Draft Dorset (Structural Changes) (Modification Of The Local Government And Public Involvement In Health Act 2007) Regulations 2018 Draft Bournemouth, Dorset And Poole (Structural Changes) Order 2018

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 General Committees

[Rishi Sunak]

I agree with my hon. Friend. He states the fact clearly: every Member bar one in the county of Dorset is supportive of the proposal.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I am that person, but I know that the Minister believes not in the tyranny of the majority but in democracy and the undertaking given by the Government in the House of Commons in 2015 that no local authority would be abolished without its consent. May I ask him to confirm that the criteria to which he has just referred were not published until after submission of the application? They were only published in response to a parliamentary question from me.

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[Rishi Sunak]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is right to raise the validity of the poll. I am sure we will return to that issue later. Suffice to say, there are questions as to whether the poll is valid and they should be taken into consideration.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

In that case, why did my right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State encourage the holding of that local poll, at tremendous expense to local people, implying that the decision taken would be compelling evidence in the case?

[Rishi Sunak]

It is not my understanding that the then Secretary of State encouraged the running of that poll. Regardless of that—and my hon. Friend knows this because my right hon. Friend the previous Secretary of State told him—he did take the poll into account when considering the proposals.

To return to the statutory framework, the regulations vary the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 in its application to the case of the Dorset councils during the period from when the regulations come into force until 31 March 2020. The regulations require the consent of at least one relevant authority. In this case, Bournemouth, Poole, the county of Dorset, five of the districts within Dorset and eight of the nine councils in Dorset have consented to the regulations being made.

In conclusion, the merits of the abolition on 1 April next year of the nine existing local government—

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Before the Minister finishes, will he say something about the legal action that is being taken against the Government by Christchurch Borough Council on the advice of leading counsel, the letter before action that was sent, and the implications for good local government in Christchurch if we end up with litigation that ultimately results in the regulations being quashed?

[Rishi Sunak]

I am happy to do that. The Department has received what is called a pre-action protocol letter from Christchurch Borough Council, informing of its consideration of a judicial review. It is important to note that that is not the start of a formal legal proceeding. It is an exploratory letter, to which the Government have responded extremely robustly. We have set out in no uncertain terms why we believe—

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[Sir Christopher Chope]

I do not think we are going to make much progress in this Committee if there is such misrepresentation of the facts. Leading counsel was indeed asked by Christchurch Borough Council to look at the legal issues. It was only after the regulations were laid that the council went back to leading counsel and said that it was shocked to find that they were retrospective in effect. On going back a third time to leading counsel, they advised that the borough council had a good case for quashing the regulations and wrote a letter asking the Government to withdraw them. The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset is completely irrelevant.

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset was making a point about the substance of the case. I can tell the Committee the content of the Government’s letter in reply to the pre-action protocol letter. It notes that there is a bad case on the grounds of delay and that the substance of the case is wholly without merit; the Government believe that it is not arguable at all. I have no doubt we will hear from Christchurch Borough Council in due course.

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[Jim McMahon]

I am grateful for that clarification.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Will my hon. Friend—the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jim McMahon]

In the interests of balance.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

The hon. Gentleman certainly is—I hope—a friend of mine, because he is listening and that is healthy. I inform him, if he does not know already, that in response to a point of order on 10 May on the business question, Mr Speaker said:

“Some people might think…that it is perhaps less than collegiate, kind or courteous on the part of the powers that be knowingly and deliberately to exclude the hon. Member for Christchurch from the Committee.”—[Official Report, 10 May 2018; Vol. 640, c. 925.]

[Jim McMahon]

That is noted. I was in the Chamber for that point of order and Mr Speaker’s response, so I was aware of it. There is clearly a difference of opinion, and Christchurch Council has been robust in its position. However people want to view that, the council went out to its local population and those who took part were clear that they were against reorganisation—84% were against the proposed merger. I am not saying that that in itself is reason alone to block any reorganisation or merger, but simply to put that to one side as if not important, or to try to decry such public involvement, is not the spirit in which to go about it.

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[Sir Oliver Letwin]

That is absolutely true. The sad irony is that what I am saying is as important for the citizens of Christchurch as for the rest of us. I am sure that what my hon. Friend says about the need for accommodation is absolutely right. Bournemouth and Poole have been in the lead on the number of elderly people migrating to those parts for many decades, long before he came to occupy his distinguished position. His predecessor in that seat—I am long in the tooth, so I remember him well, as you will, Sir Henry—complained about the large number of frail, elderly people who had to be supported and the lack of money to do so. That is not a sudden development—it has just got much, much worse over the years. Finally, I will say something about the other kind of efficiency to which the Minister referred.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the courteous way in which he has dealt with these issues throughout. Would that that had been the situation with all my colleagues!

Putting that to one side, he has referred to the financial pressures. One of the consequences of what is being debated today is that Dorset County Council will no longer have the resources coming to it from Christchurch council tax payers, because Christchurch will be moved out of the county council area. That will reduce the income of the county council. From figures we have received, Dorset County Council receives more income from Christchurch than it spends on services in Christchurch. Therefore, can my right hon. Friend explain why the Government have rejected any suggestion that Christchurch could be part of a rural unitary? Can he also explain in answer to our hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West why, if both Bournemouth and Poole have those pressures, they refuse to merge together to save about £10 million a year, and insist that they will not merge unless they can also have Christchurch?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I think it would be right, in the spirit of this discussion, if I were to answer that set of points fully and then move back to the remainder of my intended speech.

In the first place, what my hon. Friend says is absolutely right. It is a matter of undeniable statistics that, although costs reduce when Christchurch moves out of the county area, so revenues reduce slightly more. That is certainly true. Those figures have been taken fully into account in the calculation of the net effect on the rural county, as it will be in the unitary form. It is true that, from our point of view in the rural county, we would have been yet better off if Christchurch had been part of that. Speaking for myself, I would have seen no objection to that whatsoever from our point of view. I do not think any of my hon. Friends representing other constituencies in what will be the rural county would have had any objection either.

