Localism Bill

I have a question on this which arises from the extremely helpful statement that my noble friend made this afternoon. This part of the Bill contains the provisions about the roles of mayors and chief executives being combined. My noble friend has indicated that that in fact is not going to happen. I have just revisited the amendments that were down to deal with that, and they would have taken out large parts of the clauses that we are now discussing. If they had been taken in a different order, I suspect that the Chairman would have had to say that, if the amendment was carried and all these parts taken out, the amendments moved and spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, would have fallen with them. As it is, that has not happened yet. Of course, what we do not know—and I hope my noble friend at some stage will be able to tell us—is how the Government intend to implement the concession that she announced earlier today, to my great delight, that the part of the Bill dealing with mayors and chief executives was going to be dropped. I hope my noble friend sees the difficulties we are in: we are discussing a clause, much of which may disappear. I do not want to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, because he has made two or three very valid and interesting points, but it is because of the order in which these have been taken that he is able to discuss those things at all, because otherwise they might have fallen with the amendment to take out the combined roles.