Local Government Reorganisation

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. The Statement is as follows: “This Government are committed to delivering good growth across the country and power in every postcode, with places able to set their own ambitions and integrate services to meet people’s needs. Achieving that requires a fundamental rewiring of the state, giving power held in Whitehall back to the people and the places where they live and work. As we set out in the Cabinet statement on rewiring the state, effective and sustainable local government is the vital foundation of our devolution ambitions. As we are now determined more than ever to devolve power closer to the people we represent, it is only right that, as the new Secretary of State, I make sure that everything we do is working towards that plan to change Britain without delay. The Prime Minister told the House last week that he was ‘prepared to look at local government reorganisation ’.—[Official Report, Commons, 1/9/26; col. 65.] and he asked me, as his Communities Secretary, to do that. Throughout this process, the Government have listened to representations from Members of this House, councils and the public, and I want to be clear how critical this is to me, given their importance to our democracy and the services they provide for local people. But there will always be a wide range of divergent views, which means that achieving perfect consensus will never be possible. I understand that feelings run high and people naturally have strong views in different directions. In that context, and in the light of legal advice, I want to satisfy myself, first, that the right process is in place, that it is robust and, of course, that it complies with the law. Secondly, I want to fully test whether our proposals for local government reorganisation meet the priorities of the new Administration and the new Prime Minister, and any additional considerations. With those two considerations in mind, I have decided to withdraw the decisions made in March this year for Essex, Hampshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk, and, where relevant, their neighbouring unitary authorities. The Government’s legal representatives have notified the court of this step. I have also decided to conduct a full review of the local government reorganisation programme, including the decisions that were announced in July this year for a further 14 areas, and the two areas where decisions have not yet been taken, and I ask that reorganisation activity be paused. These 14 areas are Derbyshire, Devon, East Sussex, Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire, and, where relevant, their neighbouring unitaries. I do not take this lightly. I recognise the huge amount of work that has already gone into progressing reorganisation in each of these areas, and I am very grateful for it. I know that many Members of the House and many council leaders outside the House will have lots of questions about what this means for them and their communities, and I will try to address these as best I can today. First, we are working across Government on rewiring the state following the Cabinet statement. We recognise that effective and sustainable local government is fundamental to our ambitions for a devolved country that works better for and with communities. We will consider this issue as part of our wider approach. Secondly, as an immediate step, I have asked the Minister for Local Government, Devolution and Regional Growth to undertake a rapid review of the current local government reorganisation programme, including the position in the four areas where we have withdrawn and the further 14 areas that we are reviewing and pausing, alongside the two remaining areas. The new councils for East Surrey and West Surrey will be unaffected because they are already established in law, have had their first elections and are on track to go live in April 2027. Thirdly, I want to be clear about what this means for elections scheduled for next May. Elections will go ahead in May 2027 on existing council boundaries. Fourthly and finally, my department will provide support to council leaders, officers and Members representing impacted areas, and the Minister for Local Government has written to leaders and copied in Members of this House. I want to ensure that all those who represent these areas feel included in considering their future, and I will update the House at the earliest opportunity. My ministerial team and senior civil servants from the department are ready to discuss and to work with those representatives. My team will proactively reach out to discuss the local implications in detail. My department remains committed to working in partnership with local government, both in this immediate period and in the longer term. I commend this Statement to the House”. My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating this quite significant Statement. The Government have suddenly paused the reorganisation plans they started for local government. This is astounding. Proposals to merge councils in Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire, and Essex have been withdrawn. The 14 areas which formed the third tranche of the programme have also been put on hold. Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, and West Sussex, which were awaiting the Government’s decision, now face further uncertainty for residents, councillors and council officers. We are told that this new review follows updated legal advice but is also to align the plans for local government with new government priorities. The only area unaffected is Surrey, where the two new unitary authorities have already been established. This has come too late for them. It was only in June that we were told that this Government “remain fully committed to the timetable already set out ”,—[Official Report, Commons, 16/7/26; col. 141WS.] and that their local government reorganisation programme was “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to ensure that councils genuinely represent the communities they serve today and stand the test of time ”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/7/26; col. 139WS.] Time has hardly passed, and the programme is paused. Let us not forget that local elections were postponed. Now, elections in May 2027 will go ahead on existing council boundaries. So much time, not to mention money, was spent drawing together proposals, conducting and responding to consultations nationally and locally, with staffing, governance, finance and service delivery about to be restructured—without, by the way, any guarantee that this would end up saving taxpayers any money or improving services for local people. Are we now being told that it may have all been for nothing because the Government did not think through the legal implications or because the new Prime Minister simply does not fancy it? What is the estimated total cost of this review, both to national government and to the authorities affected? Do the people making those decisions have any idea how damaging the uncertainty and inconsistency is to many councils, including to staff recruitment and staff morale? Councils are losing large numbers of staff who want certainty on their future, and, for the same reason, cannot recruit replacements. Your Lordships’ House spent eight days in Committee and two days on Report on the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026. The Minister said at Second Reading that the Bill would “drive the biggest transfer of power out of Whitehall to our regions and communities in a generation ”.—[Official Report, 8/12/25; col. 30.] However, we now have the rewiring of state White Paper to look forward to, which will focus on devolution and local government. Can the Minister clarify, if this new Bill is to deliver devolution, was the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act not devolution at all? As we said at the time, it was not community empowerment. It shifted power away from the local to the regional and to Whitehall—from locally elected councillors to mayors, and from democracy routed in local identities to new managerial, technocratic boundaries. Will this new Bill reverse that direction of travel? We are hearing the same platitudes from this Government to disguise their lack of long-term vision. Can the Minister tell us exactly what the priorities of the new Prime Minister are, and how they will differ? What certainty can she give to local councils receiving this news? I look forward to her response.