While we are at it, I regret that my hon. Friend decided to pursue the fantasy of joining up with Hampshire rather than trying at an early stage to join up with the rural county with some financial settlement, which would have made this much simpler. But that is past history, alas. I cannot answer in detail why the two unitaries in the conurbation believe it so essential to have the revenues from Christchurch as part of the overall transformation, but I suspect it has a great deal to do with what my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West mentioned just a moment or two ago: that the financial pressures on the two unitaries are also very great, for similar reasons.

Anyway, we are where we are, and the options we face are to have either no reorganisation or to have the reorganisation proposed before us. None of us can deny that those are the two available alternatives, which brings me to my last point—it is an important one and I hope Opposition Members consider it. It is critical to recognise that, although this reorganisation is, very importantly, about saving money by administrative overhead-cutting, it is not just about that. When there is one chief executive instead of many, one set of directors instead of many and one set of councillors instead of many, a lot of money is saved, but it is not about just that in the long run—it is not even primarily about that.

The biggest problem we face in dealing with the social care crisis in Dorset and with the interactions between social care and the health service, which is very typical in many parts of the country, is integration between social care, housing and the health service. Unless it can be so arranged that the individuals who are frail and elderly preponderantly live in places where it is affordable to look after them, rather than in far-flung distant villages where it is incredibly expensive to service them at the level of care they need and deserve, and unless absolute integration is arranged between the operations of social services and of the health service, we will not cure the underlying demographic pressures and problems for our health and social care service.

At the moment, the county council has no influence on social housing policy. It is very difficult for the health service to know with whom it is meant to be negotiating because the many different councils have different relationships with those frail and elderly people and are involved in some way or another in looking after them. Various Labour and Liberal Democrat Members and I have joined together in an effort to cure this problem eventually at a national level, by seeking to persuade Her Majesty’s Treasury to create a hypothecated national fund to look after both health and social care. That proposition was adopted by all the Select Committees of the House in the Liaison Committee, and is being considered by the Prime Minister. I very strongly hope that, as a nation, we will move in that direction, but it will not happen tomorrow.

Meanwhile, we in Dorset desperately need to be able to create that level of integration if we are to tackle at the root a problem that is causing human misery as well as great strain on those operating in both our social care and our health service system as professionals. On those grounds alone, if there were no other, if there were not large local support and if it had not been the case that this came from the bottom up, we would still need to do this. Those are enormously important supportive things.

The problem social care and we need to tackle it. The only way we will do so is by carrying through this integration, so I very much hope the Minister will have his way in doing the right thing.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset. I agree with many of the more general comments that he makes about the need to ensure that we get more rationality in the operation of services at local government level, and better integration of social services and the health service.

It was interesting that my right hon. Friend said that he was not in favour of top-down solutions, and then referred to the fact that Christchurch going in with Hampshire would be a fantasy. Christchurch was in Hampshire until 1974 when, in such a top-down proposal, it was forced out of Hampshire into Dorset.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

My hon. Friend’s history is impeccable, but does he recognise that the problem is that Hampshire does not want to have Christchurch back?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

My right hon. Friend is wrong about that. In the discussions with Christchurch, Hampshire said that it needed assurance that it would be a net beneficiary of the resources from Christchurch in Hampshire rather than in Dorset. Christchurch tried to persuade Dorset County Council to make that information publicly available so that Hampshire could be reassured that it would benefit financially from having Christchurch transferred back into Hampshire.

Unfortunately, even as we speak, Dorset County Council has not finalised the desegregation costs of splitting Christchurch at the borough council and upper tier levels from the rest of Dorset. We are told that those figures will not be available until the middle of June.

[Conor Burns]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Hold on a moment! The consequence of those figures not being made available is that Hampshire, in the short window of opportunity given by the Secretary of State, was unable to sign up to the idea of entering negotiations with Christchurch on transferring Christchurch to Hampshire.

Before I give way to my hon. Friend, may I point out another problem? The Secretary of State in his announcement of 7 November changed the goalposts. Bournemouth and Poole were not willing to merge together on their own. A proposal that involved Christchurch leaving Dorset and going into Hampshire fell foul of the fact that Poole and Bournemouth in effect had a veto. My right hon. Friend’s aspiration for Christchurch to stay in Dorset was made non-viable by the Government’s insistence, in changing the rules, that Bournemouth and Poole should each have a veto over proposals that did not involve Christchurch joining Bournemouth and Poole—the very same reason. I shall now give way to my hon. Friend.

[The Chair]

Order. I would be very grateful if that can of Coke in the front row could be put out of sight because it is appearing on the webcam.

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[Sir Christopher Chope]

My hon. Friend has always been younger than me, even going back to the time when he helped me enormously as a student, when I was the Member for Southampton, Itchen. I am eternally grateful to him for his help during those campaigns in Southampton.

However, it would be much easier to sell this project to the people of Christchurch, who are manifestly opposed to it at the moment, if there were more understanding on the part of Bournemouth of how much the people of Christchurch resent the prospect, under delayed harmonisation and equalisation proposals, of them cross-subsidising the people of Bournemouth and Poole by up to £200 a year at band D for up to 20 years. That has caused an enormous amount of resistance.

The councillors in Christchurch went into a joint working party with councillors from Bournemouth and Poole, but one of the conditions for entering it was that Bournemouth and Poole should accept that in the event of a new unitary combining Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch, it would be fair and equitable that everyone at band D should pay the same council tax from year one. That is the way to achieve general support for a new council. General support for a new council is not achieved by telling residents at band D in Grange ward in Christchurch, which includes some of the most deprived housing estates in the whole of the west of England, that they will be cross-subsidising people living in Sandbanks, and other areas in the conurbation with really smart properties, for up to 20 years. It is a pity that my hon. Friend has not been able to persuade his councillors to be more reasonable about that.

Indeed, I do not blame my hon. Friend for this, but some of his councillors, and the leader of Bournemouth council in particular, have been throwing petrol on the fire by pushing through proposals such as borrowing £70 million to buy an asset that is estimated to be worth £50 million after development. They are borrowing money when Christchurch has no borrowings—it is debt-free and has been prudent all these years. Christchurch has raised its council tax over the years in order to balance its books. Meanwhile, Bournemouth and Poole kept their council taxes artificially reduced, leading to the financial crisis they now have. They are hoping that the burghers of Christchurch will come along and bail them out, and they will be assisted in that way.

