That is true, but, as the Minister says, this is important and it is worth pursuing a deeper level of detail. As with any business, it is not a criticism to say that the people running business links think of the activity that they are engaged in as a business link-like activity. If you ask them how to spend money, they may well be willing to spend it in one way rather than another, but they will always tend to think that the right thing do to is to spend it on the kind of things that business links do.

However, a local authority might feel in a particular case that the general objective of promoting more sustainable small and growing business would bebetter achieved by providing people with something completely different. It would not be natural for the business link managers to want to do that. Atthe extreme, it might involve them no longer having the same jobs. One cannot therefore rely on agreement on targets and how they should be fulfilled in a local area agreement to achieve what we are seeking to achieve. We want a position whereby if the business link group does not feel that the local authority is proposing the right kind of thing, then so long as the area is not defined as primarily nationally significant the local authority will have the presumption of getting the Secretary of State’s approval to take over the spending.