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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

My Lords, we had a very good debate on this part of the Bill in Committee, where the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, who is not in his place, were eloquent in describing the notion of putting upper limits on the face of the Bill. I am afraid that I cannot say very much that is new. If we did provide upper limits I do not think that it would reinforce the principle of devolution, which is part of the argument. It does not follow that limiting the function of the Secretary of State in the foreseeable future would devolve power to local partners, and it would certainly destroy the flexibility that both central and local government will need in the future. One of the pleasing aspects of the process which has been evolving over the summer as local area agreements have been negotiated in addition to the guidance and so on is that the arrangements for agreeing and implementing targets have been welcomed by organisations as diverse as the LGA, Sport England, the Environment Agency and so on. It is worth remembering that the LAA will now be the only place for central government to agree targets with local authorities and their partners to ensure that core national priorities are reflected in planning for local areas. In Committee and in the other place, through the Minister for Local Government, we have made commitments that there will be an upper limit of 35 designated targets in the next round of LAA negotiations. That has been re-emphasised in the phase 1 operational guidance, which is in the Library. I recommend it because it is very clear and very good. The real problem is that legislation is drafted to stand the test of time—we always think very carefully about what we put in Bills in this House—and I do not think that it would be advisable to limit government or local areas in the number of targets they may want to designate for years to come. I understand noble Lords’ concerns that the number of designated targets may increase over time if we do not limit the number, but the whole thrust of the Bill and where we are going is to make a real shift towards light-touch steering. It is a real step back by central government from the affairs of local government. We are therefore going to maintain the devolutionary trajectory of the White Paper in the Bill to ensure that the burden of reporting targets is confined to key national priorities in each area. We do not want to limit the scope for responding to challenges by putting a long-term statutory limit of 35 in the Bill. However, the noble Baroness has our assurance that we do not want the number to be higher, and we have said that it is an upper limit.