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On those grounds, I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hamwee: I am grateful for all the contributions on this amendment. None of them surprised me much, except, perhaps, the Ministers explanation that the Assembly can amend component budgets. I am grateful for her offer of discussions outside the Committee on that. We would certainly like to discuss it with her because there is clearly some difficulty over the interpretation of the GLA Act. There has been some controversy about the ability of the Assembly to amend componentsI had proposed to mention this in the next-but-one group of amendments. The Assembly has been advised that it must vote on the one amount at the end of the day, which has affected how the components are dealt with. If there is a vote against the whole budget because one part is not acceptable, as has happened, it is easily characterised as a vote against the parts that are acceptable. This has been particularly clear in the case of the police, who have had huge support in the Assembly. The Mayor has had huge support in the development of the police budget and its activities. It does not go down well with Assembly Members if they are characterised as voting against that when it is not the case.
Lord Harris of Haringey: Is not virtually all the net increase in the mayoral precept, about which the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, was so concerned, accounted for by the increase in expenditure on policing, which, as the noble Baroness indicated, had widespread support in the Assembly?
Baroness Hamwee: A very considerable amount but not all of it. I am sure that the noble Lord would be the last to support any politician swept away by an argument about a large part of something, ignoring the bits around the edge that are often of considerable interest. For instance, he will be as familiar as I am with the issue of whether it is necessary to put an amount on the Transport for London budget which gives rise to a precept when there are arguments about whether that is what Londoners want. I do not dispute that a very large part of what has been raised by the precept and a large part of what is spent as a result of government grant is a matter for the MPA budget. I will talk to the Minister outside the Committee about that.
In saying that the Mayor is required to respond to the Assemblys amendments to the first draft budget, I realise that I have supported the noble Baronesss case more than I intended to. I should have added that the reasons given can be rather dismissive.
The Minister also said that there are implications for other authorities. This is not the place to argue about the comparative arrangements, but my understanding is that in boroughs with a strong leader model the councils authority is completely different from that of the Assembly. What we have in London is sui generis.
The Minister also said that, because the Assembly will have its own budgetas it will after this Bill is enactedthat will assist the matter. I do not believe that that is an issue for this amendment. People see the Assembly as a check on the Mayor. They are not hugely concerned about the Assemblys own budget, unless somebody accuses it of being profligate, which can happen, but that is not the heart of the issue.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, said that I based my argument on the current incumbent not being a subtle person. I do not row back from that comment, but it is not the basis of my argument. I had hoped that I had explained that a recasting of the arrangementand I accept that it would be suchwould still leave a strong Mayor, because he would have executive powers. Indeed, it would be a greater challenge to the Assembly than combining to defeat the budget, because the Assembly would require 50 per cent plus to agree an alternative budget. I have always thought that that was the hardest barrier to overcome.
The noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, talked about how the Mayor spends his money. Another very considerable frustration is that the Assembly is not able to deal with the budget line by line. That explains why this amendment was tabled but it is not a part of it.
I am not surprised by the Ministers response, but for today, at any rate, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 13 [Procedure for determining Authoritys consolidated budget requirement]:
Lord Hanningfield moved Amendment No. 28:
( ) In issuing a direction under sub-paragraph (9) above, the chief finance officer shall have regard to the separate respective statutory functions of the London Assembly and the London Transport Users Committee.
The noble Lord said: As we enter a wider debate about the Assemblys budget, Amendment No. 28 relates to a fairly small, specific point about the budget of the London Transport Users Committee. We tabled this amendment to urge that, when the budget is set, appropriate regard is given to the requirements of that committee.
London TravelWatch plays a fundamental role. Transport issues are very rarely far from the thoughts of Londoners. The speed and, in particular, the reliability of the capitals transport network regularly preoccupy
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It is essential to have an effective body for addressing problems related to security and safety on public transport. No one would want to deny it sufficient funds. My honourable friend in another place Michael Gove, who has already been mentioned today, raised the shocking examples of the murder of Tom ap Rhys Pryce and the 2005 Tube bombings. The recent publicity surrounding the sentencing of the so-called Kensal Green Gang has further illustrated the level of fear that Londons transport users have about the rise in violent crime.
For all those reasons, transport matters have been brought to the fore. London TravelWatch has become ever more active, and we believe that concern over travel safety and transport reliability will only increase. It is therefore essential that there is a mechanism to allow the people of London to voice their fears and complaints, knowing that they will be heard. We believe that the resources required to keep this service effective may well increase. This amendment would ensure that this important vehicle continues to receive the funding that it merits. It would be a great reassurance to know that it will continue.
As well as ensuring funding for the London Transport Users Committee, the amendment has an important second part. It seeks to ensure that London TravelWatch does not receive its resources at the expense of the Assembly and its important scrutiny function, which we have just discussednot least on transport. It would be wrong not to have regard also to the Assemblys needs.
I hope that the Government will accept this small amendment. Although transport is not one of the main areas of focus in the Bill, as I have said before, it affects Londoners every single day. If the Government accepted the amendment, they would show willingness to take fully into account the views of the public on important transport issues. Following the Ministers rather lukewarm response to earlier debates about consultation, it would send out an unfavourable message if the Government resisted this sort of amendment, which would improve democratic participation in our capital. I beg to move.
