My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make it an offence to drive a motor vehicle while under the influence of a controlled drug; to provide powers for police officers to undertake roadside drug tests on drivers; to provide that statistics of drug-related road accidents and deaths are collected and collated; and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.

Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Lord Dixon-Smith.)

My Lords, on behalf of my noble and learned friend Lord Williams of Mostyn, I beg to move the first Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.

Moved, That Standing Order 47 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with on Monday 17th March to allow the Consolidated Fund (No. 2) Bill to be taken through all its remaining stages.—(Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean.)

My Lords, on behalf of my noble and learned friend I beg to move the second Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.

Moved. That the debate on the Motion in the name of the Lord Goodhart set down for Monday 17th March shall be limited to three hours.—(Baroness, Symons of Vernham Dean.)

My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.

Moved, That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order:

• Clause 1,
• Schedule 1,
• Clause 2,
• Schedule 2,
• Clauses 3 to 7,
• Schedules 3 and 4,
• Clauses 8 to 10.—(Lord Evans of Temple Guiting.)

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Rooker.)

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness as she gives us a historical breakdown of the regional boundaries, but anyone would think that the present Government set them. The boundaries that she fundamentally attacks now were set by the previous Conservative government. I do not understand the purpose of this part of her speech.

It is abundantly clear. I said that, where the regions are formed, they have the regional development agency boundaries. I also said that it was unclear where they were originally formed. Historically, they go back to 1948. But this Government accept them as the boundaries. We argue that, for the purposes of an electoral system rather than an administrative one, they are completely inappropriate because they do not relate to communities or local identities. This amendment suggests that the Government provide, construct and look at smaller regions that have an identity.

To conclude my earlier remarks, there are disparities not only in the make-up of the regions but in the population. The North East region has a population of around 2.5 million whereas the South East region has a population of 8.5 million. There is very little credibility. It will be difficult to construct constituencies and to ensure that there is any regional identity unless the population has a say in the matter.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. The situation will be made more difficult if she persists in believing that Cheshire looked towards the Midlands. It looks towards Manchester and Liverpool—I speak as Lord Tordoff of Knutsford, which is in the good county of Cheshire. There is no question that Knutsford looks north, north-west and north-east, not south.

I am sure that the noble Lord will have an opportunity to develop his comments in a minute, as soon as I finish my remarks.

In conclusion, the redrawing of the boundaries will not be easy. But it must be done before the new constitutional arrangement takes place. We do not avant to underestimate the extent to which the Bill proposes fundamental changes, not only to the constitutional arrangements of the country, but to the democratic arrangements. We should not be too glib about that. We should take seriously what regional government means, if that is what the Government are intent on introducing. I beg to move.

We on these Benches have made no secret of our concern about the regional boundaries, which, as the Minister reminded the Committee, were created by the previous government, though for a different purpose. They were created for administrative reasons. One wonders whether they were created to continue control from Whitehall rather than to devolve it. They were used for the purposes of the regional development agency boundaries so that we could get on with that proposal. I must confess that during the passage of the Regional Development Agencies Bill I did not support change of the boundaries. Hindsight is a great thing.

We have heard some examples. I thought that my noble friend was going to say that Cheshire was a unique entity—sui generis is perhaps the term to use. Many people living in Cheshire would not wish to be identified with anywhere else. But there are identity problems elsewhere. I understand that Shropshire feels closer to Gloucestershire than to Birmingham in the South West, although I cannot speak directly about that. Under the proposals, Gloucestershire is allied with Cornwall. We know about the problems in the South East.

But to what extent is the purpose of this amendment to get it right? We know that the Conservatives do not wish to see regional government in place. I cannot help thinking that the amendment is simply a recipe for delay. Under the amendment as tabled, several conditions must be met, including much consultation—I would not argue with that. But I wonder whether it is dealt with in a limited way, given that "relevant interests" is so closely defined.

The wording of subsection (1)(c)(ii) of the new clause, which provides for,

"the need to reflect the identities and interests of local communities",

is familiar. The words were used in the Local Government Act 1992 in the context of the proposals for structural change to local government. But it is significant that they were printed alongside the condition that the Local Government Commission should have regard to the need,

"to secure effective and convenient local government"

We are about securing effective and convenient government at all stages. If we must have such conditions, I would not wish to leave that out.

There is also the question of size, which worries me. This is a diverse country and, of course, the populations of different parts of the country are different. I do not understand the need for size to be a criterion. That suggests that there is a need to create a level playing-field so that the regions can compete for power between themselves. The regions differ in size, but that does not undermine the identity of any region. I say that without disagreeing with the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, about the proposed South East region, which is an absurdity. I accept that, but I do not think that the amendment is the way to go about things.

I come back to my first point. We know the attitude of the Conservatives to this important democratic proposal. Critical as we on these Benches are of the way in which the Government are going about things, we do not wish to see regional government threatened. I fear that that is what the new clause is aimed at.

Does the noble Baroness agree that many of her colleagues in different parts of the country are concerned about the shape of the boundaries and look to Parliament—particularly this House—to do something about them and, at least, have a proper debate about them? If possible, we should ensure that boundaries are readjusted to come more closely into line with community interests. The noble Baroness's colleagues say that: does she speak for them?

I speak for all my colleagues, including those on these Benches. I said that we had concerns about boundaries, and we need to get them right. However, we should not delay the process, as the provision in the amendment would do. The issue must be addressed, but, reading between the lines, I do not believe that this is the way to go about it, if we are to have regional government in the form in which we all want to see it.

At Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, was extremely frank. As usual, he was entirely honest in his explanation of the Bill's purpose. However, I can hardly say that I came away with the impression that he was a great enthusiast for the Bill. I was moderately surprised, therefore, when he intervened during the remarks made by my noble friend.

It is sensible to examine the boundaries and ask whether they should be used as boundaries for electoral purposes. Unusually, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, was wrong, when she said that the boundaries were set for the purposes of the regional development agencies. In fact, they were set up to demarcate the boundaries of the Government Offices for the Regions. They were drawn on the map to show where the area of responsibility of one Government Office ended and that of another began.

It is ludicrous to say that, because the boundaries were set at the beginning of the 1990s, they should be the boundaries for elected assemblies in the regions. One has seen example after example of the failure of the boundaries to create an area in which there was any obvious identity of interest or any loyalty among the people living within the boundaries for the area.

I corrected my reference to the regional development agencies. I appreciate that the boundaries were set in the early 1990s. The Regional Development Agencies Act 1998 reflected those boundaries.

My point is straightforward. Whether we like the idea of elected regional assemblies or not, we ought to make some effort to get the boundaries right and have regions that are understandable to the people who will vote for the assemblies.

The Minister acknowledged the absurdity of some of the boundaries at Second Reading. Referring to remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, about Cornwall, he said:

"I fully accept her point. I drew attention to the fact that the regions are government regions. There is one example that I always give to people. I have never measured the distance, but about 40 miles south of the centre of Birmingham is the small town of Chipping Camden, which is in Gloucestershire. It cannot be much more than 40 miles from Birmingham, but it is in the same region as Land's End".

That was a plain acknowledgement of the absurdity of it all. The Minister went on:

"That is the reality. The noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, made the same point, giving examples of boundaries where she lives in Warwickshire. It is a difficulty. I do not deny it".—[Official Report, 20/2/03; col. 1330.]

If it is a difficulty, it is the Government's duty to address it.

There are major issues in the North West. Should Cumbria be in the North West or the North East? That question should he addressed now, before we launch ourselves into this exercise. Obviously, it will take time, but it will be a long process anyhow, as the Minister has often said.

The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, challenged my noble friend's assertion that Cheshire had links with Staffordshire, Shropshire and Derbyshire. It depends which part of Cheshire one lives in. My noble friend was, I think, reading from a paper given to us a day or two ago by representatives of Cheshire County Council. They made the point that, in the north of Cheshire, one will certainly find oneself in a commuting area in which all the links are with Greater Manchester, as I know well. In south Cheshire, however, one begins to see links with the counties further south, rather than to the north.

The North West is not the best area in which to look for examples of absurd boundaries. We heard of plenty of those in our earlier discussions. It is ridiculous that Watford should be in East Anglia, or that Banbury should be in the South East. It is absurd that Cheltenham should be in the South West. I could go on and on. It is the Government's duty not just to say, "These are convenient boundaries, and go ahead we shall"; they must get the thing right, if they want to go ahead at all.

I support the amendment with some hesitation, for I have not made up my mind whether I am for or against regional assemblies. The worst disaster for the setting up of regional assemblies would be if the boundaries had later to be changed because they did not work. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, that the matter ought to be settled or, at least, debated, before we begin setting up the assemblies.

It was bad enough when the county boundaries were, as it seemed to many people who were loyal to their county, arbitrarily changed. I think of the obvious case of the ridings of Yorkshire. Not only would it be confusing to start on the process of establishing regional assemblies, rightly or wrongly, and then have to change the boundaries of the areas that they were meant to serve; it would cast doubt on the validity of the whole process.

I believe that many of these boundaries are in the eye of the beholder. They are not perfect and they can change. It is clear that Amendment No. 1 is intended to be an impediment to regional government. Therefore, I oppose it.

I think that there are three positions as regards regional government. The first position is stated in the proposed new clause. The Conservative Benches regard regional government as "big" local government. That is a problem. Their mind-set is big local government. On these Benches, regional government is about democratising that which is in the regions already and further devolving from central government. I believe that the third position is that taken by the Government, who seem to be promoting an elected regional advisory committee. We live in hope that we can build on that. Therefore, we are generally supportive of the Bill in order to build upon it and make it real.

Clearly, this amendment is about impeding regional government so that it does not happen. The Conservative Benches are worried that it is big local government. They may acknowledge that.

In my speech at Second Reading I said—I repeat it only to establish my bona fides and perhaps to chide the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for being somewhat dismissive of this amendment and its motives—that I am perhaps less hostile to the concept of regional government than some of my colleagues. However, I do not believe that that is what we would be getting.

Amendment No. 1 is not about the principle of regional assemblies. It is about whether this paving legislation will set up real regions to which communities can relate. If that is not done, the regional assemblies will fail. I repeat that this amendment is not about whether we have the regional assemblies. It is a comprehensive amendment that sets out all that might be required to ensure that proper boundaries and regions are established.

I accept that a much slimmer procedure could be proposed. If my memory serves me right, when a major local government reorganisation occurred in New Zealand, the Government established a commission with far-reaching powers to establish boundaries and merge authorities. The quid pro quo to that was that the Government accepted the recommendations of the commission and did not insist on debating every proposal in Parliament. That saved a considerable amount of time.

The response of the Government to this amendment will inform us whether we are referring to devolved powers or, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Shutt of Greetland, merely big local government. I believe that the proposal is about big local government. Nothing that has been said or put on paper suggests that there will be anything but big local authorities. There is little or nothing to suggest that real powers will be devolved.

Leaving that matter to one side, the argument concerning a proper examination of the boundaries is hard to deny. I ask noble Lords' forgiveness for repeating what I said at Second Reading. I referred to the discussion which took place in Committee on the Regional Development Agencies Bill on 7th October 1998. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, stated:

"If and when regional assemblies are established, there will clearly be a need for new primary legislation to establish them. Parliament will then have the opportunity to consider the extent and the boundaries of the regions proposed in that context. We arc not committed to using these precise boundaries for regional assemblies at a later stage".—[Official Report. 7/10/98; col. 442.]

Those are the kind of assurances given to your Lordships' House in response to amendments put forward at that time. It was argued that if we proceeded with regional development agencies and their attendant regional chambers on the boundaries of the existing government offices, we would be prejudicing the future. We were assured that the future would not be prejudiced. Today, some five years later, it is clear that the future was being prejudiced when that Bill went through.

During the same debate, in justifying not involving the Boundary Commission, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, stated:

"we are not involved with electoral constituencies or bodies of democratic accountability here;"—

namely, regional development agencies—

"we are dealing with development agencies and the administrative areas of those development agencies. It would not be appropriate, given the expertise and the system of working that the Boundary Commission has adopted in the past, to apply it to this area".—[Official Report, 7/10/98; col. 450.]

Therefore, I wonder what has changed in that time. What are the arguments to justify the boundaries of what are alleged to be democratic bodies—not merely democratic bodies exercising allegedly more than local government functions—while apparently exercising devolved functions of government? These are questions that should be answered at this stage, before any reference to the Boundary Commission is dismissed as causing delay.

I hope that my noble friend will forgive me for taking issue with a point which he and the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, made. It would be unfortunate if at the outset of the Bill we were to play party politics with this issue. I listened carefully to the Second Reading debate and I have read in Hansard the report of the debate since. I have also had a great number of discussions outside the House. There are people from all parties—in particular, from the Liberal Democrat Party—who take different views about regional assemblies. In particular, they are fighting hard against the shape of the boundaries. It would be unfortunate if this debate was overridden by suspecting the motives of those of us on these Benches who are saying, at the outset of this Bill, that if this constitutional change is to happen, it is important that there should be a healthy debate in this House—and in the character of this House, which is to have open, constructive and fair debate—about the shape of the boundaries. Ultimately, there should be, a parliamentary determination of those boundaries reflecting views from all parties. Therefore, I believe that that is unfair.

The noble Lord, Lord Shutt, and my noble friend, referred to big local government. This is not big local government. It is certainly big government because it is anything but local government. It is big centralised government. The Minister gave examples at Second Reading. Powers are not being ceded from the top down—from central government to regional government. They are being ceded upwards from county and unitary authorities to the regions. The control, but not the powers, is moving down. There will be influence over issues, but not power.

The only example which the noble Lord very readily and almost unthinkingly gave was that of housing. There will not be determinating powers. There will not be powers in the real sense that we understand powers in government. Yes, it will be influence, but powers will reside still with the departments in Whitehall.

This is big government—control from central government. I hope that the Liberal Democrats will bury their political prejudices in this matter and argue for all people of all political persuasions that this is an important debate that should take place at the outset of the Bill and not be subordinated to party hack politics.

Before my noble friend sits down, is she aware that the Liberal Democrats on Lancashire County Council have firmly expressed their opposition to this measure?

My noble friend makes the point for me. That is right. That is why I believe that this is the last Chamber in the world where we should play party politics with a matter so constitutionally important.

If, like the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, I thought that the amendment sought to undermine the whole concept of regional government, I should support it with alacrity. But I fear that it does not. The amendment accepts regionalisation; it proposes that the regional boundaries should not be decided now, but after due consultation with many people and bodies. In my view that is an acceptance of the principle of regional government, which, as I made clear at Second Reading, I am completely against. I believe in local, democratic, government. I believe that regionalisation will undermine that, not complement or improve it.

