Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords]

As a former councillor and, indeed, ward colleague of my right hon. Friend, may I express my violent enthusiasm for the Bill? So enthusiastic are councils across the country that I am sure my right hon. Friend will be carried shoulder high into the next LGA conference that he attends. [Laughter.] Does he agree, however, that many of the worries he will hear expressed here today, and in other places, stand in the way of what could be a golden age for municipal and county government? Does he agree that one of the critical things we must all realise is that councillors are not second-class politicians, that they can be trusted to make large and significant decisions about their areas and communities, and that too often in the House we look down our nose a little at councillors and feel that we should retain a little too much power because they cannot be trusted?