Local Government

I have huge sympathy with my hon. Friend. He knows what happened in the past. In my constituency we have had what I consider to be sham consultations over post offices and hospitals. That is the part that the Minister does not seem to get. Ministers do not understand that local people want to have their views listened to. They do not want to be dictated to. The Government claim that their proposals are bottom-up, but they are not. They are produced from a skewed set of criteria and nobody has much faith in that.