Maria Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Children and Families), Department for Education and Skills; Liverpool, Garston, Labour)

I beg to move amendment No. 130, in clause 4, page 3, line 36, leave out ‘are’ and insert ‘may be’.

It is a pleasure, Mr. Amess, to serve on the Committee with you in the Chair, keeping us in good order. You are very sharp this morning, as we have already noticed. I did not have a chance to welcome you on Tuesday, although I thought about sending you a note.

Clause 4 enables local authorities and their partners to share their resources and to pool budgets, allowing them to deliver the fully integrated front-line services that we all agree have huge benefits for young children. That is in keeping with the existing operation of section 10 of the Children Act 2004, under which the arrangements for children’s trusts are made.

The amendment will allow funds pooled by a local authority and its partners to be spent in ways other than just on the functions of the authority and their relevant partners when they are jointly exercised. The current wording allows funds to be used only if they are spent on the functions of the authority and its partners which are jointly exercised. That is more prescriptive than we intended, so I bring the happy news that the amendment will correct a drafting error and allow the local authority and its partners more leeway to pool resources as fully as they decide is necessary. The amendment is permissive. It changes the power given to local authorities from a prescriptive one to a permissive one.

I hope that the Committee agrees that that will maximise flexibility so that local authorities and their partners can work together to achieve the ends that we have repeatedly said we want. I also hope that without too much ado I can persuade the Committee to agree to the amendment.

Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing & Shoreham, Conservative)

That was a long explanation for the addition of two words and the subtraction of one. The amendment seems amenable and we support it. Perhaps the Government will reciprocate on one of our amendments in future.