Committee stage in the Lords
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux)Conservative- Quote
- Good afternoon, and welcome to the fifth day of Grand Committee on the Greater London Authority Bill. There will be no Divisions in the Chamber, so we will not be affected. Clause 38 [The general power of the Authority: duty to have regard]:
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Baroness Miller of Chilthorne DomerLiberal Democrat- Quote
- moved Amendment No. 105:
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Baroness Morgan of DrefelinLabour- Quote
- I agree to consider this amendment. In tackling a problem like climate change, I acknowledge that the Mayor may need to take a national as well as an international perspective. In deciding whether and how the authority uses its general powers, it could be reasonable for issues beyond the boundaries of Greater London to be taken into account with respect to climate change. However, we also need to carefully consider how this might affect the scope of the Mayor’s powers and his focus on taking action in London. The focus of the GLA’s activity must be on addressing the needs of Greater London. This is the reason why the principal purposes of the GLA in the 1999 Act are all in respect of only Greater London. We may need to be aware that government Amendment No. 107 makes a similar provision in terms of the drafting for revision of mayoral strategies. I assure Members of the Committee that should the amendment be acceded, we will consider making a change along these lines. I therefore hope that the noble Baroness will consider withdrawing her amendment.
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Baroness HamweeLiberal Democrat- Quote
- I should like to give an example of what my noble friend has just said. In Section 41 of the principal Act, the Mayor when preparing a strategy has to have regard to certain matters, which is on all fours with this clause, and the achievement of sustainable development in the United Kingdom, which was also mentioned by my noble friend. That is important, not just in itself, but in order to pre-empt someone being clever, drawing a distinction between the two phrases and undermining the good things which, under this Bill, ensure that they work well together, as well as being sensible, practical and recognising the problems to which my noble friend referred.
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- Baroness Miller of Chilthorne DomerLiberal Democrat
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- I thank the Minister for her encouraging reply. This is the first time we have been in dialogue in Committee and I welcome it. I cast my mind back to the Minister’s terrific seconding of the Gracious Speech, which I so much enjoyed. I am sure that I shall enjoy debating with her very much. In the mean time, I look forward to what the Government will bring forward and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendment No. 106 not moved.] Clause 38 agreed to.
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- Baroness Morgan of DrefelinLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 107:
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- Baroness HamweeLiberal Democrat
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- I welcome the climate change provisions in the Bill. My question only occurred to me about half an hour ago; if the Minister wants to respond to it after today’s Committee, I understand. What is the difference between “adaptation to climate change”, as in the amendment and the Bill, and “achieving sustainable development”, as in the original Act? I can work out that there might be some differences around the edges with quite a big area of overlap, but I should not guess at it. Perhaps I can leave that with the Minister if it is not to be answered now. It might need a technical reply.
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- Baroness Morgan of DrefelinLabour
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- I will happily reflect on that and write to the noble Baroness, sharing it with the Committee.
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Lord Graham of EdmontonLabour- Quote
- I hope that we are not making heavy weather of laying down, or postulating about, restricting the powers of the Mayor and the GLA on climate change. It is a much bigger issue than London, England or Britain. It is a global matter. If we, in exercising our responsibilities on the Bill, ensure that we implement sensible measures with understandable words as far as possible, that is about as much as we can do. Those who have drafted and supported the Bill are to be commended for it being sensible. We all understand that if something is laid on someone’s shoulders which is not possible for them to carry out, it brings not just that little bit into disrepute, but a wider range of things. This is the kind of situation where the Minister has clearly said that there will be a period of reflection, after which the words might be better than they are now. That is as much as we can do.
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- Baroness Miller of Chilthorne DomerLiberal Democrat
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- Of course, the noble Lord is quite right. The whole thing goes much wider than London, internationally. That is why we were anxious to explore how wide the Government are willing to let the Bill go, because of London’s national and international impact. I thoroughly agree with the noble Lord, and assure him that this Side of the Committee does not wish to do anything to lessen the ability of any place to take action on climate change.
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Lord HanningfieldNon-affiliated- Quote
- We are in danger of agreeing about the same thing. I will move a somewhat similar amendment in a little while. We want to get the wording right for the Mayor of London in these amendments. It could be different from the national strategy, because it might be different for London. London has different circumstances and problems. The amendments are all basically saying the same thing. I hope that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, suggested, the Minister will come back at a later stage with some new wording that we can all agree to. However, I shall shortly move my amendment, which is on similar lines.
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- Baroness Morgan of DrefelinLabour
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- The amendment makes clear the importance of tackling climate change in the Mayor’s strategic framework for London. It will ensure that policies for tackling climate change are included in the Mayor’s strategies and that every Mayor has regard to addressing climate change when preparing or revising strategies.
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Baroness ByfordConservative- Quote
- I apologise for arriving a few minutes late. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to the difference between adaptation and achieving. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Graham, that the measure needs to be as flexible as possible. I should have thought there is a very great difference between adopting policies and trying to achieve them and actually setting out physically to achieve them. I welcome the measure. We are keen to ensure that we do everything we can to enable the Bill to tackle climate change and for it to have clearly defined strategies. However, I am not clear from the wording whether the Bill aims to achieve set goals or to adopt strategies and hope that they will achieve things at the end of the day. I seek clarification on that.
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- Baroness Morgan of DrefelinLabour
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- The Mayor currently has an informal climate change action plan in which he has set out targets as he sees them. What we are doing here is putting the climate change strategy, including mitigation and adaptation, on to a statutory level. This follows on from a consultation that took place regarding the powers that the Mayor should be afforded. That is the context in which we are talking. I do not wish to second-guess the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, but I think that she was referring to sustainable development, which has a particular definition within the 1999 Act. I have agreed to take the measure away and think about it. I shall come back with a more considered response before Report. On Question, amendment agreed to. Clause 39 [Duty of Mayor and Assembly to address climate change]:
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The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Rooker)Labour- Quote
- moved Amendment No. 107A:
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- Baroness Miller of Chilthorne DomerLiberal Democrat
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- I shall speak to my Amendments Nos. 108 and 114. The purpose of tabling these clearly probing amendments was to draw out a damper from the Minister, which he has kindly provided. It is vital that in Committee we discuss those issues that were highlighted by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. The distinction between “binding” and “non-binding” links between national and GLA policies needs to be clarified in the Bill. For example, if you have a thought in your mind about government policy and then look at page 163 on the Mayor’s strategy on climate change, where he talks about his aviation policy, you will see that he will, “challenge the need for further runway expansion at UK airports”. That may be one of the first areas that will test exactly how well this Bill is drafted. I suspect that Amendment No. 109 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, and the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, is intended also to test that. We will have another opportunity to continue debating this matter under that amendment. Since Second Reading and my tabling these amendments I have received a helpful answer on the subject from the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, for which I am grateful. When we last debated the Bill in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, replied to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, on the waste strategy. He said: “To reduce the environmental impact of our waste and especially to take account of climate change impacts, we have got to reduce the amount that we send to landfill”.—[Official Report, 9/5/07; col. GC 225.] That is absolutely right. I certainly do not disagree with that sentiment, but it gives rise in one’s mind to the question: what would take precedence? Would it be the Mayor’s climate change strategy or waste strategy? What sort of guidance would the Secretary of State be able to give on any of the contentious areas, such as aviation and waste? What happens if, behind the scenes, the Secretary of State encourages the Mayor to take action where he can and to innovate, which would be terrific, but prays in aid his guidance as soon as there is a disagreement? We might not have had the congestion charge, for example, if that had been the case then. My amendments simply probe exactly how far the Government will allow the leash to go.