[Conor Burns]

On the point of the council tax freeze, that of course was the policy of the coalition Government that the councils in Bournemouth and Poole implemented. I am not necessarily in favour of criticising Conservative councillors for following Conservative Government policy.

There is a very contentious point that worries people. On the point of the 20-year period to council tax equalisation, has my hon. Friend had any indication from a Minister that a period anywhere close to 20 years would be acceptable to them? I have not.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

There was a meeting of officials from Dorset councils with the Department in June 2016, before the consultation papers were finalised. That meeting has been confirmed in answer to a parliamentary question that I tabled. I have been told that the minutes and notes of that meeting no longer exist, if they ever did. I have been told by the section 151 officer at Christchurch Borough Council, who was present at that meeting, that, in response to representations on the big council tax gap between Poole and Bournemouth, and Christchurch—more than £200 at band D—the officials said that the Government would agree to a 20-year harmonisation period. It was on the basis of that statement made by Government officials, presumably with the knowledge and support of Government Ministers, that the consultation document was drawn up, using figures based on a 20-year harmonisation period. As my hon. Friend knows, if there is a 20-year harmonisation period, that means that the figures look a lot more attractive than they do for a much shorter harmonisation period.

Indeed, I questioned council officers in Dorset about that at the time. They explained that although the shorter harmonisation period would benefit my constituents in Christchurch, it would drive a coach and horses through the financial prospectus that had been produced, because it would eliminate almost all the savings from the reorganisation. The reorganisation was presented in the consultation on the basis of net savings, but a lot of those savings were increased income from the people of Christchurch, to the benefit of those in Poole and Bournemouth. This is a long answer to my hon. Friend’s intervention, but the short answer is that the Government did know and encouraged this.

[Jim McMahon]

rose—

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I will finish the answer in a minute, but first I give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Jim McMahon]

I would be interested to know whether the Government indicated any intention during that discussion to have a property revaluation for council tax purposes at any point in the transition period, because if it were taken to its 20-year extreme, the property prices would be 47 years out of date.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Exactly. I obviously was not party to the conversation, but as I understand it, nothing about potential changes to council tax or business rate valuations was discussed.

Subsequently, last October the Government indicated to council officers across Dorset that they were no longer content with a 20-year harmonisation period, and that the period would be much shorter. That was confirmed to me by the chief official at the Department—he is in the room today—when I met him on 7 November at the behest of the Secretary of State. I was told then that the Government thought that the maximum period for harmonisation would be five years, but in practice it has never been more than two years in the past, and a maximum of two or three years is likely. A harmonisation period of two or three years would completely transform projections on savings, yet there has been no update from the councils to show what the impact would be in practice.

The issue of harmonisation is fraught. The Government invited all councils in Dorset to make submissions on harmonisation in time for the 8 January deadline. I know that Christchurch did that, but not whether other councils did. Unlike with the Government’s decision to go ahead with the two unitary authorities proposal, which they announced on 26 February, they have not yet said where they stand on the fraught issue of harmonisation. Their criteria for judging the issue are so broad and vague that it gives them absolute discretion over what answer they provide. As the issue has now been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West, I hope that when the Minister responds he will say unequivocally what harmonisation and equalisation period the Government will set in the event of these orders going through.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the campaign that he has run energetically on this issue in the House of Commons. For those of us not from Dorset, am I right in thinking that the situation could be summed up in this way: what is proposed is a good deal for Poole and Bournemouth but a very bad deal for people in Christchurch, and the Government have decided to impose a bad deal on Christchurch against people’s wishes, for the benefit of people in Bournemouth and Poole? That seems to be my hon. Friend’s case. Am I right in that analysis?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

That is a succinct but absolutely correct analysis, and if it was not correct, the people of Christchurch would not have voted as they did. More than 17,000 people went to a local poll to express the view that they do not want to be subject to Bournemouth and Poole control. I say “control” because in a Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch unitary authority, Christchurch will have 13% of the councillors, which means that they would always be outvoted and in a minority. The green-belt area around Christchurch would be open to being removed at the behest of Bournemouth and Poole, so that they could land grab and so on.

[Conor Burns]

I accept fully the poll that took place in Christchurch, and the information put before the electorate by my hon. Friend and others. He has made the point in a number of speeches in the House and Westminster Hall that Bournemouth has an eye on the Christchurch green belt for development, but there is no evidence for that at all, and there have been no statements to that effect by Bournemouth or Poole. What evidence can my hon. Friend provide to substantiate the allegation that he has repeatedly made about the green belt?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

There is masses of evidence. Obviously it is coming not openly from councillors, but from landowners and developers who know well the council set up in Bournemouth. I know from talking to people in Christchurch that that is exactly what they have in mind. Sadly, I must point out to my hon. Friend that our Government are really giving a green light to councils to remove land from the green belt. That is a Government policy that could not be implemented at the moment in Christchurch, because Christchurch is not willing to put forward such a proposal to the Government. However, a big conurbation of Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch combined would be able to make such an application to the Government. There would be only 10 councillors from the Christchurch constituency in the new unitary authority, compared with 33 at the moment. There would be a significant reduction in the number of councillors from Christchurch and, consequently, in their influence.

[Toby Perkins]

If I have understood the hon. Gentleman correctly, he says that he is aware of what the policy of this council—which does not have any policies because it does not yet exist—will be on building on the green belt. I can only imagine that he says that because he knows what kind of people will stand for election for the Conservative party. If he suggested that people voted Labour at the next general election, there might be an Administration that was against building on the green belt, which might solve his problem.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

The hon. Gentleman talks about upcoming elections. I fear that if these proposals go ahead, it will be doomsday for a lot of Conservatives in Dorset. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Poole in his place. Poole Liberal Democrats and the Poole People party are dead against these proposals—they are as concerned about them as people from Christchurch. If this change is forced on the people of Christchurch, what hope will people standing in Christchurch as Conservative candidates have of getting elected?