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. Across England, there will be thousands of councillors and council officers who have worked for months, sometimes years, to deliver an effective solution to the Government’s top-down reorganisation diktat. They will have devoted scarce resources in both funding and precious time. Today, they will be despairing. With the stroke of a ministerial pen, all their careful planning has been consigned to the waste bin. The principle of devolution is the right one. Unfortunately, the Government have conflated devolution with local government reorganisation, and that has resulted in this sorry mess. There are any number of questions that the Minister must answer, given that, in July, she gave an assurance in this Chamber that a decision on the final reorganisation plans for the remaining councils would be made in October. I am confident that there will be many specific questions about individual councils, so I will restrict my questions to general principles. First, given that the Government’s decision has been made following legal advice, can the Minister publish that advice and provide a summary for us in her response? Will she tell the House when those councils with agreed plans were informed? Some councils had already developed financial planning on the basis of agreed reorganisation. What support will the Government provide for those councils now facing severe financial pressures? Today’s announcement has left councils and their residents in limbo. The Statement makes it clear that elections for districts will take place next year. That indicates a longer timeframe for reorganisation than a speedy review. Asking people to become councillors for a non-specific period is difficult. Equally, encouraging voter enthusiasm will be more challenging. What are they voting for? How long will it last? Local democracy has been the real loser in all this, with elections cancelled and democratic terms of office extended on a whim. The process by which the Government determined the parameters of this reorganisation defied the importance and relevance of local communities. For example, new councils were told they had to have a population of at least 300,000, with a maximum of around 500,000—although, of course, one of the new Surrey councils has a population of 700,000. That was stated despite many existing unitary metropolitan councils being smaller than that. For instance, Calderdale, in my own west Yorkshire, has a population of just over 200,000. Many councils in the Manchester mayoral authority have a population of around 300,000 or fewer. That was one reason why communities lost out in this top-down reorganisation. This is a thorough and embarrassing dog’s breakfast for the Government. It has all stemmed from the flawed notion that the financial crisis facing county councils could be resolved by changing the seats around the table and going for reorganisation, while ignoring the historic community ties around which many councils were created. The Government have much to do to put the “local” back into local government. I look forward to a thorough explanation from the Minister.

My Lords—

Minister!

