My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for the clarity with which he explained the order in front of us. It is, I suppose, not the thing to do, but I am going to spoil the party to some extent because, in reality, I cannot say that I welcome the patch over the wound that is being proposed today.

Northern Ireland has had an opportunity to reform local government. I believe that people have gone the wrong way about it because they inherited an idea that was intended to be implemented if we did not reach an agreement on an Assembly. We were going to have five-or was it seven?-supercouncils. We now have this wonderful compromise where we are to have 11 sub-supercouncils, as I call them. Looking at the present councils, one will find that as well as our three MEPs, our 18 MPs and our 108 MLAs, with the 12-or is it 13?-devolved departments, we also have 582 councillors. The councils have virtually no devolved powers. They have, among them, the ability to spend something like £680 million per year, yet what is their responsibility?

Waste collection and disposal are, I suppose, very much justified at every level. The figures that I quoted-three, 18, 108 and 582 elected members-are for a population of 1.77 million people and I suggest that, for that size of population, we certainly need a waste collection agency. I am not a great fan of agencies, but when it is practical and there is a job to be done, Northern Ireland should have a waste collection agency. This is taking away first-line responsibility for that, so what will Northern Ireland be left with? It will be left with those things that it possesses: meeting rooms, swimming pools, recreation centres, theatres and playing fields. Those do not require, as I think is the current figure, 420 civil servants or employees being paid at director level for those 1.77 million people.

A huge difficulty arose when we had the Belfast agreement. It was contrived in a way that was meant to embrace our entire community but it did not suit some extremes, so the previous Government did us the disfavour of slipping off or taking the people who carried the bulk of the work, marginalising them and-I will not say bribing; well, I might-bribing the remainder to move towards the centre. When that did not work, we had the Hillsborough meeting, where much the same thing happened.

It struck me that the noble Baroness, although I am sure that she did not mean it in this sense, was worried about how the changes that we are discussing may alter the balance in Northern Ireland. We need the balance changed. We need reality, but we are not going to get it as a result of somehow devising a means to elect another 582 local government councillors who have no statutory authority at all, or very little of it. Does anyone believe that 13 departments-I think that it is 13 now-with 14 Ministers are suddenly going to devolve responsibility to local government? The answer is, "Nay, it's not going to happen".

I will not be walking through the No Lobby on this today, but we have not had time to look at the knock-on effects. We are putting a plaster across a minor scratch, the way you do with little children to please them: "I've hurt my knee"-stick a plaster on and there is a smile on someone's face. Well, this plaster does not bring a smile to my face. It removes real responsibility from those who should have that responsibility thrust on them and those who should yield a product through their elected position. I leave the Minister to consider the headache, as I see it-or should I say, "scratch on the knee"?-that is not helped in any manner by what is being proposed today.