Years ago, when the Conservative party brought in the right to buy, the Labour party lost its last representatives in Christchurch. The Christchurch Labour councillors at that time felt strongly that the right to buy was the correct policy and, because they did not like the way the Labour party opposed it, left the party. However, in so doing, they left a legacy of independents. They did not join the Conservative party; they became independents. If this shambles is allowed to develop in the way that the Government seem to want it to develop, it is likely that there will be a rise in independently minded people across the conurbation and a rise in support for the Labour party. To give the Labour party its due, it came a good second in Christchurch at the last general election. Okay, it was 25,000-plus votes behind me, but it nevertheless came a good second and made a big improvement on its previous performance.

[Toby Perkins]

Would it therefore be reasonable to say that it was a two-horse race?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I will go along with that, yes. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, who is a betting man, knows exactly how to bet on two-horse races.

Let me return to the issue of consent. Neither my hon. Friend the Minister nor others drew the Committee’s attention to the 26th report of the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which was published in April. That Committee drew specific attention to these instruments—particularly the draft modification regulations, which we are discussing at the moment—and to the local advisory poll in December 2017,

“in which 84% (numbering 17,676 votes) of those taking part voted ‘no’ to the changes.”

It reports in its conclusions at paragraph 11:

“MHCLG has told us that Ministers have made clear that they will apply the criteria for local government restructuring ‘in the round’ for the area subject to reorganisation, rather than considering whether the criteria would be met in relation to each individual council area.”

It goes on:

“However, given the scale of opposition to the proposal expressed both by Christchurch BC and by its residents, we consider that these instruments give rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House.”

I hope that, in looking at this issue, hon. Members will indeed have regard to what that Committee said and to the appendix to its report.

That draws attention to the outcome of the poll. My hon. Friend the Minister said that some councillors from Christchurch had written to the Government saying that they rather fancied the idea of being councillors in a new unitary authority and thought it would be in the best interests of Christchurch residents that that should happen. When that was debated and voted on at the Christchurch Borough Council meeting in January, not a single councillor raised his hand to vote against what was proposed—in contrast to what happened a year previously. The reason was that they knew that if they did so, the electors in their wards would have been completely at a loss to understand how they could be insulted by their elected members.

Remember that at the borough council elections in Christchurch in 2015 there was no talk whatsoever of any structural change. Indeed, at that time there were plaudits all round for the savings, extending to several million pounds each year, being achieved as a result of Christchurch and East Dorset working together in partnership with one chief executive, one set of chief officers and one headquarters premises. As a consequence of what is proposed today, that partnership will be broken, with all the dis-economies of scale that will flow from that. That joint working will be undermined, and one part of the partnership will be set against the other. The Government have not faced up to that, which is another reason to be concerned about the proposals.

I would also bring the Committee’s attention to this point, which the Minister anticipated I would make. The background is that, under section 2 of the 2007 Act, the Government have the power to invite proposals for local government reorganisation from two tier to single tier. That is indeed what the Government recently did in Northamptonshire. The 2007 Act also gave the then Government the power to insist that proposals be brought forward, but that power was time-limited and has expired.

There was no power in that Act for councils to make their own proposals to the Government where there was not consent. That is where the regulations are problematic, because they say that the 2007 Act shall be changed retrospectively to operate in a way that allows councils to put submissions to the Secretary of State without their having invited such submissions. As the Minister said, the regulations being used to try to achieve that require the consent of at least one councillor in a particular category.

However, during the passage of the 2016 Act in December 2015, the Government said they would give a guarantee that powers to override the democratically expressed will of an individual council would not be used for that purpose. The background to that was a Back-Bench amendment to the Bill that was considered on Report, which is now reflected in section 15(5) to (8). I and my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), along with one or two others, expressed concern during the debate on that amendment that, if literally interpreted, the power it created could be used against a council against its will. I sought various undertakings in that debate, but the junior Minister was tied to his brief and unable to satisfy either me or my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough that the powers would not be used in the adverse way that we feared.

Then—this is relevant, because it is how this came about—my hon. Friend and I spoke to the then Secretary of State during another Division on Report and said that if he did not give a stronger undertaking on Third Reading, we would divide the House. The Secretary of State told us that he would give us the undertaking that we sought. It was on that basis that I asked the Secretary of State this specific question on Third Reading:

“Will my right hon. Friend give the House an assurance that amendment 56”—

the one that changed what is now section 15(5) to (8)—

“will not be used by the Government to force change on any local authority?”

The Secretary of State replied:

“I will indeed.”—[Official Report, 7 December 2015; Vol. 603, c. 822.]

My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough then pressed the point, citing his fear that the power would be used to impose changes in Lincolnshire that he and his people did not want. The Secretary of State went further and said that the powers were designed to bring councils together into discussion and not to impose the will of the Government on one council, as compared with another, against its consent.

I have since spoken to our former colleague, the junior Minister at the time, who told me of his horror when he heard what the Secretary of State said in response to the questions that I and my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough put to him on Third Reading. Our erstwhile hon. Friend, who sadly was defeated at the general election, took the view that what was being said was thoroughly misleading—that is what he says. What we have is a situation where I and my hon. Friend, and the House, were misled by the Government—I am not saying deliberately—and made to believe that the Government would not introduce changes against the will of elected councillors.

[Jim McMahon]

I, too, seek clarity on this matter, because there is a difference between the Secretary of State devising a scheme and then effectively forcing councils to accept it. That is not what is on the Order Paper today. During the discussions that took place, was there any conversation that would effectively give any component council a right of veto?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

If the hon. Gentleman looks at the whole context of this debate and the whole Hansard report, I think that he will reach the conclusion that a clear undertaking was given by the Government.

Perhaps I can pray in aid the written opinion—it was referred to earlier—from Nathalie Lieven QC at Blackstone Chambers in response to a request from Christchurch Borough Council. In it, she says:

“I was shown…various passages from the Hansard debates where the Minister appeared to assure Sir Christopher and another concerned MP, Edward Leigh, that the power would be used to persuade Councils to have a conversation about merger rather than to force them to merge against their will.”

