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Local Government

I understand the hon. Lady's point about dogmatic rigidity, but it is important that we deliver a degree of consistency when we are making public policy decisions of this kind. Consistent themes run through all these examples, the most fundamental of which is that local people's views should be of paramount importance in respect of the shape of local government, and that is about not only its utility but its capacity to deliver a sense of allegiance, for it can have no political legitimacy if it cannot provide that.