Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I shall certainly withdraw the amendment in a moment. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, for his support. I have to confess that I did not understand a word the Minister said in relation to Clause 2(6)(c). I hope that he understood it when he read it out. I shall have to wait until it is in print and take it to bed with me and try to understand it. What a happy life I lead. As I listened to the explanation, I became convinced that there was a good reason for tabling the amendment, which was to get him to explain what all this means. Otherwise I do not think that any of us would have realised the thinking behind these provisions. We hope to understand it all at some point. On the main point, which relates to the first amendment in the group, I repeat the basic argument. The noble Lord said that there is no problem in setting up a huge, convoluted, bureaucratic, time-wasting, money-spending system for one connected authority or one local authority because it will be done only if local government decides that it is a good thing to do. That was the implication of what he said. It will not be done because the organisations do not like it, or whatever. It will really be done only if local government wants those changes. If local governments want those changes, let us accept my amendment and let them do it. It will be done without all this convoluted bureaucratic system of consulting everyone in the world, going round in circles, producing a parliamentary order and everything that that involves—all the people who you have to employ to do it and all the cost. This is a wider question: the present system of government in this country is crackers. I blame computers, because they make it possible. The whole thing takes far too much time, far too much bureaucracy and far too much organisation, and far too many people are employed to do it. One hopes when the economy gets better that they can be doing useful jobs. I despair about the whole thing. In that sense of despair, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 54. Amendment 54 withdrawn. Amendments 55 to 58 not moved. Clause 2 agreed.