Nathalie Lieven QC goes on to say:

“Debates in Parliament are only admissible”—

that is, in a court of law—

“where the meaning of the statute is unclear and ambiguous. In this case s.15 is perfectly clear on its face, so what the Minister said is not admissible to seek to prevent him from acting under s.15. The correct forum for holding the Minister to account, for arguably giving an assurance that he is now reneging on, is in Parliament itself. The courts will not enforce an assurance given to Parliament, and will be clear that this is a matter which should be raised in Parliament. On the face of it there does seem to be an inconsistency between what the junior Minister was telling Parliament”—

that was in November last year—

“and the decision of the SoS in this case, but this is a matter…to raise politically, rather than giving rise to a legal argument.”

So we have a situation where leading counsel takes the same view as I take, and took, and indeed relied upon during the consultation period in the autumn of 2016.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I think my hon. Friend’s answer to the Opposition spokesman was a very long way of saying no. I want to get it on the record that the rest of us—I think I speak for all my other colleagues in Dorset—do not see this whole process in the way that my hon. Friend does.

First of all, as my hon. Friend has just quoted his own legal counsel as saying, the Act is perfectly clear in the powers that it gives the Secretary of State. Secondly, there is a world of difference, as the Opposition spokesman said, between this situation and the Government getting through Parliament a top-down reorganisation that is resisted by the people and local governments in an area. That may or may not be a good thing to do in some cases; it is not what is going on here.

The assurance that my hon. Friend hopes he got from the Secretary of State, but which the Secretary of State never gave, was that Christchurch would have a veto on the whole reorganisation, even though the reorganisation is earnestly desired by and desperately needed by the rest of the county. It is perfectly proper that the Act should give the Secretary of State the power, as my hon. Friend’s legal counsel admits it manifestly does, to accept a plea from almost all—94%—of the people of Dorset for reorganisation, even if 6% of them, or the majority of 6% of them, do not like it.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

My right hon. Friend has made a long intervention, but he misunderstands my point about leading counsel. Leading counsel is saying that it seems quite clear that my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and I were given an assurance that has now been reneged upon by the Government, and that redress is to be had not through the courts, but politically. That is why I am raising the matter in this Committee. There may be quite a lot of people in this Committee who regard it as very poor form for the Government to go back on their word in terms of an assurance that has been given to Parliament. Indeed, I raised the issue with Mr Speaker on a point of order in March 2017. Mr Speaker said it was not right to think that just because there had been a change of Minister or Government, the word given to the House could be reneged upon.

The first time I had any inkling that the Government were minded to renege on that undertaking was in March 2017. That is when I raised the point of order on the Floor of the House. I also wrote to the Prime Minister expressing my concern. As a result of that letter, she intervened. In the end, although it was expected that the Government would announce a “minded to” decision on the application in March 2017, they did not do so. There was then a period of purdah, as my right hon. Friend will remember, for the local elections. That was then closely followed by the general election, which amazingly was only just short of one year ago.

After the general election, all the Conservative councillors who had been re-elected in my constituency wrote to the Prime Minister asking her to intervene in this matter to ensure that Christchurch Borough Council was not abolished against the consent of the people. The Prime Minister wrote back in October 2017. In her letter of 9 October, she said:

“I understand that conversations are now continuing between the affected councils and interested parties to see if, and how, an agreement can be reached that is supported by all of the councils.”

The clear implication of that was that the Prime Minister accepted that there had been an undertaking that all councils should reach an agreement, with the emphasis on the need for councils reasonably to participate in this rather than just saying, “We are not talking to you.” That was the concern expressed in that debate. If a council had an absolute veto, it could say, “I am not prepared to parley with you. I am not prepared to have any discussion.” The Government perfectly reasonably said, “We want to encourage councils to enter into discussions and debate to try to move forward with consensus or consent.”

[Conor Burns]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Conor Burns]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and to you, Sir Henry. For the benefit of the Committee, it is my understanding that Christchurch Borough Council is now fully participating in the joint working and preparations for the implementation of the new authority.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Christchurch Borough Council was doing that under duress in the spirit of co-operation, but specifically on the basis that it had not withdrawn its objections; that there would be no period of harmonisation; and that in the event of there being a new unitary authority, all band D taxpayers would pay the same from day one.

I take your point, Sir Henry. I had not realised that we are now approaching 4 o’clock and we started at half-past 2, so we have only got five more minutes. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton for objecting to our dealing with the two statutory instruments together. That has enabled us to have a proper debate on this very important matter, which covers retrospection. I have not yet really got into retrospection, but the letter before action from Christchurch Borough Council draws attention to the fact that it is important for Committees to look at retrospection before the matter goes to the courts, with all the problems that flow from that.

[Rishi Sunak]

It is with some trepidation that I attempt to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, not only because he held this brief a long time ago and is a distinguished Member of this House, but because when I was a small boy growing up in Southampton, his was perhaps the first local MP’s name that I knew. I put on the record my respect and admiration for his persistence in pursuing this course. It is right that we have a proper thorough, detailed debate on the issues he has raised, which we will no doubt continue to discuss after we consider this statutory instrument and move on to the next.

I would also like to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset and my hon. Friends the Members for North Dorset and for South Dorset for their contributions. I also note the presence of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) and my hon. Friends the Members for Poole and for Mid Dorset and North Poole, who I am sure we will hear from later.

We have covered so many issues. In the short time I have to respond, I will summarise and pick up in detail in the next part. In short, I echo the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset. He put it very well: ultimately, what we are discussing today is about people. Often frail and elderly, they are the people whom we as MPs or councillors across Dorset have the privilege to represent. Those representatives have thought long and hard about how best to serve those people, and how best to provide the public services that their constituents rely on in the financial climate and changing demographics they face.

Those councillors and people in the local area, who know their constituents best, have put forward the proposals we are considering. As I opened, I will close: these are locally led proposals, which have been developed and supported extensively across Dorset. We have heard a lot about polls, retrospection, invitations and reorganisations but we should leave with this point in our heads: across the entire area, including in Christchurch, there is a good deal of support for these proposals. They will improve local government in the area, as we heard so eloquently from my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset. They will improve local government for the people who live in those places. The geographies we are considering make logical sense. As the Committee considers these undoubtedly complex and difficult matters, I leave them with that in mind. This is not a top-down, imposed reorganisation.

