Local Government Bill [Lords]

Perhaps I should start by congratulating my opposite number, the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson), on having achieved the remarkable feat, in his first speech at the Dispatch Box in a debate of this kind—although we have addressed some previous business on a less contentious matter—of having managed to string together more clichés than I have ever heard in a single speech. He did so without any visible trace of irony whatever; that is what I find really impressive. I can see now that the route to advancement on the Opposition Front Bench is to adopt that well-known school of advocacy, ““If in doubt bluster, keep your head down, bluster a bit more and wave your arms around a bit.”” That is not so easy to achieve at my height, but if Members see something happening behind the Dispatch Box they will know that I have adopted it. This has been a rather short sharp debate, in more ways than one. I suppose it can be said that it has proved that it is possible for a dead cat bounce to have life. [Hon. Members: ““Cliché!””] It takes one to know one; I am just checking that hon. Members are still awake. I agree with the hon. Member for Derby North about one thing: in some ways, it is regrettable that we need to have this debate at all. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I love coming to the Chamber, but we might have found matters to occupy our time other than having to introduce this Bill and keep hon. Members here. It is worth looking at the history, so let me go back, as best I can, to the beginning. It was not all that long ago, although it may have seemed so to hon. Members at some points in the debate. The Bill is necessary to deal with the consequences of a nakedly political and questionable act by the Labour Government in their dying days, in ramming through a measure that they themselves had previously rejected—something that might be regarded as gerrymandering, according to any normal definition, and certainly as one of their ultimate U-turns. Back in 2006 local authorities were invited to put forward proposals for unitary authorities. Some of those have been dealt with and have gone through the process. The purpose of the Bill is to deal with those left outstanding at the end of that process. Let me explain why they are outstanding. Exeter and Norwich submitted unitary bids on the basis of their existing boundaries. In July 2007 the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears)—she still sits on the Opposition Benches, as far as I remember—judged that there was a risk of their bids not being achieved. Indeed, she concluded that Norwich city council's proposal was such that there was ““not a reasonable likelihood”” of its achieving the outcome specified by the five objective criteria that she had set, particularly the affordability criteria. She then asked for some further advice from the boundary committee. The right hon. Lady asked Exeter city council for extra information, which arrived in December, and concluded that its proposal, if implemented, was also unlikely to meet the affordability criteria. Confronted with what might have been a vaguely partisan dilemma, she thought that she would ask the boundary committee to explore the idea of unitaries across the rest of the county, but that did not work either.