Part of Orders of the Day – in the House of Commons at 10:32 pm on 5 February 2008.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for taking such an interest in what has been going on in Wiltshire. I said a moment ago that it was a matter for the proposing local authority how it chose to seek views and to represent them as part of its proposal. To answer his question directly, we as a Government Department did not undertake any direct opinion polling or checking of residents' views on the proposal. It was never our intention to do so, and I do not think that anyone believed that we would.