The present regional structure was set up following the passing of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, when it was decided that the regional aid distributed by the European Commission, using our taxpayers' money, should no longer be administered through central government but through regions. The existing regions, which under the present Government became regional development bodies, were set up to make that administratively possible; namely, to administer the direct link between the regions and Brussels. That is the history.

Many people in this country believe that regionalisation does not have so much to do with good local government as with good administrative arrangements between Brussels and the European Union. There are those who would not agree; but I believe it, as do many others. Therefore, if we are to have regionalisation, we must give grave consideration to what we intend to do with the regions, and to how they should be geographically set out.

It is no good saying that the present regions are set in stone. That is nonsensical. A great many people have different ideas about where the regional boundaries should be, even if they agree with regional government itself. I sat on the committee of the association of municipal corporations dealing with the reorganisation of local government in 1968; we gave evidence to the Royal Commission. If my memory serves me right, it was suggested that there should be 12 indirectly elected provincial councils. So, even then, the proposal was not for eight regional authorities but for 12.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, I worry that an association between some of the areas contained in the existing regions is nonsensical. I live in Reading. My region will include Lambourn, in the Lambourn Valley—which trains marvelous racehorses—and Dover and Folkestone in the east. There is no compatibility between the two areas. Their interests are entirely different and would be difficult to reconcile.

Perhaps I may give a recent example of what happens when regions are too big. The south-east regional planning committee recommended that there should be extra building in Reading, on the flood plain. Why on earth would it make such a recommendation when the areas it suggested were flooded? Yet it did so. If we are to set up these regions—which, I repeat, I am against—we really must be very careful that we do so in such a way that they will work, and not simply between Brussels and this country. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is beginning to understand this—according to his article in The Times. If we are going to set up regions at all, we ought to be doing it in such a way that there is compatibility, and agreement, between the people who will be affected.

As I said, I am split. I am in great difficulty. I am in a dilemma. I do not support the proposal because I do not support regional government; yet I believe that if we are to have regional government, it is better to set it up after what is suggested in the proposed new clause has taken place. I do not think that the amendment will be pressed to a vote today, but perhaps we can consider the matter further and return to it on Report.

First, I apologise to the Committee for not being able to be present for the Second Reading debate. I was unable to stay for the whole debate; therefore, I did not put my name on the list of speakers.

One of the great advantages of this place is that it is a Chamber of the United Kingdom. Therefore, I can bring some experience to our proceedings of how regional assemblies are working in Scotland. I shall set out my stall by saying that I am pro regional government—whatever regional government means. We have it at the moment: some of the county councils are good regional government. I am also, however, in the right circumstances, pro regional assemblies. There can be merit in putting areas together. Furthermore, in the right circumstances, I am pro unitary authorities. But the size of the region, its powers, and how it will work are crucial considerations.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, I live in what is classified as the South East region. I spent a great deal of my life in the Banbury area, where at one time I was a land agent. Looking at the map of the South East, my reckoning is that the logical place to have a regional assembly would be at Gatwick.

On a good day, the journey to Gatwick would take me two hours-plus from Banbury—providing that there is no hold-up, or fog, on the M25. A person living in Broadstairs, in Kent—most of the people in Banbury. with due respect to them, probably do not have a clue as to exactly where Broadstairs is; they know that it is probably in Kent but they cannot put a finger on it, and most of the people in Broadstairs probably do not know where Banbury is, which is not so surprising—will have an equivalent journey time to Gatwick of about two hours. It will take those poor people who live on the Isle of Wight—such as our current Lord Chairman—at least three hours to get to Gatwick, excluding the ferry journey; and that will be on a good day.

We have exactly the same problem in Caithness. Our regional assembly is in Inverness, and it takes our councillors two-and-a-half hours to get there. If the weather is bad, they have to make the journey the night before. One Liberal councillor has said that it is "madness", and "a complete waste of time", to have a regional assembly so far away. In the Highlands council, your vote can be counted only if you are in the chamber. A 20-minute meeting and a vote on the Budget meant that that Liberal councillor had to leave Caithness the night before in order to travel down to Inverness for a debate lasting 20 minutes, and to cast his vote. He then had to make the journey back. What a waste of time and money! Yet the principle behind parts of this Bill is absolutely right. Some regional assemblies could be beneficial. That is why I support reviewing the boundaries now. If that does not happen, whatever is said about the boundaries being able to change, I have a nasty suspicion that they will not change. They can get set in stone, and it becomes too difficult for the Government to change them. It becomes too difficult for the whole bureaucracy. If the process towards a referendum is started, people assume what the boundaries are, which then get set in stone. I think the amendment is far from being a delaying measure. It is a practical measure.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, disappointed me. She started off very encouragingly, like her friends up in Caithness, saying that she was concerned about the boundaries. However, she did not say what she was going to do about them. I had hoped that she would suggest a positive alternative to what we have before us. However she does not like what either we or the Government are proposing.

The noble Lord, Lord Shutt, said that regional assemblies would democratise what is there. I ask the noble Lord to talk to his Liberal friends up in Caithness. If he talked to the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, or John Thurso MP, he would find it is far from democratising what is there. It is not producing better services. It is quite different in Caithness. Whereas decisions used to be made locally, they are now being made in Inverness, and then passed down the line. That is not good for local government or local involvement in government. We must learn from some of the mistakes we made in reforming local government—and I include my own party. We must not take government further away from the people, but bring it back to the people.

The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, issued various challenges to us, so I believe I am justified in replying to some of them. Debate on the first amendment is always broad-ranging. Some of the issues raised relate to the amendment; others relate to other countries. We have just heard the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, talk about Scotland, to which this Bill does not refer. He put his finger on a very important point. There is no regional assembly meeting in Inverness. There is no such body. There is a local government body, the Highlands and Islands Council. It may well be far too large for the area it covers. People have to travel from Thurso to Inverness to vote, and then go back again. That may all he true—although it is in Scotland, not in England. However, it illustrates a very important part of the case we are putting forward. Various broad questions have been discussed. Are the new regional assemblies, which essentially are going to be big local authorities taking most of their powers—insofar as they have powers—upward from local authorities? Are they going to be genuine regional bodies which take over the powers of the very large number of unelected and often only remotely accountable bodies—quangos—which exist in the regions at the moment? Are they going to involve devolution of powers from Westminster, as happened in Scotland and, to a lesser degree, in Wales?

That is the huge question mark over the whole of the Government's intentions on regional government. It will arise during this Bill. It will arise even more when and if—

I do not understand why the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is so worried. There is no question about it at all. If there was a question, it has been answered by the Minister. He plainly said:

"I think that the penny has dropped during Second Reading of the legislation that there are no new powers and no new funds".—[Official Report, 5/3/03; col.813.]

The noble Lord, Lord Waddington, asks me why I am so worried. That is precisely why. We believe the Government may be seriously and fundamentally wrong on these matters, which will have to be debated at a later stage. I remind the noble Lord that legislation gets passed by Parliament. The Government may have their views and a huge amount of influence on what gets passed. Nevertheless it is Parliament that passes it. Until that happens, we do not know what the answers to the questions are going to be.

I must ask the noble Lord to give way again. The Government—quite wrongly—have decided to go ahead without first presenting a Bill which defines the powers of the new assemblies. We can only go on what government spokesmen say. They have said that there will be no new powers. It is ridiculous to assume that something entirely different will happen, in spite of that clear commitment by the Government. The Government have told us what will happen.

The Government have told us what they want to happen and what they think will happen. That may be different from what actually happens in the real world. We only have to go back to the Greater London Authority Bill. When it left Parliament, it was in a very different state from when it came to Parliament. It still may not have been perfect or ideal. It may not have been what the Liberal Democrats would have produced. Nevertheless, the Act that was finally passed was very different from the Bill that was first presented to Parliament. That is not unusual. I hope that the Conservatives will join with us in significantly improving legislation which in due course will set up regional government. We will find out whether that happens.

However, this amendment is not really about powers at all. It is about regional boundaries. I want to turn to that question. It is always easy to ridicule a particular proposal for a territorial area—whether administrative or governmental—by looking at places on the periphery and saying they have far more in common with people who live just over the border than they have with the core or main part of their area. That always applies whether it is a region, a local community or whatever it happens to be. It is in the very nature of territorial areas and boundaries. At Mow Cop in the south of Cheshire, the county boundary with Staffordshire runs along the hilltop next to the folly and the quarries. That does not mean that the boundary at Mow Cop between Staffordshire and Cheshire is stupid. It may be that the whole of that boundary should be redrawn locally, and all of it put into one area or the other. The fact that people living next door to each other in Mow Cop are now in the present counties is not an argument for saying that those counties are somehow wrong and should be abolished.

It is always the case that if lines are drawn on maps, then some places near or on those boundaries will have more in common with people just the other side than they have with the main centre of the area, the region, the local authority, the country, or whatever it happens to be.

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I have heard no one suggest that it is the peripheries that are the problem. There are many major problems about proceeding with the regions, as they have been established administratively as government offices. It is about size—which indeed raises the question of how many should be set up. It is not about peripheries. Controversially, one could ask whether London should be a free-standing region in its own right, or part of another region. It is no good quoting other capital cities in Europe, because they are smaller. Those arguments are not the subject of this amendment, but they are much bigger than just the issue of people who live on the margins. No one has suggested that that is the issue.

Noon

I agree with the noble Lord. I was about to make that point. I was replying to most of the criticism of the boundaries of the regions made by his colleagues. They have talked about places in Gloucestershire that are in the same region as Land's End but are nearer to Birmingham. That is a question of periphery and the margins. I live almost on the boundary of Lancashire and Yorkshire, which will be the boundary between the North West and the Yorkshire region. Some of the places near to where I live were moved out of Yorkshire into Lancashire in the 1974 local government reorganisation. There may be arguments that places like that should be moved into one area or another, but that is a peripheral issue. It is inevitable in any carve-up of an area into territories. It is not a serious argument to be entertained.

The noble Lord, Lord Bowness, has, however, identified the serious possibility of dispute over whether larger areas should be detached from regions and made into separate regions of their own or moved from one region to another. The obvious area of dispute in the North West, to which I think the noble Lord referred, is Cumbria. There is an argument as to whether Cumbria is a sensible area. Some say that it is unified by the Lake District, which is in the middle of it, and that it would be silly to split the Lake District between different areas. However, the affinity of people in south Cumbria is certainly to the North West. There is no doubt that Barrow-in-Furness and the south lakeland areas such as Milnthorpe and Kendal are in the North West. The only doubt is whether north Cumbria—north Cumberland, as it was—covering the Carlisle and Penrith area and perhaps the west coast around Workington is actually in the North East. These are peripheral areas that will always be difficult to put into a region. The geographical reality is that anyone who lives in Workington is, by definition, a long way from anywhere.

There is an argument for having a major debate about the issue. It is a matter of judgment as to whether such a debate, which would take a long time, should be allowed to hold up the Government's plan to go ahead not with regionalisation of the whole country—nobody is suggesting that—but with giving some regions the ability to have a referendum.

I do not think that the Bill will be applied to the whole country. In some areas, regional boundaries are disputed. The whole of the South East is perhaps the greatest example. There is no consensus on what the regions are and how they fit. Another important question arises over Cornwall. Should it be a separate region on its own, because of its identity and its distance from everywhere else? These are major issues.

If there were any chance of the Government going ahead with referendums in those areas, I would have more sympathy with the amendment. However, in practice that is not the case.

Does the noble Lord agree that the Government intend to introduce regional government? If they intend to introduce it in totality at some stage, it is impossible that they should not set out the framework for that regional government before any further decisions are taken. I challenge the noble Lord on whether it is possible to argue that, because it will be all right for a couple of regions up in the North East and the North West, which may or may not be totally happy about the idea, it will not matter whether the other regions are all hopelessly wrong. We are dealing with the principle here. We are not on the tatty edges.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for spelling that out. I think we are in the real world. We have to look at the Bill in those terms, considering what is going to happen, not some airy-fairy principles about what may occur at some distant future time. It is interesting to hear a Conservative Front Bench spokesperson argue about long-term principles. I thought that was what they always accused us of doing instead of living in the real world. I think we are living in the real world on this matter. We are told that we have to listen to what the Government are proposing. They are clearly considering going ahead with referendums in a limited number of regions. The three regions they are clearly considering in the foreseeable future are the North East, Yorkshire and the North West. For all the peripheral problems here and there, there is no fundamental disagreement that if we have regions in this country, those three exist and have an identity. Pretty well anyone can sit down with a map and draw the rough boundaries.

We all live in the real world. In my part of the real world, this is part of the parliamentary process. We are in no doubt about the Government's intentions. Knowing how open the Minister is with Parliament, I have no doubt that he will remind us that at the end of the day the people will decide whether to have regional government. The Bill is set up for the people to decide.

We know that if we lie down now—in a parliamentary sense—and simply accept these boundaries as de facto because they are what the Government want, we will be remiss in our duty. This part of the process is to try to persuade the Government that there is a real issue. Whether or not the Government intend to have regional government only in the North East and one or two other areas, whether there is to be a referendum and whether the answer is yes or no in any part of the country, once the boundaries are set and the Bill is passed by Parliament, people will be able to vote only on the boundaries set in the Bill. This is our opportunity to say at the outset that the boundaries should be properly revisited, taking into account all the points made.

I am also cognisant of what the Liberal Democrats have said. On Second Reading, they made it clear that, irrespective of whether they get changes to achieve the kind of regional government they want, if the Government insist and powers are ceded upward from local government to regional assemblies rather than downward from national government, with all of local government being reorganised, at the end of the day the Liberal Democrats so want regional government that they will still vote for the Bill. We are more principled than that. We will fight for Liberals, Conservatives and Labour Party members outside this Chamber to get the point sorted out by Parliament ahead of action being taken and referendums being held.

I am grateful that the noble Baroness will come out fighting for us all. We look forward to seeing that. The question of powers comes up later. We all agree that the Bill is unsatisfactory in that it does not deal with powers. We shall discuss amendments on that subject later.

There is clearly an important point to be made about boundaries. Other amendments, some of which we have tabled, deal with the issue in a better way.

The criteria laid out in paragraph (c)(i) and (ii) of the amendment simply do not meet the provisions of the Bill. Paragraph (c)(ii) refers to,

"the need to reflect the identities and interests of local communities".

