Business of the House

On local government reorganisation, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government set out the process in the local government White Paper. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that opinions vary markedly on the issue, and not necessarily according to party. It so happens that it was a Conservative Government who agreed that Blackburn should transfer to a unitary authority in 1996, against the all-party opposition of Lancashire county council, so there is no party point to make. However, someone has to make a decision, because otherwise there will be paralysis and no change. There is never a right time to make such decisions. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman’s area has elections every year or every four years, but mine has them every year, so there will always be an election coming up, or an election that has just taken place; that is how it is. We have increased the resources for the British Library, as well as museums, significantly, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport would not do anything to damage the services provided by the British Library. I wholly resent and reject the implications of the hon. Gentleman’s remarks about my noble Friend the Attorney-General. He has carried out the duties of his office to the highest standards of propriety. The role of the Attorney-General is well settled, and I am glad that on 14 December the shadow Attorney-General confirmed the Conservative party’s support for the Attorney-General’s role, when responding to the Solicitor-General’s repetition of the Attorney-General’s statement about the suspension of the investigation of the Saudi matters. There is no way wholly to detach some considerations from the prosecution system, such as considerations of national security, and of national or public interest in the way that the Liberals suggest. Prosecutors are required by law to consider such matters. The hon. Gentleman ought to look abroad, at countries where prosecutors are allegedly entirely independent of Ministers, and see what criticism they are under, because they end up making political judgments, but are totally unaccountable in respect of those judgments. The Liberals would be screaming much more about the issue in that situation. On e-petitions, the hon. Gentleman’s intervention was timely, because I have looked at the interest in e-petitions on the Downing street website, and I have talked to officials at No. 10 about the way in which those petitions could be linked to petitions in the House; that is an important function performed by the House. The hon. Gentleman will know that the Procedure Committee is conducting an inquiry on petitions, and I will arrange for the people running the Downing street website to talk to the Clerk and the Chairman of the Procedure Committee about how we can better link the two together.