The hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West make some important points, but I hope to reassure them that the new Clause is not necessary. Local authorities already have a duty to work together to make appropriate services available to people who move from one local authority to another and to co-operate with each other in the process. The statutory guidance that we issue also requires co-operation when people are placed by one authority into accommodation in another authority area.

New clause 18 seeks to impose a duty on the new local authority to provide

“services of an equivalent type and quantity to those provided by the original authority”.

Given the example that the hon. Lady just gave, it would remove any flexibility from the relevant authorities and would assume that the needs of the individual have not changed since the original authority’s assessment. In order to allocate funds appropriately, it is essential that local authorities have responsibility to decide their eligibility criteria and to carry out an assessment of individual needs, circumstances and preferences. In the light of those comments, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not press the new clause, and will get home in time to put his two-year-old to bed.