(8 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberThat is exactly the difference between decentralisation and devolution. This proposal is the Secretary of State pushing some power to the locality, purely on the basis that he can suck it back; it is not giving power and, as of right, allowing the local authority to exercise that. There is no way in which the local authority can intervene in this process. It is a bystander, as an agent of central Government.
The interventions must be shorter, as I still have to get the Front Bencher in.