Member

We are now creating combined authorities in lots of rural county areas. In Committee, I urged the Minister, first, to say that we need community buy-in to do that, and secondly, to provide me with good examples of where we have created such county combined authorities from a number of towns that do not interlink. I completely understand how devolution works in this country when there is a strategic centre and everyone uses the same services, which is why our amendments are so important. They would allow us to have a referendum and take all communities within a county together. In my Broxbourne constituency in the county of Hertfordshire, our towns do not necessarily all interlink. It is vital that we have a referendum on combined authorities. If we do not get the buy-in and take the whole community with us, we will not get this right and it will not be a success.