Clause 39
Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill
12:00 pm
Phil Woolas (Minister of State (Local Government & Community Cohesion), Department for Communities and Local Government; Oldham East and Saddleworth, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman chides me by saying petitions. His party would try to govern the country—God forbid if it was ever given the opportunity—by decision through petition. That would mean contradictory decisions every hour of the day. I was not going to mention which party was responsible for some of the local authority governance models that would result in the clogging up of decisions. One can imagine what I am talking about.
I am teasing the hon. Gentleman, but there is a serious point. If one was serious about devolving power over executive decisions and public finances without putting conditions on what executive arrangements there should be, the majority of authorities would opt for an indirectly elected leader and executive. In practice, the process of choosing that leader and executive will be the same as it is at the moment. However, there is an important change on accountability, which strikes at the heart of what the hon. Gentleman is trying to achieve when he talks about reconnecting or connecting executives with the public. That is why I refer to being unduly prescriptive.
Regarding the new types of executive models, we again have to strike a balance between allowing authorities to make innovative suggestions and not allowing the irresponsible devolution of powers. As we will consider later, the directly elected executive model, one of the three options in the Bill, has come from local authorities. It did not come directly from the debates within the Department, but from within the local authority family.
Andrew Stunell rose—