Baroness Hamwee: I support the amendment. It concerns a matter discussed by the Assembly; its Members would unanimously support it.
I understand that the original intention was that London TravelWatch, as the London Transport Users Committee is now branded, should fall within the Assemblys budget because, if you have to choose between executive and scrutiny, it falls within the scrutiny part of the picture. However, it has a very different role and, as the noble Lord said, if it reduced the Assemblys scrutiny budget, that would be a problem. I am not wholly sure that I should like to see the Mayor setting the LTUC budget, so, if the principle of the amendment were accepted, I would want to see it followed by a further amendment dealing with how the budget is set. However, I understand the principle behind it.
The Minister in the Commons made the secondary point that the amendment was technically flawed. I can understand the words that he usedhe mentioned the chief finance officers power of direction being intended to deal only with the Mayors aspect of the budgetbut I cannot reconcile what he said with the amendment or where it comes within the Bill. If there is a technical flaw, I hope that the Minister will explain it.
Baroness Andrews: I agree with what the noble Lord said about the importance of the function that London TravelWatch performs and how important safety is to all Londoners who use public transport, but I am afraid that I will have to disappoint him on the first part of his argument. I shall also try to address the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. Members of the Committee have become a consolidated opposition, rather like the budget.
First, the noble Lord argued that we should ensure that the budget of the LTUC was adequate, protected, and so on, but it is not for the Government but the Assembly to do that. I am sure that the Mayor will listen to the suggestion that he sets that budget as wella seventh component budget, perhaps. The second argument is that an increase could adversely affect the budgetary ceiling of the Assembly and how it might increase its budget. That is the argument that I can address, explaining why it is technically problematic. I do not believe that it is a significant issue.
Clause 13 inserts into Schedule 6 to the Greater London Authority Act 1999 new paragraph 5A(9), allowing the GLAs chief finance officer to direct that specific amounts should be left out of the calculation for determining the ceiling beyond which the Assembly cannot amend its own budget. That is intended to deal with unusual, one-off, occasional items that would distort the Mayors budget. Obviously, the Olympic precept is the best example.
The London Transport Users Committee does not come into that category, for obvious reasons. Placing a duty on the chief finance officer to have regard to the functions of the Assembly and the LTUC in issuing a direction relating to the Mayors budget would have no bearing on its content. That is the explanation that I hope the noble Baroness was seeking.
In any event, I do not believe that one should be too exercised about this. Under Clause 12, the LTUC budget forms part of the Assemblys component budget, but it is a small proportion of the overall budgetless than 20 per cent. Any changes in the LTUCs budget requirement are unlikely to have a significant bearing on the overall budget for the Assembly.
In addition, if any of the LTUCs statutory duties changed, we would need primary legislation. For example, if it were to take on additional functions, which would imply a bigger budget, primary legislation would be needed to accomplish that. In that case, it would be appropriate to consider funding issues at the same time as the legislation was debated.
For those reasons, disappointed though the noble Lord probably is, I hope that he will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Hanningfield: I was rather heartened by the Ministers first comments because it seems that we all support this organisation and want to make certain that it is funded. I do not think the amendment would have been tabled were there not the fear that things might not work out properly. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, this is supported by all parties in the Assembly.
I am disappointed at the latter part of the Ministers argument. I always find that, where there is a will to do something, there is usually a way to do it. I know that it is a small issue, but I repeat that it is very important to Londoners. I am disappointed with the arguments, but I note what the Minister has said. We shall probably come back to the matter. I shall read what she has said and think about it, and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 29:
Limit on Mayors powers to prepare draft budget for the Assembly5B (1) In exercising his powers to prepare a draft component budget for the Assembly under paragraph 2 above, the Mayor must not prepare a draft component budget for the Assembly that is less than the minimum draft component budget requirement for the Assembly.
(3) If NM is greater than OM (as calculated under paragraph 5A(5) above) the minimum draft component budget requirement for the Assembly is as if NM equals OM.
(5) If NM equals OM (as calculated under paragraph 5A(5) above) the minimum draft component budget requirement for the Assembly equals the amount of the component budget requirement for the Assembly for the previous year.
(6) Sub-paragraphs (9) to (11) of paragraph 5A above shall have effect for the purposes of this paragraph..
The noble Baroness said: I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 30 to 35. The amendments deal with the Assembly's budget. I put on record my appreciation that the Government have acknowledged the need for particular arrangements for the Assembly. They did so some time ago. The Government said that the Assembly would be able to set its own budget. The Mayor also said that that was quite right and that no Mayor should be able to meddle with the Assembly's budget.
I have acknowledged before now that the current Mayor has been generous in his allocation of staffing to the Assembly, but it is entirely possible that a future Mayor or the current Mayor in a less good moodI do not want to personalise the issuemight constrain the Assembly's ability to scrutinise his actions and hold him to account. It is extremely important that the
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The Minister spoke earlier about the ability to vote on separate components. I had not taken that into account in these amendments. I hope that we will be able to relate that point to the Assembly's budget as well as the overall issue.
