My Lords, I take this opportunity to raise a couple of points which I took up with my noble friend Lord Cormack in Committee and to which I have not received the promised answers. Without going into all the questions that I put to him, the first was whether or not he had taken legal advice on the compatibility of the proposals in the Bill with the public sector equality duty. The answer to that is either yes or no. I also asked him, if he had taken legal advice on it, whether he would place a copy in the Library of the House.
The second question I put to him, which is equally important, was whether or not Section 111(1) of the Local Government Act already gave local authorities most of the powers that were purported to be given in new Section 138B, which is to be added to the statute book by the Bill. We always say that legislation should not duplicate Acts that are already on the statute book, and I asked my noble friend to say whether he checked this point. I would be most grateful if he could give me replies to both those questions.