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Legislative debate on Tuesday, 5 February 2008, in the House of Commons, led by John Healey. The answering member was Robert Neill.

Local Government

Draft SI on Wiltshire (Structural Change). Debate on a motion to approve. Objection taken. Division deferred to 6 February. Agreed to by 269 votes to 158.

Secondary information

Type
Parliamentary proceeding
Reference
471 c907-29 
Session
2007-08
Department
Department for Communities and Local Government
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Related items
Local Government
Wednesday, 6 February 2008
Parliamentary proceedings
House of Commons
Wiltshire (Structural Change) Order 2008
Tuesday, 8 January 2008
Statutory instruments
House of Commons
House of Lords
Proceeding contributions
James Gray | 471 c918 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Lady is making some general points, which are no doubt very interesting to her listeners, b...
Julia Goldsworthy | 471 c917-8 (Link to this contribution) I shall keep my remarks brief as I know that many hon. Members wish to speak on matters that are of ...
Show all contributions (55)
Robert Key | 471 c919-21 (Link to this contribution) Wiltshire never has been, is not now and never will be an easy county to administer. We are proud of...
Julia Goldsworthy | 471 c918-9 (Link to this contribution) As I said, that is a matter to be decided at the local level. I have absolutely no intention of pres...
James Gray | 471 c922 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend correctly indicated that I did not go to see the Minister and that throughout I have ...
Marquess of Lothian | 471 c921-2 (Link to this contribution) I am glad to follow my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Robert Key), who strongly...
Andrew Murrison | 471 c924-6 (Link to this contribution) It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) and my right h...
Marquess of Lothian | 471 c922-3 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making his position clear—[Laughter.]—and I said it with a strai...
Robert Neill | 471 c917 (Link to this contribution) I made that caveat, but the provisions are very similar and run through all the orders. I wished to ...
James Gray | 471 c926-7 (Link to this contribution) I rise briefly to explain why, unlike my three hon. Friends who have spoken convincingly of their re...
John Healey | 471 c928-9 (Link to this contribution) I shall attempt to deal with the points that have been raised. First, I should like to pay tribute t...
Robert Syms | 471 c927-8 (Link to this contribution) I hope that my colleagues from Wiltshire will forgive me for speaking for a minute before the Minist...
John Healey | 471 c910-1 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend no doubt speaks from his own experience. Our approach has been set out for some time,...
Andrew Murrison | 471 c911 (Link to this contribution) Will the Minister clarify that? I happen to be president of the Wiltshire association of local counc...
John Healey | 471 c911 (Link to this contribution) There was wide support from business in the area. The association of local councils expressed a rang...
John Healey | 471 c909 (Link to this contribution) I am not quite sure what point the hon. Gentleman is trying to make. I have clearly stated that from...
Robert Neill | 471 c909 (Link to this contribution) I am sorry to trouble the Minister again, and I am grateful to him for his patience in giving way, b...
John Healey | 471 c910 (Link to this contribution) I have been getting used to the hon. Gentleman in the short time he has been in his shadow role. He ...
David Drew | 471 c910 (Link to this contribution) I presume that there is some underpinning evidence that unitary authorities perform better than two-...
John Healey | 471 c910 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is right, and because he follows such matters closely he will be able to track this b...
John Healey | 471 c914 (Link to this contribution) That is certainly the intention, and it is clear in the order that that should be the case. The ord...
Julia Goldsworthy | 471 c914 (Link to this contribution) The order sets out exactly how many people should be on the implementation executive and from which ...
John Healey | 471 c913-4 (Link to this contribution) I am perfectly open about this. Essentially, it was a toss-up. There was an argument for saying ““Le...
John Healey | 471 c912-3 (Link to this contribution) I will take your advice to the House as applying to my responses, too, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I apologi...