I have to deal with the Front Benchers first, although I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, for his enthusiasm. I am very grateful to both noble Baronesses for their comments, and I understand the frustration that has been expressed. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, asked about updated legal advice, government priorities and the fact that, in June, we said we were fully committed to the timetable. It is important that we do not conflate the timetable with the commitment to LGR. As I said, there has been additional legal advice, but we also have a new Prime Minister and a new Secretary of State. In view of both those things, it is only right that we take a step back and have a look at these issues; it would not be right to not do so. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, spoke about elections being postponed, the time and money that has been spent, and improving services and financial gain. The Government’s vision is still that local government reorganisation will go ahead; we are not stepping back from that in any way whatever. This afternoon, my right honourable friend in the House of Commons stated many times, specifically, that our intention is not to row back from local government reorganisation. We see that as a way of improving services, generating the growth we all want to see, and making much more efficient use of the finances that go into local government. The work that has gone in already, which the noble Baroness mentioned, is certainly not wasted, because we are not scrapping the LGR process; we are taking a step back to have a look at it, but we are not scrapping the process. The noble Baroness asked about the cost of the review and the uncertainty. The uncertainty caused by legal uncertainty is not tenable. The programme that we are setting in place will probably last for at least 50 years and maybe longer—the last local government reorganisation did—and it is very important that it is built on a firm foundation of legal certainty. Otherwise, our colleagues, not just in local government but their partners in business and the third sector, will be facing that uncertainty going way forward into the future. We need to make sure that we have the certainty we need. I still stick by what I said when we debated the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill: this is the biggest transfer of power out of Whitehall. That is why it will never be straightforward or easy to do. It is a dramatic change to the way the state is wired, and the Prime Minister wants to see that happen. We want to get powers and funding out of Whitehall—I think there was not much disagreement to that in the Chamber when we debated the English Devolution Bill—and, to do that, we need a firm foundation of local government to build on. The other question the noble Baroness asked was around the Prime Minister’s commitment and the long-term vision. I do not think you could have a stronger advocate for promoting devolution than our Prime Minister. He lived and breathed devolution and the devolution agenda during the time he was Mayor of Manchester. He genuinely believes in the transfer of power to every postcode in the country and he has set out very clearly that he has a long-term vision for this country to do just that. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, spoke about top-down reorganisation. This absolutely was not that. I have sat through many meetings with our local government colleagues, who came forward with their own proposals. They did not always agree in each area and it was sometimes very difficult to work through the different options that they came forward with. It will continue to be so, as they can once again put forward their views—some of them very strongly held, as the noble Baroness is aware—as we go through this review process. The process is certainly not confined to the waste-bin, as the noble Baroness put it; it is still very firmly on the table to be worked on, and I look forward to working with our colleagues in local government as we go forward. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, spoke about the assurance that decisions for those areas where we had not taken decisions already would be made in October. We are going to work as quickly as we possibly can on this review. My right honourable colleague the Secretary of State referred many times this afternoon to the fact that she wants this review to proceed at pace. This is not being kicked into the long grass or anything like it. She wants that to move forward as quickly as possible, so we can provide the certainty that local government needs. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, mentioned legal advice. We considered the legal advice provided as part of the judicial review process and the decision to withdraw the four decisions reflects that legal advice. It is a long-standing principle, as she will know only too well, that Governments do not publish or comment on legal advice. The legal powers for local government reorganisation remain valid. There are no court findings against the Government. We want to be able to review the decisions, so that the Secretary of State can reassure herself and the Prime Minister that they are the right ones. Respecting the court process means that the way to do this is to withdraw those and consider the programme afresh. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, also asked when councils were informed. They were told today. The legal advice was considered over the weekend and the Secretary of State informed the councils involved today: the 14 that were going to be paused and reviewed and the four that have been withdrawn from the court process. The Secretary of State received many questions on financial provision this afternoon. The Government were putting forward some £63 million to help councils through the transition phase of local government, and she will consider the issues around funding as we go through the review process. I turn to the elections next year. Elections will be held according to the usual boundary elections, so if a council was up for election by thirds next year, that will happen, and if it is the election of a full council, that will happen. From talking to councils in my local area, I can say that they are all very keen on the process of LGR going forward and they look forward to this. They know that the process is coming. They know that it is paused and not stopped, so they will continue to work with their local parties and local councils, as they have done so well in the past. On the importance and relevance of council size, we have always said that council sizes were not fixed. Having gone through all the applications myself, it was clear that you cannot make a fixed point in terms of size. You have to look at each area individually. Geographies and demographics are different, and it is very important that each area is considered separately, according to its needs. On the issue of historic communities and all the other issues, this pause will give the opportunity for people who had those strong views to put them forward again in the review process. I am sure they will do that. Nobody is backward in coming forward in this process and I look forward to hearing from many of them. But the right thing to do at the moment is take this short pause, particularly in respect of the legal advice and the wish of the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State to review this, so that, when we go forward, it will be with the certainty that everybody in local government needs.

