Greater London Authority Bill

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, but I do not intend to intrude on the private grief of the Conservative party on this issue. There is, however, an obvious question: why should we consider changes to the Greater London Authority structure now? As I have stressed, the structure has generally worked well. There are, however, two reasons for changing it. First, as is well understood, the GLA model was an innovative one, with a directly elected executive mayor for the first time in this country, a small scrutinising assembly, four functional bodies responsible, respectively, for transport, policing, economic development and fire and resilience, and a strategic remit unprecedented in British local government. Inevitably, with the passage of time, some of the initial decisions—for example, on the eligibility of members to serve on Transport for London—have appeared to be probably not optimal. Therefore, there is a case for change. With any innovative structure of such a nature, it is right that Parliament should have a chance to reconsider. Secondly, the very success of the GLA has strengthened the case for devolving more powers to the Mayor. As a former local government Minister as well as a former London Minister, I am perfectly ready to admit that extracting powers from colleagues in other Departments to devolve to a new and untried model of city governance was not the easiest of tasks. My colleagues, who had spent 18 years in opposition, had only just managed to get their hands on the levers of power when along came another colleague saying that he wanted to take some of them away and devolve them to a new tier of government. Inevitably, it was not as full a package as might have been considered desirable. There was, for instance, a clear argument for an extension of the powers relating to housing.