---

Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

moved Amendment No. 138: 138: Clause 81, page 55, line 2, at end insert— ““11B De-grouping: alternative styles (1) This section applies if— (a) the parishes in a group of parishes have an alternative style, and (b) an order under section 11(4) dissolves the group or separates one or more parishes from the group. (2) The order under section 11(4) must provide for each de-grouped parish to continue to have the alternative style. (3) In subsection (2) ““de-grouped parish”” means— (a) in the case of dissolution of the group, each parish in the group; (b) in the case of separation of one or more parishes from the group, each parish that is separated.”””” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, we had a useful debate in Committee on the community governance review processes. Members opposite tabled a number of amendments, to which we have given careful consideration over the summer. The amendments in this group are brought before the House as a result of those considerations and we believe that they will strengthen the Bill, as well as making some of the provisions clearer. As noble Lords are aware, my noble friend wrote on 1 October 2007 setting out why the amendments are required. First, we are proposing amendments to Clause 81 to ensure that existing groups of parishes are able to adopt alternative styles. As the Bill was drafted, only non-grouped parishes and new groups of parishes—those that were grouped for the first time—could have an alternative style. All parishes should be able to have an alternative style if that is what the parish council or parish meeting decides is in the best interests of the area. The amendments ensure that that is the case. During Committee, it was highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, that the wording of Clause 90(1)(a) and Clause 90(1)(c) was contradictory. Clause 90 should set out that, where the council receives a petition for an area that is wholly outside the area of an ongoing community governance review, the principal council must undertake a community governance review of the petition area. We have taken the opportunity to redraft Clauses 89, 90 and 91 so that it is clear in what circumstances a council is under a duty to—or when it has a power to—conduct a review. We emphasise that, where local people petition for a review and a review is not under way for that area or has not been completed for the area in the previous two years, the principal council is under a duty to conduct a review for the petition area. During the debate on Clause 93 in Committee, we were asked to replace the word ““available”” with the word ““unparished””. We agree that this would be a sensible amendment, as ““unparished”” is the term that is used by practitioners and is well understood. We are therefore proposing an amendment to give effect to that in relation to paragraphs (a) and (b) of Clause 93(2) and Clause 93(3). For clarity, we are moving the requirement to publicise the recommendations emerging from a review into Clause 99 rather than Clause 102. That is because the publication of the recommendations is actually part of the review and should therefore be under Clause 99, which is entitled, ““Duties when undertaking a review””. General concerns were raised in Committee that a principal council could choose to ignore the recommendation of a community governance review and simply decide not to give effect to the recommendation. It is of course only right that, as we are devolving power to local authorities to take decisions, they must equally be able to decide not to adopt the review’s recommendations, if appropriate, in the same way that the Secretary of State can now decide not to adopt a review’s recommendation. However, we have noted the concerns raised and we are bringing forward amendments to Clause 102 so that a local authority is under a duty to give reasons to explain its decisions. Therefore, following a review, the principal council will consider whether to implement the recommendations resulting from a community governance review. Whatever decision it takes will need to be justified and local people will be able to see clearly on what basis the decision was taken. We believe that the amendment strengthens the Bill and ensures that the entire process of deciding whether or not parishes should be created is conducted openly and transparently, which is what the Committee requested. We are making an amendment to Schedule 6. This will amend Section 16(1) of the Local Government Act 1972 to ensure that where parishes are grouped they do not end up with an excessive number of councillors. Currently, that provision reads that each parish should have five councillors. We are amending the reference in Section 16(1) so that it refers to the number of parish councillors for each parish council rather than for each parish. We wish to avoid a situation where a group of six parishes would be forced to have 30 parish councillors on the grouped parish council. Finally, we are making amendments to Clauses 86, 92, 94, 106 and 108. These amendments are all minor drafting improvements to ensure clarity and consistency between clauses. I hope that noble Lords will agree that this group of amendments responds to concerns raised by Members of this House. They also make some additional technical changes to the provisions. I commend them to the House and I beg to move.