Clause 41 - Report by local authority in
Anti-social Behaviour Bill
3:45 pm
Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)
Obviously, I had thought about the point made by the hon. Member for Ludlow. However, the Bill does not restrict the measure to county councils, it just refers to a local authority. There is good reason for that: as the Minister and the hon. Gentleman will know, under powers recently introduced, some areas are now unitary. Next door to me in Surrey Heath we have Bracknell Forest and Woking, which are small unitary authorities. I campaigned—successfully, as it turned out—for my
previous constituency, Blackpool, to become unitary. In those cases, we are talking about local authorities that are much smaller than counties. Although I accept the point that because we still have a two-tier system in Surrey, Surrey Heath might not have to operate that measure, the Bill just says ''local authority'', and there are small unitary authorities to which the same point applies.