Localism Bill

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for assisting me with that line of debate. There are protections in place: there is the law of the land, there is legislation and, when it comes to democratically elected people, there is the ballot box. I do not think it will do any harm to local government to remove the Standards Board and consider other areas, because it has wasted hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of pounds of taxpayers' money on vexatious, vindictive claims. Beyond that, the board has slowed the process of local government, as well as the service and, indeed, the communications we, as elected Members, would want to have with our public. We need to address that. I shall also speak to amendment 112 proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith). Again, I want to focus on the facts. I am grateful to the shadow Minister for her comments and for the opportunity to intervene on the Minister earlier. If we have a binding referendum, we do not have control over what someone may be made to do. We can bring in threshold limits, but there is something called the internet, which makes it easy for people to move forward with ideas and get to thresholds. A relatively low number of people could then go and vote, and we would be faced with some very nasty legislation.