My Lords, technically the noble Lord is right—it is down to four people—but they are elected by their local council groups, and their local councillors are elected by the electorate. This was explicit in the Conservative Party’s manifesto for the general election, whether anybody read it or not—although I hope that some people did.
Going back to what I was saying—which makes the very point that the noble Lord raised—this means that those who have been democratically elected by the local authority electors are making this decision on behalf of those who have elected them. That is representative democracy, which is the bedrock of our local democracy. In devolving powers and reaching devolution agreements with areas, it is right that the Government deal with those elected to represent the area—those with a democratic mandate—rather than in some way trying to go over the heads of the elected local representatives and reach their own view on what the local electorate want.