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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

My Lords, I ought to thank the Minister for the titbits that I have been thrown. Sometimes, when noble Lords go home to their own communities, especially if they are far away, people come up and ask, ““When you go down to that London, what do you do in that Lords place? Is it any use? Do you ever achieve anything?”” In future, I will always be able to reply, ““Yes. I am responsible for the word ‘unparished’ being incorporated into the law of England””. There we are. At least it shows that the Minister and her team considered the amendments that we moved, even if they rejected 99 per cent of them. I was flabbergasted when I discovered that there were another two full pages of stuff about alternative styles in the Bill. I return to what I said in Committee. This approach is a good example of how lawmaking nowadays is far too detailed and takes up far too many pages in the Acts. I blame computers, because they make it all possible. I do not understand the difference—I do not think that there is any—between the ability of parish councillors in future to call themselves neighbourhood councillors, community councillors or village councillors and the ability that they have now to call themselves town councillors if they wish. That seems to be an identical provision with identical effect, yet in 10 lines Section 245(6) of the Local Government Act 1972 gives parish councillors the right to call themselves town councillors—I think that that was introduced as an amendment as the Bill went through. There are two or three more subsections to allow them to change back if they want to, but the basic provision takes up 10 lines. We have a whole chunk of the Bill for that. The way things are done nowadays is ridiculous. It means that poor old parish clerks will have to spend hours reading the Bill, trying to understand it to tell their councillors what it means, when it is really dead simple. If they want to call themselves a neighbourhood, a village or a community, they will be able to do so, just as they can now call themselves a town. That could all have been done in 10 lines. On Question, amendment agreed to.