Sustainable Communities Bill

The Minister is being generous and his comments will be useful in the debate that follows, but may I try to get absolute clarity on the point? Let us take the earlier example about the Highways Agency and a road. A local authority makes a proposal for the transfer of functions in relation to the management of the road, and it has to do so through the selector. My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd) and I have no problems with that, and I do not think our colleagues on the Liberal Benches do either. Let us suppose that the selector selects the proposal and it thus goes to the Secretary of State, who says yes. The Minister has clearly said—for which I am grateful—that if the function of running the road transfers from the Highways Agency to the local authority, the money devoted to running it will transfer, too. That is very good. I come to my next question. I do not know what existing statutes say about the duties and powers of the Highways Agency, but if it is charged under those statutes to run the road in a certain way and if the transfer of function occurs and the whole point of seeking the transfer of function was that the local authority wished to achieve the same objective of transport sustaining the community properly, but in a way that is not provided for in the legislation governing the Highways Agency, will the local authority, once the transfer of functions has occurred, be able to run the road in a different way from the way in which it was run by the Highways Agency? That is the nub of the issue.