Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield. I should have thought about consultancies—a fairly topical issue—but it did not occur to me. I absolutely agree with the Minister that perceptions are important and I would not for a moment want to do anything that damaged the reputations of individuals or local authorities. The noble Baroness talks about consulting—to which I never object—but we have the White Paper and what led up to it and so I am a little surprised by that. However, if it means that the salary link is dealt with in the draft Bill in a way that has—what would the jargon be?—““buy-in”” from all stakeholders, that will of course be a good thing. We are always being told that something is a good idea and that we will deal with it when there is a legislative opportunity. It feels a little odd to be told that a draft Bill rather than the Bill that we have in front of us could perfectly well be the vehicle for the change. I shall not pursue the detail of the Minister’s response now as it requires further thought. I would not like to be thought to be dismissing the points she made because it is important to get any change in something that has been in place for so long. In parenthesis, that is a change for us too as the Bill seems to seek to change things that happened only five minutes ago. However, it is an understood, if not entirely supported, position at present and deserves proper thought. I am not promising not to return to this matter, but I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 156 withdrawn. Amendments 157 and 158 not moved. Clauses 30 and 31 agreed.