Dr Al Pinkerton

I feel every sympathy with my hon. Friend’s campaign for two unitary authorities; I was very supportive of there being three unitary authorities for Surrey, and we were sadly denied that. That would have delivered the much more local accountability to which my hon. Friend refers. I wish her good luck in her campaign for two unitary authorities, and for the local accountability which, as she recognises, is so important for her constituents. There is also a wider concern that I hear frequently from the voluntary and charitable sector. Many charities organise themselves around existing local authority boundaries. They rely on those relationships for funding, partnerships and the delivery of services. Local government reorganisation risks sweeping away that social infrastructure —boundaries change, funding streams shift and relationships built up over years can disappear overnight—but this is happening at precisely the moment that charities may be more important than ever, helping communities to pick up the pieces during a period of institutional upheaval and ensuring that vulnerable people do not fall through the gaps that inevitably appear during major restructuring. Against that backdrop, local government reorganisation is creating substantial additional workload for councils and their staff, many of whom are already working under tight financial constraints and significant workforce pressures. Local government reform should strengthen local institutions, not weaken them. It should produce councils that are financially stable, democratically accountable and close enough to the communities they serve to understand their needs. Those are the standards that fundamentally matter, and the ones against which people across Surrey and the south east will judge the outcome of this process.