The Government have responded constructively and diligently to the proposals that were put forward. It has taken an incredible amount of time, care and patience to consider those proposals carefully. That has included engaging with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and others on many occasions on the points he has consistently raised. I am fully confident that the proposals in front of the Committee deserve our support and will benefit the good people of Dorset in the years to come. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Question put, That the Committee has considered the draft Dorset (Structural Changes) (Modification of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007) Regulations 2018.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

No.

[The Chair]

That is invalid.

Question agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Dorset (Structural Changes) (Modification of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007) Regulations 2018.

Draft Bournemouth, Dorset and Poole (Structural Changes) Order 2018

--- Later in debate ---

[Conor Burns]

My hon. Friend and neighbour is absolutely correct. There are many people who will be making a sacrifice when these changes come into being; there are also many, I assume, who do not think it will be them and are supporting the proposals for those reasons.

My hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Christchurch has fought a doughty, determined, vigorous and principled campaign. I pay tribute to him for standing up for what he believes to be the interests of his constituency and community in Christchurch. He pointed out that I helped him a little bit in his campaign for re-election in Southampton, Itchen in 1992. I first met him some 27 years ago this October, when I enrolled at Southampton University. I suppose I had a little part to play in him now being a Member of Parliament for Christchurch and standing up for his constituents, because we were unsuccessful in the campaign that I participated in, so he was liberated from Southampton and able to seek the nomination for Christchurch, which he won back for us in 1997.

I pay tribute to the Minister and his predecessors. This process has been going on for a long time, through two general elections, three Secretaries of State, and countless Ministers for Local Government. On behalf of the chief executives and the leaders of Bournemouth and Poole councils, I also pay tribute to the officials in the Department, who have been incredibly professional in working through the proposals. In particular, I pay tribute to Paul Rowsell, who has been involved throughout and who our people in Bournemouth and Poole could not speak more highly of. I thank him for what he has done.

My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset spoke movingly about adult social care. I want to bear out what he said earlier. When the process began, he was far from converted to the cause of local government reorganisation, but he moved over time as we explored it. He has always been analytical and facts-driven in his approach to politics—there should be more like him—and the numbers ultimately persuaded him that it was the right course of action for councils across Dorset, including Bournemouth and Poole.

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch had an exchange on council tax equalisation, on which I would like some clarity from the Minister. If we faced a position where council tax equalisation took place over 20 years, I would join my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch in opposing the proposals—although it would make no difference because I do not have a vote. We do not need anything like 20 years. It should be done in no more than six years, possibly with equalisation in year seven or maybe in a slightly shorter timeframe.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Why does my hon. Friend not accept that it would be fairer and better to organise a new unitary authority on the basis that everybody pays the same band D council tax from the outset?

[Conor Burns]

I will address that point a little later. My hon. Friend will acknowledge that it will require substantial council tax increases for my constituents in Bournemouth and Poole—I am the only one who represents both Bournemouth and Poole. They will need to raise their council tax to come up to the level in Christchurch.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Or Christchurch could reduce its council tax.

[Conor Burns]

Christchurch may wish to do other things in the new arrangements to protect its identity that may require some claim on the council tax. I will come on to that in a moment.

I would like to inject a note of positivity. It is not all about frail, vulnerable old people, although it is massively about that. It is an enormous opportunity. It is a fantastic fresh start for the conurbation, part of which I serve. If the Committee endorses this instrument, the new authority of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole will have a population of more than 400,000 people. It will be the 16th-largest urban area in the United Kingdom. The ability that that will give the authority to punch above its weight and argue for its case to be considered by central Government and internationally is why it is supported by the local enterprise partnership and by Dorset’s two world-class universities—Bournemouth University and the Arts University Bournemouth—which play an incredibly powerful role in getting our local area recognised as the fastest-growing digital economy in the United Kingdom. It is also supported by our internationally renowned and recognised football club, which is safe again in the premiership for another season.

We have an enormous opportunity. Our conurbation is recognised internationally. Many students come to Bournemouth to study at the universities or to learn English at the language schools, and go away imbued with a love of the area that we are proud to serve. We can go out there now and argue our case for infrastructure. Tomorrow I will go down to Bournemouth to the official opening of the Pier Approach, funded by money that I argued for from the coastal communities fund. The strength that we will have with all the Members of Parliament from the conurbation coming together to make our case to central Government will be incredible. That does something else as well. It recognises the difference that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch alluded to when he talked about the fact that Bournemouth and Christchurch used to be in Hampshire. One can drive all the way through my Bournemouth West constituency and eventually come to County Gates, the historic border between Dorset and Hampshire. Bournemouth and Poole have a different identity, with Christchurch, to the rest of rural Dorset. That allows the two new councils to forge the right vision for themselves.

I end on the point about identity that my hon. Friend talked about. I will fight any attempts to change the mayoralties and civic functions of the existing councils, because they are very important for local dignity and pride and people feel a sense of belonging to them. But there will be an opportunity in the new arrangements for different areas to have their own town and parish councils that can further entrench and protect a sense of identity. There will be an opportunity for people in Christchurch to seize and they will have our support. This is not a takeover, as it has been presented as so often. It is about us coming together and forging something new, where every voice will carry weight and every opinion will matter. There will not be x number of councillors from Christchurch, y from Bournemouth and z from Poole. There will be a total number of new councillors for one authority and each one will matter and each opinion will count.

I beg the indulgence of my colleagues and the Opposition. I pay tribute to the shadow Minister who has approached this matter in a balanced and calm way, and I warmly welcome that. The matter is too important for the future of our county for us to play politics. Every Dorset Member of Parliament and every councillor who has put themselves forward for election in Dorset has one thing in common: the desire to serve and do the best we can for the communities that have trusted us to elected office. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the Committee to give us the chance to do even better for the communities we care about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend strikes to the heart of the matter. It is not about constructs: it is about delivery of service. It is not as if Dorset is treading a virgin path. Bedfordshire, Shropshire and Cornwall have done the same thing, and, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, Wiltshire has done it too.

