Clause 7
Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill
5:00 pm
Phil Woolas (Minister of State (Local Government & Community Cohesion), Department for Communities and Local Government; Oldham East and Saddleworth, Labour)
The short answer to that is common sense. If I explain what the clause is trying to do, that may help the Committee.
The clause allows the Secretary of State to implement proposals for a single tier of local government, as the Committee is aware. Those may be the proposals received from local authorities, or alternative proposals made by the boundary committee. Proposals may be implemented as I said before with or without modification. That is to allow the Secretary of State to implement the proposals with changes—for example, following advice from the boundary commission she may wish to amend the boundary of the proposed area. Any order for structural change will be subject to the affirmative procedure, as we will debate under clause 173, if the hon. Member for Lichfield wishes to make a note. Any such order will therefore be subject to further scrutiny by the House.
If a proposal that the Secretary of State has decided to implement has not been submitted jointly by all the authorities affected by it, she may not implement it unless she has first consulted on the proposal as required by clause 4. If she has asked the boundary committee for advice by a certain date, she may implement a proposal or an alternative proposal submitted only once six weeks have passed from that date.
The clause also specifies that the Secretary of State may decide to take no action on a proposal, as the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire said. She may decide to do that where she considers that the case for a single tier of local government for a particular area has not been made. The clause therefore specifies that the Secretary of State “may” implement proposals that she receives for a single tier of local government. The provision to which the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire has drawn attention simply points out the face that the Secretary of State may decide that the case has not been made—that even though the alternative route has been used, the case is not there. I would have thought that he would welcome that option.