Whitsun Adjournment

I am absolutely sure that that is true. I used to be the leader of a county council, and I can point to things in Somerset that are there because I agreed with council committees that they should be. Increasingly, however, the restrictions placed on local government mean that councils are no longer able to take such decisions. As I say, more and more decisions are being taken at a level that is not accountable to the man or woman in the street, and people have no way of connecting with those who make the decisions. For example, my son is taking his driving test this afternoon. Whether he passes or fails remains to be seen, but just to take the test he is having to go to a town that is 30 miles and more than an hour distant from our home. That is because someone who is not accountable to local people or this House has decided to close the test centre nearer to our community in the interests of service efficiency. That is what suits the bureaucrats, and so local people have to make the longer journey that I have described. The problem is not confined to the day of the test. Everyone who has taken a driving test will know that driving lessons have to be conducted in the streets where the test is to be held. Over recent weeks, my son has had to have three-or four-hour sessions with his driving instructor—at great expense, I might say, with some passion—of which two hours is spent getting to and from the town where the test is to be held. That is not what local people want, and it is not serving the local public. The same problem arises with tax offices, which are being closed all across the country. The Bristol tax office is well over an hour's travel from where I and my constituents live but we have to go there because the one in Frome, which used to be on the doorstep, is no longer open. What sort of service is that for local people with an inquiry about which they need to consult the tax man? Never mind about the inconvenience of travelling to the centre of a city, what about the environmental consequences? That cannot be in the interests of local people.