Local Government Bill [HL]

In our debate on the orders put forward on 22 March, I pointed out that the only effect of approving those orders may well be to deny people in Exeter and Norwich the right to elect their councillors in May, when they would normally have done so, when many other local authorities did so and when they were also voting in the general election. Of course, it would have been much cheaper to have held those elections together on that day. That is why I continue to think that it would have been better if those orders had not been approved and the fatal amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Tope had been carried. However, because those orders were not blocked and because, as so many people predicted, they were struck down by the High Court, additional costs and additional stresses are now being unnecessarily incurred. I would be interested to see what a report on costs incurred would show. It does not seem right to me to legislate for the Secretary of State to lay such a report before Parliament. No doubt the issue of costs will be raised in the future and there will be many attempts to apportion blame for them. My conscience is clear on the matter of costs. We need to move on and this is an unnecessary amendment. The sort of information that such a report would lay before Parliament should be available to all of us anyway, but in relation to costs and having listened to the recent contributions, I feel that some apology should be forthcoming from those who were responsible in the department and in the committees of local government, who got us into this mess at the time.