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Norwich and Norfolk (Structural Changes) Order 2010

My Lords, of course the Government and the Secretary of State have taken appropriate legal advice. The question of the Government acting unlawfully is not one that we accept. I was trying to deal with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, and others, including the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, about not looking at such matters without taking account of what happens in the rest of the county. I agree. Clearly, there will be implications for local government in the remaining two-tier areas of the county. There should be no direct impact on the remaining district councils as their structures and responsibilities will not change, whereas there will be on the county council administration as its areas of responsibility will be greatly reduced. However, provided that the county council and city council in each case co-operate in the provision of upper-tier services across the county, there should be no negative impact on the standard of those services. Indeed, that presents the opportunity of a win-win situation. A number of noble Lords referred to the issue of directions and the experience of the department. The department has been in existence for only about four years. I stress that, although it is not common, directions across government departments have happened under previous Administrations—there is nothing unique about this. In relation to the advice that the Government have received, the Secretary of State considers that on balance there is a reasonable prospect of defending the judicial review brought by Devon and Norfolk county councils. A number of issues were raised around affordability. There is a danger that the term is used more generally or widely than the criteria suggest, because this is about transitional costs and the period over which they can be repaid. The noble Lord, Lord Burnett, talked about costs and the implications of proceeding with these matters. It is estimated that implementing a unitary Exeter and Norwich will cost £400,000 over the transitional period. However, we should remember that they will save £6.5 million every year. That is the key reason for our decision to focus on the medium and long term, rather than on short-term administrative implications. The noble Lord asked about consequent hikes in council tax. We have always made it clear that restructuring costs will be met locally, without increasing council tax. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich suggested that the proposals lacked coherence. I welcome his comments highlighting something that is truly important—namely, that the services for the people of the cities and counties are what matter. The unitary proposals will help to improve those services. The noble Lord, Lord Burnett, said that Total Place is not a good enough reason to allow a unitary Norwich and Exeter. I do not agree, but I do not have time to expand on that. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, asked why we were not considering issues around Suffolk. The issues are well known, and I will be happy to write to the noble Baroness given time constraints tonight. The noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, talked about the history of directions. As I said, DCLG has been in existence only since the summer of 2006. The noble Baroness also asked why the Government had legislated to rule the public out of consultations. Our whole approach has been locally driven. The proposals are not imposed by government: they are proposals from councils, which are representative of local people. It is not correct that the Government have legislated to exclude the public. The legislation provides for a consultation with such persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate. The Government's consultation—this deals with the point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers—sought views from councils representing local people and stakeholders, made clear that comments were welcome from anyone and asked councils to bring proposals to the attention of their communities. I will deal with the point about stakeholders made by the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers. The invitation states that for the purposes of consultation, stakeholders shall include all local authorities, the wider public sector, the police, the health service, learning and skills councils, RDAs, the business community and the voluntary and community sectors. It is time to close. We believe that the people of Exeter and Norwich, and the people in the surrounding county areas, will be best served by councils working in a partnership of equals between the urban core and the rural hinterland. We adopted an approach of carefully assessing each proposal against the five criteria. We gave careful consideration to the circumstances when there were compelling reasons to depart from the presumption that proposals that met the criteria should be implemented and those that did not should not be implemented. There were compelling reasons to depart. Our vision for these cities is that they should have a strong, independent council that has within its hands all the local levers of power necessary for the economic, social and environmental success of the city: a council that is at the heart of a complex network of council and local service providers, and which is able to drive the economic, social and environmental success not only of the city but of the wider county area. I urge noble Lords to vote for the Motion and oppose the amendment.