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Local Government (Devon, Norfolk and Suffolk)

I was going to address that point in a moment, but it seems appropriate to do so now, because I observed a very strange thing. I was trying to work out what had happened since 2007, when the same Government —albeit with a certain change of personnel—rejected those two unitary bids on the ground that Norwich and Exeter were not capable of meeting two of the three criteria. I am conscious of something other than the change of personnel, however. The Labour party has lost one third of its seats in those two cities. It has lost a parliamentary seat, and a certain injustice has been shown in this world, because I have not yet mentioned that there was also a proposal for Suffolk. It was thought that there should be reorganisation in Suffolk, too, but that has been shelved. The people of Suffolk are not to be treated to a partial unitary reorganisation in which an area is ripped out of the rest of the county—rather like bleeding chunks of Wagner, as Ernest Newman once described it—and separated off. They are not going to have it, Instead, they are to be treated to an entirely new beast: a county constitutional convention. Nothing quite so grand as a national constitutional convention, mark you, but a new, municipal constitutional concept. All that demonstrates, however, is that, first, the Government have exceedingly inconsistent standards, and, secondly, there is rough justice in this Government. My hon. Friend was right to refer to the two most satisfied people, because if one is or was in the Cabinet, one gets a unitary authority, but if one is a mere Under-Secretary, all one gets is a talking shop.