a row over this—on what would happen if a member of an elected executive who was paid the equivalent of a reasonable salary, certainly something that he was living on, found that he was constructively dismissed or whatever. I have chosen to probe this with an amendment that says that there would be ““no claim for compensation”” in the event of dismissal. As I say, I extend that to constructive dismissal. I beg to move.