My Lords, first, the un-cancellation of local government elections and now the embarrassment of this one, from a hapless MHCLG. Back in April, when your Lordships debated local government reorganisation, I characterised the proposals for Norfolk as a cut-and-shut job that would shame Arthur Daley. It would create England’s poorest council in east Norfolk and throw up in the air the authorities responsible for homelessness, housing, economic growth and planning. No wonder we challenged it. Today, the leader of my council tells me that the Government will refund our legal costs, well into six figures. Can the Minister tell us quite how much money the Government will be refunding to councils across the country to reimburse them for challenging decisions which we now conclude were unlawful and should never have been taken in the first place?

The strength of the representations of the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, on this matter shows the differing opinions that we have seen throughout this process. There are strongly held, different views on all sides, and it is important that we continue to take those into account as we go through the review process. First, as I should have emphasised more when I was speaking earlier, I recognise the amount of work that councils have already put into preparing for reorganisation. As I said, this work will not be wasted, but I appreciate that it comes with a cost. Financial commitments may have been made, and we will look at this as part of the review. I have already spoken about transition costs. The overall costs of reorganisation are of course to be taken into account, but we also know that reorganisation can save money. There has been a £90 million saving in North Yorkshire and £75 million in Buckinghamshire since their unitaries were established. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, saved money when she reorganised Wiltshire into a unitary. There are also associated legal costs. LGR is often contested in the courts. It is a right and proper part of our democratic system that important issues can be challenged in the court system. The Government engage legal advisers to defend those decisions whenever challenges are brought, and that brings costs with it. But the questions are so significant, and the implications so long-lasting, that the extent of legal costs should be viewed in that context. Legal costs will be determined in the usual way.

My Lords, I start by acknowledging the hard work that my noble friend the Minister has been putting into this over the last couple of years, and the work of those councillors who have been arguing for these changes in their boroughs and counties over the last few months. I speak as someone who is entirely supportive of these proposals; they offer a much better way forward for local and regional government. I have benefited from a similar model in London for many years. However, there have been some mixed messages today, which I ask the Minister to help with. First, both my noble friend and the Secretary of State have talked about this being a rapid review, but I also understand that officers are being told to stand down all work and elections have been postponed, which does not suggest rapidity in the review. Can my noble friend the Minister throw any light on this, and can she reassure us that devolution will happen in this Parliament and that new unitary authorities will be up and running by the time of the next general election?

I thank my noble friend for his support for the overall programme. We are asking councils to pause work on progressing local government reorganisation. It will be a short pause. This means that councils should cease work on implementing previous decisions, but there are shared projects that will be useful in any potential reorganisation and of course they can be continued. We want this process to be done with good local engagement and we will listen very carefully to the views that councils provide. As they have done throughout this process, officials will proactively engage with places and support them throughout the period. Ongoing work, for example, could include improving data quality and data sharing, mapping services, finances, workforce assets and contracts, identifying key risks and dependencies, undertaking ICT and digital discovery work, and continued engagement with partners and residents. We recognise the need to provide certainty as quickly as possible, so that areas have clarity over their future. We will work at pace on the review and report back to Parliament at the earliest opportunity.

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my registered interests as chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum. The House understands that the Government will not publish their legal advice, but are these decisions the result of specific legal advice about the nature of the decisions that were made or of changes of mind on the part of the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State? Would it not be better to start a rapid review by restating or amending the criteria against which the decisions are to be made? Would that not make the decisions, ultimately, less prone to legal challenge? Where Cambridgeshire is concerned specifically, we were told that there would be a decision in October. Is that still the case? We were also told that that would lead to elections on new boundaries in May. Presumably that is not to be the case. Finally, on strategic spatial planning, which I know the Minister—and I and others—supports, can she say that the lack of progress on unitaries does not mean that we cannot have progress on establishing strategic planning boards?

