The concern about the fate of local government under the Conservatives stimulated a number of semi-official inquiries of which the House of Lords select committee is the most noteworthy. (House of Lords, 1996, but see also Commission for Local Democracy 1995). The House of Lords Report of July 1996 comments that an argument "put forward by many witnesses' to them was that ‘over a long period local authorities have lost powers, whether t central government or to quangos, not to conform to some over-arching philosophy but in a way which has incrementally soured relations, weakened local democracy and blurred accountability" (House of Lords, 1996:5). The Committee demurs from endorsing that analysis but it does note that although the Major years (1990-7) saw improvement in central-local relations there was still much room for improvement. The Committee goes on to make a range of recommendations to rebuild local government and to "mark the respect and status owed to a system of local government enjoying a democratic mandate (p5)