It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby.
I pay a warm tribute to the Minister and the Secretary of State for their approach to this Bill and the constructive dialogue that they have had with—dare I say it?—the caucus of Greater Manchester MPs, including two who are sitting next to me. The Minister warmed my heart by quoting Edmund Burke earlier. I do not know how Burke’s “Reflections on the Revolution in France” compare with my Second Reading speech, “William Wragg’s reflections on Devolution in Greater Manchester”, although in some respects my speech was probably equally as intemperate as the fiery language that Burke deployed against the French revolution. If I at all offended the Minister with my remarks on Second Reading, I wish to atone for that entirely.
The point about amendment 51 is no different to the point that I made last week about having confidence in the arguments and trusting the people to win them over. My hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady) expanded on the qualities of the Minister and the Front-Bench team in persuading and engaging with the public, and if they were to test this issue with a referendum in Greater Manchester, they might be pleasantly surprised with the result.
My neighbour, the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey), has recently left the Chamber, but I pay tribute to her work on child sexual exploitation. I was pleased to serve on one of the sub-committees of Stockport Council which took evidence from her. I say gently, however, that I would distance myself from any temptation to link the topic on which she has done a great deal of work with whether an elected mayor would impact on that, as I think it is a slightly spurious argument.
As a former teacher I should perhaps apologise to the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), who took issue with how the explanatory statement was drafted, and I hold my hands up as that was due to a lax approach on my part. There was never intended to be threshold on which 50% of the population would have to agree. Amendment 51 is supported by a growing list of colleagues, and it simply asks that fundamental changes to local government and the governance of my constituency are put to the test at a referendum, so that they can be endorsed and back the Government’s welcome programme of devolution.