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Local Government (Devon, Norfolk and Suffolk)

We find ourselves involved in the second instalment of a three-round discussion on these proposals. Thanks to the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson), we had an opportunity to discuss them in Westminster Hall last week, and the order itself will be discussed in Committee within a matter of days. In Westminster Hall, however, we did not have the benefit of the Minister's view of where we had got to. As has been pointed out, the advice that she is sending out to councils appeared in writing a few hours ago. I hope that we will hear a slightly more cogent argument—[Hon. Members: "And some evidence."] Absolutely. We need to hear the evidence for why these proposals had to be brought forward at this juncture and rammed through before the general election. Sadly, however, I do not think that we are any further forward than we were at the conclusion of the proceedings in Westminster Hall. As the Minister rightly said, this has been a lengthy process, but the problem is that throughout it, the goalposts have continually been moved. It started with a tight fixed time scale, and other parts of the country wished to participate in the process at that stage. Bids from those areas therefore came forward quite rapidly, but they might have been of a different nature if there had been more time to consider which proposals were most appropriate. Those areas were under the impression that that was the only game in town, however. It then transpired that that was not the case. The next process entailed the boundary committee for England being asked to get involved, if the Government were unhappy with the bids. The boundary committee then looked at the evidence and came up with proposals for unitary counties, with which no one in the counties concerned was happy. There really was not a huge argument for unitary authorities in those areas.