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Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, if all that information exists in that form—I am delighted to hear that it does—and if that amount of research has been done, it is presumably possible, here and now, to answer the two questions that I asked. The fact remains that it is not just the seven councils; it is how the seven councils are put together that actually affects the political issue that some of us were talking about.

Lord Rooker: Yes, my Lords, that is what I said. Even the document published last March contained more than one seven-council option. That was how this was configured and further consultation work was done throughout the summer. If I do not have, as I hope, a specific answer to the noble Lord, I shall do my best to provide one. As I say, the research was published; it was not just this document. The background research that went into this was published and none of it has been challenged. More than one seven-council option was up for grabs in the document. As I said in Grand Committee, as part of this order, the boundary commissioner's ability to look at the configuration of the construction of the seven councils out of the 26 gives him discretion to alter the external boundaries to take account of where some communities in a seven-council model would naturally fit in another local authority area, rather than where they are now. The facility for the boundary commissioner is in this order.

I shall do my best to answer some of the more detailed points that have been made. The noble Lord, Lord Smith, pooh-poohed many of the bodies that contributed. I fully accept that many consultation documents were sent out. There were more than 113 responses, but 113 expressed a preference for a number or range of councils. This is not to say that we did not receive other responses, but some of them did not comment, because this consultation dealt with education and health as well as local government, and people commented in other respects. Some 62 per cent of those supported the seven-council model.

I know that people have pooh-poohed that idea, because only one of the major political parties favoured seven. I would not claim that the Northern Ireland Labour Party does not campaign for votes, although it is on the list. But one cannot dismiss the range of people involved in public life in Northern Ireland and say that some of the professional institutions—such as the Public Health Association in Northern Ireland, the Institution of Civil Engineers,
 
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the Northern Ireland affairs committee of the Faculty of Public Health, the General Consumer Council for Northern Ireland, the Citizens' Advice Bureaux; the Food Standards Agency, which is an arm's-length government agency; the Northern Ireland Environmental Link; the CBI, which has been trounced here in the Chamber, but it has a view on public life; Belfast Healthy Cities, Youth Action, the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action, the Omagh 2010 Task Force, the North West public sector review group—

Noble Lords: Oh!

Lord Rooker: Noble Lords may laugh, but perhaps I may complete the point, my Lords. It is preposterous for noble Lords to dismiss these people or to laugh at them—which is somewhat demeaning for noble Lords—just because they are not contributing as political parties or as part of the vested interest political class. There has been a general consultation that takes into account the views of the political parties, but not in a dominant way, such as that put by the noble Lord, Lord Smith.

Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, we were not laughing at them. We were laughing at the notion that the weighting that is given to these groups should be so preponderant. That is the farce of the matter. You could have extended the list. The Northern Ireland Office has tremendous imagination. You could have included every cricket club and the list could have gone on. Such people are not primarily concerned with local democracy. It is not part of their core business.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, the point is that these bodies actually sat down and considered sending in a written response and commented on the numbers between the seven, 11 and 15, and you cannot dismiss them. The fact that several hundred others did not express a view on the number of bodies would not be taken into account. I freely admit that, because they wanted to put other views that were not relevant. But of the bodies that took the trouble to say, "We think we have something that is worth saying on the number of bodies in terms of service delivery to the Northern Ireland community", nearly two-thirds said that seven was better than 11 or 15. The noble Lord says that that does not really matter because they are not part of local government and are not involved in democratic accountability. But they were the ones who looked at the issue from a wider point of view and offered an opinion on the number of councils.

Sixty-two per cent said that they preferred the seven-council configuration in terms of coterminosity. I gave the reasons in Grand Committee and shall not go over them tonight, but coterminosity is not an unimportant factor with regard to health, education and the reorganisation of the police. Coterminosity is a factor, and I do not deny that greater coterminosity and a larger range of "one-to-one" is achieved with seven councils than is the case with 11 or 15 councils. At my request, we considered a lower number of councils—
 
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five rather than seven—but the seven-council option gave the best result on the matrix of coterminosity, as well as with regard to the other factors involved.

Lord Tyler: My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. I recall that when both of us were in the other place he used to defend representative democracy. What we find so surprising this evening is that he appears to be giving much greater weight to those who represent special interests, but in the United Kingdom surely we still believe that elective representatives best represent those opinions in the country. That must apply in Northern Ireland, as it did when the noble Lord was in the other place.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, yes, but we are not dealing with what I dealt with in the other place; we are dealing with Northern Ireland, which has a population of 1.7 million. In effect, we are dealing—I am not demeaning it—with a large county council. Let us not put too fine a point on it: 26 local councils in Northern Ireland are basically 26 parish councils in terms of the English model. That is what they do: they are parish councils. That is not to knock them. Those councillors have had a major input into the democratic process over the past 30 years because they have been the only people elected for delivery of service, but the service is that of parish councils.

