Amendment 2 was tabled by Mr. Raynsford. Although it is an improvement on the existing wording of clause 8, the solution to the problem is better resolved by the proposal of my hon. Friend Justine Greening to remove clause 8 in its entirety.

The clause deals with the membership of overview and scrutiny committees, and it seeks to amend section 21 of the Local Government Act 2000 by adding a regulation-making power that would enable the Secretary of State to make regulations to

"allow an overview and scrutiny committee of a local authority, or a sub-committee of such a committee, to include members of the authority's executive when the committee (or, as the case may be, sub-committee) is not exercising functions in relation to the executive; and...make such provision as appears to the Secretary of State about any conflict of interest arising."

The key to the problem is in the final phrase,

"any conflict of interest arising."

Either we effectively go for separation of powers and have an overview and scrutiny committee for a local authority executive, or we have the old-fashioned system, which I prefer, of committees, so that all members of the local authority have the same status in holding one another to account-obviously, some will run the council or be the leader or chairman of a committee.

I am not sure that the overview and scrutiny process is the right solution, but I would not wish to be prescriptive. Rather, I would like less prescription, and to allow more local authorities to revert to the old committee structure if that is what they want to do. However, if we are going to have overview and scrutiny committees, it would be wrong to allow the executive to take places on them, certainly if they had voting powers, as envisaged in clause 8.