Clause 6
Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill
4:45 pm
Phil Woolas (Minister of State (Local Government & Community Cohesion), Department for Communities and Local Government; Oldham East and Saddleworth, Labour)
The Secretary of State is obliged to consider those representations, but the purpose of the procedure is that those would have been made prior to the ones from the boundary committee. I suspect that the hon. Gentleman is wary of the boundary committee making an alternative proposal outsidethe expected remit of the proposals that have been consulted on. The boundary committee, in its consultation period, has to pay regard to the representations that are made. The idea of the further four weeks is to give interested parties time to comment on the tidying up of loose ends in areas that may have not been foreseen by the boundary committee—the unintended consequences, rather than the substance, of the proposals that it is obliged to take into account in its consultation period.