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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

Before I comment on the group generally, I should like to throw out one or two questions, just to give the Minister the maximum time in which to consider them. First, where there is a group of parishes, and one parish wishes to retain the title of parish council, but the others in the group want a change, what determines the naming? Is it simply the will of the majority of the group? If one parish really wants to retain the title of parish council, does it have a veto? I would be interested to know the answer. Secondly, in the other place, on 5 July, at column 1183, volume 693 of the Official Report, my noble Friend Lord Hanningfield asked whether the Secretary of State could get involved in the issue of the number of people who sit on a parish council. I am not sure, technically, whether that should be dealt with under the group of amendments that we are considering, but I do not know the answer to the question, and I am interested to hear whether there was an answer. In general, the group of amendments responds to the concerns raised about parish councils. It is clear that Members in both Houses feel a great deal of affection for such councils. Those of us who have parish councils in our constituencies know how much we depend on them to provide a tremendous amount of local information, and to do a lot of the routine work that we want done in a community. We are obliged to our hard-working parish council clerks, who do so much to ensure that rural areas run so effectively. We welcome the fact that the changes were made in response to some of the concerns that were raised. There is still some concern about how a system of appointed councillors will work, and about the distinctions between appointed and co-opted councillors. It is now clear that parishes with 150 or fewer electors will not simply be abolished and fall by the wayside, which is good, but to return to a question asked earlier this afternoon by my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), there is concern about the future security of parish councils. They may be left only with legal redress if they face dissolution, and my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) said that it was not unknown for local scores to be settled through that process. I would like an assurance from the Minister that when he comes back to the Dispatch Box in a couple of years, there will not have been a culling of parish councils. I would like an assurance that he does not wish for that to happen, and that it is not the Government's intention to have a series of tidying-ups, or to allow principal councils to go on that sort of spree. I do not think that that is the intention of the House, and it is certainly not the intention of the other place. Having expressed those concerns, I should add that in general the amendments that we are considering are a response to concerns, and the Opposition are content with them.