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Communities in Control

My hon. Friend has extensive experience of local government, as do a number of people in the House, including myself. I think that I am one of the relatively few members of the Cabinet who have been local authority councillors. Indeed, I have also been a local authority officer, so I am a real champion of local government. He made a point about ensuring that there are no new burdens, which is the phrase that we use, and I certainly give him an undertaking that across Government we will make absolutely sure that when we ask local government to do new things, local government has the finance to do them.