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- Lord RookerLabour
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- I do not want to be thought discourteous, but I hope that what I have put on the record goes some way to answering the noble Baroness. I do not want to be repetitious. The noble Baroness’s amendments are linked with Amendment No. 107A, and I had no choice but to speak to them. The noble Baroness referred to the Mayor’s climate change and waste strategies and asked which takes precedent. I had a vision of not wanting to fly the waste out of London, although I shall not go down that road. It was the juxtaposition of the two and the reference to the Mayor becoming involved in all UK airports that made me think of that, because that is the implication of the quotation given by the noble Baroness. Section 41 of the Greater London Authority Act requires all mayoral strategies to be mutually consistent, so it looks as though someone thought about this when the original legislation was being drafted. On Question, amendment agreed to.
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- Lord RookerLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 107B:
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- Lord HanningfieldNon-affiliated
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- moved Amendment No. 109:
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- Lord RookerLabour
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- I take what the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, said in putting his view on the record. I will not repeat everything I said, but Amendment No. 109 is exactly the same as Amendment No. 108, with the addition of subsection (2). I do not know why they are not linked together—it is not my role in life to question that—but everything I said on Amendment No. 108 is relevant to Amendment No. 109 in so far as it seeks to add, “in general conformity with national policies and strategies”. It still leaves an undesirable situation. The Mayor would not be required to cover a minimum number of critical issues and strategies. That could mean that he could produce a strategy with little or no content and still meet the requirements placed upon him. Nor would the Mayor have to have regard to any guidance produced by the Secretary of State, which we think provides an important link between the national policy and the strategy. The requirement to have regard to guidance is not unusual in respect of the Mayor’s strategies. Nor, under the amendment, would the Mayor need to consult the energy companies, the energy regulator or the main energy consumer body in writing the strategy. All of them are key stakeholders and potentially key delivery partners. Unlike Amendment No. 108, Amendment No. 109 stipulates that the strategy should be developed in general conformity with national principles, but as it strips away all the detail, to which I referred earlier, it is unclear what areas of national policy it should be in conformity with. We therefore think that this is a poor substitute for the safeguards currently in the Bill. As I have mentioned, the requirements in the Bill that the Mayor should assist with the implementation of national policies would not tie the Mayor into actively supporting specific policy proposals that he opposes. In this sense, it is similar to the provision “in general conformity with”. However, the requirement to contribute to the implementation of national policies makes clear that the Mayor should consider opportunities to assist the application of specific national policy initiatives in London where he believes that his involvement would make the implementation of that policy more effective in London. I am sure that he will be the first person through the door wanting to make a positive contribution in that respect. I have raised the example of energy efficiency measures, but we must bear in mind that it is in line with everything I said on the previous amendment. I note what the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, said about London’s waste, but, to us outsiders, Essex is all part of London anyway.
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- Baroness HamweeLiberal Democrat
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- While the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, is working on his retort, perhaps I may say that I am a little confused by the words in the amendment which seem not to be quite what the noble Lord was arguing for. The amendment requires the strategy to be, “in general conformity with national policies and strategies”— leave aside whether we know what national policies they are—but the wording in the Bill at the top of page 41 is “to take into account” and on page 43 “to have regard to”. I had understood those phrases to be looser and to give more flexibility than a requirement to be “in general conformity with”.
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- Lord HanningfieldNon-affiliated
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- Our amendment removes the prescriptive list and the Government are saying that the strategy should be “in conformity with national policies”. In removing the general prescriptive list, we are allowing the Mayor the most flexibility. I repeat my belief that the national policies are probably not strong enough for London—London needs stronger greener policies than the rest of the country. The London policies should certainly be in conformity with the national policies, but we want to give the flexibility to do different things in London. That would be the right thing for the Mayor to do, whether or not it is the current Mayor. He is trying to take some action on climate change problems, but we hope that future mayors will do more in London. That is why we feel that our wording is better. The strategy is still in conformity with the national policies, but it allows the maximum possibility for the Mayor of London to be innovative with new policies. We are going round and round the argument because we all want to see London pursuing a green agenda as much as possible. We hope that the Government will reflect further on their wording. We support what the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has said about flexibility for the Mayor, and as we have all been saying the same thing in different ways, I hope that we can all reflect and get the wording right in this legislation before it is passed.
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- Baroness Miller of Chilthorne DomerLiberal Democrat
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- Before the noble Lord withdraws his amendment, will the Minister expand on the point? He said that the provision was intended to stop the Mayor publishing an extremely skeletal document, which no one imagines he would. By what means do the Government intend to set a date by which the document will be published? What happens if the Mayor chooses not to publish anything, although I am not suggesting that he would?
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- Lord RookerLabour
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- I was going to ask the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, and the noble Baroness about that. I pick on one specific issue raised that I used in both sets of notes. By accepting this amendment, or indeed the other amendment which takes out the words from line 37 to the end of the page 43, we would delete the requirement to consult anyone in the energy field—the consumers, the regulator or the energy companies. Is that a good idea? I do not think so, but I have heard no answer from the proponents of the amendment.
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- Baroness Miller of Chilthorne DomerLiberal Democrat
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- For the record, I clearly stated that my amendment was merely a probing amendment to draw out exactly what the Minister said in his “damper”, as he put it. I thought that I had made myself completely clear on that one.
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- Lord RookerLabour
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- I am not nit-picking. The noble Baroness said that it was a probing amendment, but I homed in on that one because I am being asked a hypothetical question. Regarding the Mayor refusing to publish a skeletal strategy, we have every confidence in the current Mayor. He has been extremely successful as Mayor of London and there is no question about that. That is why no one can find anyone to put forward to beat him. The fact is that a future Mayor might do that and we must take account of that in policy. Where the Mayor has not published a strategy and the Secretary of State considers that he is not taking such steps as are necessary to prepare the strategy, he can issue a direction to the Mayor under subsection (2). We expect the Mayor to publish the timescale for the strategy as soon as reasonably practicable.
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- Lord RookerLabour
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- Well he cannot do it until the provisions come into force. We expect the Mayor to publish the timescale for the strategy as soon as reasonably practicable after the provisions come into force. He has already prepared an energy strategy on a voluntary basis, so the current Mayor is keen to get cracking. On the other issue, new Section 361B(2) states that the strategy shall contain policies to assist in the implementation of the national climate change and energy policies. I fully appreciate that it is not always possible to catch up with amendments, but the new section contains that provision. On the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, about room to manoeuvre, suggesting that London should be able to go beyond national policies, as long as it is contributing to the key indicators on emission reductions and security of supply and not blocking national policies, it is fine for the Mayor to go further and innovate for London. That is not an issue. We have every confidence in the Mayor. That is why I mentioned flexibility. I cannot envisage that the Mayor would want to block national policies; he will want to contribute to national policies. If the Mayor wants to go further in London and can find ways to do that by innovating, he is wholly entitled to do so under the Bill. Indeed, the whole pressure is to encourage him to be proactive in this field.