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. The criteria will be looked at as part of this review process. It is important that we take account of the legal advice—we are not going to publish it—and look at the impact on the future programme; it would be unwise not to do so. On the issues around Cambridge, the noble Lord asked me about elections. Let me start with the October decision-making. We had said to colleagues in Cambridge and Peterborough—and indeed in West Sussex, where decisions had not been taken—that we would endeavour to have decisions in October. Both those areas will go into the review process, so those decisions will now be announced alongside the other areas that are being reviewed. I hope that that will not lead to too much further delay in Cambridgeshire, Peterborough and West Sussex. Noble Lords will be aware that an important part of this process is the statutory instruments that have to go through both Houses. We were on a very tight timetable for all this anyway, so it is not likely that elections will be able to go ahead to the shadow authorities as planned in 2027. That is why we have said that elections will go ahead, but on the old boundaries. On spatial planning, the devolution work can continue to look at planning and how that will work through in the devolution process.

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My Lords—

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My Lords, it is the turn of the Liberal Democrat Benches, then we will hear from the Labour Benches and the Conservative Benches.

My Lords, if the legal concerns were serious enough to halt the programme today, suddenly, with rapid action, can the Minister tell the House whether any similar concerns had been raised previously by officials, local authorities or external counsel? Will she place a letter in the Library with the chronology of the key decisions that led to the suspension of the programme, so that Parliament can understand how this arose? To be a little more specific—I think the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, is on the same page as me in this—I am not asking the Minister to disclose privileged legal advice, but can she tell the House which aspect of the process is now considered potentially unlawful? Is it the criteria, the consultation, the decision-making or the implementation? How can Parliament scrutinise ministerial decision-making if Ministers are unwilling to explain the nature of a legal defect that has caused such extensive disruption and waste of public money?

I will have a look at the chronology of the decision-making and talk to colleagues about it. Clearly, as I have said, very categorically, we will not be releasing the legal advice, but I appreciate that there is a chronology that takes account of the legal advice but does not divulge what it is. As to which aspects of the programme, I fear that that would be part of the privileged advice. We will look at any issues that have been raised as part of the programme of review. We will be clear and transparent about what we are doing in the review, so I hope that it will come out as part of the review process.

M, my noble friend has talked about this to some extent, but can she assure the House that there will not be a wholesale return to the drawing board, as it were—in other words, that all that work will not be wasted? By that, I suppose I mean: does the Government’s commitment to devolution remain as strong as it has been for the past two years? Many of us feel that power has drained from municipalities to Whitehall for probably the past 50 years; we would like some of it to start going back to municipal centres.

I can reassure my noble friend that there is no drawing back on the programme of devolution. It is a very key part not just of government policy but of the Government’s vision for the country. For too long, we have had a very centralised model in this country. Many of the people in this room have been council leaders and will have been at the sticky end of that model. We do not want a begging-bowl culture where local councils have to go to Westminster for almost anything they want, whether a small power to do something or funding for an important local project. There is no rowing back from that at all. I am sure that noble Lords have heard enough from our new Prime Minister to know that his commitment to devolution has been strengthened by the years he spent as Mayor of Manchester, not weakened or diminished in any way. I know he is keen that we get that power and funding out to every postcode in the country, so that our country can achieve the potential we know it has—in every corner of the United Kingdom.

My Lords, I would like to probe the Minister on a couple of the things she said, because I think they were a tiny bit inconsistent. The Statement says that there will be a full review and the Minister said it would be a rapid review—and she also said in one of her answers that outside organisations would be given the opportunity to contribute, implying that there will be a public consultation. If it is to be a rapid review, then I do not understand why we are having elections next year. Can the Minister give some indication to those council candidates and successful councillors the term of office they are seeking to be elected to? If it is a rapid review, arguably the decisions will be taken before the elections have even taken place. You have to give people a level of certainty. There are a lot of inconsistencies in what the Government have set out, and they need to clarify these sooner rather than later.

