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Local Government Bill [Lords]

I wish to make some progress and I hope to deal further with some of the points that the hon. Gentleman has raised. I will be happy to give way to him again later. The Government's assessment of the original bids in respect of Exeter and Norwich found that they satisfied all the criteria except for the payback period for the transition costs, which was estimated to be six years rather than five. However, given the small transition costs owing to the year-on-year savings—and given the economic circumstances at the time and the overriding priority of supporting economic growth and creating jobs—we believed that there were compelling reasons to create unitary authorities in Norwich and Exeter.