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Local Government (Devon, Norfolk and Suffolk)

I could not agree more. It is a fairly regrettable and bizarre state of affairs, and that brings me conveniently to the latest twist and turn of events. Having said that they intended to find certainty, the Secretary of State in relation to Norfolk and the Minister of State in relation to Devon—the Secretary of State fairly set out why he should not be involved in that matter—came, amazingly, to the same conclusion. They did not go ahead with the county-wide unitary structures that had, rightly or wrongly, been the preferred view of the boundary committee for England; they did not maintain the status quo, which had been ruled out but might have been an option; and they did not look at any other option. Instead, they decided to revert, suddenly and without any warning, to the two small city unitary proposals that had been ruled out before, leaving the remaining counties on a two-tier basis. It was a wholly new approach that had not been canvassed or significantly consulted on. That behaviour, coupled with, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, the expenditure of public money, triggered another fairly unprecedented development.