Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 4:10 pm on 9 May 2002.
My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that, although some of us came reluctantly to the concept of variable geometry, it is inevitable? The difference between these carefully thought out proposals and what was happening under the previous government was that, rather like Oliver Cromwell going round with his commissioners, the Banham committee was deciding what would happen in the counties. That happened in several counties in England. There will now be a democratic mandate and this will not happen without a democratic mandate in any part of England.