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Localism Bill

My Lords, I cannot resist the temptation, so clearly I am going to have to go shortly. Meanwhile, I have been tempted. Perhaps I may ask a possibly elementary and perhaps even naïve question. How does all this relate to the fact that, in my understanding, and certainly in my neck of the woods, the concept of parish is basically an ecclesiastical one? Indeed I am slightly surprised to find that the Bishops’ Bench is empty during this debate. Is the parish essentially an ecclesiastical concept? Whether it is or is not, this clearly raises the possibility of parishes being extended in a rather curious way, by a proposition coming from an adjacent district—albeit requiring the consent of the parish council—which creates a parish council that then, by definition, extends into more than one parish. I find this very curious. If we are going down this path, which I do not object to in principle, at the very least we need some different terminology, because it would not be a parish council as normally understood in my kind of area. My second point—noble Lords will be glad to hear that it is my last one—is that subsection (4) states that there must be a community governance review if there is a request for one, and that if there is a review, there must be a presumption that a new parish will be created. Why? Why cannot a review come to the conclusion that the world is all right as it is and that no change is needed? Whatever the merits of the intended fundamental thrust of this amendment, the amendment needs a lot of looking at.