Local Government Bill [Lords]

I am sorry if levity got in the way of my answer, but I shall give the same basic answer now. The Bill finishes the process I outlined. It would be theoretically possible to start the process again, were someone brave enough to come through my door to suggest that we throw £40 million of council tax payers' money away. The Bill stops the process in respect of the counties I mentioned, but it kills only one zombie—it does not mean that another zombie will not turn up in due course. We want to make local authorities genuine leaders of their local communities, with a real say in the issues that matter to local people, such as housing, planning and the local economy, and even the NHS. Instead of making councils turn themselves inside out in response to the whims of a Secretary of State, we are giving them the freedom, the power and the responsibility to decide for themselves what they need to do. Of course, it is only common sense that through closer collaboration and more joint working, councils can not only save money, but improve the services on offer to local people. They do not have to become unitary to do that, or to spend £40 million getting there, or to embark on a lengthy, expensive and disruptive centrally imposed process. Most councils are ready to come together and already do so by sharing chief executives, pooling back-office functions or even departments such as planning, and conducting joint procurement. I welcome that, and we know that it will make a huge difference. The Local Government Association has said that joining up services could save around £5 billion a year. Councils are working to eliminate every trace of waste and re-examining how they work and the way in which every service is delivered. They are concentrating on becoming more effective and more productive than ever before, but they are doing so without the Secretary of State breathing down their necks, telling them exactly what to do, when to do it, and most corrosively of all, how to do it. They know that there are more effective ways to go about that than putting themselves through the lengthy and expensive rigmarole of restructuring. People want to see their councils saving money by concentrating on what really matters to them. I do not think there are many council tax payers who would put restructuring at the top of their wish list. The proposals for local government restructuring were nothing but a wasteful and unnecessary distraction in these straitened times. The £40 million that the process would have cost is the equivalent of the entire residential care budget in Devon for a year. The money, time and effort that might have been invested in shuffling the deckchairs can now be invested in facing up to the challenges of the future. I commend the Bill to the House.