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Local Government

I am conscious of the number of right hon. and hon. Members who wish to participate in this debate and will do my level best to keep my comments short. However, I should like to set out one or two important issues. The Minister and I have got to know each other quite well in this round of local government restructurings. He knows that I have every respect for him, but when he tried to set out the proposition that the proposal somehow walked through the door of the Department for Communities and Local Government, without any prompting and without his wanting or acknowledging it, he did not do himself justice. The fact is that the Government have set up Henry Ford's consultation: we can have any form of authority as long as it is unitary. The consultation really is as simple as that, and to suggest that the proposal is uninspired by a heavy hint from the Government is, to be as polite as I can be, disingenuous.