I should be prepared to wager a small amount of money with my hon. Friend or any member of the Committee that if we were to knock on a door in Wiltshire today and ask the person who answered whether they would have preferred the library to remain open, or to have 300 councillors all drawing their stipend, most—unless, possibly, they were one of the councillors—would say they preferred the library. Why? Because the library is a good thing. It is a community asset. It encourages children to read. It is a social and community hub. That is why the protection of those things is important.

Certainly, Baroness Scott, the leader of Wiltshire Council, has been a trailblazer in ensuring—particularly in a rural area—that such issues are taken into account to preserve, conserve and promote local identity. I am perfectly prepared to give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch if I have got my local government history wrong, but I think Christchurch became a borough council only in 1974. Prior to that, it was a town council in Hampshire. I shall work on the assumption that that might be correct.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

No, it is incorrect. Christchurch has been an independent borough since 1215.

[Simon Hoare]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but let us look at the word “independent”, because he has used it on a number of occasions in the House. I think, actually, he has deployed the phrase “sovereign and independent”, which suggests something like the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, or Liechtenstein. He was, of course, a councillor in Wandsworth—effectively a unitary, but Members present who have had experience in a two-tier council will know that the room for manoeuvre, whether in a borough or a district council, is tiny.

Housing numbers are effectively shaped and dictated by central Government, and freedom to raise council tax is curtailed by a capping regime. According to the estimates I have heard about services delivered in a two-tier authority, between 80% and 90% of the services delivered to Christchurch, Stourbridge, Sturminster Newton, Sturminster Marshall, Blandford Forum, Gillingham and Shaftesbury, which is in my constituency, would be provided by Dorset County Council. By definition, the larger voting number would not come from one specific geography, so I perceive real opportunities from the new council.

That is an important point. The change is not a merger—hostile or friendly—and it is not a takeover; it is the creation of two new councils. Certainly in Dorset rural—the existing county minus the borough of Christchurch—we are reviewing our boundaries. We are not calling them divisions; we are going to call them wards, because it feels more granular. If you talk to most people, they refer to their ward councillor, not their divisional member. That boundary review will allow new wards to be created straddling existing north-west or south and mid-Dorset boundaries.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

My hon. Friend is talking about lines on maps. We are talking in Christchurch about a community with a long history and a great, strong local identity. Although he was not in the Christchurch constituency, he intervened in the Christchurch referendum to try to persuade people to vote in favour of Christchurch restructuring. Can he explain why he thinks he so manifestly failed to persuade the people of Christchurch that he was right and I was wrong?

[Simon Hoare]

I am not entirely sure that four tweets from a Back-Bench Conservative Member of Parliament could be described as an intervention. This is hardly a Russian-sponsored cyber-attack of some form. I do not have that many followers. My hon. Friend gilds me with powers that I would not even presume to aggrandise with myself.

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the fact that 17,000 people took part in the parish poll. It was a postal poll, so people did not actually have to turn up to polling stations. I think people could bring in their form to the borough council headquarters if they wished. As a percentage of those who are eligible to vote within the parliamentary constituency, 17,000 is a number, but it is no more than that. That point strikes at the heart of this argument. Nobody can doubt the passion that has been deployed on either side. The split between Dorchester and Sherborne—that historical divide of the civil war—is a vicar’s tea party in comparison with some of the blood pressure increases that we have seen as the process has gone forward.

I take the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West made. Irrespective of where the public were on this issue two years ago or a year ago, or even where they are now, they should have no doubt—I would hope that they had some considerable pride—that we have all engaged passionately in this debate not out of narrow party interest or narrow self-interest, but because of what we believe, in our hearts and our souls, to be good for those who send us here.

The key point is that unanimity is not required in the legislation, because it would make a nonsense of the law, but it is desirable. Let us be frank: if not, we would not have taken up so much of your time, Sir Henry, or that of those colleagues who have had the enormous good fortune to be drawn in the Whips’ Office raffle to sit on this Delegated Legislation Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Thank you, Sir Henry. We are not at the end, and the reason is that there is a legal challenge to all this. We have had the letter before action and I understand that another letter before action has been issued by a resident in my constituency against the Government. It is interesting that, with the full knowledge of the legal opinions that have been floating around and the correspondence between the council in Christchurch and the Government, very little attention has been paid to that this afternoon.

We are talking about a constructive solution. I hope that my hon. Friends will ensure that nothing is done that will make for a complete shambles if and when the courts decide that these orders are ultra vires and are quashed, if they are indeed passed by both Houses before then. I would like the Minister to comment on the practicalities of all that, and on how easy it will be for those decisions to be rowed back on, if that is the will of the courts.

I have looked at the Government’s response to the letter before action from Christchurch Borough Council, which is centred around the use of retrospective legislation, and the main arguments put forward seem to be that Christchurch is a bit late in the day in raising that point, despite the regulations being laid only on 29 March. The first two or three pages of the response centre around that point—“You missed your chance and it’s all too late.”

The second part says that the presumption against retrospectivity is not engaged. The argument is not that retrospectivity is not engaged—of course, Christchurch Borough Council believes it is—but that the presumption against it is not engaged. There seems to be a recognition that retrospectivity is engaged. In the light of that, and of quite a lot of the decided cases, it seems that there is every prospect that, far from this being resolved this afternoon, as some of my right hon. and hon. Friends think it will, this will continue—and quite right too. We are a rules-based democracy and at the heart of all this is local democracy and localism.

What is the point of introducing proposals to abolish Christchurch Borough Council and replicate it with a new parish council that will effectively be a new bureaucracy with fewer powers? In other parts of Dorset, there are already parish and town councils, but not in Christchurch.

I was encouraged by some of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West, who seems to speak in a rather different way from the leader of his council. The leader of his council is on record as saying that he is against the creation of any town or parish councils within the new urban authority.

This afternoon, the leader of Christchurch Borough Council, the immediate past mayor of Christchurch Borough Council, the president of the Christchurch and East Dorset Conservative association, another Dorset county councillor and a prominent younger Conservative from Christchurch have sat and listened to this long debate. I do not think that they will have been impressed by the talk of wanting all this to have been sorted out, of local democracy being overridden, or of bottom-up processes.