I agree with that proposition, but if there is to be a review of regional areas and regional boundaries, there clearly has to be as part of that review a consideration of whether there is a regional identity, whether there are regional interests and where those regional identities and interests lie. That ought to be a fundamental consideration. It is indicative of the approach taken in the amendment by the Conservatives that they do not even think that that is worth including.

The suggestion that the criterion of "approximately equal population size" is a fundamental criterion is nonsense. Cornwall is a case in point. If there is to be a review of boundaries, there is clearly a case—whether it is right or wrong—for saying that Cornwall should he a region in its own right. A large number of people would argue that case. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, argued that case from the Conservative Benches at Second Reading. That view clearly clashes with what is set out in the amendment regarding a uniform size. On that ground alone we find it impossible to support the amendment.

The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, referred to Cornwall. Cornwall may be a major example of dissent from the proposed regions. Some 10 per cent of its population has signified objection to being part of the South West—an area which would include Swindon and Gloucester. Cornwall has its own language, which is very much on the increase, a unique terrain and a coastline probably distinguished above all others in the United Kingdom. Only a referendum will show, but Cornwall will not easily submit to inclusion in a vast area along with fellow constituents with whom the Cornish consider they have nothing in common.

The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, was brave enough and well informed enough to introduce the European dimension into the debate, as some of us did at Second Reading. The noble Lord could not see, of course, that his erstwhile noble friend on the Front Bench, the Minister, treated his intervention with, I was going to say silent mirth but I am afraid it has become the sort of statutory ridicule with which any of us are greeted who try to recognise the influence that the European Union is having on nearly all our affairs. This Bill is no exception.

At Second Reading I think that I got the Minister to confirm, in a somewhat coy way, that the boundaries proposed—I am sure he will correct me if I am wrong—for the English regions are, indeed, the same boundaries which have been drawn for the European constituencies. That means that they were agreed in Brussels and that they receive so-called European aid, which is not, of course, as the noble Lord—

I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way, but perhaps he can help me. I thought that I heard him say that the boundaries of the European constituencies were agreed in Brussels. I thought that there was great argument in this House and elsewhere when we settled the boundaries of the European constituencies.

They are the boundaries of the European constituencies and they send Members to the European so-called Parliament. They are, as I understand it—the Minister appeared to confirm this at Second Reading—the boundaries which we are considering today. In fact, the Minister said:

"At present, I understand that regional government boundaries are in any case coterminous with European Parliament boundaries. As far as I know, there is no cross-over; they were used last time".—[Official Report, 20/2/03; col. 1334.]

It is a usual European trick to say, "Well, it is there anyway. It was used last time and so there cannot be anything wrong with it".

Does the noble Lord agree that the boundaries as they are currently drawn exist only because his party when in government created them for administrative purposes? Has he not observed that other organisations have therefore reorganised their boundaries in order to be coterminous, and that the decision to create regional parliamentary constituencies for the European Parliament was taken as a matter of convenience as they already existed? This Bill follows on from that.

I do not know whether the noble Baroness was present, but I thought that we had already covered that point. I do not think that the noble Baroness or anyone on her Benches could accuse me of going along with anything done by my party in the European context. I am grateful for her intervention but I am entirely innocent of the accusation that she seeks to make.

Before the helpful intervention of my noble friend Lord Bowness I said that the regions already receive European so-called aid. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, reminded the Committee briefly—but I shall do it again—that there is no such thing as EU aid. We get back only about £1 from every £2 that we send to the corrupt filter in Brussels. That so-called aid is always spent in this country on projects which are designed to improve the image of the corrupt octopus in Brussels and not necessarily on projects which we would back here.

As I say, at Second Reading the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and, indeed, my noble friend Lord Bowness tried to dismiss the genuine fears that many of us have that what we are witnessing in this Bill is in fact the beginning of the great project of the Europe of the regions. In that regard I say to the Minister that he did not answer the main question that I put to him at Second Reading, and this may be as good an opportunity as any to put it to him again. If we Eurosceptics were scaremongering, would he come to the Dispatch Box with his hand on his heart and give an unequivocal assurance on behalf of Her Majesty's Government that the regionalisation envisaged in the Bill will never, and could never—and I mean never—lead to the kind of dominance by Brussels and the European Union which I described in my Second Reading speech and with which I do not need to trouble the Committee again now? I was given no such assurance from the Minister on that matter. It would be helpful to have such an assurance today.

But there is a positive aspect to the amendment which I should have thought the Minister might he willing to accept. If the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, myself and others are just scaremongering and these regions and the boundaries of these regions have nothing to do with the European project of the Europe of the regions, then surely it would allay our fears and much of the resistance that the proposal is meeting in the country if the Minister were to accept the amendment which might result in boundaries different from those of the European Union constituencies. I do not say that it would kill completely the project of the corrupt octopus in Brussels, but it might go some way towards messing it up. Therefore, for that reason, I support the amendment.

I want to take up one of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, made. He made many good points and reasonable points. But he referred to living in the real world and said that we were all agreed on the fundamentals. I hope that I always live in the real world. I meet many people and talk to many people. Their world seems to be my world. I hope the noble Lord will agree that I, like him, live in the real world. He said that we are all agreed on the fundamentals. But the debate has demonstrated that we are not all agreed on the fundamentals. That is the whole point of the discussion. He seems to think that today and over the next three or four days in Committee we are discussing an issue which has been agreed.

That is not the idea. The idea of scrutinising the Bill is to seek to improve it. I believe that the amendment does that. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, may not agree with the contents of the proposed new clause but we should try to understand and improve the Bill. I give an example. He said that provided the people agree, the Government will have referendums in three regional areas. Let us suppose that the people in those regions agree and set up regional authorities. They say, "This is a good idea. We want to set up other regions". However, the other regions may not agree with the boundaries. They may say, "We would agree with the regions if you had not already given what we consider should be part of our region to someone else". The method of setting up regions on the basis of present administrative regions and on the basis that they would be more democratic is absurd and undemocratic. It will not enable regions to be set up which are convenient to the working of ordinary people and of good devolved government.

We are not all agreed on the fundamentals. Indeed, what the Minister may argue are fundamentals are certainly not fundamentals. If we are to have regional government—I repeat that I am agin it—we should start with a blank sheet and decide exactly what the boundaries of the regions will be.

Cornwall has been mentioned. I have to say that Cornwall would be far better served by good devolved local government than by being part of a regional government. What Cornwall wants is not just a new country called Cornwall—that would be absurd—but the ability to do what is right for Cornwall. It must have far more powers and the wherewithal to do so. That is what Cornwall really wants. Some people down there may not know it. I want local government properly resourced, near to the communities which are served and able to co-operate with local government to provide greater services.

I hope that I do live in this world. But we are not agreed upon the fundamentals and unless the Minister is prepared to move sharply on the issue and start on a blank piece of paper so far as concerns the geographical areas, the whole matter will be a complete and utter failure in the long term.

At the risk of embarrassing the noble Lord, I thought that the most telling intervention came from the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, when he told the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, that because I had said something, it was going to happen and, therefore, it had to be accepted. I hope that that will be the flavour of the remainder of the debate.

I give a pledge to the Committee that I shall do my best to answer only the amendments tabled. I shall be ruthless with myself. I apologise for my earlier intervention when the noble Baroness was introducing the amendment. However, I thought it right to put the matter in context. These boundaries have not appeared since 1997. It is true that they have been used since 1997 for other purposes: for the European elections; and the regional development agencies. The word "incoherent" was used in relation to the boundaries. Therefore, I thought it right and not party politically churlish to remind the noble Baroness that those are boundaries set up by a Conservative government. We have not sought to interfere with them. They have been used and added to for many other functions. As the noble Baroness said in an intervention, other organisations changed their internal arrangements to fit in with them because it was administratively convenient.

I wish to make this clear. It cannot be "big" local government because the powers scrutinised by the assemblies will be from central government. Power is not going up; it is all going down. I treat the proposed new clause seriously. I do not think that I shall be minded to accept it; I shall give reasons why. However, I have to assume that those who are fundamentally opposed to regional government will still vote against the proposal. I am not sure of the purpose of the new clause. If you are against regional government you can propose processes for setting up or delaying the boundaries but I assume, therefore, that at the end of the day the Conservative Party will vote against the proposal.

On that point alone, it does not matter whether or not the Conservative Party is in favour of regional government. In this Chamber we are considering government proposals on a policy they have developed and are about to put t o the electorate. Whether or not the Conservative Party believes in regional government, it seems perfectly proper to accept government policy at face value but to ensure that it is at least as coherent as possible.

In view of the Minister's remarks about powers, when we debate the next amendment perhaps he will particularise the powers proposed to be devolved from central government to the regional assemblies. At Second Reading, the noble Lord gave the example of housing. It sounded suspiciously like breaking up the Housing Corporation or, if not, taking the existing housing functions from existing local government. Perhaps those points will be answered in the next group of amendments.

As I probably stated at Second Reading, the answers are set out in the sustainable communities plan. There is no secret about the proposal on housing.

With respect—I do not wish to interrupt the noble Lord too much—the functions quoted as going to regional assemblies are those at present carried out by local authorities of one kind or another. They are not central government functions.

The noble Lord has a fundamental misunderstanding. Between today and the following days in Committee, I invite him to read the Government's policy statement in a White Paper— there is no secret—published in May 2002. It is available in the Printed Paper Office. It sets out exactly government policy, clearly thought through. It puts forward a proposal. The Bill is based on it. It is a paving Bill because it sets up only the preparations for the regional assemblies.

We believe that the consultation proposed by the new clause would be unproductive, expensive and time consuming. It is likely that no more agreement would emerge from that process than there is on current regional boundaries, for the reasons that we have heard today. There will always be arguments on the margin; people will argue about how many regions there should be in the country, whether the London boundaries should remain the same, and so on.

The current boundaries are well established, whatever disputes there may be about the margin and numbers and whatever arguments there might be about one part of a county looking north or another part looking south. The boundaries have had a good deal of acceptance and recognition over several years, and they are used by many organisations, as well as by the Government.

Does the Minister accept the distinction between what is proposed and the administrative boundaries as they are at the moment, with good county government and good spread, and local district and parish government below them? The distinction is real and it is what we are here to discuss. If regional assemblies are introduced, local government will be vastly changed and vastly removed from local people. Therefore, administrative areas without county councils and with vastly amalgamated district councils are a very different proposition indeed.

That is another point that we will debate later on. We are not prepared to introduce new tiers of government. I made that clear on Second Reading. We are not having any new tiers of government.

Oh!

No, hang on a minute. The implication of the intervention from the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, is that we would have regional assemblies provided that we leave everything else as it is. That would imply another tier of government, as the merchants and the media have said. I have read in the past few days, in the forgers' gazette parading as the Daily Mail, that we are introducing another tier of government. We are not. If we had to introduce another tier of government we would not introduce this Bill, and if it was amended in such a way we would not proceed with it.

We are not prepared to introduce another tier of government. That is why, if regional assemblies are to be introduced after a referendum, we need first to consider what will he needed to create unitary authorities, so that there is only one tier of government in addition to regional assemblies. Before people voted in a referendum for a regional assembly, they would know all the details of that process; they would know where the boundaries were, what the unitary authorities were, and what changes were proposed to the functions of local government.

Will the Minister accept that he has completely misinterpreted my concern? He says that we have consistent administrative areas, that they have worked so far and there is no reason why they should not work in future. However, they worked because they worked alongside good county and local government. The proposition set out in the White Paper is that they would be working alongside nothing because the counties and/or the districts will have disappeared. I was not suggesting the introduction of another layer of government; I was simply saying that the proposition is a very different one indeed.

The noble Baroness cannot say that until the Boundary Committee has proposed what is necessary to create unitary authorities in advance of a referendum. That cannot take place until the committee gets the wherewithal from this legislation. Therefore, it is not possible to make that allegation.

The Minister is becoming very confused, which is unusual for him. Surely, it follows as night follows day that in those parts of the country where there is only unitary government, if one creates a regional government one is creating another tier of government.

Yes, in those parts of the country, but there is not a single region that is exclusively unitary, so there would be changes. They will be dealt with in other amendments.

I want to give the mechanics and practicalities of the new clause. We are only the Government—we may get it wrong. Nevertheless, the information that I have may be useful to our deliberations.

If the new clause was accepted, we estimate that it would take about 16 or 17 months to conduct a review of the regional boundaries, provided that all England was done at once. The resources of the Electoral Commission are such that it could not conceivably conduct an all-England review, given the workload that would involve. It would have to be broken down into tranches—probably into two or three regions, so that the country was done in three tranches—which the new clause does not permit. The reality is that under the new clause it would take about four years to review the regional boundaries.

I know that what I am about to say will be prayed in aid against me later, but it is in the White Paper. In exceptional circumstances, on some unspoken date in future, we have not ruled out changes to the boundaries. That does not mean that we or anyone else have plans for them. It would happen only in exceptional circumstances and in the longer term, as we made clear in the White Paper. Therefore, imposing a boundary review in the amendment would not be conducive to our plans to proceed expeditiously to give the regions of this country the opportunity to have elected regional assemblies. The point at issue is: how soon can we let the people decide whether they want elected regional assemblies? If we proceed as the Bill intends and the soundings work out, one, two or more regions may have a referendum before the next general election. They should not have to wait for four years for a review of the boundaries" which the new clause would make necessary.

Will the Minister give way?

I will not be able to answer any questions about Scotland—I can tell the noble Earl that.

I was not going to mention Scotland again. However, it has been a useful experience living there, because I have seen happen something similar to what the Government propose.

Would the amendment be any more acceptable if it were rephrased so that there was a boundary review for only two areas at first? One could do a review of the North East and Yorkshire first, if the Government particularly wanted to begin in that area. The rest of the country could learn from that, and it would make it easier to know in advance what would happen when it came to a referendum.

That would not make sense, given the fact that we have been taking soundings from citizens and organisations within the existing boundaries on which the Bill is based and on which we want to proceed. When the Bill gets Royal Assent, if Parliament so desires, the Secretary of State will make a statement about the results of the soundings. After that, the Electoral Commission can be given the starting gun to start work. Therefore, the noble Earl's suggestion would not work—it would still cause delays.

It would be using extreme language to suggest that the new clause would wreck the Bill, but it would delay the provisions by four years.

