My Lords, I will not delay the House for long but, with the greatest respect, this was a twinkle in the eye of Mayor Street a few months ago when the Wolverhampton Express & Star reported it. People in Warwickshire were innocently going about their own business, then along came Mr Gove to put pressure on them to make this application. The Minister is indulging in a fantasy that this is somehow driven by Warwickshire people desperate to join the West Midlands.
I joke about Wiltshire but the Minister will know about the sensitivities of shire counties and their relationship with urban metropolitan districts, which I well understand. My noble friend Lady Anderson’s Staffordshire would be another case in point; it would not wish to be ruled, in a sense, from Birmingham. It really is too much: the rules are being changed to allow for one gerrymander, in a foolish attempt to save Mr Street’s political career. That really will not do.
I am not going to go on because we have two other groups. In the next—