It is possible to have both a rapid and full review. It means doing the work carefully but as quickly as possible. To create the level of certainty everybody wants to see across local government, the decision-making has to be completed quickly. The rapid review will look at the programme as a whole, and the work on the rewiring the state delivery plan must include a question about the role of local government in the devolved country. The review will be led by the Minister for Local Government, Devolution and Regional Growth, and it will engage with MPs and all councils impacted. An extended delay is in no one’s interest. It is right that Ministers listen to concerns and the new Administration undertake this review to make sure that local government reorganisation aligns with our priorities and work on rewiring the state.

My Lords, I declare my interest as a former Norfolk MP. Judging by my mailbox this evening, there is real anger and consternation across Norfolk. A huge amount of work and professional resources have been put into this. For example, King’s Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council and Breckland District Council have spent a vast amount of money on preparing for the new unitary; that is money that could have been spent on vital services that is now down the drain. Furthermore, dozens of Norfolk County councillors took a decision not to stand last May because they trusted the Government; they stood down and many of those seats were taken by paper candidates put up by Reform UK. Morale is at rock bottom, and the chief executive of Norfolk County Council, Tom McCabe, has resigned. The Government have multiple questions to answer, and they should be ashamed of what they have done.

I hope I have already made clear that I do not think any of the money that has been spent is wasted. The work will go ahead on local government reorganisation and on devolution. When I did the engagement meetings on this, it was really interesting to hear stories from around the country of councils, which had not spoken to each other in 20 years or more, sitting down and working together. We have really appreciated that. It has been a good way of bringing councils and councillors together to work on this jointly, and we have no intention of rowing back on it. The money spent is not down the drain, nor has it been wasted; the money will be used in the future programme.

My Lords, I support the Government’s policy in this area; it is a brave policy and one I think the Opposition parties have behaved shockingly badly about over the last few months. Today is a difficult day; I feel it is difficult as well. But it needs to be said that this Government have support for the prospect of proper devolution. How can that take place without some local government reform? The two obviously go together. It is nonsense and just not right to say there is no relationship between them—there has to be. I want to ask my noble friend about the cities that lost out so badly during the last local government reorganisation so they have become much too small, not natural in the slightest way and incapable of managing to get the necessary funding to be able to build the even more necessary houses and generate growth. Is it still the Government’s policy to make sure that those cities—including my own city of Leicester—have that extra space and are expanded in the way that is intended?

I thank my noble friend. I do not think it is helpful for me to comment on individual areas. However, he is right to point to the focus on growth. There were three main focuses that we looked at: the potential for growth and making sure we could achieve that across the country; ensuring that the key services delivered by local government are protected and supported going forward, including those for vulnerable people; and the issue of community identity which the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, mentioned. Wherever we looked at those issues, there were different opinions in different areas, which is why we stuck very firmly to the criteria we set ourselves. The growth criteria came in the first criteria, and we looked at all of the proposals before us in respect of that. But we must not make any bones about the fact that we need to change things to get the growth we want to see. That involves making sure local government is enabled to drive that growth forward in the way it is organised, and that we have the devolution so that people who are taking decisions about growth, the economy and key services in their local areas are in that local area and have some skin in the game in relation to the decisions being taken.

My Lords, when the elections take place next year, what period will the people elected serve? Will it be one year, two years, three years or four years?

For elections that take place next year, if the programme works through as we anticipate it will, the shadow elections will be in 2028.

My Lords, I suspect one of the main reasons why there has been a delay is that not enough attention has been given to the financial viability of these new authorities. In my own area of Hampshire, that is certainly so. I dispute the assertion that opposition parties have not been co-operative in trying to help the reorganisation, but there is an issue about the viability of the authorities. Is the question of viability the problem, or is it more likely that the Government are reluctant to put the resources in that are needed to make them viable?

To answer the last question first, we have already made a significant financial commitment to make sure that this programme works properly. A great deal of attention was paid to the issue of financial viability as we went through the process. We need to make sure we continue to focus on financial viability; it is incredibly important that these councils are financially sustainable. As I have already stated, we have seen that the councils that have already gone into unitaries make very significant savings, so that financial stability is absolutely key to what we are doing on this. To come back to the original points that I made, we are making a generational change here to local government. We must make sure that we give the certainty to local government that we all want to see and that we create a local government framework across the country that can actually deliver the power and funding we need in every postcode, to see opportunity realised in every postcode in this country.