The key aim of regional assemblies is to bring under democratic control the work of existing regional bodies. I do not have to set them all out, because they are in the White Paper, a summary of which was produced in the Printed Paper Office. In the North East alone, there are 30 organisations comprising central government departments and agencies with regional or local offices. In that region, there are 21 national public bodies with regional or local offices. There are two other regional public bodies and five sub-regional or local organisations located in the region.

Will the Minister give way?

No, I want to finish this point.

The key aim is to bring under democratic control the work of the existing regional bodies that deliver or administer services. A significant number of those bodies operate on the boundaries that are the subject of the amendment. We think that they are a reasonable size in terms of the population. It would be impossible to make the regions identical in terms of landmass, economic performance, the GDP or population. Those details are set out in the White Paper.

If we redrew the boundaries before we started, there would be massive upheaval in all those organisations. It may be that the soundings do not work, and there may be no vote for regional assemblies. In that case, what would have been the point of reviewing the regional boundaries over the course of four years, when they work okay at the moment, for present purposes?

Essex and Hertfordshire dislike intensely being included in the eastern region—and it does not work. The Minister will be as enthusiastic as I am about the Thames Gateway. It is ridiculous that the decision on the Thames Gateway, which relates to Essex and Kent, is taken in the Eastern region. There would be a considerable advantage in reviewing the boundaries in the South East now; it would help to make them work. The existing boundaries are not working in a good chunk of the country. Even if there were no regional assemblies, a review would benefit the way in which boundaries work in the South East and the Thames Gateway.

I agree with the noble Lord on the importance of the Thames Gateway. However, it is currently split between three regions—the South East, East and London. Based on all the evidence I have from my short time at the ODPM, co-operation and partnership between the people and the key players are working immensely well. Nothing is perfect, but that is no excuse to stop the entire process and start again. As I said repeatedly on Second Reading, the assemblies are strategic. Eight regions outside London are established and recognised and a range of organisations are already in place, each of which is a sufficient size to enable it to perform its role. London's boundaries are established and no one is arguing that they should be changed—although that is the implication of a review. The new clause seeks to tear all that up—and for what? It offers pointless delay. Nothing would happen for four years. It would be four years before people would have a choice of whether to go down this route. It would be a complete waste of time. I hope that the noble Baroness will not press this amendment.

The Minister referred to the large number of organisations in the North East which already exist on these regional boundaries and he used the specific words, "bringing them under democratic control". Did he actually mean that, or was he still talking about some sort of airy-fairy monitoring and scrutinising and about not controlling them in any way whatever? Will not those organisations still exist? Where they are responsible to central Government, will not that responsibility continue?

Regardless of the degree of scrutiny, it is democratic control. As we said, they will be very small bodies and there will be another piece of legislation. However, the position will be fully set out before the referendum so that, before they vote and decide whether to go down that route, people understand the powers, consequences and procedures for how such regional assemblies work. That is the people's choice, not the Government's choice or the politicians' choice, based on all the evidence we can muster and make available on the consequences of a "Yes" vote in a referendum.

I invite the Minister to address a specific point. He talked about delay—which, as I made clear in my speech, very much concerns me. I described it, perhaps more harshly, as "mischief", and he avoided saying that this was a wrecking clause. However, I think that it would help the Committee—this is an entirely straight and innocent question—if he said how the amendment, if agreed to, would relate to the Government's manifesto commitment, as I understand it, to introduce regional government in this Parliament. I do not have the manifesto with me, so I do not know the precise words. However, given the role of this House, the question seems relevant.

I do not know the date of the next general election, but I think that it will be in less than four years. So I can safely say that, if this lot took four years, it would be beyond this Parliament.

The Government are making it possible to introduce regional government. However, as the noble Lord makes clear every time he comes to the Dispatch Box, it will be the people who introduce it, not the Government. This is a paving Bill. The Government will have met their parliamentary and manifesto obligation simply by putting the Bill before Parliament and gaining approval for it. Parliament will decide the means to the end. So it will not be the Government who introduce regional government.

I think that this amendment has generated a worthwhile debate on the overall principles of regional government. As I said, it does not really matter whether the Conservatives agree with regional government. As Members of the Committee have seen, there are some divisions on the Benches about the principle and form of regional government. What does matter is that the Bill is coherent. To be fair, we have not yet had a Bill on regional assemblies. This is simply a paving Bill for how and where assemblies are established. Our argument is still that one cannot proceed with elected regional assemblies when there is incoherence on the point of democratic input.

This aspect of the debate has been quite entertaining because no one has any idea where these boundaries originated. In the House of Commons debate, regionalism was traced back not quite to Alfred and his cakes, but quite some way. It was decided that its basis lies probably in the 1948 work and pensions areas. Members of the Committee can therefore choose their own starting point, but these regions have served an administrative purpose. However, we believe that there is a difference between administrative and democratic regions. We are trying to establish that difference.

The amendment also puts forward the argument for ensuring formal and proper consultation with the great number of bodies and great number of people on the regional boundaries. The debate has given a small indication of the great concern and interest in the quixotic nature of the current boundaries. If one is proposing any layer of government—regardless of whether it is an additional or changed layer—and democratic input, those who elect the individuals forming that assembly should have at least some idea of the relevance of the area concerned. Cornwall and Cumbria have been cited as major areas of concern. They are not just on the periphery of boundaries. They are a great test indeed for my proposal on boundary review.

I think that the Government may hold a misconception about the extent to which the country understands their intentions. The position will not have been helped by the fact that the soundings exercise by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to test interest levels ended before the Bill reached this House. That exercise finished on 3rd March. As noble Lords who followed proceedings in another place will know, the report of those proceedings could be written on the head of a pin. There was very little interest and very little information. I think that the Government will find it difficult to say that there has been meaningful consultation. This amendment provides for a proper consultation process.

The noble Baroness is presumably winding up. Before she does, I should like to ask whether she has read the article in The Times. a week ago last Monday, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He said:

"With our plans to increase UK funding for regional policy, devolve decision-making power to the regions and return key regional policy responsibilities from the EU back to Britain, the future control of regional economic policy is moving from Brussels to London and then from Westminster to the … regions themselves".

Does the noble Baroness agree that that appears to show a fundamental change in government policy—that they are not satisfied with how regional policy is being controlled by Brussels, and that they therefore want it returned to this country? That being so, might not the Government want to consider whether the existing administrative regions are more suitable for this new devolvement from the EU than are the existing regional development bodies, which were of course set up to suit the European connection? Does it not suit and help the noble Baroness's argument that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is thinking along different lines and may very well want to alter the regions to suit a policy which is dictated and followed by the United Kingdom rather than Brussels?

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, for drawing my attention to the article, which I have not seen. I can well understand why the Chancellor might wish to repatriate some of the decisions made on our behalf in Brussels. It may very well be that he would like to have some of those decisions taken by us, but on a regional basis. If that is correct, and he wishes to review the boundaries, that would fit in nicely with my amendment.

I am a little burdened by the arguments put forward by the Liberal Democrats. I do not believe that they reflect what is being said in the country in general. There is great concern across the board.

I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. Is it not right that she should pay tribute to the Minister who really made the point for her on 20th February? He said:

"My Lords, the Liberal Democrats are not a national party like others. They are different in some parts of the country to others".—[Official Report, 20/2/03; col. 1332.]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that intervention. I believe that the Liberal Democrats may not be speaking as they did in another place and as has been said in the country. I hope that we shall have an opportunity to test that further. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment No. 5 takes a slightly different approach and picks up on comments by the Minister and his colleagues about their minds not being wholly closed to pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill before a referendum is held. That process attracts me—not least because, depending on how the Committee goes about its business, it would enable direct discussion with witnesses, stakeholders and others with a stake, however one defines that, in the outcome. That seems a constructive way of dealing with proposed legislation and, because of our concerns about the powers spelt out in the White Paper and some of the terminology used now, it needs to be explored further.

In the debate on Amendment No. 2, the Minister—referring to the powers scrutinised by the new assemblies—talked about scrutiny as being democratic control. Scrutiny does not amount to the exercise of a power. Whether or not it amounts to democratic control depends on how scrutiny is applied—at its most extreme, scrutiny can veto the exercise of a function proposed by the executive body. It is not just the headline issue of powers and functions but how the executive and scrutiny arms will operate in the assembles for which they are proposed.

The issue extends to structure. We tend to concentrate on function. This House is not the best example of the maxim that form should follow function but to my mind it should. If the function were as we wish it to be, the proposed form may not be appropriate.

The new assemblies are supposed to be mean and lean, comprising between 25 and 35 members. There are issues around how much a small body can be representative of a substantial region. We have concerns over whether so small a body can provide the executive and scrutiny arms. It is not just a matter of the workload. There is a danger that the number of members suggested to undertake those two functions is too low.

The amendment asks the Minister to build on comments made by him and his colleagues about being open to some way of continuing this debate. It is clear that Parliament would like to be involved in the debate about the assemblies' powers, functions and structure. Amendments Nos. 5 and 6 are a way of taking that forward.

If anyone is to be convinced that the Bill is an exercise in devolution, not local government reorganisation, it is vital that powers are spelt out clearly—certainly before any referendum is held.

The Minister chided me earlier, suggesting that I had not read the White Paper. While it is true that I do not have my copy, that has been remedied by the Printed Paper Office. Its contents are just as I remember from my original reading of them. The White Paper makes it clear that the powers of an elected assembly are at best marginal. It is important to take account of the summary:

"Elected assemblies will improve the quality of life for people in their regions, particularly by improving regional economic performance … Assemblies will be given the lead role in developing strategies to achieve this. They will drive the implementation of their strategies, monitor progress and revise strategies when appropriate … Assemblies will be given a range of powers to help them to deliver these strategies. These will include executive functions such as responsibility for resources and influence to promote results that will benefit the region … Specific responsibilities include economic development and regeneration, spatial development, housing, transport, skills and culture … Regional Development Agencies will be accountable to their elected assembly, which will appoint the Chair and Board members".

That last responsibility is the only one that is not an existing local government county function and is true devolution from the Secretary of State to the proposed regional assemblies. Otherwise, they are to be consulted.

The Minister earlier listed the number of public bodies active in the North East as some justification for establishing regional organisations. The list of central government departments and agencies with regional and local offices, presumably prayed in aid of the argument, includes the Court Service, Crown Prosecution Service, Forestry Commission, Highways Agency—which we know is not going over because that was said on Second Reading, HM Land Registry, Inland Revenue and Passport Agency. There is no suggestion that any of them will be involved or be subject to regional assemblies. They have regional offices in the same way that any organisation might have branch offices.

I did not say that they were going over. I gave that as an example of other organisations that have used the boundaries for their purposes. I did not say that they were going over to the elected regional assemblies.

I do not want to put words into the Minister's mouth, but I doubt that the Passport Agency is using a regional boundary. If there is a convenient location for a Passport Agency office in the North East, it has nothing to do with regional boundaries.

The organisations that will be subject to democratic control from regional assemblies include the Countryside Agency, Environment Agency and English Nature. The White Paper, from which we are supposed to draw comfort and be informed, makes clear the formidable role that a regional assembly will have in connection with the environment. It will have the right to be consulted by the Countryside Agency, Environment Agency, English Nature and other relevant public bodies—and to consult them in turn. That is not devolution in my terms.

If those examples purport to justify establishing regional assemblies, then although we are told that there will be no additional tier of government, the truth is that there will be no additional tier of local government. The Government in their wisdom will reorganise local government, make it much larger than it is currently and transfer functions from existing local government bodies to the new assemblies. The new assemblies will not be a devolution of government from the centre. If they are going to be statutory local authorities, they will be subject to the same controls as existing local authorities. I draw Committee Members' attention to the definition of local authorities in Clause 23 of the Local Government Bill which appeared recently in the Printed Paper Office. It includes all the existing local authorities with which your Lordships will be familiar. Clause 23(1)(o) also includes:

"any other body specified for the purposes of this subsection by regulations under subsection (2)".

Under subsection (2) those are levying and precepting bodies. The White Paper says that regional assemblies will raise their finances independently and not by a levy on central government. They will therefore be local authorities and not devolved assemblies. If the Government wish to prove me wrong, they will publish the powers before the referendum.

It is only through such debates that we begin to get the picture and some idea of what job, if any, the elected members of the regional assemblies will have. On 5th March the Minister said that there were no new powers or funds. He was underlining what he has said again today: there will be no new powers devolved from central government to the elected assemblies. He has said today that no new powers will be taken from local government and given to the elected assemblies. That is not strictly true, because we know that it has already been decided that planning powers should go to a regional level.

Apart from that matter, the Minister says that no powers will be taken from local government and given to the regional assemblies. What on earth will they have to do? The assembly members will be paid and people are entitled to know what salaries they will receive and what the chief executives will be paid. The bill for the assemblies will be footed not by central government but by council taxpayers, who are already being punished by the Government. They will be paying their taxes for nothing, if the Minister's words are to be taken literally, because there will be no new powers for the assemblies to exercise.

We will be debating the referendum question on Clause 2. The wording of Clause 2 on the statement that must precede the question on the ballot paper makes this proposal sound far more attractive than the facts warrant. I know that the Electoral Commission has approved the wording, but it has nothing to rely on except the extremely vague wording on page 34 of the White Paper to which my noble friend Lord Bowness referred. It is wrong that anyone should be asked to vote in a referendum for a regional assembly without the powers or lack of powers that it is to exercise being spelt out at least in a draft Bill if not in legislation.

This is a cart-before-the-horse Bill. How on earth can we ask people to vote for something if they do not know what they are voting for? That is what the debate is about. When people are voting for something, especially a major change, they should know exactly what they are voting for. The Minister may believe that only opponents of regions are concerned about the matter, but the Campaign for the English Regions is also concerned. It sent me a large brief, but it is only necessary to quote one paragraph. It states:

"In the meantime people in the regions are understandably concerned about voting for an assembly whose powers have not yet been established. If the Government will not legislate before a referendum then it should move this timetable forward by committing itself to publish a draft powers and constitution Bill well in advance of any referendum. This will enable debate about how assemblies will work to continue and develop in the regions".

If the people in favour of the regions are concerned about the Government's policy, surely the Minister should consider what they are saying and ensure that before people vote they know what they are voting for and are not being asked to buy a pig in a poke.

I support the amendment. As I said on the first amendment, the two crucial issues are the size and functions of the region. It is crucial that those who are to take part in the referendum know exactly what they are voting for and the implications. Now that the full implications have been realised north of the border, many of the people who voted would not now vote in the same way. All sorts of functions such as planning and culture have been lost at a local level and have gone to a regional level.

