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Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I shall make a very brief intervention based on the last two speeches. I recognise the complication of relationships that extend beyond authority boundaries. In the notable book written by the father of the noble Viscount, Lord Slim, describing actions in which he fought between 1917 and 1943, he quotes at the beginning of a chapter what the official history says and then describes what happened at large in the event. It includes the memorable moment in Waziristan when a group of officers who are planning an attack on a rebel leader meet to discuss the plan. The father of the noble Viscount, Lord Slim, produces the memorable sentence: "““The British army is always required to fight uphill and at the juncture of the two or more maps””." The problem of the two or more maps is one which all of us who have had to deal with these things is familiar. I support the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, on the basis of another analogy. I was once responsible for securing the appointment of the chief executive of a Great British company to the board of another Great British company, but one which was in a technical field outside his own direct experience. At the end of his first board meeting, he told the secretary that the board’s agenda contained 89 acronyms that meant something to people in the company and that unless he was provided with a lexicon for them before the next meeting he would not bother to attend. In producing the lexicon, the secretary apologised because he had had to make inquiries about 55 of the 89 acronyms about which the chief executive had complained. There is an argument in favour of this sort of information being available. We cannot expect councillors to pass it on unless they have the information in the first place.