I thank the noble Baroness for her reply, which the world will be able to peruse together with my speech in Hansard and judge whether she has answered all the points that I made. She and her department are obviously getting quite different information from local authorities, which is not surprising because local authorities want to tell the department that they can do it but they tell us that they cannot. There is no seeing which is the truth.
Despite what I said about the 7,600 figure, the noble Baroness did not address the substance of my remarks. Perhaps I could deal with this matter quite easily. I will have a bet with the noble Baroness. For every one by which the figure that finally emerges is above 7,600, I will give her £1 and for every one that it is below 7,600, she will give me £1. If that is agreeable, perhaps the House will excuse me while I book my Mediterranean cruise for next year because the figure will not be 7,600, as in due course we shall find out.
I do not want to press this Motion to a vote today. I am concerned about adding chaos to chaos. It would have been much better if we had debated this some months ago. I do not want to do a screeching U-turn at this stage. I fear that the Government have very far from convinced me and I hope that they have not convinced the House that they are doing the right thing.