That has been a disaster for all sorts of small community-based interests, which have been doing a great deal of good work for a long time but now find that their finances have changed and that they are not able to continue. Where planning is carried out on a regional rather than local basis it is a recipe for disaster because locals do not feel involved in controversial decisions. To give an example, windmills for generating electricity have caused endless problems because decisions are not being taken at the local level as they should be.

I also support these amendments to define the powers and functions of the proposed assemblies. I know that the Minister wishes to avoid all discussion of the Bill's European dimension. I noticed, for instance, that he did not take the opportunity I offered him to answer my basic question at the end of my remarks on Second Reading. I can of course persist.

To be more specific and to give the Minister a much easier question to answer on the European dimension with reference to the amendments, what will be the interface between the new regional assemblies and Brussels? I presume that Brussels will continue to send back some of our taxpayers' money in the guise of EU regional aid. What role do the Government see for the new regional assemblies in that process? Do the Government ever foresee them having powers to raise taxes, for instance? Would those taxes be confined to the regions, or can the Government foresee part of them being passed to the tentacles from Brussels?

I say at the outset, and at the risk of repeating myself again—

Is the Minister going to respond to my noble friend?

I am summing up.

I wish to speak to the amendment.

Well, I am sorry!

I did not want to stop the Minister if he was only intervening as regards my noble friend.

No one else was on their feet.

I am sorry. I am only a little one. The Minister should bear in mind that we cannot see each other.

First, I strongly support my noble friend. With a proper determination of boundaries before—

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness but it is important to remember that we are in Committee and that it does not matter whether the Minister speaks or not. If anyone wants to continue the debate after the Minister has spoken, he or she can do so and that will be quite in order.

The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, is absolutely right. I did not want the Minister to think that he was bringing the amendment to a close and then stand up and discuss it. This also gives the Minister an opportunity to respond to everyone who has spoken.

As I just said, I strongly support my noble friend. The first two groups of amendments are absolutely fundamental. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, used the phrase, "The cart before the horse". That is definitely the case with the Bill.

I hope that the noble Lord will forgive us—it is the stuff of politics in both Chambers to use such an opportunity to test all of the arguments and propositions, whichever government are in power.

Whenever I have listened to government Ministers advocating the development of regional assemblies, they have used the language of bringing democracy to all bodies that operate in the regions. I strongly support the comments of my noble friend Lord Bowness.

I have examined the list relating to the North East. The noble Lord was absolutely right; it merely reflects what is happening in the area. It would be helpful if the Minister told us what on that list will be ceded—that is, in terms of a link with, partnership with, influence over or shared influence together with—and what powers will pass from the National Health Service, the Inland Revenue, the Passport Agency and learning and skills councils. There are two important lists. I suspect that if a regional assembly is established in the North East, many of those bodies will still operate there—some of them will do so autonomously—and some will have links with the regional assembly.

As I read the White Paper, even regional development agencies will remain in being under the regional assemblies arrangement. When Ministers discuss this matter, they refer to all such bodies in the region being brought under some form of democratic control. We probably have a meeting of minds with our Liberal colleagues in this regard. There is a real hungriness—or, to be absolutely grammatically correct, hunger—on the part of most of us to know precisely what the Government have in mind in terms of real powers being ceded and from what source.

My second point involves the difficulty of making sense of the language. The summary to chapter 4 states:

"Assemblies will be given a range of powers to help them to deliver these strategies. These will include executive functions such as responsibility for resources".

If assemblies will be given money from central government—we know of the tendency of government to tag any moneys that come down from on high—of course they will have responsibility for such resources. With regard to any moneys that they have, they will be held accountable by district auditors, external auditing and public accountability. The summary continues that assemblies will also be given,

"influence to promote results that will benefit the region".

What exactly does that mean? It is important that the Minister gives those words real meaning when he replies.

An example in chapter 4 is set out in Box 4.1, which is entitled, "Regional strategies for an elected assembly". When one runs through that, one finds it hard to discern a power that will be given to the regions. They will have influence and partnerships with other bodies. With transport, for example, there will be powers to "spell out plans". However, the plans will be controlled by national government. They will not have the power to determine: to address congestion, to improve public transport or road links and to ensure that transport systems support sustainable economic growth. They will merely have the power to set out plans.

On housing, Box 4.1 states that the assemblies will have powers to,

"deal with all aspects of the housing market and social housing in the region".

They will have the power to "deal with" but not to determine. When I asked about the housing that will surround Stansted, I received a letter. The Government will determine that development; there will be no power to determine in a region or at county level. They will have a role in planning and an influence in the local determination once the number of houses has been determined at national level.

On health improvement, Box 4.1 refers to assemblies,

"setting out a long-term public health strategy, which assemblies will agree with the relevant Regional Directors of Public Health".

How does that dovetail with the 10-year plan of the NHS? The NHS determined the NHS Plan and it has been presented to Parliament. What powers will they have to determine something that is separate, or will they simply have to operate within the plans set out by the NHS?

There are real areas of concern. As noble Lords will know, my particular area is education. The learning and skills councils are regional bodies: there are 47 of them around the country plus a national body. They will continue to operate as learning and skills councils. Will the regional assemblies take on themselves the powers that are currently controlled by the learning and skills councils?

I am extremely concerned about my final point. What will be the consequence in practical terms for the two parliamentary Chambers: the House of Commons and the House of Lords? We already know that when there was devolution to Scotland, we were told on almost a daily basis that we could not ask questions about Scotland because that was a matter for the Scottish Assembly. We are told on Welsh matters that we cannot ask questions about Wales because that is a matter for the Welsh Assembly. We are now told on London matters that we cannot ask questions on London because that is a matter for the Mayor of London.

If the North East gets its assembly, will we find ourselves, as Members in this House, with no influence, knowing that the regional assembly has no real power and that its accountability will be to national government? However, we, as Members of this House or another place, will lose our influence as a United Kingdom Parliament.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, and my noble friend Lord Pearson of Rannoch that if the Bill comes to fruition and we have eight regional assemblies plus London, the United Kingdom Parliament will be very seriously emasculated constitutionally. The weight of the United Kingdom as an entity, whether with regard to Europe or anywhere else in the world, will be seriously diminished by this approach.

The Minister must forgive us for labouring these points and for sounding so anxious about the answers to some of our questions. However, it is incumbent on him to agree with my noble friend that before people are asked to vote in a referendum, they know what they are voting for, what the powers and functions will be and what the entailed costs will be. All of that information must be put before the electorate and agreed by Parliament so that the electorate can make an informed choice.

I beg to move that the House do now resume.

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

What is the cost to date of the Bloody Sunday inquiry.

My Lords, the total cost of the inquiry to Government was £104.5 million up to the end of February 2003.

My Lords, I make no apology for raising this Question for the third time as every time I raise it the costs have increased. Does the Leader of the House agree that the inquiry should be renamed the "Lawyers' Benevolent Fund" and that the hearings should be moved to the Millennium Dome? How can he justify the fact that one barrister is reported to have been paid over £2 million, others over £400,000 each and those at the end of the gravy train struggle with expenses of just under £1,000 a day? Is it not monstrous that while the Government pay vast sums for the inquiry, the relatives of the victims of the Omagh bombing struggle to find the money to pay their legal fees and are receiving precious little help from the Government?

My Lords, I first answered this Question on 19th November 2002, secondly on 7th January 2003 and thirdly today. If people keep asking about whether the costs have increased when the legal process is continuing the answer is likely to be in the affirmative. The question is whether allegations of this kind should be investigated. When the Prime Minister announced the inquiry, Mr Hague gave general support. Perhaps the theme underlying the Question of the noble Lord is that we should stop the inquiry now.

My Lords, with hindsight—governments are supposed to have foresight as well—does the Minister agree that Nelson Mandela's truth and reconciliation approach would have been a much more economical and sensible approach? Does he agree that already the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has achieved far more than this nonsensical Saville inquiry, which I suspect will achieve nothing? When it was set up I said that it would achieve nothing but bitterness and it has created more and more bitterness. Does he agree that Nelson Mandela's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has achieved exactly the reverse?

My Lords, in South Africa the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been an extraordinary achievement of the human spirit and the generosity of the human heart. Your Lordships will remember that to gain the benefits of the commission one has to admit one's liability. Is it suggested that any of those against whom the grave charges have been brought in the Bloody Sunday inquiry would be willing to do that?

My Lords, do the Government have any views on the remark made by the chief constable that he can see no profit coming from the Saville inquiry one way or the other?

My Lords, I am happy to repeat that the chief constable has made it plain that he was misrepresented and misreported. He had the decency, which I respectfully commend, to talk to the relatives of those who were killed to say that he very much regretted the hurt that had been caused by the fact that he had been misreported in the newspaper.

My Lords, perhaps I did not hear the noble and learned Leader of the House correctly, but I did not hear him answer the Question about the cost to date of the Bloody Sunday inquiry. Perhaps he could remind me of the cost. Can he also tell the House when the inquiry is likely to complete its work?

My Lords, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, I gave the figure of £104.5 million, which is divided into £81.5 million in respect of the families' representation generally and £23 million for the MoD representation generally. As I have said on two previous occasions in answering the same Question—I am sorry that my answer has to be the same—it is expected that the report will be concluded in the year 2004.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

What discussions they have had with the Russian Government on the implications for the global alliance against terrorism of the referendum planned for 23rd March in the Chechen Republic on a new constitution.

My Lords, we discussed the planned constitutional referendum in Chechnya within the framework of our dialogue with the Russian Government on human rights. In that context we also discussed terrorism. We have made it clear that we recognise the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation and the right of the Russian Government to defend their citizens from terrorism. We do not believe that the conflict in Chechnya can be resolved by military means alone and therefore have urged the Russian authorities to seek a political solution.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that helpful reply. Does she agree that one of the difficulties about the conflict in Chechnya is that while there are fighters who are close to Al'Qaeda and who have no interest in what any of us would recognise as a political settlement, there are others who, however misguided, have turned to fighting for recognisable political objectives? Such people have to be won back into a political process. By impatiently steaming ahead with a referendum on 23rd March on a proposed constitution that has been forged without a political process, there is a danger of counterproductivity and of people unnecessarily being driven into the arms of the extremists. Does she agree that in the end the battle against terrorism has to be won by hearts and minds and that we must persuade the Russians that that has to become a priority?

My Lords, I agree that part of the battle against terrorism has to be won by hearts and minds, but I am afraid that there are times when the use of force is also necessary, as we sadly know. This is a volatile and highly explosive situation. The conflict is now in its fourth year. My noble friend is right to refer to the Al'Qaeda links that some of the militant groups appear to have. It is worth remembering that some of the groups have struck at the Moscow-appointed civil administration. The latest attack was in December last year when 80 were killed and 150 were injured. My noble friend is right to imply that sometimes Russian troops use violence and brutality in the spiral of violence that he has identified. Since the theatre siege, the Russians have realised that it is important to try to find a means by which to resolve the conflict other than violence, hence consideration of the new constitution. The constitutional referendum is on 23rd March and I am sure that we all hope for a peaceful outcome.

My Lords, the whole House will want to recognise the perseverance of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, on behalf of the Council of Europe in this difficult matter. Do the Government agree that daily murder and repression continue? Is it considered that the constitution is sufficiently well known to the potential electors to have a meaningful answer? Does she also accept that some members of the Russian Duma have argued for a postponement?

My Lords, I too pay tribute to the work that my noble friend has done on this issue. Of course, the cycle of violence is on both sides. I have attempted to illustrate to your Lordships that there have been some appalling suicide attacks that have injured innocent civilians, and in those circumstances naturally the Russian authorities respond.

The Russian authorities have said that the referendum will take place on 23rd March. Six months after that there is due to be a presidential election and parliamentary elections three months after that. The process is about establishing a new constitution in Chechnya and a knowledge of that will lie at the heart of the referendum.

My Lords, is not the noble Lord, Lord Judd, right in telling us that this tragedy involves separatism as well as terrorism? If, as the noble Lord advises—and he should certainly know—this referendum is premature, can the Minister at least assure us that when President Putin actively seeks close co-operation with international organisations and his friends, including this country, on how to handle this appalling matter, we will respond very positively?

My Lords, we respond very positively. The noble Lord is right that it is not just about terrorism; it is about separatism. But I hope that the noble Lord heard my Answer that we have made clear that we recognise the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation. The constitutional reforms do not involve a separate state for Chechnya but a degree of autonomy within Chechnya itself.

Of course we shall try to give what help we can. I regret that the OSCE Assistance Group to Chechnya has been unable to extend its mandate; however, the OSCE presidency is currently exploring with the Russian Government how the work can be continued. We are hopeful of a positive outcome on that.

My Lords, it is clear that the conflict in Chechnya has spilled out over national boundaries. It has contributed to the continuing destabilisation of Georgia. What action are the British Government and their colleagues in the European Union now taking to help to stabilise Georgia and to protect Georgians from cross-border, often Russian-supported, destabilisation?

My Lords, I cannot give the noble Lord any specific information about Georgia. I shall research that further and write to him. The European Union hopes to agree a balanced consensus statement on the situation in Chechnya at this year's United Nations Commission on Human Rights. So the European Union is taking a forward position on the matter. But I shall write to the noble Lord on the specific issue of Georgia.

My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that the proposed referendum is likely to be a travesty of democracy in view of the fact that a large proportion of the citizens of Chechnya are refugees outside the country, and members of the Russian armed forces will be allowed to vote in this election? Surely that is hardly the way towards a political solution rather than a military one. Will Her Majesty's Government press the Russians to start a dialogue with the elected President of Chechnya, Asian Maskhadov, who is no terrorist?

My Lords, I cannot agree that it is a travesty of democracy. I think that the noble Lord is over-stating his case. But I agree that it is a difficult situation and that there are many imperfections. The United Kingdom Government have consistently stressed that a political solution to the conflict in Chechnya is essential. I believe that we are in a better position than we were when there was resort only to the use of violence. We welcome the plans to establish a new constitution. We have welcomed the plans for elections in Chechnya, so I cannot agree that it is a travesty of democracy. But we hope that the constitutional referendum will be the beginning of a long-term political process in which all parties will be able to renounce violence. Its success will depend on the thorough, consistent implementation of political and civil rights as set out in the new constitution.

My Lords, does the noble Baroness not agree that Chechnya is not historically part of Russia, as the Russian Government claim, but was conquered by force less than 150 years ago, wholly against the wishes of the inhabitants?

