Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede & Weybridge, Conservative)

I return to a debate that began when we were considering clause 17 and which you directed, Mr. Butterfill, should be completed when we arrived at clause 28. I must confess that at the time I did not realise that you were doing me a huge favour. I have taken the opportunity in the intervening period to consider much more carefully the issues that were touched on in the few exchanges that we had before you closed the debate, and have realised that the position is even more bizarre than I had understood.

The Under-Secretary told the Committee that the estimate for the cost of boundary committee reviews ranged from £750,000 to £1 million; that is, that the cost of the review for the smallest region would be 75 per cent. of the cost for the largest region. He assured the Committee that that was based on the boundary committee's estimates for carrying out reviews in all the regions of England.

I had in my mind that we were talking about the north-east region, with a population of 2.5 million and the south-east region with a population of 8 million. However, when I looked again, I saw that the ratios were yet more dramatic because the costs of the boundary committee reviews will be driven not so much by a region's population as by the number of two-tier authorities that need to be re-organised in that region. As the Under-Secretary well knows, the Yorkshire and Humber region has one county and nine district councils; the south-east region has seven county and 55 district councils.

The Under-Secretary is asking us to believe that a boundary review in the Yorkshire and Humber region, with nine districts, will cost £750,000 and that one in

the south-east region, with 55 districts, will cost £1 million. Either he has got it wrong—I suspect that he has, and that the question considered by the boundary committee has been how much the first batch, which presumably will not include the south-east region, will cost—or this raises a very serious issue of public expenditure. If it is the latter, and the Under-Secretary is really saying that a review will cost about 10 times as much in the Yorkshire and Humber region as in the south-east region, I will want to refer that to the Public Accounts Committee for consideration. Although the expenditure has not yet been incurred, surely when Members of Parliament see such an apparently outrageous misuse of public money, it is appropriate that they draw it to the attention of the proper authorities before, rather than after, that money is spent.

Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton, Liberal Democrat)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede & Weybridge, Conservative)

I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, to allow the Under-Secretary to take his instructions completely from the Minister for Local Government and the Regions before I sit down.

Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton, Liberal Democrat)

The hon. Gentleman has made an interesting point, but I am not sure whether the Public Accounts Committee would be the correct Committee to deal with that matter. I should have thought that that would be the Select Committee for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, which should examine estimates that relate to that Department.

Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede & Weybridge, Conservative)

If that is right, I stand corrected. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I shall take the necessary advice, if that appears to be appropriate after I have heard the Under-Secretary's reply.

Mr Christopher Leslie (Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office; Shipley, Labour)

I do not take instructions from my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and the Regions, but I take advice from him. In all such matters, he is helpful not only to the Committee but to his close and friendly colleagues. He has reminded me of a matter that had not escaped me but of which the Committee should also, perhaps, be reminded. The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge proposed, through his amendments, not only a review of all the English regional boundaries but an all-England referendum. If he is now worried about costs and the expense involved in such arrangements, we should return to his statement at the outset of the Committee's debates about the mutually incompatible amendments that he said that he would table. He is now also making mutually incompatible arguments.

Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton, Liberal Democrat)

When the Under-Secretary served on a Committee that considered the Finance Bill as a Back Bencher, he always had House of Commons costings for the Opposition parties' amendments. Does he have the particular costing, either from the House of Commons Library or from his Department, for that amendment?

Mr Christopher Leslie (Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office; Shipley, Labour)

I do not yet have that costing, but it is worth keeping a tally of all the various spending commitments involved not only in Conservative amendments, but in Liberal Democrat amendments.

I am afraid that the estimate that I have on the cost of local government reviews stands as it did when I explained it to the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge under an earlier clause—a range of between £750,000 and £1 million per region. I understand that there are good reasons for that.

Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede & Weybridge, Conservative)

As the Under-Secretary has had the opportunity since we first touched on the matter on Tuesday to take further advice, as have I, can he tell the Committee whether he has reviewed and checked those figures since then and asked the boundary committee again whether it stands by that estimated range for all the regions of England?

Mr Christopher Leslie (Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office; Shipley, Labour)

I have not completely revisited our correspondence with the Electoral Commission, but that was the advice that we received from it. The boundary committee's initial estimate stands. It shows what it thinks the costs would be. It is working out its cost estimates in greater detail. We will discuss those with it in due course, after which we will know more precisely about costs. I do not exclude the possibility that the cost may be more or less than the range that we have been given to date by that committee.

Mr Matthew Green (Ludlow, Liberal Democrat)

Is not the truth of the estimates that they are intended only for the north-east and, perhaps, the north-west, Yorkshire and Humberside? The Government are introducing the Bill, but they intend the provision to cover only a couple of regions, forgetting about the rest of England.

Mr Christopher Leslie (Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office; Shipley, Labour)

Absolutely not. The Conservatives might concur with the hon. Gentleman's comment. However, the sinister interpretation that we are considering only small regions or northern ones—the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge said the same thing—is negated to some extent by the variance between populations in the north-east and north-west, as the latter is one of the largest regions in the country.

Subsection (1) requires

''any expenditure of a Minister of the Crown in connection with a referendum held''

under the Bill, any expenditure granted by the Secretary of the State to the Electoral Commission for local reviews or advice it might give under part 3, and any grants paid to regional chambers under clause 23 to be paid out of money provided by Parliament. The subsection similarly requires the following to be paid out of money provided by Parliament:

''any expenditure of the Secretary of State in preparation for elected regional assemblies'',

any expenditure in connection with

''the transfer of any functions to''

an elected assembly and

''any increase attributable to this Act in the sums so payable under any other enactment.''

Subsection (2) requires that any sums required to meet the expenditure of the Electoral Commission under an order made under clause 9—that will include money for paying counting officers or reimbursing local authorities for any increase in the superannuation contributions—are to be paid out of the consolidated fund.

Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede & Weybridge, Conservative)

The Minister has not dealt with the issue. I am a little surprised that he has not returned to review it with the boundary committee since Tuesday. I have heard what he has said, and perhaps we shall return to the matter in due course.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 28 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 29 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Mr Phil Woolas (Oldham East & Saddleworth, Labour)

On a point of order, Mr. Butterfill, I should like to move that the Committee be suspended for the Programming Sub-Committee to consider the timings of Report and Third Reading should the Committee duly report.

Hon. Members:

No.

Mr John Butterfill (Bournemouth West, Conservative)

I am advised by the Clerk that suspension is at my discretion. I rule that the Committee be suspended for 10 minutes until four minutes past 10. Will everyone withdraw except those in the Programming Sub-Committee?

Sitting suspended.

On resuming

Resolved,

That the Programming Sub-Committee recommends that the programme order of 26 November 2002 in relation to the Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill be amended as follows—

In paragraph 7 of the order, for ''one hour'' there is substituted ''two hours''.—[Mr. Leslie.]