Sustainable Communities Bill

As always, my right hon. Friend puts it so much more eloquently than I could, and I entirely agree with his point. Throughout the country, other services are being lost—for example, with ambulance stations being removed in some communities. We have always been told that all these organisations are for our greater good, but when something like that happens, as it did in Hungerford 10 years ago, we see that the result is often a less than perfect service. In order to comply with Government targets on response times, it is much better for ambulances to be hanging around big urban areas such as Reading—and the people of Hungerford and other smaller towns across the country lose out. Whether we call them ““reforms””, ““reorganisations””, ““reconfigurations”” or whatever, they are always driven from the top down and they always militate against local people in smaller communities. They are too often done for the convenience of the organisation rather than for the people it serves. I would like to comment on an earlier intervention by the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) in which he spoke about traffic and congestion. I shall provide one example of how the Bill will help to resolve some of those problems. In Newbury some years ago, there was a movement plan. Consultants were brought in and a plan to improve the movement of traffic around the town was developed. A presentation was made, at which all the great and good were present, and everyone agreed that it was a good plan. At the end of the meeting, however, an official stood up and explained that the plan had to go to the Government office for the south-east and to the South East England regional assembly to have their imprimaturs put on it. I asked myself—a lowly citizen in those days before I was elected here—why on earth we live in a world in which a regional government, either the Government office or the regional assembly, has to tell us how the Bone Lane roundabout in the middle of Newbury is configured. That is ludicrous. The Bill provides an opportunity because, under it, local communities can be empowered to do things for themselves, which is why I commend it to the House. I could raise many other issues, but I want to give other hon. Members time to speak. We must pay attention to the enormous breadth of organisations that support the Bill. We must remember that hon. Members on both sides of the House support it. Ultimately, what it is all about is trusting local people to make the right decisions for their communities.