Dan Rogerson | 471 c913 (Link to this contribution) Will the Minister explain why the county council will, in fact, continue in a legal sense, even if i...
Robert Neill | 471 c912 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again. I want to raise a point that is not unique to th...
Speaker | 471 c912 (Link to this contribution) Order. Interventions need to be short if some hon. Members from Wiltshire are going to be heard.
John Healey | 471 c911-2 (Link to this contribution) If the hon. Gentleman wants more detail, I shall provide it later. I have dealt at some length with...
John Healey | 471 c911 (Link to this contribution) I thought that I had been clear. A range of views was expressed—some were supportive and others were...
Speaker | 471 c917 (Link to this contribution) Order. Before the hon. Gentleman responds, may I just say that while it is obviously important that ...
Robert Neill | 471 c915 (Link to this contribution) I am sorry that the hon. Lady uncharacteristically seeks to take a cheap shot on that issue. The pri...
Robert Key | 471 c915 (Link to this contribution) May I just aim off a little when the hon. Lady speaks like that? I should point out that Salisbury d...
Robert Neill | 471 c915-7 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. It may engender a modicum of silence from fur...
John Healey | 471 c917 (Link to this contribution) I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will make that point in subsequent debates, but I hope that he wil...
Robert Neill | 471 c914-5 (Link to this contribution) The Minister is certainly right to observe that restructurings of this kind are naturally unsettling...
John Healey | 471 c915 (Link to this contribution) Does the hon. Gentleman not believe that the system of 20 community forums and the strength of the s...
Robert Neill | 471 c915 (Link to this contribution) Because there is regrettably a dearth of specific evidence to back up those assertions, I must say t...
Julia Goldsworthy | 471 c915 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman is clearly setting out his party's cynicism about the proposed unitary reform acr...
Andrew Murrison | 471 c909 (Link to this contribution) The Minister appears to be waving this off as if the Government are not supposed to be taking any vi...
Simon Hughes | 471 c909 (Link to this contribution) I have listened carefully to what the Minister has said about assessing opinion. Can he tell us, so ...
John Healey | 471 c909 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful to the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) for taking such a...
Marquess of Lothian | 471 c908 (Link to this contribution) I have a factual question, to which I hope the Minister can give me a factual answer. He will rememb...
John Healey | 471 c908 (Link to this contribution) There was indeed a MORI survey—it was an opinion survey, not a poll. That was an element of the evid...
Andrew Murrison | 471 c908 (Link to this contribution) Has the Minister taken any account of the MORI poll conducted among Wiltshire residents in 2006? I s...
John Healey | 471 c907-8 (Link to this contribution) The question of broad support is a judgment that we made on the evidence submitted to us. Originally...
John Healey | 471 c907 (Link to this contribution) May I finish this sentence? The distinctive and different thing about this process is that, unlike p...
John Healey | 471 c907 (Link to this contribution) When we launched the process in October 2006, we made it clear that whether councils submitted propo...
John Healey | 471 c907 (Link to this contribution) I beg to move,"That the draft Wiltshire (Structural Change) Order 2008, which was laid before this H...
Marquess of Lothian | 471 c907 (Link to this contribution) The Minister has just made an assertion that the county council consulted local people. Will he give...
James Gray | 471 c911 (Link to this contribution) I intervene diffidently because I am halfway towards supporting the Minister's position and I perhap...
John Healey | 471 c908-9 (Link to this contribution) The citizens did not disappear. Our approach was to look at the range of support that might be expre...
Robert Key | 471 c911 (Link to this contribution) Annexe B of the Department's impact assessment lists 53 organisations, which are described as ““stak...
Robert Neill | 471 c907 (Link to this contribution) I want to press the point about consultation a little; after all, this is the first of a number of s...
Subjects
Cost effectiveness Local government Reorganisation Unitary councils Wiltshire Wiltshire County Council
Legislation
Wiltshire (Structural Change) Order 2008
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Parliamentary proceeding on www.publications.parliament.uk