I have a confession to make. Learned articles in this journal and elsewhere about charters of local self-government, or concordats, have not always detained me for very long.

So, why do I now feel the need to unburden myself of this guilty secret? Well, in part, it is because of the work of the political and constitutional reform committee in Parliament. Its members have been looking at the issue of codifying the relationship between local and central government. Even my weariness about this has been challenged by recognising that we may well be reaching a point where some formal codification could play a very important role in the development of our constitutional arrangements.