I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. May I just address one point that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has raised in both debates? What he describes as a muddle is a reflection of the Government’s approach—which we think is the right one—which is to respect what local communities want. We are responding to locally led proposals. Both the statutory instruments we have just agreed, and this one, are proposals that local people have asked the Government to approve. The alternative, which may be the option that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, prefers, is a top-down approach whereby government states its desired structure and then imposes that uniformly throughout the country. So I reject his description of our policy as a muddle: we think it is locally responsive. We considered the proposals in the round and we think this is a more satisfactory approach to local democracy than the alternative.
Let me deal with some of the points that were raised during our debate. Rebecca Pow is on record as supporting the proposed merger. On the electoral arrangements, the proposals in the order are a back-up option put together by the local authorities. The Local Government Boundary Commission will re-ward the whole area into appropriate wards. Once the number of councillors is reduced, the number of electors to each councillor will remain approximately 1,900, which is the average for the United Kingdom.
So far as support for the proposals before us is concerned, Taunton Deane Borough Council voted in support of progressing the merger at its full council meeting on 26 July 2016: 32 voted in favour, 16 against, and two abstained. Somerset County Council supports the merger, and there is no proposal from the county council or any of the districts for further unitary councils in Somerset. Should, in time, any locally led proposals come forward, we would of course consider them, but there are none on the table.
Looking at the parish councils, the majority of parishes supported the proposition: 10 were supportive and five were against. A strong majority of businesses and voluntary sector organisations—18—were supportive, and four raised no objections.
The thrust of the noble Baroness’s case was that the merger would be to the detriment of Taunton Deane residents. I do not want to go through all the arguments that I rehearsed when I introduced the instruments,
but we do understand that, should the merger not be implemented, the financial unsustainability of West Somerset Council is considered to jeopardise the financial benefits of the current partnership, thus forcing Taunton Deane Borough Council to remove itself from the partnership agreement, which for both councils would risk the savings already generated. As I said, the independent auditor notes that,
“if the ‘One Council’ was not to go ahead and TDBC sought to unwind the collaboration the financial gap would be exacerbated”.
The two councils are clear that the merger will safeguard annual savings of £3.1 million—£2.6 million from transformation and £0.5 million from the governance changes.
I have listened with respect to the arguments put forward, but I think there is a strong case for agreeing to the proposition put to us by the two borough councils concerned.