Local Government Bill [Lords]

No; I am going to carry on. [Interruption.] Hon. Members should calm down for a moment. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) has first-hand experience of the benefits of the unitary council that was created by a Conservative Government back in 1997. During the recent by-election, he had the opportunity to speak to local people in Norwich and it is clear from what he said that those people had no truck with the Government's proposals to deny their right to self-determination. The hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) tried, in spite of the evidence, to portray the Conservatives as the defenders of localism, but that could not be further from the truth. He suggested that Labour has no business trying to claim that title, but we have demonstrated, through our period in government and our commitment to local government, that we are the party that genuinely deserves the crown when it comes to supporting localism. We have supported democratic localism: a Labour Government initiated the whole neighbourhood working and neighbourhood regeneration approach and supported local government with significant funding streams. The hon. Gentleman has the temerity to lecture us about top-down reorganisation when he is supporting the biggest ever top-down reorganisation of the national health service since it was created by the Labour party more than 60 years ago! Finally, let me address the comments of the hon. Member for Norwich South (Simon Wright), who wants to have his cake and eat it. He said that he was sorry that we are where we are but went on to extol the virtues of unitary councils. He supports the unitary council in Norwich but he has clearly been leaned on by his Conservative masters to dance to the Tory tune—as the Liberal Democrats have done ever since they signed up to the coalition agreement. The Bill belies an underlying authoritarian streak in the Secretary of State: it is not so much localism, localism, localism as diktat, diktat, diktat.