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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, perhaps the noble Baroness has read something into the amendment that is not quite there. It does not say that the local authority would have one of its employees act as a person handling complaints. It simply says that a matter should be referred to a local authority. It would be quite possible for a local authority to have at its disposal a team of people acting voluntarily who would take on the responsibility of carrying out the task of dealing with complaints. There is not necessarily any expenditure implication for a local authority or body in this amendment, as I understand it; there is simply a responsibility for it to accept it. It can then deal with it in the way I have suggested.