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- Lord HanningfieldNon-affiliated
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- We are having quite a long debate on the same issues. It always rather annoys me when the Government rightly say that we have got the wording of our amendments wrong and that they will kill the Bill, or something. We always know in Committee that we can return with further amendments that might include the right wording. I do not think there is much difference in what we are trying to say. We want London to be mainly abiding by national policy but to allow the Mayor to do some slightly different things if they are right for London. I am not criticising the current Mayor. I think that he is implementing some good policies. The next Mayor, if he or she is a Conservative Mayor, will not be allowed to stand unless they have stronger environmental policies than the current one. We want stronger environmental policies for London than we have. That is one reason why we are tabling such amendments: we want to allow that flexibility for any Mayor of London. We are going round in circles. Perhaps the Government could look at the wording. The early amendments that they moved allowed some flexibility, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said. We need to reflect on what has been said today and read Hansard. I am glad to withdraw the amendment today; I am sure that we will come back to debate this later. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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- Baroness Miller of Chilthorne DomerLiberal Democrat
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- moved Amendment No. 110:
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- Baroness Morgan of DrefelinLabour
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- We are happy to consider carefully the principle behind this amendment and to explore a range of options to address the issues it raises. To mitigate climate change, we will need to reduce emissions from the full range of greenhouse gases, as the noble Baroness has highlighted. Similarly, as one of the primary purposes of his London climate change mitigation and energy strategy is to contribute to national efforts to mitigate climate change, we would expect the Mayor to consider opportunities to take action across the full range of greenhouse gases, but I recognise that this may not be clear enough. I am therefore very grateful to the noble Baroness for raising this issue. The amendments as proposed may not be the best way to ensure that the Mayor considers a range of opportunities for action across a range of greenhouse gases. In new Section 361B(3) we have deliberately not set out all the sectors and gases that the Mayor could address. The Mayor will not have the resources to do everything. He will need to prioritise. The short list in the Bill includes only the small number of areas where we think it is vital that all Mayors take action, now and in future, as a bare minimum. Beyond this it is right that the Mayor decides for himself which sectors and gases he wants to prioritise. In the short list at new Section 361B(3), we have included energy use from surface transport and energy use more generally because these represent areas where we know the Mayor has important opportunities to act. We have focused on carbon dioxide emissions specifically because this is the most important greenhouse gas from energy use. So it probably still makes sense to ensure that the Mayor, as a bare minimum, takes action to address emissions of carbon dioxide from these sources. The practical effect of requiring the Mayor also to address other greenhouse gases from surface transport and wider energy use may be small. As carbon dioxide will still be specifically identified, the Mayor will still have to focus on carbon dioxide in these areas, while considering opportunities to address emissions of other greenhouse gases in more general terms. Since addressing carbon dioxide from these sources will involve reducing absolute emissions from tailpipes, boilers and power stations, it may be sufficient for the Mayor to meet his obligation simply by indicating that action here will also likely result in reductions in other greenhouse gases, such as nitrous oxide from transport. As I say, the noble Baroness has raised a very important point and, if she withdraws her amendments, we will commit to go away and consider a range of options for addressing her concerns.
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- Baroness Miller of Chilthorne DomerLiberal Democrat
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- I am grateful to the Minister for her reply, and look forward to seeing what the Government come forward with on Report. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendment No. 111 not moved.]
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- Baroness Miller of Chilthorne DomerLiberal Democrat
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- moved Amendment No. 112:
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- Baroness ByfordConservative
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- I add my support to the amendment. I suspect that the Minister will not like the words which the noble Baroness has chosen, but they give us a chance to talk about renewable energy as well.
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- Lord RookerLabour
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- I shall do better than answer the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford; I shall suggest a better way of drafting the amendment, should the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, wish to retable it on Report. To define “clean or green” in legal terms would be very difficult. I suggest that she uses the words “low carbon”. I am showing her the hand of solidarity. That did not come from my speech but from the notes headed “purpose and effect”, which I always find more useful than the speech itself. I think that we are all on the same side here; we want clarity. I shall certainly not nitpick, and did not intend to do so in the previous debate. I know what it is like trying to table probing amendments when one is in opposition. This is a serious issue. We need to get the “clean or green” concept across to the public and make sure that they are not hoodwinked by people claiming that things are clean and green when they are not. An amendment including the term “low carbon” would be appropriate. However, I resist the amendment that is before us for the following reasons. The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, referred to getting energy from waste. There is enormous potential for doing that. Some 6 million tonnes of wood go to landfill every year which could be chipped and made into biomass. All that is needed is to make the waste regulations more sensible. Some of that wood is coated or glued or contains resins and is not necessarily natural; in other words, it is mixed. Therefore, it falls foul of the regulations. But I assure the Committee that people around the country are working on this very issue of how to get money, gold and energy out of waste. The word “waste” should be banned because it implies something that has no use whereas there is a use for everything. Half the food that we buy is wasted; it is not used. There is enormous capacity for getting energy from waste. The noble Baroness is quite right; Germany has 3,000 anaerobic digestion plants on farms. It is not true to say that there are none in this country; there certainly are some. Bedfordia has a huge plant in Bedford. In fact, there is more than one such plant. A huge plant was based initially on pig slurry waste, but to make it work—anaerobic digestion requires other ingredients—huge amounts of food waste from supermarkets or pet food manufacturers are being used. The Greenfinch site at Ludlow is an experimental plant, which I think runs at a capacity of about 5,000 tonnes a year. It is purely an experimental plant funded by the RDA and Defra. It uses food waste and green waste from the local authority. People are trying to assess the optimum capacity of such fairly small plants. I was told when I visited that they reckoned on the early evidence that plants of around 15,000 tonnes would be more viable. Both plants were pumping huge amounts of electricity back into the grid from the process of anaerobic digestion from the waste, and, what is more, getting a product at the end of the day that could be put back on the land. That is the benefit. There is a lot of work going on in getting energy from what would be formally called waste. Woodchip is a good example. It is always a pleasure to give Harper Adams agricultural college a plug, because it is such a well-run, successful college. It does an enormous amount of work on getting the right method of creating the pellets and the chips from waste wood to create energy. A huge amount is going on that is both clean and green, whichever way one wants to look at it. Nevertheless, the noble Baroness is right to raise the issue. Proposed new Section 361B states that the London climate change mitigation and energy strategy “must include” the Mayor’s proposals relating to “supporting innovation” and “encouraging investment”. We have included this in the list of areas that the Mayor must cover in his strategy because London is potentially very influential in encouraging technological developments and innovative energy. Many energy companies are based here, as are many of the investors who could support the development of new energy technologies. The amendment would ensure that the Mayor would be required to support only the development of clean or green energy technologies, and I fully support the spirit of that. However, ensuring the development and deployment of new low-carbon technologies is critical for the long-term emissions target, and it is a key objective if we are going to decarbonise energy supply in the long term. We expect the Mayor to focus on this part of his strategy for low-carbon technologies. We fully expect that to happen. We want to take account of the fact that the strategy is designed to consider wider goals of energy policy, including maintaining security of energy supply and reducing fuel poverty. The development and uptake of energy technologies is likely to be very important in these areas. Usually there will be synergies between the development of low-carbon technologies and support for energy security, low carbon and fuel poverty goals. For example, the development and deployment of renewables will bring about security benefits. That is self-evident. The development of energy efficiency technologies will hopefully address fuel poverty. In some cases, we need to recognise in the short term—many of these are medium to long-term goals that we are talking about—that investment will be needed in traditional technology. One example of such technology is the objective to maximise the exploitation of UK oil and gas reserves. That would reduce our reliance on imported oil and gas supplies in the short to medium term. Increasingly, the companies working on the UK continental shelf are smaller and the oil and gas finds are much harder to access, making appropriate encouragement and support for the development of new technologies important. On the other hand, those reserves are there, although they are more difficult to exploit and get out. There is no reason why we should not try to maximise the use of our assets. They are on our doorstep; we are not vulnerable. As anyone knows who reads about the background of this, most of the gas seems to be in the most unstable countries. It used to be the case that it could always be said that the Soviet Union, or Russia, never reneged on a gas contract. There have been a few problems in the past couple of years that have woken people up. In 20 years’ time, when people flick a switch, they want their lights to go on. What we do now in terms of energy supply is absolutely crucial but there is no single factor or magic bullet. It is very important to exploit our existing reserves, although they cannot be extracted in the way they have been for the past two or three decades. Using technology to exploit those reserves is not inconsistent with delivering transition to a low carbon economy in the long term because it is obviously helping us with security of supply in the short term. Effective exploitation of UK oil and gas reserves is an example but, of course, someone might say, “That is not low carbon; that is not clean and green”. We would not want anyone to get the wrong message from being so prescriptive, which is the effect of the amendment, whichever way around it is drafted. We want to ensure that the Mayor has to consider support for technologies which support the full range of energy policy goals. The full range is the point. He does not have to support them all, but he can support the full range. We would not want the provision to be prescriptive. We hope that it will remain as currently drafted with the Mayor required to consider energy technologies consistent with the overall objectives of the strategy to contribute to wider energy policies, as set out in the new section as well as the climate change mitigation goals. We can return to this. The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, raised a point about waste. I realise that creating energy from waste on a grand scale is debated in other forums. However, we have not had any serious in-depth debates about that, even in the department. In the past few months I have asked questions about anaerobic digestion as I saw my first examples of that on my last day as Minister in Northern Ireland. I saw three or four pieces of anaerobic digestion equipment, which were quite modest. Nevertheless, it is a good form of clean renewable energy. In Defra we asked ourselves: Do we need a policy on anaerobic digestion? Sometimes with new technologies governments write policies that snuff out enterprise because it is new and does not conform to existing custom and practice, which is why we have been very careful. The Minister for climate change, Ian Pearson, and I have taken a close interest in this so the department has been proactive. Enormous numbers of people, groups and companies around the country are looking at ways of getting energy from what hitherto would have been put into landfill. That is fully consistent with the requirements we have placed on the Mayor. Therefore, I hope the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment. I have no doubt that we will return to the matter on Report. However, if I see the term “low carbon”, I want to claim credit for the authorship of the amendment.
