Sustainable Communities Bill

That is absolutely right, and it is one of the reasons why that virtuous circle was set in motion in Kent. That is a point of agreement between us. However, as the Minister would accept and as I certainly accept, the consequence of that is that there will be times and places in which the Government of the day, whoever they may be, think that the obvious way to achieve an objective is x, and the people who have been elected locally and are answerable to the local electors think that the way to achieve it is y. We are asking Governments to take the risk, although they will be able to veto the decision if they must, of leaving local people, generally speaking, to make that decision for themselves. The system will not always be perfect and it will not always produce perfect results. It will be a political risk for the locals who take that step and a risk for Government, as they will be letting go of some of their powers, but the point of the Bill is precisely to achieve that. If the hon. Member for Stourbridge is asking whether there are safeguards, the answer is yes. If she is asking whether those safeguards will always ensure that the policy machine of the Government of the day determines the outcome, the answer is no. The effect would be that, very often, locals would get a say in how the system was operated, although the Government of the day might or might not thoroughly approve of that.