My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She is a doughty champion for the people of Wednesfield, Bushbury and the rest of her constituency. I think she shares the concern that it feels like there is some running down of the clock. It feels like the officers can see the clock ticking and do not want recognition to be given to anywhere else.

I will say that, particularly since new faces have appeared among the officers at Sandwell council, it seems to be more on top of this, but there is still the concern that the political leadership of these authorities see some sort of win from these things not materialising. It is absolutely crazy. As I said, half a billion pounds has been put into my borough, and yet the narrative seems to be about Tory cuts. I am sure it is the same in the great city of Wolverhampton. The narrative will be, “It’s 14 years of the Tories,” but it is not; it is 50 years of Labour turning its back on these communities.

I have a solution for my hon. Friend the Minister, which was coined in the campaign that has been launched with such enthusiasm: scrap Sandwell. Sandwell is an artificial construction of the Ted Heath reforms of the 1970s, which brought together six very different towns in the Black Country. I appreciate that he will not be able to stand at the Dispatch Box today and say yes to that, much as I would be over the moon for him to do so. There is always middle ground in how we empower our communities, but the truth is that Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, and its political leadership in particular, has brought embarrassment to the communities I represent.

The retort that I have had, particularly from Labour politicians, has been, “Well, you’re talking the area down.” No. In the campaign that we launched in October, we had thousands of responses, and 80% of them said they do not recognise themselves as coming from Sandwell. If you come from Wednesbury, you come from Wednesbury. If you are from Tipton, you are from Tipton. If you are from Ocker Hill, you are from Ocker Hill. If you are from Great Bridge, you are from Great Bridge. If you are from Smethwick, you are from Smethwick. You are not from Sandwell. What is Sandwell? Sandwell is the name of the Franciscan priory from 1,000 years ago. It is not a place—well, it is a place, but it is a constructed place.

People are proud of their towns. I am proud that I live in Wednesbury, and I am proud of that town, mentioned in the Domesday Book 1,000 years ago. That is what people want to see. Of course, the real-life impact is that my towns in Tipton and Wednesbury have missed out because Sandwell council’s priorities have been in West Bromwich and Smethwick, all because the arbitrary thresholds have not been met because of the size of those towns.

Clearly, there are options to be explored, and I appreciate that we can utilise many mechanisms to ensure that the identity of these communities is respected, accentuated and brought to the fore. That is so important to my constituents. They are proud of where they come from and the heritage of their towns. They are fed up with this creation that has turned into a monster, leaving them without services.

We have had the ridiculous situation today where all the pay and display parking machines have been taken out of the car parks in Spring Head in Wednesbury. The council expects people to go online, not realising that most of the demographic who utilise that service are of an age where they are probably not digitally connected. I talk about governance; that is the kind of lunacy and idiotic ideas that come from that rabble. Yet they sit there and lord it as if they have been hard done by.

We need proactive government in our towns, whether through an empowered town council—there are examples of that in the west midlands—or through some other format. We need something that will safeguard our identity, and a local government structure that preserves and looks after the identity of my proud towns of Tipton and Wednesbury. It is as simple as that.

I am looking forward to the Minister’s visit to the Black Country, and I am sure he will visit my hon. Friend Jane Stevenson on the way. Our proud Black Country towns have so much to offer. The governance at Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council has done nothing but bring embarrassment to those towns. It is not talking down those communities to highlight that. It is not talking down the communities to highlight that a Labour party that has governed that area for 50 years has been to the detriment of people, who have seen their services cut and their opportunities eradicated. But their aspirations have not been cut, because the people I represent are aspirational. They want to achieve, but they are blocked time and again by the Labour administration.

I wish to finalise my remarks with a quotation from history, which I hope the Minister will appreciate. As I prepared my comments, I was looking for something to sum up my thoughts on the governance situation at Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council. I am sure that those who have studied it will know where it comes from:

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

My hon. Friend probably knows where that comes from: the declaration of independence 1776.

The security and the safeguarding of the future of these proud towns is at the heart of what I am here to do. They have had half a century of disservice by the shambolic Labour rabble, who have done nothing but try to eradicate their life chances and leave them worse off. That should never be the case. I look forward to hearing from my hon. Friend the Minister. I am so grateful for the time and effort he has put into Sandwell. He is committed to making sure we get this right. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East for her considered intervention. I thank the House and you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for hearing my comments. I made my constituents a promise when I was elected to this place that, after 50 years of feeling ignored, they would never be ignored again. I hope that in this speech, I have made sure that their voices are heard loud and clear.