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- Baroness ByfordConservative
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- I thank the Minister for widening the debate as this subject is enormously important. I was put in touch with somebody last week who is talking about a new system that uses plasma and which heats things up to an enormous heat. I have not had a chance to look at it. I think it is based at Milton Keynes. I am well aware that many companies and individuals are specifically looking at the matter. My point, and I am grateful to him for coming back to me on it, was that really the whole question of waste should be included. That is why I am happy that “green” is in, although it is not quite the right word. One of the problems we have—in many ways it is clearly defined by the Bill—is that we have local government, Defra and the DTI, which is the other side of the equation. Fuller provision needs to be put in place in the future so that things do not fall between departments. At the moment it is quite difficult because Defra takes the lead on certain things, the DTI leads on others and then local government tries to implement it. There are real question marks against that for the longer term. Again, I thank the Minister for coming back to me, particularly regarding Germany’s 3,000 anaerobic digestion plants. We are way behind in some cases where I think we should be way further ahead.
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- Lord HanningfieldNon-affiliated
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- Basildon in Essex is about to build an anaerobic digestion plant, but that is for south Essex rather than for London. It will be one of the largest anaerobic digestion plants in the United Kingdom. If the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, as a Minister in that department, could find some more money to put towards it, we would be most grateful. As the noble Baroness has just said, the money often falls across different departments. One of the problems that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, needs to resolve is where the money is coming from.
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- Lord RookerLabour
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- No, I have to make this clear; the last thing that we need to do here is talk about government money. The Government have to create the climate and the market and then let the providers provide. If these things are all predicated on the basis of government grants, they will not work. It is true that we can fund research and modest plants, as has happened. The German plants came about as a result of a long-term, 20-year commitment on some aspects of capital taxation. Also, they have planners who allowed the plants to be put on the farms. We have identified in Defra, along with our colleagues in DCLG, that the root cause of the lack of diversification in this country is planning and business skills, and we are addressing that in a report that is about to be published. I genuinely do not think that money is the answer. The climate needs to be there and the renewables obligation has helped to create part of the market, and that is important. If one looks for money on this from the Government, nothing will happen. The fact is that there is more than one way of dealing with this, and there are a variety of technologies. There are people out there who have said to us, “We do not want the Government on our back. We are not looking for government money, but we do not want nit-picking on waste regulations that stop us using things simply because of the way that they are being interpreted, and we do not want you to be prescriptive on the planning regs simply because this technology is virtually unknown here”. We have to be much more open. The noble Lord is taking a very centralist, old-fashioned, authoritarian view. It is almost an old-fashioned socialist view, that government money is the solution to all the problems. I have to disabuse him of that.
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- Lord HanningfieldNon-affiliated
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- I will take that up privately with the noble Lord later.
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- Baroness Miller of Chilthorne DomerLiberal Democrat
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- I thank the Minister for his reply. Of course I will give him credit—low-carbon credit—for his very helpful suggestion; I am glad that he feels able to take that on board. I have learnt something in the debate about what a great centre of waste Essex is; I look forward to going to see the exemplary anaerobic digestion plant. I am grateful to the Minister for the time that he took to reply. The investment is crucial. For example, the London Climate Change Agency was to have a revolving £6 million fund for investment in renewables and energy efficiency. I am not entirely sure of the position now, but it was threatened because of the shortfall and the funding pressure from the Olympics. What a fantastic exemplar of renewable energy the Olympics would be for people from all over the world. I hope that the Minister will keep his eye closely on all the proposals that there are to exhibit a real range of renewable technologies on that site and that they will not be bulldozed in the rush. I appreciate that the timescale is very short, but there is a danger that in that short timescale the route of least resistance will be taken and that the technologies that are put in will hark backwards and will not be as forward-looking as they should be, especially for the venues that are going to remain on the site. If there is one thing that should be low carbon it is the Olympics. The Mayor has expressed the ambition that the Olympics should be low carbon, but the reality from the plans does not show so far that that will be the case. Perhaps we will return to that on another occasion. In the mean time, I look forward to having some more specific wording in this section on Report that will get to the heart of all our aims this afternoon. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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- Baroness Miller of Chilthorne DomerLiberal Democrat
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- had given notice of her intention to move Amendment No. 113:
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Baroness HanhamConservative- Quote
- moved Amendment No. 115:
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- Baroness Morgan of DrefelinLabour
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- I appreciate that in tabling Amendment No. 115 noble Lords opposite wish to ensure that the operational autonomy of the board of governors of the Museum of London will not be adversely affected by the Bill. However, we believe that the amendment is unnecessary. I hope that I can offer full reassurance to the noble Baroness. As the Minister for Housing and Planning made clear in another place, the Bill does not give the Mayor and the GLA any greater power in respect of the museum than the Government have at present under the Museum of London Act 1965. The Act is quite clear in setting out both the functions and the powers of the board of governors in relation to the museum’s operations. That includes all matters relating to the care and display of collections, the employment of staff, the loan, acquisition and disposal of objects and the provision of archaeological services. None of that will change as a result of the GLA Bill which, for the most part, merely amends the 1965 Act to replace references to “the Secretary of State” with “the GLA”. In addition to the 1965 Act, the museum is also a charity, bound by charity law. That means that the board of governors has a responsibility as charitable trustees to ensure that the museum is run properly, with due probity and in line with the museum’s objectives as set out in its founding legislation.
