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Local Government

I will not give way, given the length of time for which the hon. Gentleman spoke. However, he put his finger on one problem, which was that once anybody admitted that there had to be a unitary approach, not least when the county council voted, the difficulty of maintaining the consistency of the argument for an improved two-tier system was lost. It was a great shame that many people were tempted to support that and fell for the trap that was laid for them by a Labour party, politically driven agenda, which was to halve the number of Conservative activists through councillors in the county, and to ensure that there was a real problem in identifying where there would any kind of local accountability as part of the great aftermath of having lost any ability to impose a regionally elected solution on Cheshire. This is all part of a political agenda where inevitably no one ever votes for lower pay, lower pay-offs and lower pensions. This will all cost a lot more than the Government are pretending it will. Therefore, when this happens and the council tax is under pressure, it does not matter who is in charge—I would like to predict that it will be the Conservatives—it will be the Government's fault, and we will be able to say that with truth, because it is the Government who have engineered this expensive, unnecessary solution. We should reject it and take this last opportunity to stand up for our constituents and not fall for this terrible trap set by the Government, who do not like the idea of good, local democracy operating in Cheshire.