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Norwich and Norfolk (Structural Changes) Order 2010

I live in Norwich, which, like Exeter, is a cathedral and a university city. It is an anciently established capital of its region and a modern driver of the regional economy. Both cities are significant cultural centres and both contain significant urban deprivation. Both have the experience of many hundreds of years of self-government and matured civic identity. The history of those two cities since 1974 when they were stripped of their county borough status and unitary powers has been, in the view of those cities, an aberration from their proper course. Surely it should be axiomatic that cities of this character, stature, complexity and size should be self-governing. The onus is on those who object to the restoration of self-government to these cities to make their case, and to do so, as my noble friend Lord Whitty has just said, with substantive arguments and not just bureaucratic, procedural or accountancy objections or complaints about the Secretary of State. Certainly, suggestions that it was improper on the part of the Secretary of State to proceed with these orders or that Parliament should not proceed with them are wrong. The Merits Committee is at pains to suggest that it is not the committee’s role to reach a definitive view on whether unitary status is right in these circumstances but rather to draw the special attention of the House to issues that it may wish to take into account in reaching its decisions. Similarly, the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments draws attention to the judicial review launched by the county councils and other process factors, of which Parliament should be aware, but this is a matter for Parliament to decide. Judicial review can run its course but it should not prevent Parliament from taking its decision. It is significant that the High Court hearings will not be until 28 and 29 April and that the judicial review is not being run in parallel in with the parliamentary process, as has commonly occurred in the past. The timing suggests that the judicial system believes that Parliament should be allowed to exercise its responsibility. I cannot recall an instance when a unitary proposal has not been challenged through judicial review, as tactical challenges have been launched by Norfolk and Devon. Nor can I recall a single instance when judicial review has prevented a unitary organisation from proceeding. It has been suggested by the noble and learned Baroness and the Conservatives that there should be more consultation, but this process has been going on for three years. The Conservative threat to reverse the decision, if they get the opportunity, would prolong that even further. These delays are blighting for the two cities; it is overdue for us to take a decision. We should debate the real merits of the issue—that is what we should have been debating—but I have heard no explanation this afternoon why the people of Devon and Exeter and Norfolk and Norwich would be worse off if the two cities had unitary status. If anybody can make a convincing case that unitary status for Exeter and Norwich would be detrimental to the people of Devon and Norfolk—