I am listening closely to the hon. Member’s argument, but I am afraid I just do not accept the points he is trying to string together in what is a fairly strange argument. The reason this amendment is so important and the reason we do not expect council chambers to be dabbling in foreign, defence or security policy is precisely that they are not given the competences over those policies. It is the same for the Welsh Senedd, and the Scottish Government have a limited number of competences. Yes, we want them to exercise their powers
fully in those areas where they are given competence, but it is a complete diversion of activity and attention to say that we want councils to be getting involved in incredibly sensitive and complicated subjects of the kind that my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) has already described.