Amendment Nos. 29, 31 and 33 deal with the same issue but at different stages or under different circumstances. As the Minister said, the Bill sets a ceiling so that the Assembly budget cannot rise by a greater proportion than the Mayor's budget. For that purpose, the Mayor's budget is everything but the Assembly budget. I do not argue with that, but it does not address the issue of protection. The amendments would set a floor so that the Assembly budget is not subject to unlimited cuts if the new Mayors budgetthat must be what NM means, and OM means old Mayoris greater than the old Mayors budget
Lord Graham of Edmonton: The old mare.
Baroness Hamwee: We are all getting old. Perhaps we should have used PM, for previous Mayor. The minimum Assembly budget would reflect that change. If the new Mayors budgetI have lost my place thanks to the helpful intervention on the acronyms.
If the new Mayors budget is less than the older Mayors budget then the Assembly budget would be reduced in proportion. If they are the same, the Assembly budget would be the same.
Will the Committee consider the position not only on a single year but in the context of the cumulative effect of mayoral cuts or a standstill of the Assembly budget compared with an increased mayoral budget over a period of years? The amendments are not about Assembly profligacy. The Assembly is not profligate. It recently decided not to go for an extra post in the budget, which would have related to scrutinising new mayoral powers, because it is not likely to be needed as soon as was once thought. The amendments are about protecting the scrutiny function. As I have said, that is not the case so far in London.
Lord Campbell-Savours: Can the noble Baroness point to anywhere else within the system whereby budgets are protected in this way in local government? I had always thought that local authorities were free to cut budgets if they wanted to. She is seeking to establish a system that would protect in law the whole area of expenditure.
Baroness Hamwee: That is right because, as I said on a previous amendment, this arrangement is sui generis.
I have been struck by the fact that some local authorities have given almost no resource to the scrutiny function. For example, an overview and scrutiny committee may be supported by half an officer who spends the other half of his time supporting the executive.
I am not seeking to protect a part of the budget, other than proportionately to the Mayors budget. If the Mayor reduces his budget by 50 per cent, the Assemblys budget would be reduced by that, but not more than that. The amendment would set a floor to ensure that the Assemblys statutory duty of holding the Mayor or the Executive to account was not prejudiced by the Executive cutting the budget disproportionately. It should be there to support that function. I agree that the provision is not something that one has come across before, but one has not come across something like the GLA before. The whole thing is entirely new. I hope that that is of some help.
The Mayor has said that such an amendment would put the Assembly on a privileged footing compared with the functional bodies, but that is not an appropriate comparison. The functional bodies are an arm of the Executive. As I said, this is about delivering the scrutiny function. The noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, is not in her place, but London First accepts and supports applying a floor as protection. Members of the Assembly, of all political parties, also support it.
In a letter to noble Lords following Second Reading, the Minister said that if a Mayor set an excessively low budget, the Assembly would readily muster two thirds to amend the Mayor's proposal, but that is not my understanding of what the Assembly can do. That takes me to Amendments Nos. 30, 32, and 34 in which I propose that the Assembly needs to be in full control of its own budget, subject to a ceiling, and that that must apply through all stages of the budget-making process.
We have returned to the matter of voting on separate components of the budget, which we may need to discuss further before Report. As the Assembly has understood it, it cannot effectively vote on the separate components. It has historically taken votes to show that it has, for instance, supported the police budget but not a transport budget. Still less can it vote on a line-by-line basis for particular projects. It has to vote at the very last stage for the total amount of the Mayor's budget. By making the Assembly budget a sixth component, without this amendment, the Assembly would not be able to vote separately on it. If, at the last stage, the Mayor put forward an Assembly budget that was unacceptable to the Assembly, its option would be to vote against the whole budget. There are often political reasons why that is not an acceptable way forward. In any event, it would be ineffective because it would change only the total amount of the Mayor's budget not the component parts. It would be up to the Mayor to reallocate. The other option would be to vote for the Mayor's budget because of the political perceptions.
The Minister has said that to have a different arrangement for the sixth component would be inconsistent, but consistency does not always mean that the overall aim is achieved. The amendments would be consistent with the objectives of ensuring that the Assembly can set its own budget. Again, the amendments are supported by London First.
Amendment No. 35, the third limb of these mechanisms, builds on the government proposals and would enable the Assembly to allocate resources within its budget. Without that, I fear that the Mayor could make the decisions and, for example, alter the amount that is devoted to the Assemblys scrutiny programme or given to the party groups. I do not suggest favouring or disfavouring particular groups, because that might well attract challenges, but it would allow the Mayor to control the allocation within the budget.
In the Commons the Minister said that this amendment was not necessary. He referred to Section 34 of the 1999 Act, which says that the powers of the authority can be exercised by the Mayor, the Assembly or both acting together. That does not seem to help us in this case. If the Government are relying on that, perhaps the Minister will explain it. I beg to move.
Lord Hanningfield: Our names are attached to most of the amendments in this group. As the debate has gone on, I have become more and more confused, and I hope that the Minister will clarify matters. I am pleased that things do not operate in Essex County Council in the way that they will operate in London.
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