Local Government Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill (Money)

It is rather an unusual experience to hear the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) support a private Member's Bill in the Chamber. He generally has another function in life: to prevent new rules and regulation contained in private Members' Bills from being inflicted on people. I want to raise two issues. First, discussing a money resolution relating to a Bill giving new powers to a person who does not currently exist is a slightly strange experience. I understand that there is no local government ombudsman at present, which is a matter of concern to me. The other day I received a letter from the permanent secretary at the Department for Communities and Local Government, Sir Bob Kerslake—in response to a letter I sent to the Secretary of State—which provided the helpful explanation that the process for appointing an ombudsman had been halted because the Government were reconsidering the nature and focus of the post in the light of last July's public services White Paper. We have all experienced appointment procedures in which the candidate was not deemed suitable, there was disagreement about the candidate, or we reviewed what the candidate should be doing in the light of the appointment process itself. That appears to be the case in this instance, but the difficulty is that the interviews for the post were held in February. The Select Committee on Communities and Local Government was due to hold hearings to ratify the appointment, but it was only in November that the Government decided to terminate the process. That is nine months of dealing completely inadequately with an appointment to an extremely important position.