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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman poses the question to the Association of Chief Police Officers and sees how the answer lies, because he may get more of a hint from that than from a referendum. I return to Lords amendments Nos. 2 and 4. The key phrase in the debate is who the Secretary of State ““considers appropriate””. I want briefly to draw hon. Members' attention to a county of which I have some knowledge. The hon. Member for City of Chester (Christine Russell) is not present, but Cheshire is an interesting case in point, because two bids were submitted to the Minister, one proposing that there should be one unitary county council area and another proposing that there should be three separate district unitary authorities. The Secretary of State has said, ““That is interesting. We have got a bid for one and a bid for three. I propose to make two.”” Such a proposal is not favoured by any of the local authorities. I have not heard the view of the chief constable on this one, but I would be surprised if he thought it a terribly good idea either. The Minister might be able to help us on that. All of the examples illustrate the point that the amendments form a safeguarding clause, not for local democracy—which is what it should be about—but for the Secretary of State.