Local Government

Unfortunately, the Minister does not have the benefit of having taken the legislation through Committee. I was privileged to serve on the Committee, and I asked the Minister for the Environment, as he is now, about consultation. It was made clear to us that the consultation would take into account the views of the public, because it was acknowledged that they constituted a stakeholder in the context of the invitation to bid. That concession was eventually squeezed out in Committee. The Minister for Local Government rightly said that local ballots took place in three districts in Shropshire—two of them in my constituency—but they should have been given due weight. Although he says that some of the questions were not suitably balanced, I must tell him—