---

Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for his amendments. I endorse his underlining of the importance of the annual parish meeting. As a former councillor, I understand the importance of that. We are sympathetic to what appear to us to be the underlying principles of the noble Lord’s amendments. In Committee, I gave a number of assurances about our intentions for the regulations. In particular, I said that we have it in mind to limit the term of any appointment to one year, to which the noble Lord has referred. Appointments will have to be reconfirmed at the annual parish meeting of the parish council and will automatically end at an ordinary election. The first new provision suggested by Amendment No. 145A is broadly consistent with that. We have no difficulty in accepting the idea that reappointments should not go on ad infinitum. However, there are some technical issues with the amendment to do with timing and there is a certain amount of ambiguity which would be best addressed in regulations for which this clause provides. Given the assurance that we accept the general thrust of these amendments and that we will consider the extent to which we can include them in regulations, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment