I thank Nick Ramsay. He’s right to say that Monmouthshire council has been one of the ones that have advocated a combined authority model. I think when he has a chance to look closely at the White Paper, he’ll see some other places where discussions with Monmouthshire have had an impact in the White Paper, and some of the ways that we have amended the proposals for how local authorities can organise themselves at a sub-local authority level. Discussions with Gwynedd have been equally important in shaping some of our thinking there.

My conclusion has been this, Nick: that local government Bills don’t come in front of the Assembly very often, and although the joint governance committee is the model that I think most regional arrangements will want to use in the first instance, I felt it was right to see whether we could put the combined authority model on the statute book, so that if the system matures rapidly and local authorities themselves come forward saying that they would rather adopt a combined authority model, we don’t need another piece of primary legislation here in order to give them that ability. So, it is consistent with the theme I’ve developed throughout the afternoon, Llywydd, which is putting choices into the legislation that local authorities themselves can draw down when their circumstances mean that they think that that will be the right thing for them to do. I don’t have a timescale in my mind for when that might happen, but where local authorities want to move in that direction and can show that that would be to the advantage of their local populations, I think it makes sense for us as a National Assembly to make provision so that the Bill will be futureproofed against those intentions.