Sustainable Communities Bill

I thank the Minister. We are all sensitive to the fact that he and his officials are trying to wrestle with the difficulty of reconciling and marrying the little fish that is the Bill with the whale of legislative reform that he is trying to ride through the waters of local government. There is an honest attempt at integration and I do not underestimate the difficulties of achieving it, not least in terms of timing. I stress, however, that we tabled the clause in good faith because we thought it reflected the Minister’s intentions and we wanted to make them explicit. When the Minister responds, will he recognise that we need a mechanism to follow clause 4? Is he prepared to put on record the Government’s acceptance that resources must follow transfer of functions? Did we understand him correctly in Committee when he appeared to agree that remit should not necessarily follow function—that local authorities should have discretion over policy when function is transferred as long as it is geared towards locally agreed targets? If so, will he explain why he appears to oppose the new clause? I hope the Minister accepts that our discussions have been open, but if we cannot reach agreement, my instinct, shared by co-sponsors of the Bill, is not to push for a vote on the new clause. There is strong support for the Bill inside and outside the House, as the Minister knows, and a desire to see us agree about it, but there will be disappointment if there is a feeling out there that the Government are diluting the measure. I shall listen carefully to the Minister’s contribution and hope that we will hear reassurance that what we want made explicit is implicit in the Government’s intentions and that there is an appropriate mechanism, or a willingness to find reconciliation and common ground. I have to tell him that we think there is unfinished business; we want to give people real power to influence the spending of taxpayers’ money in their communities and, if need be, we shall continue the argument in the other place.