Simon Hoare

There is much to commend in the White Paper and, broadly, the Minister is to be congratulated. However, he knows as well as I do, as welcome as the multi-year settlement announcement is, it is predicated on an outdated and effectively broken funding system. I understand the Treasury is not keen to revisit that in any meaningful way, but may I urge him to consider a rural-proofing mechanism to the funding formula, to ensure that the additional costs of delivering local services in rural areas are recognised? Change is scary, but I do not recognise the picture painted by the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade). In Dorset, we became a unitary authority, and no sane person would ever want to go back to a two-tier system, but we benefited from the excellent skills of Paul Rowsell, who died earlier this year and is much missed. Will the Minister ensure there are expert teams within his Department to work alongside those councils that wish to make that important change, which will deliver savings and better services to local people?