---

Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, has said virtually everything that needs to be said on these subjects. I just have a couple of points to add at this stage. First, I think that we are all concerned about possible conflicts of interest for hosts. It is critical that NHS bodies are included in the Bill as bodies that cannot be hosts. Will the Minister comment on how we deal with possible conflicts of interest that may exist when voluntary organisations that are members of LINks—a point we raised several times in Committee? What will happen if a voluntary organisation is a member of a LINk, but also acts as its host? How does one deal with such conflicts of interest? Secondly, will she add to what the noble Earl just said, about LINks being able to network together and the extent to which that will be helpful and useful, given the restriction to local activities that exist at present, as far as we understand the legislation? This has been raised with me as a key point by some of the ambulance organisations and mental health organisations. They say that, particularly when one is dealing with specialised issues, one needs to have some comparison of what is going on over a larger patch. That is equally true of relatively rare diseases where you would expect user groups to be able to compare one patch with another. It would be helpful to know from the Minister what she thinks the LINks will be able to do in their network activities. I echo the noble Earl in thanking the Minister for enabling some form of LINks networking to take place. That will be much appreciated.