Local Government

Professor Chisholm is one of the people who has done a great deal of work across the piece. No doubt the Minister will deal with that in his closing speech. Viewed in the context of all the other evidence, it is clear that the Department is making assertions with nothing to back them up, and that Professor Chisholm is more objective than people might think and is backed up by local evidence produced by local people. That is the key aspect. I would have more sympathy with the Minister on all the reorganisations if I thought that the Department was using some objective measure as a benchmark, but we have already discovered that there is no objective measure.