Wiltshire (Structural Change) Order 2008

rose to move, as an amendment to the Motion, at end to insert ““but this House calls on Her Majesty’s Government to withdraw the draft order and not to lay an amended draft order until the Court of Appeal has issued its judgment in Congleton Borough Council and Shrewsbury & Atcham Borough Council v The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, for those who were not able to be in Grand Committee last Thursday, perhaps it would be helpful if I just mentioned the three points that were raised regarding Wiltshire’s objection to the order. The first was cost; the consensus is that Wiltshire County Council has grossly underestimated the cost. The second point, which is the substantive one with regard to my amendment, relates to acceptance. Prior to the consultation, the second objective of all these orders was stated to be that the proposals must be, "““supported by a broad cross section of partners and stakeholders””." In the discussion that the noble Baroness and I had in Grand Committee last Thursday, she was kind enough to acknowledge, having twice stressed that one-third of the respondents from Wiltshire had been in favour of the plan, that two-thirds had been against the plan. I just point out to the Minister that two-thirds is twice as much as one-third. That is fairly simple mathematics, which even somebody like me can cope with. The two boroughs in question are not in Wiltshire, but the result of the court case will affect all these orders, so I hope that I am allowed to speak on Wiltshire’s behalf by referring to Congleton and Shrewsbury and Atcham. The position as I understand it—I do not speak as a lawyer—is that the case went to court in September and Mr Justice Underhill upheld the Government’s case on all three grounds. However, the councils were granted leave to appeal. I come back to one of the original objectives, which was to achieve broad consensus. The councils argued that the original wording meant that there must be support for a proposal before it could go forward to implementation. The Secretary of State changed that to claim that, if the proposals were implemented, the support would be forthcoming afterwards. This is slightly curious. The court conceded that the criteria had been changed but claimed that the Secretary of State was entitled to change her mind on the criteria as the process unfolded. The plaintiffs argued that such a claim was contrary to the concept of legitimate expectations. I realise that this is sub judice and that it is completely inappropriate to go into the pros and cons of the case itself. The noble Baroness advised the Grand Committee last Thursday that, although the appeal was heard at the end of January, that we do not know the result yet. However, she was kind enough to say that the result was—she did not say ““confidently””, but let me put the word in her mouth—expected ““before Easter””. That is less than four weeks away. The purpose of my amendment is strongly to ask the Government: what is the hurry for the sake of four weeks? This Government are not the only Government to have found themselves with a slightly bloody nose vis-à-vis judgments from the courts and having to reverse what I would call political decisions. I really think that it might help the Government if they just held hard the matter for four weeks and waited on the result of the appeal; then, everyone will know exactly where they stand. I beg to move. Moved, as an amendment to the Motion, at end to insert ““but this House calls on Her Majesty’s Government to withdraw the draft order and not to lay an amended draft order until the Court of Appeal has issued its judgment in Congleton Borough Council and Shrewsbury & Atcham Borough Council v The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.””—(Lord Geddes.)