Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall am 11:26 am ar 2 Mawrth 2010.
I have not seen the remarks that the hon. and learned Gentleman refers to, so I will not comment on them. I agree that Ministers should take responsibility for their decisions. I have carried that through in my own political career; it is important not to offload on civil servants. That is one reason why I commend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government for taking the decision that he has, having heard the advice and rightly exchanging correspondence with the permanent secretary. That is the perfectly correct process. The Secretary of State is entitled to make the decision that he has, and I am glad that he has done so.
Throughout this process, I have favoured a solution founded on a unitary Norwich based on wider boundaries, rather than on either one, two or more unitaries for the rest of Norfolk. I have always thought that that was more logical, and I hoped that the boundary committee would come to that view, because it would have been a preferable situation to the one we have at the moment. In that context, it is laughable to suggest, as the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk did, that all this is happening because of some process of political advantage. Any political aspects of it are certainly not advantaging the Labour party in Norwich, or anywhere else, and that is even more the case on a wider boundaries basis.
Anybody who makes such an allegation is perhaps not looking too carefully at the twin-hatters in their own constituencies-members of their constituency associations-who are collecting their two payments as district and county councillors. The hon. Gentleman should look carefully before making allegations about political interest in that regard.