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Cheshire (Structural Changes) Order 2008

My Lords, I will not be supporting the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Wade, or the additional amendments tabled by my noble friends. I do not know Cheshire well enough to be in any position to speak, and it would be impertinent of me to talk about boundaries and the particular alignment of districts, the political history, and the changes of political control which have produced alternative voices on reorganisation issues. But perhaps I may make a few comments about process as I understand it from the papers I have studied and the careful attention I have paid to the debate tonight. I sympathise with the noble Lord, Lord Wade, and my noble Lord Harrison on their instinctive feel for the history of the historic county of Cheshire, but I understand that the county of Cheshire is not being split into two. That somehow assumes that only the county is a local authority, and that it is being divvied up in some way. In fact, under this order, seven councils are to become two councils. Moreover, the notion that Cheshire has been an unchanging historic entity over the centuries does not conform to my understanding. Changes have already taken place in the historic county of Cheshire, in 1974 and again in the mid-1990s with the Banham review, when I believe my noble friend Lord Hoyle successfully won the case for Warrington being given independent unitary status. These things change over time as populations and business pressures change, and as needs alter. I understand that there was always the option of no change at all. My honourable friend in the other place, Mr Healey, extended an invitation to local authorities, saying that it was up to them whether they responded to seeking the unitary structures that, like the noble Lord, Lord Wade, I support. I believe the county council initially proposed a unitary council and that as a result, some of the alternative proposals for two or three unitaries, were brought up—