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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

With the leave of the House, I shall respond briefly. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) for believing that for once, as he says, I got the balance right. I thank him for that. I have been a long-standing and strong supporter of town and parish councils, but I cannot give the guarantees that the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) was urging on me. Decisions in future will be a matter for the principal authorities, not for Ministers. It is they, not Ministers, who will determine the number of parish councils in the future. On the hon. Gentleman's question about names, all parishes within a particular group need to have the same style or the same name. It will be the grouped parish council which covers all the parishes that will make that decision in circumstances where there may be differences of opinion. I hope that those responses are helpful to Members on the points that they raised.