As always, the right hon. Gentleman is very persuasive, and I can see the advantages of amendment 2 over the clause as it stands. However, my preference-not just out of loyalty-is for the solution proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Putney, which is to stop yet another regulation-making power being given to the Secretary of State. He should keep his nose out of such things and leave the arrangements for overview and scrutiny committees as they are, under the terms of section 21 of the Local Government Act 2000. That system seems to have been working. I have never heard a member of an overview and scrutiny committee saying, "Ah, but life would be much better if we'd been able to get the advice of a member of the executive." The answer to the right hon. Gentleman's point is that an overview and scrutiny committee would only rarely decide that it is necessary to seek advice from a member of the authority's executive.

This is therefore an academic argument. My view and those of the right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Putney are close. We are basically saying that we think clause 8 is a load of nonsense. If one is being generous, as the right hon. Gentleman is, one says, "Well, let's amend it and completely negate it, but not directly." The approach of my hon. Friend the Member for Putney and I is more direct: we say, "It ain't worth including in the Bill, so we want to remove it."