Manchester City Council Bill [Lords](By Order)

I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is being very generous. The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) is more knowledgeable than most of us on this issue, but the problem is that there is as yet no evidence, as far as I am aware, on the statistics. I am prepared to be proved wrong, but I looked quickly to see whether there was any. I have just asked the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) whether there was any such information from London, and she was not aware of any. That is one of the problems—we just do not know. Okay, we can say that it is early days and that Durham university may come up with more information, but it is not a convincing argument to say of such legislation, ““Well, it must be making a difference; that's why we introduced it.”” Does the hon. Gentleman not understand that the way to do such things is based on logic, argument and statistics?