Local Government Bill [HL]

I understand that perfectly well, but as we did not have the outcome of the judicial review at the time the orders were being made, we were in no different a situation than that of all the previous debates, in which I think the noble and learned Baroness did not take part, where a judicial review was running alongside a debate about particular orders. If she is alleging that we should have known the outcome of the judicial review before the judge made his determination, in that case none of the previous orders would equally have proceeded until the judge had made his determination. Had the noble and learned Baroness been involved in those previous procedures, she might be aware of that fact. So the judicial review ran simultaneously, as it did with all the other orders. As a result, because we could not and did not know the outcome of the judicial review before the orders were laid before Parliament, Parliament made its decision in the full light of information and after something like seven hours of debate. The judge then chose to overturn those orders. We could have argued it, but when the noble and learned Baroness says we could have gone to appeal, I should say that the costs of such an appeal would probably have been £500,000 or more, which would have had to be shared between two authorities. Such a sum would have represented between 5 per cent and 8 per cent on the district council tax. That is not something we can ask the citizens and ratepayers of Norwich to pay. As for the Department for Communities and Local Government, against which those judicial orders were made, with a change of government it is clearly impossible or at least unlikely that it is going to appeal. To that extent, I hope that the noble and learned Baroness will accept that her argument that these orders were always illegal is simply wrong. You only know them to be illegal when the judgment is made—and Parliament was making its decision before any such judgment was made.