Paragraph 8.7 of the Government’s explanatory memorandum says:

“During the period of representation”—

following the then Secretary of State’s “minded to” announcement in November—

“210 representations were received from members of the public, local councillors, businesses and community organisations. Submissions from members of the public”—

in other words, the real bottom-up submissions—

“were more likely to be opposed to the proposal”.

That is right across the whole of Dorset—we are not just talking about within Christchurch. Right across Dorset, more people were opposed to what the Government announced in November than were in support of it, yet some of my hon. Friends have the gall to suggest that that is not correct and that there is general support for all this.

I hope the Minister will tell us in his response how people in Christchurch, for example, can be protected against new borrowing being taken out by Bournemouth and Poole. I referred earlier to the £70 million of borrowing. Why should the people of Christchurch want to go along with that, when they have been prudent and run a debt-free council?

I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset accepts the decision of the joint committee that there should be an immediate move, on the creation of the new rural unitary, to equalisation and harmonisation. Why should there not be a similar move within the urban area? Surely actions speak louder than words. What action could be stronger than for everybody to accept that from day one they should all pay the same council tax, rather than people in the most rundown part of Christchurch having to subsidise the people in Sandbanks?

[Jim McMahon]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman’s passion and to the way he is representing the views of his constituency. I agree with him on the majority of the points he has raised, but there are elements I disagree with. His point about equalisation is very important. The statutory instrument says not that the councils will merge, but that the existing councils will be abolished and new councils will be created. At the point when new councils are created, surely it makes sense that all households in the new area are treated equally.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Absolutely. I hope that the Minister will agree with the hon. Gentleman. What better way of setting up a new council, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West was saying, than by having a new culture, a new agenda, new vision and all the rest of it? It is very difficult to achieve that if we do not start off with everybody paying the same council tax at band D. I hope the Government will come off the fence and declare their hand, because I think behind their hand is hidden a proposal to introduce a notional council tax system, which would presume that the council tax in Poole, for example, had been raised by more than the threshold that triggers a referendum. I think that that will happen over a period of time, rather than immediately. I share the hon. Gentleman’s vision that if there is to be a new unitary authority, everybody should pay the same.

[Conor Burns]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I will not because I only have two more minutes. My hon. Friend made a number of good points and I want to respond to another of them.

On severance payments, there is a lot of resentment that this exercise will result in council officers across Dorset receiving substantial payoffs and handouts. The Government have pleaded with the officers of the district councils, the county council and the urban unitaries that no exit payments should exceed £95,000. Exit payments include not just severance, but contributions to pensions. They have not had that guarantee and, up until now, there has not been support from councillors for such a policy, but it certainly strikes a strong chord with members of the public.

How does the Minister think the shadow authority will be able to take over within 14 days of the coming into force of the order? The order will come into force on the day that it is passed. When does he expect that to be, and how will the 14 days fit in with the forthcoming holiday period?

Will the Minister comment further on what the Government’s attitude will be if indeed the judicial review proceeds, as most people expect it to, to a successful conclusion? What then for good local government in and around Dorset? In that event, Christchurch will hopefully continue to thrive as an independent sovereign borough, in tune with the wishes and the will of its local people, having, alone among all the councils in Dorset, invited the local people to express their views in a local poll—something that all the other councils ran away from doing.

[Rishi Sunak]

It is a pleasure to wind up this spirited and thoughtful debate. I echo my hon. Friends in thanking the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton for the typically constructive attitude he has brought to our proceedings. I look forward to many more discussions with him in the months to come. I join my hon. Friends in paying tribute to Mr Rowsell, who we have heard a bit about. He and his team have worked tirelessly over the past few years to ensure that we arrive in this debate having gone through thorough diligence and due process. He is a sidesman of the 11th century priory in Christchurch, which I believe has one of the longest naves in England.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

The longest.

[Rishi Sunak]

I am corrected by my hon. Friend; it is the longest. Mr Rowsell follows his father in that role, and I thank him and his team for all the work they have done on this project.

I will briefly touch on some of the substantive issues raised. All the contributions from Members of Parliament from Dorset have been thoughtful and passionate, and they have demonstrated clearly that they take seriously their duty to represent their constituents, to disagree respectfully and to ensure that all voices are heard. I thank them for the way they have approached proceedings.

We have heard a lot about the parish poll in Christchurch and what it meant or did not mean. Not only did the Secretary of State consider that poll in the round with all the other representations, but he also received representations that were highly critical of the conduct of that poll, with many suggesting that it should have little validity at all. It is worth bearing in mind that the properly representative sample survey that was done as part of the formal consultation shows that 63% of residents in Christchurch supported the principle of two unitaries and 64% supported the specific proposal that we are considering.

It is the Government’s view that there is nothing retrospective about what we are doing here. That is similarly the view of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, which has not commented particularly on this matter. These statutory instruments modify existing legislation, so that in the future certain acts can take place. According to most people’s common understanding, retrospectivity means changing the legality of an act that has already happened. In this case no act has happened. We are talking about things that are to happen.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Rishi Sunak]

I will not, because there is lots to cover, and my hon. Friend and I have discussed this topic a great deal.

Let me turn to the questions raised about council tax and savings. On council tax, it is right that people are expecting a view, and I can set out for the Committee the position, not just in this case but in previous cases. There is a joint committee in place at the moment involving the councils in both proposed unitaries. It will produce proposals for the Government setting out its plans for council tax harmonisation. The Government’s job is to bring legislation to the House—which we will before the summer—that sets in place the maximum number of years over which equalisation can take place. It is then for the local authorities to decide on the exact path. It is worth bearing in mind that in the previous round of unitarisations in 2009, the period envisaged in the legislation was five years. That is something that hon. Members can work with, and soon enough we will come to a view. In the meantime, we are happy to take representations from colleagues and anyone else on that important matter. As my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch pointed out, there are specific criteria with which those will be judged.

I will conclude by paying tribute—

[The Chair]

Order. Minister, I am afraid we have to put the question now.

Question put, That the Committee has considered the draft Bournemouth, Dorset and Poole (Structural Changes) Order 2018.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

No.

[The Chair]

That is invalid.

Question agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Bournemouth, Dorset and Poole (Structural Changes) Order 2018.