---

Norfolk, Suffolk and Devon (Local Government)

Welcome to the Chair, Mr. Jones. You have joined a lively debate and we are delighted to have you with us. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) on securing this important debate. He has fought valiantly to raise the cause of Norfolk throughout this lamentable process and is a trenchant advocate for the case against the Government's behaviour. I am grateful to him for raising the issues. I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate, in particular the serried ranks of my hon. Friends who represent the three counties involved. They have reinforced the arguments compellingly and I hope that in time they will forgive me for not dwelling on each of their contributions in detail. The right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke) spoke in favour of unitaries and I can understand why, coming from his perspective. Arguments can be made for either side and we will have to beg to differ on their merits. I make only two observations. First, there are compelling grounds for saying that what happens to the two cities will have an impact on the surrounding shire counties. My experience of 16 years in local government is that shared services cannot be disaggregated without a knock-on effect. There are issues relating to large cities that are the centres of shire counties, but this is not the right way to deal with them. Both of the cities we are discussing are estimated to provide about 15 to 20 per cent. of the tax base and revenue for the surrounding counties. Because of the higher costs of delivering services in rural areas, removing them from the authority would be bound to have financial consequences for the surrounding areas.