First of all, can I welcome devolution in Wales of more powers to local authorities? It's a movement away from the direction of travel over the last 45 years. Some people in here may remember when local authorities controlled the police, controlled water, controlled higher education, controlled further education, all of which have been taken off local government over the last 45 years. Quite often, a local government reorganisation seems like a good time to remove powers from a local authority. So, I very much welcome that.

Of course, we're overdue a local government reorganisation. We have one every 22 years, and we should have had one last year, shouldn't we, rather than this year, but that's the direction. And every time we have a local government reorganisation, we've got it right. This is the optimum way of running local government. We had it in 1973, when I was in school, when the counties and districts inside them were perfect, then we had, 'No, you need unitary authorities.' Now we know we need very large authorities.

Why does the Cabinet Secretary believe that larger bodies in local government are more efficient and effective than smaller ones? Can I ask: is he aware of the problems that Birmingham social services, for example, have had, which is the largest local authority in Britain, possibly the largest in Europe? What population and geographical size does he think is optimum? I ask that because Powys, apparently, with a population of approximately 132,000, is fine to be stand-alone, but Pembrokeshire, as Paul Davies mentioned, with 128,000, isn't. Carmarthenshire, with 180,000, isn't. I'm trying to get behind the logic of why, in some areas, we need very big authorities. Why do Swansea and Neath Port Talbot, which are both bigger than Powys, have to be merged? I've got no problem with them merging. I'm not sure we'll get a much better authority, and there'll be costs associated with it. And to the question that was asked earlier—[Inaudible.]—the cost of reorganisation will be approximately 5 per cent of the current net expenditure. That's what happened last time, and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be the same this time.

We've created lots in Wales over the years—lots of large bodies within the public sector. That's been the direction of travel under Conservative Governments at Westminster, under Labour, under Labour and Plaid, under Labour and the Liberal Democrats in here. We've had fewer and fewer organisations, which tend to be larger and larger. Just a question—the Cabinet Secretary might not want to answer this—but does he believe that the larger organisations in Wales, the really big ones—and you can think of some now—and the all-Wales bodies, are performing so well that we need to have more larger bodies?