My Lords, I am sure that, historically speaking, the noble Lord, Lord Monson, must be right. If he is inviting me by implication therefore to retreat from the position of Her Majesty's Government on the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation, I cannot go that far. To use the analogy of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, many states would break up on that basis. The noble Lord would be in some difficulty in pursuing his analogy.

My Lords, will the Minister say something about abuses of human rights, particularly those perpetrated by the Russian forces and Chechen fighters? Are the excesses more by the Chechen fighters or by the Russian forces? Will Her Majesty's Government encourage the Russian Government to sign up to the International Criminal Court so that soldiers responsible for human rights abuses can be brought to justice?

My Lords, Her Majesty's Government encourage all governments—the noble Lord mentioned the Russian Federation; let me also mention the United States of America—to sign up to the International Court. The noble Lord asks me to adjudicate on which violence is worse. I believe that there is violence on both sides, as I have illustrated. I have said that we believe there is violence on the part of the Russian authorities. I stressed that there is violence by the militant groups. We have also stressed that the Russian authorities must respect their obligations under the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees and that all movements of internally displaced persons must be strictly voluntary. We last did so during our human rights discussions with the Russian MFA only last week.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

What was the original intention in producing the Government's annual reports; why these ceased after three years; and whether there is any likelihood of their being resumed.

My Lords, the information in the annual report was a collation of existing publicly available material, and we have decided not to continue with it. The Government will, of course, continue to report to Parliament and the public on their performance through a variety of means, such as reports, statistical bulletins, Ministerial Statements and Parliamentary Questions.

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for that reply. It is not as characteristically robust as his replies to me usually are, but that is because his officials who had notice of my Question found it difficult to give him more material.

Does the noble and learned Lord agree with me that the annual reports were launched with a great fanfare of publicity and were an interesting new part of the repertoire of public accountability on the part of governments? I regret that we do not have them, because it is convenient to have between two covers all the statistics and the targets missed or otherwise. What would be the Government's attitude if, for example, a company finding itself in troubled waters, such as Monsanto or Cable & Wireless, suddenly decided that it did not wish to produce any more annual reports?

My Lords, there are a number of differences, to which I shall come in a moment. The noble Lord asked me two questions originally: first, whether the reports were produced with a great fanfare, to which the answer is yes, and, secondly, whether they were desperately interesting—ahem.

I now turn to the failing companies. Certainly I would be quite happy to be employed by any of those failing companies, because I would probably receive a pay-off of about £6 million for demonstrated failure.

My Lords, were not the annual reports intended originally to provide publicity for the Government's activities, but they ran out of material and steam, despite the efforts of spin doctors? Are they now presumably to be discontinued for the same reason?

My Lords, they were tried on three occasions. The response was not perhaps universal. The total cost was quite significant. No one could sensibly believe that there is not abundant material available—some would say too much. If the noble Lord believes that it was a waste of time and spin, he ought to rejoice, because the sinner has repented.

My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord have some amazing crystal ball that said it would be better to stop producing annual reports because Higgs was going to report on corporate governance and therefore the annual report would require a performance evaluation of every board member and everything that the board did?

My Lords, I do have a crystal ball: we are going to win the next election.

My Lords, could not officials also have provided the noble and learned Lord the Leader of the House with a more direct Answer—I was going to say "honest"—along the lines that it was a merry wheeze dreamt up in the early stages of the Labour Government's life to get free political advertising provided from the public purse? As the noble and learned Lord has conceded that it was an error, should not the costs be refunded to the public purse by the Labour Party?

Moreover, as that publication and others were sanctioned by somebody in government, can the Minister tell us where authority lies for judgments on whether public money should be spent on publications? Is it political or public spending? At one stage, it was considered that the buck stopped with a political appointee, Mr Alastair Campbell. Does the director of the Central Office of Information report to Mr Alastair Campbell or to a responsible Minister? Who takes responsibility for that important area of public spending, in which, as the noble and learned Lord conceded, the Government have erred in the past?

My Lords, I did not say that it was an error; I said that it had been tried. It was tried on three occasions: 1997–98, 1998–99 and 1999–2000. It was then discontinued, but a comprehensive report was put to the electorate in, I think, 2001, and they seemed to be pleased with what we had done. The reports were signed off—sanctioned, in other words—by the then Cabinet Secretary.

My Lords, will the noble and learned Lord say what the cost was over each of those three years?

My Lords, as it happens, I have that material to hand. The total cost in the first year was £250,000; for the second year, it was £180,000; and, in the third year—showing what an excellent, prudent Government we have—it went down to £125,000.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether a simple majority of the Security Council of the United Nations in favour of the draft resolution submitted by Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States would be sufficient justification for the United Kingdom to invade Iraq.

My Lords, as I told the House and as my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary said in another place on 25th November, following the adoption of Resolution 1441, the preference of the Government, in the event of a further material breach by Iraq, is for a second Security Council resolution. Resolution 1441 warns Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violation of its obligations.

As my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary said in November, we must reserve our position, in the event that the council does not live up to its responsibilities under the resolution. We have repeatedly said that we will always act in accordance with international law.

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness. Will she confirm that Her Majesty's Government take the view that, if the resolution is not, for some reason, passed by the Security Council, that will not debar the Government from military action against Iraq for lack of proper legal authority? Can the noble Baroness reconcile that view with that of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, who said:

"If the US and others go outside the Security Council and take unilateral action, they would not be in conformity with the charter"?

My right honourable friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary are working very hard to secure a second Security Council resolution. I will not say anything that would prejudice the chances of a successful outcome for those negotiations. I said what I had to say about reserving our position in my Answer.

The noble Lord asked about the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Kofi Annan has been saying—we have all been saying—that it is important for the United Nations to come together. That is exactly what we have been trying to ensure. It is why we have tried to provide a basis—a compromise—even at this late stage, on which we can resolve the matter properly. Trying to secure agreement in the United Nations is more complicated when one member of the P5 says that it will veto a resolution in any circumstances.

My Lords, I hope that the Minister will accept that many of us did not hear the Secretary-General saying what he said. Yesterday, the Prime Minister spoke of bringing the international community as a whole together on the issue. There are questions of legality with regard to the UN Charter and to voting procedures, which require nine votes. There is also the broader question of legitimacy and acceptance by the international community that action is justified. Does the Minister accept that, by that standard, the British and American Governments have not yet succeeded in persuading the international community in the way that the Prime Minister suggested yesterday?

My Lords, I concede that there is a strongly argued position to be held on both sides of the question. It would be extraordinary to succeed in persuading the whole international community to adopt one position, as things stand and given the events of the past few days.

I remind the noble Lord that the international community came together effectively around UNSCR 1441. My right honourable friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary are negotiating with every ounce of their strength to ensure that that international consensus survives.

My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that the case for military action against Iraq does not begin or rest with the draft resolution referred to in the Question or with Resolution 1441? It rests with Resolution 678 of 1990 and all the subsequent Chapter VII resolutions about Iraq.

My Lords, I agree very strongly with my noble friend. It is not just a question of Resolution 678, the resolution containing the decision to take military action against Iraq. There is also Resolution 687, which led to the suspension of that military action.

We sometimes refer to what we are discussing as the "second resolution". I remind your Lordships that it is the 18th resolution on the issue. As my noble friend pointed out, the resolutions were made under the mandatory chapter, Chapter VII.

My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree, further to the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay of Cartvale, that, as members of the United Nations have voted no fewer than 17 times to compel Saddam Hussein to disarm and to use all measures to do so, it would be reasonable to conclude that any further pressure, including force, had UN approval and was internationally legal? They are complex matters, on which we all, understandably, seek reassurance.

We appreciate that legal advice from the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General is confidential, as is right and proper. However, would it not be helpful, in the debate to be introduced by the Liberal Democrats on Monday, to have his presence and guidance? If he cannot help us on this difficult issue, he could help us with the broader issues affecting the Armed Forces in a conflict, now that we operate under the International Criminal Court system, which raises new and complex problems.

My Lords, in answer to the first part of the noble Lord's question, I shall repeat what the Prime Minister said yesterday in another place:

"As the Foreign Secretary has pointed out, resolution 1441 gives the legal basis for this. The reason we have been seeking a second resolution is … that it is highly desirable to demonstrate the unified will of the international community".—[Official Report, Commons, 12/3/03; col. 284.]

That is the Prime Minister's view. It is good enough for me and, I hope, for the noble Lord.

I thank the noble Lord for the way in which he put his question about the advice of the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General. I remind him, however, that, by a long-standing convention that has been observed by successive governments, the fact and substance of Law Officers' advice are not disclosed outside the Government. That convention is reflected in paragraph 24 of the ministerial code. I believe that the noble Lord will also find it reflected on page 389 of Erskine May.

Law Officers' advice is given to the Government in confidence. If the department to which the advice is given wishes to disclose the advice, it may do so with the consent of the Law Officers. In practice, that is rarely done.

My Lords—

My Lords—

My Lords, we shall hear from my noble friend Lord Sheldon.

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that in Stalinist times in the post-war years the Foreign Minister at the time drew the distinction between a "No" vote and a veto? When he voted "No", the Security Council assumed it was a veto. He said, "No, it was not". That is the precedent for our times, which has not been changed. We must not assume that any "No" votes will be a veto in the event of such votes being cast.

My Lords, the noble Lord raises an interesting point—which I am sure has already registered with my right honourable friends in another place. I shall ensure that it is conveyed to them. What has been so difficult about the position articulated from the other side of the Channel this week is the use of the words, "in any circumstances whatsoever". That has been very difficult. However, I shall certainly convey the point raised by my noble friend Lord Sheldon and I thank him for it.

I call Amendment No. 3.

I believe that, just before the sitting was suspended, we were about to hear the Minister respond to the previous group of amendments.

We were about to hear the Minister only if no one else stood up. I have already been told off today. I was a pupil of my noble friend Lord Stoddart when he was a Government Whip in another place. I learnt all the etiquette of procedure. I am aware that I am here to answer questions in Committee as often as required. I shall do my best—indeed, in the manner in which I was taught by my noble friend.

The expression "cart before the horse" was used. I throw that back at Members of the Committee who referred to it. If there was ever a case of the cart being before the horse, it was to demand detailed information about the functions and powers of a regional assembly in advance of the Bill on the referendum. It has been made clear that, before the referendum takes place, the electorate will have all that information at their disposal.

Those concerns were indicated at Second Reading. I accept that. They were put strongly. There were concerns about people voting for or against establishing an elected assembly before the legislation to set up the assemblies was enacted. The White Paper, Your Region, Your Choice, sets out our proposals. I could refer many of today's speakers to various sections of the report which would answer some of the questions put. It is not that the discussion has not taken place. The White Paper sets out in substantial detail from where the assemblies will draw their functions and powers.

The Government also said that that was the basis on which they hoped to introduce the legislation. I accept that we have not done that. Once we have received the recommendations from the Boundary Committee for local government in the region, we shall publish details of our proposals again. That will include a statement on how we intend to deal with the Boundary Committee's recommendations arising out of the local government review. People will then understand the consequences for local government. We shall also publish a summary of what an assembly would do and how it would work—before people cast their vote in the referendum. Therefore, there will be no argument that people will not have the necessary information.

There is nothing new in that approach. It was a two-stage approach. It was used for London, Scotland and Wales. I take on board the spirit of the questions asked; namely, more information to be made available before people make a choice. We accept that in principle. We are not opposed—I repeat, not opposed—to publishing a draft Bill on the powers of the assemblies. However, there are timetable issues relating to that. Therefore, at present, I cannot give a firm commitment that it would be a draft Bill. Certainly, we shall publish a summary document of the issues on which the Bill will be based.

I accept that a draft Bill would provide an opportunity for pre-legislative scrutiny. The Government have not ruled that out; it is a question of the timetable to which we are working. The argument concerning more information is covered in Amendments Nos. 5 and 6.

I can answer one specific question. As we left the Chamber, the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, said that he would not be back at 3.30 p.m. As Members were being so emollient and civilised, I told him the answer to his question at the doorway. Therefore, I had better put that answer on the record. The question posed by the noble Lord was: will an elected assembly be a local authority? The answer is, "No". It will be legally distinct from a local authority, the GLA, the National Assembly for Wales and the Scottish Parliament. Those are different bodies with different functions. It will not be a local authority. There will be a legal distinction.

In some ways, it is putting the cart before the horse. Before the referendum, which would be after the Boundary Committee has published its proposals, the Government will make a statement about how they intend to take forward the proposals of the Boundary Committee in the regions and produce a summary document about the way in which the assemblies will work and be set up.

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He answered the question about the status of the regional authority. He said that it would not be a local authority. Nor is it to be a government. Therefore, what will its status be? Will it have a status in its own right as a regional assembly and a regional authority? What will that status be?

I can only repeat what I previously said. The question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, asked for a definition of a local authority. The question was: will an elected assembly be a local authority? The specific answer is, "No". Regionally elected assemblies will be legally distinct from local authorities, the GLA, the National Assembly for Wales and the Scottish Parliament. They will have separate legal distinctions. They will be different bodies with different functions. Therefore, the answer to the question is that I cannot say in terms of a sub-clause or give a legal definition, but there will be a distinct definition of regional assemblies. They will not be classified in law as a local authority. That, of course, was the allegation in the question originally posed.

The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, raised the issue of the learning and skills councils. I shall become a tautologist if I continue repeating what I have said. The noble Baroness has been most generous and I therefore draw her attention to paragraph 4.29 on page 39 of the White Paper. That sets out the individual responsibilities of the elected assemblies and the learning skills councils. It may be that Members do not like that. However, it is set out.

I shall not "over claim" for the elected regional assemblies. In some speeches today, there has been a thrust which suggests that the regional assemblies will not be as big as the Government have claimed. We have not made massive claims. We have been clinically calculating on what their function and role will be. I am partially criticised for pointing out that there will be no new money and no new powers. And nor will there be a new tier of government—I am adding that to the mantra now.

We are not making super claims for the regional assemblies. We have been clear. It is set out in the White Paper. Further arguments have been put forward, then knocked down with comments such as, "Well, it's not going to have these powers'. That was never the proposal. It is a modest advance in democratic accountability for the spending of huge sums of public money. That is to be welcomed.

If it is a modest advance as regards the spending of huge sums of public money, I am grateful. But the learning and skills councils and the sector skills councils are concerned with skills in a regional context. If that is the case, and if there is to be no duplication, what on earth will be the relationship of the regional assembly to sector skills councils and to the national Sector Skills Council, to learning and skills councils and to the national Learning and Skills Development Agency?

