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Sustainable Communities Bill

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the recent innovations that has been to the advantage of local accountability has been the formation of parish and town plans? That has allowed a wider group of people to get involved in deciding what is wrong in local communities, not just the usual suspects who get involved in parish politics, such as the wife of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley in a ““Vicar of Dibley””-like scenario. [Interruption.] I was not disparaging my hon. Friend’s wife at all, but suggesting that sometimes the framework of parish councils means that more people need to get to grips with what are the problems in the community and finding solutions to them.