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Local Government (Devon, Norfolk and Suffolk)

No, I was not saying that, and I am surprised that the hon. Lady could possibly interpret my comments that way. She is highly experienced in local government matters, and as Chairman of the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government I honestly think she can do herself more credit, with respect. That is clearly not what I am saying—indeed, I was saying the reverse. The twists and turns have not quite finished yet. The statutory instrument for the unitary authorities was of course laid in the Commons, but it was also laid in the Lords, and the other place has a Select Committee on the Merits of Statutory Instruments. Generally it does not make any particular report on them, but for only the third time that I recall, in this case the Merits Committee drew the special attention of the other place to the statutory instrument because of its concerns about it. The summary of the report of about 170 pages that the Committee produced states:""The Department has proposed the creation of two unitary councils…which do not conform with all of the Department's five published criteria. In these circumstances we would have expected the DCLG to have set out a more detailed case for the proposed course of action than the assertion of 'compelling reasons' with little supporting evidence. The parts of the explanatory material to which this Committee routinely looks for evidence to support a policy proposal, in particular the Impact Assessment and the outcome of consultation, do not in our view combine to make a clear, evidence-backed case for the proposal."" The Merits Committee asked the Department to produce some evidence, but stated:""The Department's response…has failed to provide more robust evidence."" It therefore concluded:""These Orders are drawn to the special attention of the House"—" the other place—""on the grounds that they give rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House and that they may imperfectly achieve their policy objective."" Given the rather guarded language that is used in the other place, in our robust words down here we might say that the Merits Committee was saying that the process stinks. It is a departure from the norm and there is no evidence for it. Ministers were asked to provide more evidence, but what the Merits Committee got was simply a recycling of what had already been stated, in which contradictions abound. It was made clear at the beginning that a proposal that did not meet the five criteria would not proceed. As their Lordships' Merits Committee pointed out, the proposal being adopted is "contrary to previous practice." The Committee said that it would be helpful if the DLCG would""give a much more explicit analysis"." Instead, it found:""The DCLG response…simply repeats the wording of the written statement. It does not estimate any projected cost savings or efficiency gains."" That sums it up—it was a blunt, almost insolent response to a serious piece of work by the Merits Committee of the other House.