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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

These amendments relate to part 3 of the Bill covering executive arrangements. The importance and value of those arrangements were confirmed in the report that we published recently on evaluating local governance. I will send the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) a copy, as it provides the evidence in support of the development policy set out in the Bill. Most of the amendments in the group are technical. They will ensure either that the provisions of the Bill work effectively, or that they are consistent with other pieces of legislation. However, some of the amendments are substantial and have to do with referendums. To help the House, I shall speak briefly about a couple of them. The Government have proposed the amendments in question to provide local authorities with greater flexibility in the use of referendums, and to allow them to respond more quickly to their electorate when a referendum to change executive arrangements has been conducted. We have dealt with an anomaly in the Bill as drafted that meant that councils might have had to wait several years before being able to implement the result of a referendum.