One part of what the noble Lord says is certainly true, because a lot of local plans are not happening at the moment. All I say is that the Bill restates that development plans are a key lever, together with national development management plans. Those are in the custodianship of district councils, albeit that they may well work alongside other district councils or, for that matter, in combination with the county. I am simply making the point that the legal architecture in Clause 86 links district councils’ local plans to the national development plans, while the CCAs are not in the picture. Clearly, CCAs are intended to be the absolute economic driver for levelling up; that point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson. It seems odd that the principal vehicle at the local level for setting that scene—the development plan—will be outside the grip of the CCAs, for better or worse, and that the people who do the district plans will be outside the CCAs. There is a disconnect there that, frankly, disables the whole process. There I am completely with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. Surely they should be at the heart of the process and, by the logic of that, should have the capacity to at least put forward a proposal, which would still be subject to the Secretary of State’s decision about how it might develop.
5.15 pm
I cannot go back to 1906 or whatever the date was—1974, I think. I go back to only 1979 so I am quite young in this, but I did manage to fit in 11 years on a district council, 10 years on a county council and then eight years on a metropolitan borough, so I have a well-scarred back. If you get partnership and ownership, you can get joint endeavours and you success. If you get alienation, that is a recipe for failure. If you leave district councils out of the equation—if you make them subsidiary, just adjuncts to CCAs—I would not be surprised if, at least in some places, their co-operation was significantly less than it would be if they were active and valued partners of the CCA. I say that to the Minister because, sometimes, politics has to give way to human nature or at least has to recognise the existence of human nature, and if district councils are spurned, they are going to be less helpful and co-operative. He may say, “We’ll soon deal with that”, but that is not a recipe for success. All I say to him is that he should please give serious consideration to what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, because he is giving the Government an avenue—a gateway—to unleash that co-operation between the two tiers of local government so that CCAs in fact prosper.