---

Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

There is more merit in that particular justification, but the first one that my hon. Friend chose to use was not especially strong. It is an approach that has been used elsewhere in Government: in the coerced stock transfer of council houses away from good housing authorities because a number of authorities have not been adequate in the past. The same also applied in relation to the PPI forums in Leicestershire, which followed the CHCs. They, too, were effective, well supported by volunteers and professional. Over the years that they existed, they did an exceptionally good job. I have some contacts with key people at the head of those PPIs, some of whom are former work colleagues, and I do not accept that it was necessary to scrap them, but the Bill will do just that. I have been fact finding about the attitude of the volunteers involved in the PPIs to see what they think of the Bill now it has reached the final leg of its passage through Parliament. There is good news for the Minister, and I know that he would expect that. The broad view is that the Lords have made some useful improvements in this section of the Bill, but I seek assurances from the Minister in three specific areas. If he is unable to respond immediately, because the information is not available or the time is not sufficient, I hope that he will write to me with the reassurances that I seek. Firstly, because LINks are based on local authorities, there is a serious risk that the excellent work done by some of the PPIs—I instance an acute PPI forum, the foundation ones and those for mental health trusts—in Leicestershire, and no doubt elsewhere, will be diluted or lost in the creation of the LINks. I hope to hear more from the Minister about how he intends to ensure that LINks set up joint arrangements to maintain and enhance the work that has been so well received and of such a high standard in my area. Secondly, the Bill is vague, perhaps inevitably so, on the membership of LINks. It would be impractical for that to continue for a lengthy period. Will the Minister say what the nature of the guidance will be to circumvent that problem? We cannot be certain that LINks, with their new membership, will be as effective as the bodies that they are replacing. My third and final point is that various reassurances were given, and promises made, in the other place about how the governance of LINks will be robust and improved, and that firm guidance and detailed regulations will be provided to bring that about. I would like to know the Minister's intended approach to that and the proposed sequence of events. We are on community health councils mark 2, to a certain extent, and no one wants LINks to be set up to fail. It is hugely important that they have the scrutiny role that their two predecessor organisations were designed to bring to the NHS, but much depends on the guidance and regulations. They will probably be floated in late on a Thursday evening and go undiscussed by the main Chamber, but we want to know what the Minister's approach will be and how he intends to avoid the risks and concerns to which I have briefly alluded.