Local Government Bill [HL]

My Lords, again I have the pleasure of following the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, as I seem to be doing permanently on this Bill, and again, as previously, we are in full agreement. I could not have put any better what she has just said. In moving the amendment, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, said he accepts that we are where we are and that the amendment is about the future and not the past. But he was followed immediately by his noble friend Lord Howarth, who spent a considerable time telling us that it is all about the past and that he far from accepts that we are where we are. I think that the noble Lord on the Front Bench must be wishing that he could hide from his noble friend sitting two Benches behind him. I understand very well why noble Lords on the Benches opposite, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and others, believe that the previous proposals were right. I understand therefore why they believe that the Government are wrong to carry out the manifesto commitments of both parties in the coalition to get rid of them as soon as possible, but what I do not understand is why he cannot accept that we are where we are. That is simply not going to happen. I listened with great interest and some sympathy to all that the noble Lord said about the benefits of unitary government. As I declare almost every time I speak on this issue, I have been a member of a unitary council—as I still am—for many years, and there are benefits to it. But, as I also seem to have to keep saying, the future that lies before all local government and before the country over the next few years means that this really is not the time for us to be distracted into what is almost always, and certainly has been in the case of Norfolk and Devon, enormously time-consuming, expensive and perhaps above all emotionally draining exercises in this sort of boundary restructuring. What we need to concentrate on now is how councils, whether in two-tier or unitary areas, can work together by sharing services and, in some cases where appropriate, by sharing offices. They should not be arguing about expensive boundary changes and unitary restructuring. That is simply off the agenda. Should there ever be a time when this comes back on to the agenda, whether that is in the lifetime of this coalition Government, which I must say seems unlikely, or—