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- Baroness HanhamConservative
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- I thank the Minister for her reply to the amendments. The response to Amendment No. 115 reinforces the reassurance given in the other place. I hope that that will be sufficient, but, if not, we will return to the matter at the next stage. On Amendment No. 115A, I hear exactly what the Minister says about the parliamentary scrutiny that is available at the moment. The City of London clearly has concerns about the Assembly’s requirements and the length of time for which people can be answerable. I will read the Minister’s response in Hansard. I am conscious that things read into the record do not always carry the legal cachet that we all used to think they had, so I need to ensure that the City of London is content with the response, as it is in effect the sponsor of the amendment. For today, however, I thank the Minister for her reply. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 43 agreed to. [Amendment No. 115A not moved.] Clause 44 agreed to. Clauses 45 to 48 agreed to. Clause 49 [Common provision of administrative, professional and technical services]:
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- Baroness HamweeLiberal Democrat
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- moved Amendment No. 116:
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- Baroness Morgan of DrefelinLabour
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- Clause 49 inserts new Section 401A into the Greater London Authority Act 1999, which relates to the provision of administrative, professional or technical services—what might be called back-office services. That is in no way intended to be a derogatory term. Having run a charity for many years, I know how extremely important the work that people described as back-office providers do is. It enables any one of the five constituent bodies in the GLA group—the GLA itself and any of the four functional bodies—to provide back-office services to any of the others, or to receive those services from any of the others. It also allows those bodies to share such functions by establishing joint committees. That change clarifies the current provision for delegating functions between bodies in the GLA group: provisions which are inconsistent between the five bodies. It also puts the GLA group on a level footing with local authorities generally, which may arrange for any one or more of their functions to be discharged by another local authority. We believe that that will encourage more collaborative working within the GLA group and encourage efficiency savings by streamlining back-office services such as legal, payroll, IT or publishing and printing services. I am sure that the Committee will agree that that is positive. Amendment No. 116, tabled by the noble Baroness, would insert into Clause 49 additional duties on any constituent body—the GLA or any functional body—in delegating back-office functions to each other. Specifically, new subsection (8) would place a duty on constituent bodies to have regard to the needs and requirements of the constituent bodies with whom they are entering into an arrangement in respect of delivering back-office functions. New subsection (9) would require the Mayor to ensure that the GLA secures adequate resources from a functional body before entering into an arrangement with it and new subsection (10) defines both the Mayor and Assembly as constituent bodies, rather than the GLA as a whole. Its effect would be explicitly to require the Mayor to have regard to the Assembly in respect to back-office functions before entering into an agreement with a functional body. We simply do not agree that we need to legislate at that level of detail. Any arrangement between two constituent bodies that one discharges a back-office function on behalf of the other would be made only with the agreement of both bodies concerned. If both parties agree to the delegation of function, it is safe to presume that the recipient body has had regard to the needs and requirements of the donor body. Similarly, I cannot imagine a Mayor agreeing to take on a functional body’s back-office functions without reaching agreement with that body on the level of resources needed to carry out the function. Surely, when the Mayor and Assembly set a functional body’s budget, they will take into account any transfer of back-office functions. The Government believe that it is preferable to treat the GLA as a single constituent body, rather than to divide its interests between the Mayor and the Assembly. It is normal practice for the Mayor and Assembly to share back-office functions. Clause 49 requires the Mayor to consult the Assembly before entering any arrangement for the GLA to delegate, or take on, functional bodies’ back-office functions. In doing so, it is implicit that the Mayor will have regard to the needs of the Assembly in deciding his course of action. I do not envisage a Mayor pressing ahead in delegating City Hall functions to a functional body in the face of concerted Assembly opposition. Of course, the Assembly can agree protocols or service level agreements with any functional body that provides a back-office function for the GLA. That could be the appropriate mechanism for the Assembly, and the Mayor, to define the level and quality of service that it wants the functional body to provide. With these reassurances, I hope that the noble Baroness will consider withdrawing her amendment. Government Amendment No. 116A is the third government amendment moved in response to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s consideration of the Bill. New Section 401A(7) provides for the Secretary of State, by order, to extend or restrict the services or functions to which the section applies. This order is currently subject to the negative resolution procedure. The amendment instead makes any order subject to affirmative resolution.
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- Baroness HamweeLiberal Democrat
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- I never thought of myself as a particularly imaginative person, but the Bill has made me realise that I have a more vivid imagination than the Government about what might go wrong—as I have said before, not with the current cast of characters, but in some, I hope always, hypothetical future. As I have said, the Mayor makes decisions and sets the budget. Things cannot always be as cosy and consensual as the Government suggest, so the Government are very happy when they are. If things were always cosy and consensual, the Assembly would not be doing its job terribly well. The GLA is in two parts. As we are in Grand Committee, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Andrews)Labour- Quote
- moved Amendment No. 116A:
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Lord NewbyLiberal Democrat- Quote
- moved Amendment No. 117:
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- Baroness HanhamConservative
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- I have no particular brief for the Government Office for London, but I become upset when the GLA is considered to be a regional body. It is not. We have had endless discussions about this. It is a unique animal. It is neither local government nor a regional body; it is the Mayor for London and the GLA. Some aspects of what the government office does could probably be brought under the aegis of the Greater London Authority, but not under its aegis as a regional body.
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- Lord Graham of EdmontonLabour
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- I was interested in the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and I cannot quibble at all with his ultimate objective or with his view that the functions that he listed and enlarged on are required. I wonder whether he will develop at some stage in this debate the argument that the existing arrangements have failed or have been subject to criticism, or that someone should have been doing something that they were supposed to do but have not. The noble Lord used the phrase “democratic deficit” more than once, I think, but frankly we are not in a business where everything can be perfect. I am all for providing a mechanism whereby these things can be challenged, but I am puzzled as to why an existing arrangement that is working satisfactorily—that is the premise on which I build my argument—needs to be radically spatchcocked into the existing arrangements. I should say at this point that I am not suggesting that I have my ear to the ground; I am merely performing my function as a Member of this House, with local knowledge elsewhere. I would be grateful if the noble Lord would explain, first, why one needs to make these changes, and, secondly, whether he believes that they could be performed better within the structure of the Mayor’s office.
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- Lord NewbyLiberal Democrat
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- Perhaps I may deal with that point immediately. The noble Lord, I think, said that he was in favour of having mechanisms whereby the activities of the government office could be challenged. The problem is that currently there is no mechanism whereby the activities of the government office can be challenged. In theory, they can be challenged in Parliament, but in reality it is fair to say that they have not been challenged, certainly not in this House, nor scrutinised in any regular way in another place. My main experience of working with the government office has not been in London but in Yorkshire. I know of a significant number of cases in which decisions have been made by the government office which have been opposed by, in one case, the RDA and by major stakeholders in the region. They have had no opportunity to question the decisions of the government office, which they felt were arbitrary. In terms of the Government Office for London—my colleagues in London have more dealings with it than I—there are two things: first, there is a sense that the government office does not have to answer for itself; and, secondly, with the provisions in the Bill, there is increasingly a muddle between the roles of the government office and the authority.
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Lord Harris of HaringeyLabour- Quote
- The noble Lord, Lord Newby, has highlighted an important issue. What is disappointing about his amendment is that it is so weak and watery. There is clearly a need for co-ordination of government departments’ activities in different parts of the country; that is the purpose and raison d’être of government offices. The situation in London is unique, because London has the Greater London Authority. I shall not get into the unique animal pedantry that the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, suggested might be helpful on this point, but I make the point that this is the only part of England where there is an elected body that is coterminous with a government office region. Therefore, there is a direct one-to-one relationship with an elected body, and it is the only one where we have an elected body that is charged with a whole series of strategic purposes, including the creation of regional strategies—a matter the noble Lord, Lord Newby, highlighted—which is something that the government office thinks is its responsibility to carry out. I do not want to get into the argument of whether the Greater London Authority is a regional authority, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then perhaps we should treat it like a duck. The reality is that it is the only elected strategic body that has boundaries that are directly comparable with a government office region. The points the noble Lord, Lord Newby, made about the lack of accountability of the government office are particularly pertinent, given the resistance there has been to the requests from the Assembly for people from the government office to attend on a regular basis to answer about some of the work they have done and some of the actions that have been taken. The Minister, in responding for the Government to this amendment, needs to give a very clear account of why there is a distinct case for a Government Office for London. If there is such a distinct case, why does it need overlapping functions with the Greater London Authority? More particularly, perhaps they could explain why it would appear that the Government Office for London, which has the benefit of a strategic authority in that area, seems to require additional resources compared with other government offices, and why the arrival of the Greater London Authority has meant that there are now more resources in the government office than there were before the arrival of a strategic authority? Prima facie, that gives the impression of a government office there to do a different function: to try to restrain the activities of the Greater London Authority. If that is what is intended, the Government should be a little more open and honest about that purpose, and we should have a little more accountability about what the office is doing, given that the Greater London Authority is directly elected by the people of London.
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- Baroness HamweeLiberal Democrat
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- Before we hear from the Government, I apologise to the Committee and to the noble Lord that the amendment is, as the noble Lord described it, weak and watery. Given the muscle that the noble Lord has shown in Amendment No. 120A, I would be happy to work with him on a more muscular amendment. The amendment was accepted by the authorities in this House for debate. It has a little history, so it has been difficult to find a way to raise the issue. The noble Lord puts the matter extremely well, but when he said that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, the likelihood is that it is a duck, I thought that that was being a little unkind. Perhaps we could find a more elegant creature with which to compare it because, in this case, a duck may not be right.
