Localism Bill

The noble Lord is forgiven: blessed is the sinner that repenteth. He is absolutely right in what he says. I, too, was looking at this briefing—I was in fact in Brussels until this morning and looked at it coming back—which, like the noble Lord, makes the point: "““The most ironic example of this is the power in Clause 44(6) for the Secretary of State to state what constitutes a local matter””." That is so absurd that it is just laughable. The noble Lord and this briefing are both saying that if we were to do all of this, and I suspect a bit more too, we might have something that could be called a Localism Bill. That is what this is about. If he chooses to return to this at a later stage, we will certainly be sympathetic to that. My original intention in standing up was on the second point from the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and, for once, to congratulate and be thankful to the Government for their amendments on the pan-London referendum. Perhaps I speak as a London taxpayer as well. He made the points, so I will not repeat them, but the proposals are clearly both necessary and very sensible and it is very welcome that we will now have a sensible provision. Should there ever be a pan-London referendum, it will not be called because of some probably serious issue in some part of London that does not apply to the whole of London. By making this provision, such a referendum will truly be on a pan-London issue, as it should be.