I can confidently say that that will be set out in the summary of the powers placed before the people before they vote in a referendum.

I am sure the Minister will accept that what the Government propose may not be the same as what we end up with. My noble friend made that point earlier. I do not presume to speak for the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, but I hope that the Minister accepts that we on these Benches are keen 'to make progress, in the knowledge not only of what the Government propose but of what the final product might be.

Having said that, I have completely forgotten the reason why I rose to my feet! I shall sit down again, and I may remember when I read Hansard.

If I intervene it may give the noble Baroness time to think of her question.

Will the Minister clarify two points? Will the regional assembly, although not classed as a local authority, still be funded publicly either by central government or by local taxes from below? Therefore, although it is not strictly a local authority in the Minister's definition, will it be a local authority quango or some equivalent definition?

I am confused on a second point relating to the functions of the assemblies. Shall we in this Chamber be able to debate, amend, and persuade the Government to change some of the functions that they propose to give to regional assemblies before the people in an area are given a chance to vote? Or shall we be cut out of the process as from now?

It may be convenient if I raise two questions at this point. The Minister did not comment on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, about the relationship with the European Union. That is important—because there is a relationship. The Commission has offices in all the regional "capitals"—it has a presence in the regions—and, through local authority members, there will be a presence in Brussels itself. The noble Lord, Lord Pearson, may want to enlarge on that point. It is a question that needs comment.

The Minister says that the regional assemblies will spend huge amounts of money, and that the quangos will not be brought under the democratic control of the regional authorities. But they spend £50 billion a year. If my arithmetic is correct, that is between 12 and 15 per cent of the total national tax take. Yet they are not to be democratised in any way. That is something of a lacuna which I am sure the Minister would like to address.

I rarely follow the noble Lord's example, but I shall do so on this occasion—if not politically—and add to the list of points for the Minister to answer, having now remembered my question. It relates to the timing of the government proposals. Will the Minister be a little clearer as regards the obstacles? Is there a problem as regards the time of parliamentary counsel—which often presents difficulty; or is there some structural reason why a draft Bill will not be available for scrutiny as early as we should like? I am still seeking a way in which we might meet one another on this point.

My Lords, I did not speak before lunch—although not for dietary reasons—but the Minister addressed the idea of "the cart before the horse". I think I was responsible for introducing the concept at Second Reading (at col. 1277). I claim no intellectual property rights, nor do I have any emotional capital tied up in the phrase, but it was good of the Minister to address it given my small part in its introduction.

In referring to the two-stage process, the Minister indicated that he cannot guarantee a draft Bill. I recall a similar process when we debated the Greater London Authority Bill. We had had an initial debate in another place on governance in London in June 1997. In that debate, I quoted the episode where Lord Home—as he then was not—had been asked during the 1964 general election about the government's intentions as regards VAT. He said that a lot of very clever men were thinking about it at that very moment. I said I had the impression that the same was true of what the government were going to do for London. Mr Raynsford, whose responsibilities have remained remarkably constant in this area over the past six years—although with extended and promoted levels—replied that I was perfectly right and that a lot of clever people were thinking about it. We then had the White Paper, and moved on to the Bill, which extended from 270 clauses when it first reached this place to 413 when it was placed on the statute book—indicating that the clever men had clearly had to work overtime in terms of extending the range of the Bill. It meant, inevitably, that we were looking at a moving target the whole time.

In a Bill so directed towards strategy—as I understand this Bill will be—there was a whole series of strategies which the assembly and the authority were supposed to produce. I took the liberty of asking Ms Glenda Jackson, the Minister then in charge of the Bill, what would happen if the strategies were in conflict with each other. She was gracious enough to say that that could not happen, because the Bill prevented it; they were not allowed to be in conflict with each other. That did not seem quite as gracious as she might have been—which would have been to explain how the differences would be resolved. At this juncture, I am reassured by the Minister's remarks—although on the basis of past experience I have lingering doubts about how it will all turn out in the end.

I think that we all have lingering doubts on everything that we are dealing with. One always has to be careful about the unintended consequences of what one is proposing.

As regards the timetable, we are some period away from any referendum that might take place. The Bill will have to receive Royal Assent. Only after Royal Assent will the Secretary of State give his views to Parliament about soundings in the regions; and the Electoral Commission and the Boundary Committee will have to review local government. The estimate is that that will take about 12 months. I cannot even forecast the publication of the draft housing Bill—which is supposed to be later this month—let alone talk about the Bill to set up assemblies, with all their powers, which is 12 months away at the earliest, if there are to be referendums.

We are not opposed in principle to providing a draft Bill in advance of the referendums. There is no policy difference. There are timetable issues that will determine whether that is feasible. I suspect that there may well be resource implications. Nevertheless, we have to be so far advanced in order to publish a summary of how we propose that the assembly will work before people cast their vote. All that would have to be in place. On the basis of that, we should know how the Bill would be drafted.

On the question on which I am tempted by the noble Lords, Lord Stoddart and Lord Pearson, this is not a cop-out. The White Paper is there for everyone to read. Chapter 8—pages 58 to 62—sets out the powers and the relationship with other bodies, including Parliament, the Council of the Regions and the EU, and other matters. I cannot go beyond the content of the White Paper. If I ask for a note from my officials, it will simply draw my attention to paragraphs in the White Paper. I do not think that Members of the Committee would thank me for reading out four pages of the White Paper.

Does the noble Lord accept that what he has just said causes huge anxiety? We have tried to make sense of the White Paper. The Government are not able to give details of what the relevant phrases in the White Paper mean. When I spoke on the amendment earlier I referred to certain words in the White Paper and asked what they meant. The Minister simply tells us to wait for the referendum, which is possibly a year or more away—I do not blame him as, clearly, the matter also involves the department and the Deputy Prime Minister—depending on when the Deputy Prime Minister comes to Parliament to say that there will be a referendum in a particular part of the country. However, we want to know what pages 58 to 62 of the document mean and what the powers comprise.

The Minister has not yet referred to the point that we raised this morning with regard to the power that he mentioned on Second Reading; that is, a power to the assembly from national government, which turned out on reflection not to be a power. Is he able to give us examples of powers that will be transferred from central government to regional assemblies? I refer to powers and not to parts to play in the process or influence on it or a duty to promote the results of it. Will the Minister tell us what the words mean? It is important that we understand that. If the Government cannot tell us that until a referendum takes place, we are travelling blind with the Bill.

In the hope that if I intervene the Fifth Cavalry might come to the help of the Minister, I hope that he will consider answering my question about our being able to debate functions before they are put to a referendum, and whether we can alter them before such a referendum takes place.

I seek to give the Minister a little more time to think of the answers to the questions that I put to him, which were repeated to some extent by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, who pointed out that the regions that we are discussing already have offices in Brussels. Brussels already has its tentacles in our existing regions and sends some of our taxpayers' money back to those regions in the guise of EU aid. So, whatever the White Paper may say—it did not help me on this point and I did not find it elucidating—what will be the interface between the new regional assemblies and Brussels? Can the noble Lord give the Committee the assurance that the new assemblies will not eventually have tax raising powers, with some of those taxes ending up in Brussels?

I repeat that we are dealing with a Bill that paves the way for the referendum. The referendum is well over 12 months away at the earliest. I am asked to dissect the White Paper in detail. Amendment No. 5 requires us to publish a draft Bill before we proceed with the referendum. Frankly, if I accept the amendment—which I cannot do for the reasons I have explained—I suspect that Members of the Committee would then ask what would be in the draft Bill and I would still be in the same position. The Committee will have to wait until it is available as we are talking about a matter that is more than 12 months away.

I cannot give precise detailed answers to all of the questions that have been asked as regards relations between the assemblies and Brussels and the Council of the Regions. I refer to Chapter 8 of the document. That is as far as we have gone publicly. I have nothing further to add. I do not have to wait for the cavalry. I have nothing further to say about Chapter 8. Before the electorate vote whether or not to have an elected regional assembly, we shall be in a position to address the powers and responsibilities that we are discussing at least in summary form and, at best, in a draft Bill. As I said, I have not ruled out a draft Bill. It is purely a question of not committing to a certain timetable so far in advance. I cannot give that commitment.

I thank the Minister for that response. He is in some difficulty here as I do not think that anyone has thought through how the public will be advised on the matter. My heart goes out to the Minister as I believe that he is struggling where he should not have to.

At the moment the Government are relying on the population having read the White Paper. If the Government think that people have read the White Paper, they are living in Cloud-cuckoo-land. No one reads White Papers except politicians and a few other people who need to know something about them. Therefore, the Government cannot rely on that. The Government cannot rely on the White Paper anyway as the White Paper does not spell out in detail what regional assemblies will do or what their powers and structures will be.

We have learnt today that a regional assembly is not a local authority. Therefore, it must be something else. But the situation vis-à-vis regional assemblies is not tile same as that which pertains in Scotland, Wales or London. We need to know what a regional assembly is and under what provisions such a legal entity will operate. It seems to me that we have to sort out not only the powers and structures of the regional assembly but also where it fits in with any kind of governance within this country. The matters about which we need to know are widening out.

I appreciate that this is meant to be paving legislation but it requires people to know what the matter is all about. I do not think that it is good enough simply to say rather airily that the relevant details will be made known before the referendum takes place. If they are as clear as the text of the White Paper, no one will understand them. As I said before, this matter needs to be discussed by Parliament. The powers and structures need to be scrutinised by Parliament to enable Members to determine what they will involve before they are voted upon by the electorate. I have referred to a pig in a poke. I say again that the electorate are being sold a pig in a poke if they are not given a proper account of what they are voting for.

Recently I visited the north of England. What is being said there about what regional assemblies will do bears absolutely no relation to what the Minister said today. High flown views are being expressed about how the assemblies will act and about all the wonderful things that they will do. That is happening because there is a vacuum and it will continue as long as that vacuum persists.

I shall withdraw the amendment today but I advise the Minister that I shall return to the matter as it constitutes a serious part of the paving Bill. To expect the country, or any part of it, even to vote whether it wants a regional assembly when it does not know what a regional assembly will do is thoroughly dishonest. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

In speaking to the amendment, I shall try to be as brief as the noble Baroness. The amendment seeks to clarify that the regional assemblies will be directly elected. I assure noble Lords that that is the Government's clear intention. I understand the argument that it might be helpful to make it clearer in the referendum question and preamble that the assemblies will he directly elected. But the issue is not as simple as putting in a single word. I understand that nowhere in electoral law is "direct election" specifically defined. More importantly, I am not convinced how helpful it would be in practice to voters in the polling booth. I think that all voters understand what an elected assembly means but would the meaning of "directly elected" be clear to them? I fear that the amendment raises more questions than answers. I believe that it would be better to explain clearly in our statement before the referendum the intended voting system. Therefore, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment and not to move Amendment No. 30.

The White Paper suggests a list system. Are the Government able to say "directly elected"? Some people will be directly elected and others will be elected as top-up members among the party. It is not that the population would not understand but that the Government do not intend that there should be wholly direct elections.

I did not deal with that question because the White Paper sets out in some details the proposed electoral system for the assemblies. We plan to adopt the member system form of proportional representation for assembly elections.

I am sorry to persist, but that is relevant to the amendment. The elections are either direct elections or they are partly direct elections. That should be the Government's answer, not that the public do not understand. We should not patronise the public in this way.

Our intention is to make our instructions for the electorate as clear as possible. I argued that if the word "directly" is introduced, the electorate will find it confusing. I do not think that that is patronising.

Are people so stupid that they do not understand the word "directly"? I may have only five O-levels but I understand the word "directly" and I am no more intelligent, clever or better educated than the vast majority of the British electorate. Of course they can understand. To patronise them in this way is not very attractive.

We are proceeding down a cul-de-sac. We are proposing the same language as has been used for Wales, Scotland and the London Assembly.

These are not the same bodies as the London, Welsh or Scottish parliaments.

Of course they are not the same but the electoral system is the same.

I am not sure whether the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, is about to wind up. However, in light of the Minister's remarks, given the second line of the Prime Minister's preface to the White Paper in which he says,

"It delivers on our Manifesto commitment to provide for directly elected regional assemblies in those regions that want them".

it is a little surprising that the Government should be so infirm of purpose that they refuse an amendment to the Bill which refers to "directly".

That is amusing. Things have moved on since the Prime Minister made his introduction. We have taken advice from various sources including the Electoral Commission which is absolutely happy with what we propose.

I do not understand why the Minister makes such a fuss about it. The noble Earl, Lord Onslow, put it well when he asked, "Are people stupid?" People are not stupid. The electorate are much wiser and more knowledgeable than politicians think. People know that direct elections mean that they go to a polling booth or have a postal or proxy vote and they put a cross against a name. That is what direct elections mean to the general population.

It could mean something different to the politically aware. For example, it could mean to local authorities—it may make regional assemblies more acceptable to them—that election means any kind of election, direct or indirect. In other words, the local authorities would elect members to the regional assemblies. They would still be elected but they would not have been elected directly by the Government. It sounds like a niggling point but it is very important.

Perhaps I may refer to the Royal Commission on Local Government and my service on the Association of Municipal Corporations' reorganisation of local government committee. It proposed that the provinces should be elected from among the local authorities. So there is a difference. It is understood in political circles. So far as concerns the electorate, "direct elections" mean that they go to the polling stations and put a cross on the ballot paper.

We are left with the problem that there is no definition of "directly elected". We have consulted with expert bodies whose advice is that it would be confusing to use the word when talking about regional assemblies. At the risk of boring noble Lords, I have to repeat that we are proposing exactly the same electoral system for regional assemblies as has been used for the Welsh, Scottish and London assemblies.

Perhaps the Minister will be kind enough to direct my attention to the difference between what is proposed now and paragraph 4.22 on page 38 which states:

"The Regional Development Agencies will become directly accountable to the relevant elected assembly".

I am not sure of the difference.

Before the Minister answers, although I am not a lawyer and have not been trained as a lawyer, I have learned over many years in your Lordships' House that in the absence of a definitions clause the courts take the view that words in Acts of Parliament have their natural meaning. It is obvious that in this instance the natural meaning is right, common sense and direct. I understand that there is no proposal for having indirect elections in these assemblies.

The noble Lord is right. The meaning was precisely the same for elections for Scotland and England. There was no need for any embellishment. Everyone appears to have understood the situation.

