Member

There is a further complication. In another Bill before your Lordships’ House, we will shortly contemplate local government reorganisation. I do a bit of work on this, and I can certainly contemplate that the mergers of authorities across county boundaries will happen. Wiltshire is already unitised, but it is not unthinkable for Swindon to be placed in Oxfordshire or partly in Berkshire. Paradoxically, the efficiencies of merging those councils under LGR would result in a wholly unnecessary demerging of some funds to reconstitute them elsewhere, because you would arbitrarily fall on the other side of a boundary. That is nuts.