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- Baroness Morgan of DrefelinLabour
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- I hope to be able reassure the Committee about the issues raised in this short debate. I am hoping that, while I am talking, I will come up with a better animal, but that may be too controversial an area to get into. The Government have no intention of abolishing the Government Office for London. We believe that the office has an important role to play, and we firmly reject the amendment. Not only is the amendment defective—I shall not bore the Committee with it; well, I suppose I will—the Government Office for London is an administrative unit of central Government and has no legal status, but I strongly question the underlying thinking behind it. Let me be clear, central Government will continue to have a strong presence and interest in London as the UK’s capital city and only world city. Even with the passage of the Bill, which gives the Mayor further important powers and responsibilities, there are many public services in London which the GLA will continue to have no significant statutory influence over and where responsibility will rightly remain either with central Government or London boroughs. I am sure that the Committee will agree, for instance, that the performance arrangements for boroughs should remain the responsibility of Ministers. Similarly, in areas such as planning, where the Mayor has an important strategic role, there remains an important statutory role for the Secretary of State—for instance, in calling in planning decisions. Furthermore, the Government were elected on a manifesto to transform public services and tackle the pressing problems facing ordinary people right across the country: problems such as poor schools, crime and anti-social behaviour. That inevitably means central Government engaging extensively with local bodies and communities in London and elsewhere so that real improvements are made on the ground. The salient question to ask then is: what is the most effective way for central Government’s presence to be organised in the capital? One approach would be for individual departments to undertake their specific London-related functions operating directly out of Whitehall. In some cases, that may make sense, but that approach generally risks duplication and confusion. It is a potentially inefficient use of resources, especially when there is already a strong expectation from all sides that central departments themselves should be slimmed down. Perhaps more importantly, that approach does not easily enable cross-cutting issues, which span across more than one department, to be addressed. It makes it much more difficult for the Government and boroughs to engage effectively with each other on specific problems and priorities facing particular parts of London, especially when there is greater appreciation across the political spectrum of the importance of place in the delivery of public services and the need for more joined-up thinking across the public sector. That is why it makes sense to have a Government Office for London; that is, an office that can represent Whitehall in the capital, whose civil servants work directly to Ministers right across the Government, and which can forge strong working relationships with the GLA, boroughs and other local partners to ensure the Government’s priorities for public services in London. In this regard, the Government Office for London’s role is clearly distinct from that of the GLA and will become even clearer as the wider review of the government office network is implemented. The Government Office for London’s focus will very much be, first, acting as the key interface between Whitehall and boroughs to ensure government priorities are delivered, particularly through the new statutory local area agreement framework and, more specifically, in relation to facilitating the Every Child Matters agenda, and driving forward crime reduction targets; secondly, advising Ministers on the Mayor’s strategies to ensure they are not inconsistent with national policy, in line with the Greater London Authority Act, as well as supporting Ministers in relation to London-specific legislation; and, thirdly, working in partnership with the GLA, emergency services and other public bodies to ensure that London is sufficiently prepared to respond to all kinds of civil emergencies, which reflect Ministers’ ultimate responsibility for civil resilience in London. The Government Office for London will also focus on undertaking casework and advising Ministers in relation to their statutory planning functions in London, including where necessary calling in planning applications. Finally, it will help to bring together the public sector across London—whether central government agencies, mayoral bodies or boroughs—to deliver specific ministerial priorities which address London’s particular problems, such as the resettlement of offenders and most recently youth gun crime. The Government Office for London’s role in administrating individual funding programmes in London will decline with the next round of European structural funds rightly becoming the responsibility of the Mayor, nor will it be responsible for preparing regional strategies for London, such as the housing strategy, which are again better undertaken by the Mayor. I believe that that picks up on some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Newby. That transformation of functions will create a new Government Office for London that is significantly different from the one that existed 10 or even five years ago. The office will become considerably smaller and more streamlined, with staffing numbers already down by a quarter to 268 since 2004 and further reductions envisaged. Picking up on a point made by my noble friend Lord Harris, resources are being streamlined, and staffing numbers are being reduced and will reduce further. At the same time, it will create an office that is able to raise its game, to deliver ministerial aspirations and work in partnership with the GLA and boroughs to improve London’s public services and address the city’s challenges. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, suggested that more functions should be delegated to the GLA. We considered very carefully what further functions undertaken by the Government could be sensibly devolved down to the Mayor in our review of the GLA last year. We concluded in terms of functions undertaken by the Government Office for London that responsibility for regional housing and strategy, and the next round of EU structural funding, should be transferred to the Mayor. Accordingly, it would be inappropriate to consider now, so soon after this review of the GLA’s powers, whether there should be any further major transfer of functions from the GOL to the GLA. The Mayor’s new powers and responsibilities as a result of this Bill need time to bed down. I therefore thank Members of the Committee for this debate, which is very important. I do not think that there should be any complacency about the role of regional government bodies and how they relate to local government, and in this case the unique authority, the GLA. My noble friend said, “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck”; although I am not quite sure how he intended finishing that. We are dealing with a unique situation, and the Government are very mindful of the need to be clear about maximising the relationship between the GLA and the boroughs, with the minimum resources possible, to achieve strong partnership working and very positive results for Londoners so that the Government’s priorities can be met.
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- Lord Harris of HaringeyLabour
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- The Minister’s response is very helpful. She has clearly outlined the role of the Government Office for London in co-ordinating several aspects of government policy, not all of which, I accept, are necessarily part of the Greater London Authority’s responsibility. However, I am not sure whether she has addressed the question of transparency and accountability. Given the unique situation in London, to which all the speakers in this short discussion have referred, surely it makes sense for the Assembly to have some special role in relation to the government office’s accountability and to be able to summon officials from the government office to give an account of the work that they are doing so energetically and ably on behalf of the Government in the interests of the people of London.
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- Baroness Morgan of DrefelinLabour
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- I am not sure whether I follow the logic of that. We were talking about the Government office for London, which represents 10 government departments, each with its own Ministers and lines of ministerial accountability. London MPs can, and do, hold Ministers to account for the activities of the Government Office for London. I would therefore hope that, in the interests of achieving very strong and close partnership working, there would be a very free flow of information and representations between the government office, the Assembly and the Mayor, and that all those parties would work very well and effectively together. I would be very disappointed if that was not the case.
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- Lord NewbyLiberal Democrat
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- I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate. I must say to the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, that if the GLA is a unique animal, I hope that she would at least allow the insertion of “regional”, because the GLA is a unique regional animal, even if it is not a regional body. However, perhaps we can discuss that outside the Committee. I cannot claim to be wholly surprised by the Government’s response, but I do feel that they have completely failed to acknowledge the lack of accountability to which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has referred a couple of times. The theory is undoubtedly, as the Minister has explained, that MPs can ask questions, via Ministers, of the government office. The truth is that there is no regular, sustained scrutiny of any government regional office anywhere in England. London is no different from the rest, and the Bill will make no difference to that. As I said, we are not wholly surprised by the Minister’s response. We will take her comments away and consider what we want to do on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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- Baroness HanhamConservative
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- moved Amendment No. 118:
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- Lord Harris of HaringeyLabour
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- Is it not rather profligate with the planet’s resources to require that yet more paper be circulated to London householders? It will be stuffed through their doors, where they will probably discard it and simply consider the bill and the bottom line they will be required to pay. I am not sure that I understand the value of separate pieces of paper. Surely this could be better addressed with clearer codes of practice about how information is presented on existing bills?