Although Parliament approved those Acts of Parliament there was a great deal of disagreement on the Bill. We had similar debates to our present discussion. Paragraph 4.29 on page 39 states:

"The assembly will appoint two members to each of the Boards of the local learning and skills councils … in its region, one of whom will have a business background, and will be consulted on other appointments".

Whatever the meaning of "directly elected" or "elected", in the area from which I come it is possible to have 25 members without one of them being a business person. How is it possible to make a business person's appointment to the local learning and skills councils if he or she has not been elected, directly or otherwise?

I wish to come to the help of the Minister. Every single speaker has spoken in favour of including the words "directly elected". The Minister is keen to keep to his brief and he has been well advised, but it would not do any harm if he were gracious enough to say, "I will consider it". There is no harm or humiliation in that, and it would be a gesture to the Committee, suggesting that the Minister will at least consider what has been said. If, after consideration, he decides that his original view was right, he can stick to it.

I am grateful for that suggestion, and I accept it.

I am grateful for that acceptance, but I must respond to three points. I should declare an interest, because I regard myself as a directly elected member of the London Assembly—elected through the additional member system on the so-called London-wide list. I distinguish that from a previous position, when, as member of the London Planning Advisory Committee, I was indirectly elected. I had been elected to a London borough, and, as a member of the borough, I was nominated as a member of the London Planning Advisory Committee. I regard my responsibilities as a London-wide directly elected member of the London Assembly—

I thank the noble Baroness for giving way. Was she not directly elected by her party, rather than by the wider population?

I would not have become a member of the London Assembly had not the wider population—the electorate—voted for my party. I accept that the systems are different, but the electorate had the opportunity to vote for members who ended up as London-wide list members. I admit that the system is by no means easy for the electorate to follow, which is one of my difficulties with it.

Before the noble Baroness sits down—

I am nowhere near sitting down.

Should the elected hereditary Peers who have spoken declare whether they were directly or indirectly elected?

I shall leave that question hanging.

My second point is more serious and relates to the amendment more directly. The distinction between the proposals in this Bill and the measures made in relation to London, Wales and Scotland is that, when the referendums took place, no other assembly or body could be confused with the one about to be elected.

Finally, I understand that one must be careful with language and I take the Minister's point about there being no definition of "directly elected". I shall try to resist the temptation to return with such a definition. The preamble, which is intended to be straightforward and non-legalistic, refers to "central government bodies". Is that term defined anywhere? Perhaps we may take this matter forward before the next stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

I must confess that, half way through the noble Lord's speech, I was slightly distracted by the furniture removing in which my noble friend Lord Carlisle was indulging. Now that he has finished his exercise, we can address our minds again to this amendment.

I am bound to say that I am thoroughly confused. I thought that the Liberal Democrat objection to Amendment No. I was that to have a thoroughgoing review of the regional boundaries before the Secretary of State could order a referendum was a complete waste of time. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, so forgot herself as to become very political and say that the whole thing was just a device by the Conservative Party to wreck the Bill. Here we have an amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, which has almost exactly the same effect. The Secretary of State will he prevented from ordering a referendum in any part of the country until there has been a review of the boundaries of every region and a careful examination as to whether there should be more or fewer regions than at present. For the life of me, I cannot understand why there was such a fuss from the Liberal Democrat Benches about Amendment No. 1. Having said that, I shall probably support Amendment No. 4 if they press it to a vote.

I am just as bemused as my noble friend Lord Waddington. As we had a touching emphasis on one part of the world where the Liberal Democrats happen to be fairly strong, I just wonder whether there was a bit of special pleading. However, I, too, support the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, although not on the grounds that this is a Liberal Democrat amendment. As I said, opinion on regional assemblies is divided among Members on all Benches and members of all parties. Some people have particular concerns about particular aspects of this approach—that is, putting the cart before the horse, with the detail preceding the Bill by a year or more. Nevertheless, the effect of this group of amendments seems the same as that of Amendment No. 1. Amendment No. 4 does not mention Cornwall or parts of Lancashire. It says that each of the regions could be reviewed by the Boundary Committee. So it has our wholehearted support.

As the single Member of a party I would not dream of intervening in the dispute between the Liberal Benches and the Conservative Benches. However, I support this amendment, which does seem very similar in character to the first new clause. It really does give the Government an opportunity to think again about setting the existing boundaries in stone. The existing regional development agencies are not necessarily the right administrative areas for a democratically elected assembly. I am sorry to come back to that, but if the Government are going to do this—and I repeat that I think that they should not be doing it—it really is important that they should get it right. This amendment, like the previous one, gives them the opportunity to do so.

I know that I should not help the Government out like this. Nevertheless, this amendment would help them out. If they got the regions right first, they would be more likely to get support for regional government than if they got them wrong. Furthermore, in any referendum, those who will sway the vote are the big urban authorities. We need somehow to persuade the small authorities that they are in favour of regional government. I hope that that is helpful to the Government. If they do not take the large urban conurbations with them as well as the smaller areas within the region, they will be in dead trouble. The smaller areas will never accept that they are part of the region unless they are being treated fairly so far as concerns boundaries and voting strength. I urge the Minister to take account of this amendment. Before he rejects it out of hand, and before further stages, I hope that he will give it some thought.

I support the amendment. As I said, I know that it is unlikely that we will have a region in the East or the South East. Nevertheless, Essex, for example, has had discussions with Hertfordshire—with which we have much in common—and would like to break away even within the existing development agency. This amendment would allow Essex and Hertfordshire to break away from the rest of the East of England. On the other hand, Amendment No. 1 would allow a more thorough examination of the whole of the South East and—as I said—the Thames Gateway, which covers Essex, Kent and London. If we were to have a region, it might be more logical if Essex were with Kent. So although I support this amendment—which would allow Essex and Hertfordshire to break away from East Anglia, with which we have nothing in common—if we are to have regions, it might be right to have a good discussion about whether we should be with Kent.

I do not think that the Government realise the extent of the antagonism created by this issue across the country. I live daily with local government, where there is enormous debate and enormous unhappiness. With the exception of Yorkshire and Humberside and the North East, the country is in turmoil over these issues. The Government should recognise that they have opened a Pandora's box of dissatisfaction, and this debate is only adding to it.

I am sorry to have disappointed the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, by being political—but I am, as indeed is he. There is a major distinction between Amendment No. 1 and Amendment No. 4. Unlike Amendment No. 4, Amendment No. 1 would cause an inevitable delay. It is not just a matter of taking a rather broader brush approach and not spelling it out in detail, as the Conservatives have done. As we explained in that debate, we do not agree with some of the detail of their approach. They conclude that the Secretary of State has to make a further order, which is not inevitably the conclusion of Amendment No. 4.

My understanding is that the order could not be made until after such a review. As it does not specify which part of the country is in question, it potentially could apply to any or every part of the country. If the order cannot be made until afterwards, my understanding is that both groups of amendments would produce the same result.

I do not read them in quite that way, and I did say "not inevitably". Yes, there is a possibility, but it is not inevitable.

The noble Baroness says that something could be understood in that way, but that that is not inevitable. Is it not a good idea to know what you mean before tabling an amendment? I know that the Liberals are unsound on home rule for Ireland, and I suppose that this is the same sort of thing. Would it not be possible for them to get their act together?

I know what I mean. I am going to explain in a moment why this amendment was tabled with Amendment No. 25 to which I do not believe any other Member of the Committee has referred. We have heard the Government speak of the "possibility"—I hesitate to use that word, but I cannot think of another at the moment—that after the first tranche of referendums there will be reviews of the boundaries of the regions which are not in the first tranche. There is a possibility—

We have to be careful here in the use of words because we are legislating and this is important. The noble Baroness has not heard the Government say what she has just claimed: that after the first tranche of referendums it is possible that the boundaries will be reviewed. Nobody has said that and I have to knock that statement on the head straightaway.

I draw the attention of the noble Baroness to paragraph 6.5 of the White Paper which makes our intention clear about the exceptional circumstances of future changes. It has nothing to do with the interim changes which the noble Baroness has just implied.

In that case I am having difficulty with language as well. I shall try to present it in a different way. I had quite genuinely thought that there was reference to exceptional circumstances. There are parts of the country which are exceptional because they are very different, with different requirements and where the strength of feeling is very different from that in the majority of the country. That is what I understood the Minister to say, but I am grateful for the clarification.

Nevertheless, I do not believe that it undermines the importance of Amendment No. 25. It may not be government policy, but having got through the first tranche, that will enable a review. I hope that I am not putting words into the Minister's mouth when I say that there is a general understanding that the Government want to get the first tranche dealt with. Then there will be a pause which, I hope, is not contentious, because when one pauses one generally reflects. During that period it would then be possible under our amendment for the Secretary of State and the rest of us to use the information, which will have come through the soundings exercise, to reflect on whether boundary changes would enable the advancement of regional government in other parts of the country. In that regard, these Benches are rather closer to the Government in that we are seeking to advance the cause of regional government.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. Will she accept from me that we do not know what the soundings exercise has been set against? It has not come to Parliament—and it is finished. We do not yet know on what basis the Deputy Prime Minister, who has the sole responsibility for making a decision, will make his decision. Therefore, we have no idea whether the question of regions and regional boundaries has even entered part of the soundings exercise.

I accept that entirely; nevertheless it must be on the cards that some of the responses must have been, "We would like regional government but on different boundaries". That is all I am attempting to reflect through this amendment.

Someone said a little while ago that there was a lot of antagonism out there. I am being antagonised because this morning supporters of the Bill opposed what is very much a delaying tactic in Amendment No. 1. It does not matter how one looks at the wording, the meaning presents exactly the same picture. That leaves me in a very difficult position. I have a set of speaking notes, but the magic ink on the page calls out at me, "Don't bother with this. Go back and read the speech you read out this morning". If I could transpose for Hansard, it would be a great deal easier to say "Take out a couple of columns from the morning and stick them in here". That is because the arguments are exactly the same.

What the noble Baroness said as regards what she believed we had said about the longer-term possibilities of looking at boundaries is rather like what another noble Baroness said earlier about people elsewhere in the country making a much bigger issue of this matter than it is, having not read the words. I am not trying to over-sell the product, but to sell it honestly so that I am not "done" by the Office of Fair Trading later for misleading on the policy.

I have to draw the attention of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, to paragraph 6.5 of the White Paper which states,

"The Government has not completely ruled out in the longer term the possibility of adopting boundaries for regional assemblies that do not follow the existing boundaries".

We recognise that they cannot be set in stone. But we would change them only under exceptional circumstances and in the longer term. We have no current intention of changing the regional boundaries in the short to medium term. People can argue—please don't!—definitions of short, medium and longer term. But it may be that a future government would want to change the Government Office structure for the country for various reasons. That is a possibility. One would look at the mechanism for that. But to build into the Bill the mechanism by which the Liberal Democrats seek to cast doubt about the boundaries leaves a clear implication.

The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, keeps inviting me to agree with him, but I shall not. He seems to know when the referendums will take place, but I do not. We have made no plans and there have been no public pronouncements whatever. One can argue as much as one likes, but until the Deputy Prime Minister makes an announcement after the soundings, nobody knows, including myself. If there were a referendum; a successful "Yes" vote and an elected regional assembly was set up, then, according to the thinking of the Liberal Democrats, the Government could look at the boundaries and it would be possible to affect the boundaries of the region which had just been created.

There would be a massive degree of confusion built into the legislation by accepting these amendments. If the noble Baroness remotely supports regionally elected assemblies—they are not home rule—I invite her to take what is on offer as set out. I have to tell the noble Baroness that acceptance of the amendments would leave the Bill dead in its tracks. Amendment No. 4 would mean that the order creating the referendum could not be made until the Boundary Committee for England conducted a review of the numbers and boundaries and reported its recommendations. However, there are no powers for the Boundary Committee to carry out such a review. I pointed out this morning that it would take four years to cover the whole country.

These debates range fairly wide. The noble Earl, Lord Onslow, said that the Liberals have always been unsound on home rule for Ireland.

I said that the party was split over home rule for Northern Ireland. I know my history.

The problem was that some of the Liberals were sound and some were not, so the party split rather disastrously. If the Prime Minister in 1885 had has his way Ireland would have been a much better place than it has been.

We regret that we are not talking about home rule. We are quite honest about this. We want to agree with the Conservatives here, but we do not. I return to the fact that we are living in the real world as defined by the Government. We are being offered a limited amount of as yet unspecified power for regional assemblies in unspecified places. I do not know whether any public announcements have been made about where the first referendum will take place. We believe what the department's civil servants brief when they talk to campaigners in the regions; we believe what the spin doctors say and what appears in the press and is not denied. We may be wrong to believe that, but until the Minister or anyone else in the Government tells us that we are wrong, we shall continue to believe that what the Government are saying privately is what they are going to do publicly in due course.

I do not want to discuss Amendment No. I again except to say that we did not agree with it because of its content. One can understand why when one looks at it.

The Government are doing everything the wrong way around. They should have started by considering regional boundaries. They could have done so for the past two years but wasted time. The Government ought to decide the first regions where referendums will take place, then consult on them. That is fundamental. If I am accused of special pleading for Cornwall or Cumbria, it makes a change from all the special pleading for Essex—though I do not blame those concerned because everywhere is important.

After deciding which regions are which, the Government ought to produce legislation that sets out the English assemblies' powers, duties and size, and the electoral system. In fact, they could do the two together. Then the legislation and decision to go ahead with referendums ought to follow, so that we—and, more importantly, the voters—know what the Government intend.

It is not clear why the Government are doing everything the wrong way around except that they did the same in Scotland, Wales and Greater London. Certainly there were lengthy discussions in Scotland, with a report and agreement on what would happen and how it was to work. That is not the case with the English regions. This debate is rambling on because the public do not know what is on offer. It is difficult to agree on vague proposals—especially when they will be the subject of referendums.

The Government say that the proposed electoral system is identical to those used for Wales, Scotland and Greater London but although they are all additional member systems, they differ in detail—for example, in the proportion of the top-up and the size of the top-up areas. All those things matter. The Minister says that people will know about the electoral system being used. How will they know? This Parliament might change the electoral system between the time of the referendum and establishing an assembly.

The Government should first examine the regions, but it does not have to be a long process. Secondly, the Government should build in a mechanism to change the regional boundaries if it turns out that they are not sensible. Not to do that will put obstacles in the way. People will say, "We might want a regional assembly but we are not going to vote for one in that area. We will vote for one in Cornwall but not in the South West". The Government should look at the options before decisions are made on referendums.