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Local Government (Devon, Norfolk and Suffolk)

That is perfectly true, and having set up a questionable set of rules to start with, the Government are now trying to change those rules to get themselves off the hook. It was interesting to see what some of the respected local government press had to say about this issue. The Municipal Journal had a headline along the lines of "Reorganisation descends into a Whitehall farce", which is about right. A respected columnist in the Local Government Chronicle, Mark Smulian, not unreasonably invoked the ghost of Governor Elbridge Gerry, the man who gave rise to the gerrymander. I regret to say that that is ultimately what we are talking about here—a sordid little gerrymander, carried out by Ministers to advance a narrow and sectional interest. They are flying against evidence and seeking to distort it when it does not suit them. When the rules get in their way, they seek unilaterally to change them. The Secretary of State has ignored all objective criteria and pushed ahead for one reason only: the sectional interests of the Labour party are put first. That is why the permanent secretary took the unusual step of requiring a direction, and why we are now seeing a Government in a desperate situation pursuing the politics of division, and pitting town against country. We raise this issue without any apology, and I am making it abundantly clear that we will press the matter to a Division, so that all hon. Members can stand up to be counted. The decision is not just thoroughly bad—we might disagree when a decision is 50:50 or 60:40—but utterly against the weight of all evidence. It is bad for the inhabitants of the counties and cities involved, and bad because it creates a very serious constitutional precedent indeed. For that decision to be taken in the dying days of this Parliament is close indeed to as grave an abuse of office by Ministers as I have seen in many a long day. I am sorry to have to say this, because I have always regarded the Ministers involved as decent and reasonable people even though I disagree with them, but in my judgment, the authors of that decision should be utterly ashamed of it.