Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Tyler and Lord McKenzie of Luton
Lord Tyler
I am very grateful to my noble friend. He makes his point very well.
I say to the Minister that I think she was probably not involved in any discussions about the Greater London Authority Bill, when these sorts of arguments were also advanced by the leaders of Labour councils in the boroughs of London. They were fearful that the electorate might have other views about priorities. I also suspect that the Mayor of London would be only too pleased to have a scrutiny committee that had no democratic mandate, as it is in the Bill. The next Mayor of London may or may not have a view on that, too. I simply make the point that, if it was good enough for London, we should at least seriously examine whether these new combined authorities are going to have a sufficiently effective mechanism for holding the mayor to account. I do not believe that the Bill provides that at the moment.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and others think that we can develop that proposal and it may be that by the time the Bill has finished its passage through your Lordships’ House, we have somehow managed to give the scrutiny committees that sort of role. I have to say that, as things stand, the Bill does not provide for that. I was disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne, was not along with me on this because he had a serious point, and I suspect that we may have some discussions and come to an agreement about how to provide this by some means. However, what really worried me was when the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, said that the combined authority would have an executive meeting function. Not so: in my mind, the mayor is the executive. If the leaders are simply there to back up the mayor, who may well be of the same persuasion politically, that will be no scrutiny. It will not be accountable.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I do not believe that the noble Lord is right on that issue. This is one of the differences between London and the combined authorities that we are talking about. The combined authorities will have members who are appointed by the constituent elected authorities, and they as well as the mayor will have functions to perform. It is not only the mayor, if there is one, who gets all these functions; it is other members of the combined authority as well. That is the situation that I do not think the noble Lord has taken into account in his analysis.