While it would be possible to get over excited by Alec Shelbrooke MP's A Future for Local Government England report and its headline calls for a single principal local government tier across the country, it must be remembered that it is only a discussion paper.

The National Association of Local Councils (NALC) welcomes the call in the paper for the retention of local (parish and town) councils largely as they exist at the moment. But in a report that proposes to be rethinking the whole of local government, surely it misses an opportunity here.