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- Baroness AndrewsLabour
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- I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate, and to my noble friends in particular for picking up on two points that I would respond to. Nothing separates the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, and me on the need for council tax payers in London to understand who they are paying their council tax to, and what they are getting for it. That is absolutely no problem. Our problem with the amendment is that it does not aid transparency, but will add to costs without helping the council tax payer to understand what she or he is getting for their money any more clearly. Nor am I convinced that the specific arrangements for the GLA, alone among precepting authorities, need to be changed in the way the amendment proposes. As we all know, the existing arrangements for the major precepting authorities are that the billing authority collects the tax on behalf of the precepting authority as part of its own billing process. In my own experience, this is generally effective and efficient. While I have no problem with the principle of the amendment, we have an issue with placing an additional requirement on the GLA to print its own bill and explanatory notes solely dedicated to the GLA precept. It would be costly and additionally confusing for council tax payers. Like my noble friend Lord Harris, I do not think that it adds value. On transparency, to pick up the point of my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, the billing authorities in London already have to highlight the level of GLA precept for a household on the face of their council tax bill. In addition, there is a statutory requirement for information about the GLA’s budget, expenditure and the impact of changes on the amount of council tax to be included in the explanatory material that accompanies bills. My noble friend Lord Harris alluded to the amount of stuff that comes through the door. In that envelope from my local council—mine is Lambeth—I am grateful to have that information, clearly spelling out what the precept is going to. There is growing awareness of the GLA’s contribution to council tax bills in London, driven, in part, by the Olympics. As the GLA continues to mature, I am sure that Londoners will become increasingly aware of it. I should also say that the increases in precepts have been largely driven by increases in policing and the number of police in neighbourhood police teams, and we are very grateful for that. So I am not sure that a requirement on the GLA to print its own bill and explanatory notices for each of the 3 million eligible households in London would make much difference to the council tax payer’s understanding. I suspect that it might even have the opposite effect. Having received such a bill, council tax payers might assume that the GLA would be directly collecting the precept from them rather than through their borough. There is potential for confusion, which certainly would not aid transparency. I am certain that this would be a costly process because the new requirement would impose a burden on both the GLA and the boroughs as both would need to co-operate with each other on the separate billing arrangements. That would be bound to be at the expense of front-line services, which I am sure would not go down well with London council tax payers. In a climate where we all want to see public sector administration costs kept to a minimum—the party opposite is well known for wanting that—to allow more resources to move from front-line services to administrative services is not good news. I am not convinced that requiring the GLA to produce its own billing notice would be the best use of resources. The GLA estimates that rebilling all London households would cost £10 million a year. That does not seem to be a million miles away from what it would have to do if it followed these procedures. Ten million pounds a year could provide a lot of services for London council tax payers. For those reasons, I believe that it would be best to continue with the system that we have—it is well-established, generally efficient, well understood and is becoming better understood—where the borough bills and collects the GLA precept on behalf of the GLA as part of its own council tax billing notice. I hope that on those grounds the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
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- Baroness HanhamConservative
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- I thank the Minister for that reply, which was not at all unexpected. However, it denies the effect that the Greater London Authority is beginning to have on Londoners in terms of the amount of the precept. It also denies the reason why a local authority should have to explain why the Greater London Authority requires so much from council tax payers. The Greater London Authority has responsibility for the police and fire authorities and raises precepts for other things. It is up to that authority to explain why the budgets have increased and what it has done to justify those budgets. That is not the local council’s responsibility. It is the local council’s responsibility to collect what the GLA demands. If the GLA had maintained the figure envisaged when the first GLA Bill was introduced, when I believe the relevant figure was something like 3 per cent—it was an extremely low expectation of what the Mayor would need from the London boroughs—perhaps there would have been no need for this amendment. An explanation is absolutely essential. Why the local authorities should have to give it, I do not know. If they give it, it may not be a very fair reflection of what the Mayor is doing because they all have different views on how he is performing. That is the reason behind the amendment. However, I hear what the Minister says. I beg leave to—
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- Baroness AndrewsLabour
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- All I was going to say is there is another source of information in addition to the bills themselves and the explanations that go out. I do not disagree with much of what the noble Baroness said about the need for those explanations. However, the Mayor also produces the Londoner, which gives a very clear explanation of the precept and what it funds, and that goes to every household in London. So additional information is available to council tax payers.
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- Baroness HanhamConservative
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- I thank the Minister. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 119 and 120 not moved.]
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- Lord Harris of HaringeyLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 120A:
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- Baroness HamweeLiberal Democrat
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- Fairly early on in his introduction of the amendment, the noble Lord said that he was in favour of London having a strong mayoral model. I am not sure that it is necessary to support that point of view, because we already have a strong mayoral model. That aside, there is a great deal of practical sense in what he has said. He will not be surprised to have my support for this, or indeed for anything that enables the check and balance that was part of the original design to have more teeth—if a check and balance can have teeth. It is interesting to compare what might happen when the Assembly deals with a strategy with the way in which the budget is dealt with. The noble Lord is right to point to consensus. One of the problems with the budget being one of the checks and balances is that the different political groups have in some cases entrenched positions on particular aspects of spending that are quite hard to move away from. The model that he has suggested might be made to work. I say this slightly diffidently, because I know that one should not be too optimistic about people falling into line and reaching consensus. Although I have always approached politics in that way, I have been proved to be naïve time and time again. The proposal could be of considerable value, although possibly not at the point described in the amendment. The mechanism proposed would focus minds at an earlier stage. Whichever way one looks at it, knowing that this is a hurdle to be surmounted should from the very beginning ensure consensus in the minds of those promoting different parts of the different strategies. The mindset to which the amendment could give rise is important, and I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising the issue after we addressed similar points earlier on and at this stage in our consideration of this part of the Bill.
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Lord Campbell-SavoursLabour- Quote
- I wonder whether my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey might forgive me if I marginally disagree with the case that he has made. Perhaps I may explain why I am slightly worried about the amendment. One of the characteristics of our proceedings on the Bill is that there is a tendency among some Members to place great emphasis on the role that the boroughs must play in the government of London. I sense, not only in my observation of the proceedings but in discussions with people who are close to the whole GLA operation, that there is a lot of pressure from the boroughs on the Members of the GLA to accept the views of the boroughs when the Mayor decides issues of strategy. In fact, this is true of the whole policy of the GLA. I sense that there is a tug-of-war going on. As I said, I am not a Member of the authority; I am just observing the dynamic as a council taxpayer in London. If that were to happen, I worry that, in certain conditions, you could build a consensus, a coalition of forces, within the GLA that sets out to undermine the strategy of the Mayor in favour of the boroughs arising from pressure exerted by members of the borough authorities through their political associations on Members of the GLA. There might even be a coalition that extended into the majority group, if there were to be one, where people felt that the pressure was so unrelenting that they had to give in. I suggest that, in those conditions, the Mayor's strategy, which could be deemed as in the interests of London, could be undermined simply by such pressures. I put that only as a proposition. It may be that I am misreading what is happening, but I sense that dynamic of tension between the boroughs and the GLA which could, under those conditions, prove counterproductive.
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- Baroness HanhamConservative
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- I can never resist rising to a challenge, especially one posed by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. The amendment would not do that. I remark to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, that if only that pressure could have been operated by the London boroughs on how the Mayor operates, we might be in a much happier position. The interesting thing about the amendment is that, earlier in our proceedings, the Government removed from the Bill the provision that the Mayor had to provide a final draft of the health strategy—I think. That was removed as being a procedure that was not required. I am not sure whether we protested very much at the time, but I was slightly surprised, because it seems to me that if you have a strategy, you must produce a final version. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, if enough Assembly Members manage to get together—that would be deeply unusual in itself—to say that there was something flawed in the Mayor's strategy, it would be much better if it were dealt with at that stage than that it got out to the wider body and became something to which people had to conform, have regard, or whatever. That would become a major problem. I again find myself in the unusual position of supporting the noble Lord, Lord Harris, on the amendment because I believe that there should be a role for the Assembly in scrutiny. Perhaps it does not normally hold the Mayor to account but, in this case, where the strategy will have such a wide impact on London boroughs, there is a great deal of merit in the amendment.
