Local Government

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I was not discussing kissing the Prime Minister; I certainly would not want to do that. The hon. Gentleman's comment was rather flippant, but I was making a serious point. Eighteen thousand of my constituents came to the ballot box in the referendum to vote against a unitary authority. It is sometimes difficult to get members of the public interested in and participating in what can be rather technical matters. Yet 18,000 men and women in my constituency turned up and voted. They did not want a unitary authority in Shropshire. Nearly 70 per cent. of those who voted voted against. The Minister has received letters of support and he says that the Government have taken people's views on board. As I tried to say earlier, some of the organisations that wrote the 47 letters of support are companies that supply the county council with services and goods and therefore have a vested interest. It is fascinating to read some of those letters of support. One said, ““Well, we'll have to work with whatever happens and whatever is the status quo.”” Yet that counts as a letter of support. It is breathtaking. Some organisations—I do not want to embarrass them by mentioning them in the House—have told me that they regret submitting letters of support. Some were put under a certain amount of pressure to do that. I passionately believe in local accountability. My accountability to my constituents drives me on a daily basis. That is why, when I was elected to Parliament, I decided to move to the village of Shawbury in Shropshire, which is only a few miles from my constituency office. People can hold me to account when I am in the local supermarket, walking down the street or in my office. That is part and parcel of local accountability. We have some marvellous councillors in Shrewsbury, such as Mrs. Judith Williams, who has been a local borough councillor since 1982. Those councillors know every flagstone of every pavement in their ward. They are local Shrewsbury men and women, who know the town, feel passionately about it and are accountable to their constituents. They have done an excellent job in running the borough council. They are accountable because they live in their wards, so they are close to their constituents. Most important, they are accountable through the ballot box to the people of Shrewsbury. If we have a unitary authority, councillors—I do not want to disparage other areas—from Ludlow, which is 30 or 40 miles away, Whitchurch and places long distances away from Shrewsbury will make decisions on specific parochial issues that affect Shrewsbury. That is a tremendous threat to local democracy. Let me give an example of a controversial issue. We recently considered the possibility of congestion charging in Shrewsbury. Voting for congestion charging in Shrewsbury is very easy for someone who lives 40 miles away and is not accountable to the people Shrewsbury. Why? Because someone in that position can vote for something controversial for Shrewsbury knowing full well that their constituents 40 miles away do not really care and will not vote them out in an election. That bond and that accountability will be broken. We face another important issue: the co-location of the sixth-form college with SCAT—Shrewsbury college of arts and technology—which is a major college. Again, I want local councillors in Shrewsbury, who understand transportation issues and some of the infrastructure problems in Shrewsbury and who are accountable to my constituents, to make those decisions, not people who live so far away from my community. I want to give another example of why I feel so strongly about the issue. Over the past three years, I have said to many organisations in my constituency that I will give £100 to anybody who can name me the seven Members of the European Parliament who represent us in Brussels, but so far I have not lost a penny. Not a single constituent of mine can name all seven Members of the European Parliament. They are important people, and the Conservative ones are very good—[Interruption.] But the Liberal one is terrible.