Noble Lords have heard the figures involved: 3 or 4 per cent of public expenditure in Northern Ireland. That is a minuscule amount, and we are going to just more than double it. However, noble Lords need to consider the idea that 15 councils, as opposed to one, could be given powers, dealing with planning control and local roads. Frankly, from the point of view of economies of scale, it would not work. That is a factor to be taken into account when looking at value for money, as well as value for services. I fully accept the issue of distances, but we are not changing the position of where anyone lives. Frankly, the talk about Balkanisation is a complete—if I may use a colour—red herring. It is a red herring because it does not alter where anyone lives. The service that people get should be seamless, even with the change.

I shall address the point about change because it is not unimportant, given the scale of what is going on. Currently, there is an enormous change regime in Northern Ireland, most of it initiated by the Assembly when it was in being. This forms part of it. It was started and it has been left to direct-rule Ministers to finish it. I hope that they will finish it because the implementation process has been going on for almost three years. Come the end of the year, the Assembly could be back. In fact, it could be back at the end of May; there is nothing to stop it being back with a power-sharing executive at the end of May. We shall not stand in its way. The Assembly could take control of this. The boundary commissioner would be set up and running, but if Members of the Assembly wanted to change it, they could do so.

Secondly, they could take control of the implementation. There would not be shadow elections until 2008 and the new councils would come into being
 
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in 2009. But in June this year, 700,000 houses in Northern Ireland will get a letter explaining how the new rate bills are going to be constructed from 2007. Am I going to be faced with another debate in which noble Lords say, "Oh, you shouldn't be doing this. We want the Assembly back doing this"? These processes have been in place in Northern Ireland and have been consulted on ad nauseam in an attempt to achieve a modern civic society. Another point is that water rates will start next year. The Assembly can discuss all these matters. The Assembly Members can then take control of these policies and their implementation as soon as a power-sharing executive is back in place.

We have said to those involved—we mean this in a most friendly and genuine way—that we are not going to mind the shop until they decide when they are going to do their bounden duty to govern Northern Ireland. We are going to push the reform programme, and, as Peter Hain has made clear, the longer direct-rule Ministers are there, the faster we will push the reform programme. That applies to health, education, rates, water rates and the other matters on local government reform. The sooner the Assembly and local politicians are back and taking charge, the better. We are genuinely not standing in their way but we are not going to mind the shop. We are not going to say to the people of Northern Ireland, "You don't deserve a more modernised local government system"—which is what this will create; there is no question about that—"with far more powers for the local councillors delivering services".

Why should civil servants deliver issues, whether in Belfast, Derry or wherever they may be based? Why should local councillors not deliver the services? The local councillors will be elected in 2008 in shadow form and will then decide where their executive or headquarters will be based. They will decide how they are going to appoint their chief executives. Frankly, it is not for someone in our position in Westminster to give detailed instructions to local councillors when people are saying that they want strong, purposeful local government—in fact, far stronger local government than we already have in Northern Ireland. It is no good trying to be prescriptive. People have said, "We want to be told where the headquarters are". Of course they do not want to be told where the headquarters are; they are perfectly capable of working out how they deliver the services and how they appoint their executive officers before they take their powers in 2009.

8.15 pm

I have to say to noble Lords that this is not being done on the back of an envelope. I am not claiming that it is perfect in every aspect, but the time from now to when the order is fully implemented will be taken into account by the Public Service Commission. The commission has a role; it is not there as a trade union but it is a public service staff commission and is important. Nine task forces are looking at how we deal with the work streams to make it work. Professionally and democratically, it is in everyone's interests that we
 
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have a system that, so far as the public are concerned, provides better local government with more services delivered locally rather than by civil servants. Those services should be delivered by local councillors who make key decisions about their communities. That is not something that they do now, as they are responsible for only something like 4 per cent of public expenditure.

You cannot have it both ways. You cannot do that with a population of 1.7 million and then say, "Oh, we'll do it over 15 councils or split the difference and do it over 11", ignoring the research that we have published on coterminosity, which is not unimportant. If we are going to have community planning, where local councils are involved in every aspect of public life, including what the government do, with community planning techniques—and we will use the model that has been used in Scotland—it is crucial that there is as much coterminosity as possible in relation to the structure of the health boards, education and the police service, which will go down in number to seven. It is crucial that there is as much coterminosity as possible so that there cannot be any buck-passing.

The public know who is delivering the service, what to do when it goes wrong, and how to kick them out. That has to be the model for local government in a normal civic society. One might argue about bits of the boundaries, which the Boundary Commission will look at, which is why there is flexibility in the order. Most of them are far more experienced in local government and far more experienced in Northern Ireland than I am. But it is left to our responsibility for what was started in Northern Ireland by the elected executive. I wish that it had got to grips with those decisions, but that is no excuse for putting off a decision on this Motion. It commences the Boundary Commission, which will take several months to get going. It will be next summer before it reports, so it will not be rushed through. There will be proper consultation with the normal Boundary Commission, and there will be all the work going on in parallel with all the other changes.

By the end of November—although it could be the end of May—the Assembly could be back with a power-sharing executive getting a grip on the implementation. The earlier it is back, the more control it will have over the implementation of all these policies. We have no vested interest in keeping it at bay, trying to slip one through. We will not stop the reform programme, and the sooner it is back, the better. The longer it is away, the slower the reform programme will proceed. That is not bullying and it is not a threat. It is the reality if we are to bring a more modern civic society to Northern Ireland.

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