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- Baroness AndrewsLabour
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- My noble friend has clearly provoked a significant debate. Given the degree of agreement between us up to this point, I am disappointed but not surprised at his originality in finding an opportunity to insert what he describes as a modest rebalancing. I take issue with whether it is indeed a modest rebalancing; it is more serious than that. At first sight, it seems harmless. It is not. It appears merely to apply the Assembly’s existing role in setting the GLA budget to the process of preparing and revising mayoral strategies—whether in housing, health, climate change, or whatever. Under the amendment, the Assembly would approve a mayoral strategy with or without amendment in the same way that it must currently approve the Mayor’s final draft GLA budget. It could make amendments only by a two-thirds majority. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, has spoken eloquently about why that should be so. The sentiment behind the amendment is therefore clear: what works for the GLA budget should work for the Mayor’s strategy. What could be simpler and what harm could this do? It could do quite a bit of harm. It would fundamentally alter the balance of power between the Mayor and Assembly. The noble Lord is right. I listened with great pleasure as he defended the strong mayoral model. He was very robust and eloquent in his defence, but his proposal would seriously undermine the balance. It would give the Assembly the power to amend any aspect of a mayoral strategy by a two-thirds majority, making it much more difficult for the Mayor to implement the manifesto commitments that he or she is elected to deliver, whether that is congestion charging, free public transport for young Londoners or the housing strategy on which we have spent so much time talking in Committee. It may lead to a Mayor disowning all or part of the strategic framework for London. Given what Members of the Committee have said about this adding to the scrutiny functions of the Assembly, it is very important to be clear that it would lead to a genuine confusion in the demarcation of responsibilities between the strategic responsibility and the scrutiny function. At the moment, it could mean that the Assembly would set the strategic agenda for the capital, yet be expected to scrutinise the content and implementation of those strategies as well. There is a genuine issue about what the Assembly is there to do and how effectively it can do it. The parallel with the amendment and—
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- Lord Harris of HaringeyLabour
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- Perhaps my noble friend will allow me to question that. I should like to be clear on why that argument does not apply in terms of the balance between strategic responsibilities and scrutiny in respect of the budget.
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- Baroness AndrewsLabour
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- I believe that we made similar arguments in respect of the budget. The Mayor has responsibility for the total component budget and the Assembly’s role is to challenge the headline figures. It does not get involved in discussing the detailed scrutiny, which is a job for the component bodies. That is the case I was going to go on to make, which is where the analogy breaks down. The problem is that the Assembly is able to amend only the totals because the detail of what has been determined for the individual parts of the budget is left to the constituent body. The problem is that this amendment would allow the Assembly to amend each strategy to any level of detail and strategies do not have headline budgets in the same way. They are not equivalent to the component budget totals, so the Assembly could not do anything but get involved in the detailed determination of policy. Therefore, how could it be both judge and jury? How could it scrutinise effectively what it has already challenged and even predetermined? There is a genuine confusion of what could be achieved. I do not think that it is too extreme to say that it would be rather chaotic. Let us go back to where we started this debate and the need to give the Assembly more confidence and a greater power of scrutiny. On day 1 in Committee, we discussed Clause 2, which was welcomed, as it was elsewhere. Clause 2 provides a strengthened role for the Assembly in strategy development. The Mayor will be under a new duty to have regard to Assembly responses to consultation and must write to explain which of its recommendations he will implement and give reasons for those he does not accept. That takes the Assembly into a new area of challenge and scrutiny where it has not been before. In this delicate balance of power, I believe that that is the right way to go and is the best balance to hold. The amendment, although superficially attractive, brings with it not least the arguments made by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, but some genuine difficulties. Although I commend my noble friend Lord Harris for his originality and determination to promote this important argument, I cannot agree with him. I therefore ask him to withdraw his amendment.
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- Lord Harris of HaringeyLabour
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- It is always gratifying to be commended for originality. It does not necessarily mean that you get anything other than nul points at the end of the analysis. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the discussion. I note that both opposition parties clearly think that there is some merit in these proposals. Briefly, on the specific arguments raised, my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours talks about the boroughs. The Assembly was originally constructed precisely to avoid a situation in which Assembly Members felt that they were delegated by particular boroughs. Only 14 of the 25 Members represent geographical constituencies, and each of them has two or three boroughs on their patch. That means that a diffuse sort of pressure usually arises. My experience was that the amount of pressure that I received as a Member for a geographic area on the London Assembly from the two boroughs I represented was very limited; indeed, I would have welcomed rather more pressure and engagement from the borough authorities than was the case on some issues. That could clearly change in the future. The other 11 Members have a London-wide remit, specifically to ensure that that strategic overview is given.
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- Baroness HamweeLiberal Democrat
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- The noble Lord might care to add that, in the case of the constituency Members with two or three boroughs making up their patch, as he puts it, there are few where there is the same party in majority control of the boroughs making up that patch. It is, in fact, quite a patchwork.
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- Lord Harris of HaringeyLabour
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- I believe that that is now the case, although I had the benefit of having two boroughs in the area I represented which were under the political control of my own party.
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- Lord Campbell-SavoursLabour
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- Will my noble friend give way? Is the point not that in conditions of it being known that two-thirds could undermine the strategy, that would then invite from the boroughs the very pressure I was referring to? It may well come through not the local authorities but the political associations.
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- Lord Harris of HaringeyLabour
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- I was about to move on to precisely that point, and say that that was a benefit of my amendment. Giving the Assembly responsibilities—fairly limited responsibilities—in this area will lead to greater engagement by the boroughs with the Assembly Members. It will lead to greater engagement by the public of London with the Assembly, given that they will recognise that this is a route by which they can exert some direct influence on the mayoral strategies. The question is whether this fundamentally alters the balance of power. The Minister cited a number of examples of why this was different. She dismissed the argument that because this power exists for the budget it could not simply be transferred across to the strategies, because that might undermine specific mayoral manifesto commitments. I make the point that if the Mayor has made a specific mayoral commitment, then the chances of there being a two-thirds majority on the Assembly—an Assembly elected on the same day as the Mayor of London—against specific mayoral commitments is extremely low. Apart from the fact that the Mayor is likely to have colleagues from his or her own party—I appreciate that when the present Mayor was first elected, he did not have that advantage—it is unlikely that a Mayor with specific manifesto commitments will find them undermined by a cross-party consensus across two-thirds of the London Assembly. It is difficult to see how the arithmetic is likely to work. You can conceive of circumstances in which there would be unholy alliances between some people who say, “If you vote against this line of this strategy for us, we will vote against this line for you,” and so on. You can see how that might create a position in which a two-thirds majority might be assembled. However, I would hope that London Assembly Members had a greater interest in the future of London and a greater responsibility towards what they are trying to do than to fall into that particular trap. Over and above the welcome extensions to the Assembly’s responsibilities that have been included in Clause 2 and some of the other changes that have been made, this is about finding a way of ensuring that the Assembly is given a real purpose in life, which it currently lacks, that would not fundamentally undermine the principle of a strong Mayor. That is why I tabled the amendment. I have listened very carefully to the arguments put by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours and the Minister, and I will consider them, but I also hope that the Minister will think about whether something can be done both to give the Assembly more purpose and, while ensuring that there is a strong mayoral model, to make it possible for the Assembly to exercise slightly more of a check and balance on the content of policy. Having said all that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 50 [Orders]:
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- Baroness Morgan of DrefelinLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 120B:
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- Baroness HanhamConservative
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- I am extremely relieved to see the amendment, because there was a reference at an earlier stage to this Act or any other Act. In one of my more manic moments in our consideration of the Bill, I withdrew the only amendment that I had to withdraw and realised that a bit at the end of it challenged whether an Act could be amended in the past. I am therefore very relieved to see this. There is another bit in the Bill that we probably also need to take note of. If so, we will nip it back at the next stage of the proceedings. Otherwise, I have no objections to the amendment; it is very proper. On Question, amendment agreed to. Clause 50, as amended, agreed to. Clauses 51 to 54 agreed to. [Amendment No. 120C not moved.] Schedule 2 [Repeals]: [Amendments Nos. 121 and 122 not moved.] Schedule 2 agreed to. Clauses 55 and 56 agreed to. Bill reported with amendments. The Committee adjourned at 6.25 pm.
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