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Sustainable Communities Bill

I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as ever, for your chairmanship. This is an important private Member’s Bill, and we have made good progress. I am also grateful to Members for their assistance in that regard. New clause 5 and the amendments tabled in my name combine to ensure that the Bill refers consistently to ““local authorities”” rather than to ““principal councils””. The motive for that is to replace the present interpretation of ““local authority”” with a new interpretation which reads:"““Local authority means a county council in England, a district council, a London Borough council, the Common Council of the City of London, or the Council of the Isles of Scilly.””" That might seem dry and technical to hon. Members, and I shall move quickly on, but it is important that we get the definitions right. I do not think that I need to put any other definitions into Hansard for the record.