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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

My Lords, at half-past nine, I am grateful to have had even a smidgen of an interesting debate, and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, for supporting me. I did not really expect the Minister to throw up her hands and say that the Government will take this on board, but it is part of the debate about the Bill, in which we have been looking at bringing greater devolution to local government and making things better for local people. It may not be possible to take this on board in the Bill, but I was glad to hear the Minister say that some thought is being given to at least part of it. Most local authorities are now running one-stop shops where people are able to discuss most aspects of their problems and get help. Most local authorities are labouring with the problems of worklessness, people not in education and people who are not benefiting from jobseeker’s allowance because they are doing training, coming out and then not doing anything. There is a host of problems that can be dealt with if someone is there at a local level to do it. I am on a working party in my local authority to understand why people do not take up benefits. That is of immediate local interest because of council tax benefit and housing benefit. There are rafts of reasons why people are not claiming, but we need to know them because there is a deficit between what can be claimed and what is claimed. I hope that this debate will continue. I accept that it may not be possible tonight and that this amendment is not appropriate tonight but I hope that as time goes on and local authorities are given more responsibility the reasoning behind it will become more apparent and we may perhaps be able to make some progress on it. I thank the Minister for her reply and beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendment No. 220 not moved.]