Local Government

Well, let me move on to my second point. Purely in financial terms, having checked the figures, the quantifiable gains to the council tax payers of Shropshire will be about £9 million each year. The hon. Gentleman confirmed at one point that he was talking about Professor Chisholm. Professor Chisholm's modelling of the potential financial impact of this restructuring was based on the 1990s model of restructuring, which was entirely different as it was about breaking up large areas such as Humberside, Cleveland and Avon into smaller units. We are doing something different and the potential efficiency gains—for the council tax payers and the services that support them—are much greater and more significant. The hon. Gentleman made an extraordinary argument, accusing me of running a dirigiste process, imposed from the centre. The hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy) was absolutely right: this is not being forced on councils. A minority of councils in England submitted proposals under this process, and the proposal we are discussing was submitted by a Conservative-led county council supported by a Conservative-led district council. A minority of councils submitted proposals as a result of the invitation we issued, and a minority of those that were submitted were accepted for implementation. There was an interesting observation about the courtship of the county by the then Local Government Minister, my right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband), now the Foreign Secretary. Far from unitary solutions being forced on Shropshire, councils, business and some public service providers and users told him on his visit that the two-tier arrangement was not working and needed to be changed.