My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for that. I would certainly like to take her up on her suggestion of further discussions. I hope to be in touch with her shortly in relation to that. I am grateful for her reply generally, which was much more extensive than I had expected given the hour.
I have just a brief word on the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. I quite understand his point but think that he assumes that somehow underneath NALC as a national association there is nothing other than the 9,000 foot soldiers forming the parishes. That is not how it is structured; there is a series of district and county associations, and some of the county associations have come together in larger collectives. There is now a good deal of encouragement from within NALC towards such working practices.
For instance, when representatives are selected to go to national council, we cannot have 9,000 people in one room as there would be nowhere big enough to house them, so there has to be a selection process. There would be no difficulty with, for example, something the size of a county association or a multi-county association. In Sussex, I am involved with a triple association consisting of East Sussex, West Sussex and Surrey. They have come together and do a lot of these things jointly. So there would be no difficulty in arriving at a sensible way of providing a representative to be part of the discussion process, as I suggested.
The hour is late and I have spoken for long enough. I thank the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for their comments. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.