Greater London Authority Bill

moved Amendment No. 27: 27: Before Clause 12, insert the following new Clause— ““Budget (1) Schedule 6 to the GLA Act 1999 (procedure for determining the Authority’s consolidated budget requirement) is amended as follows. (2) Omit paragraph 8(4).”” The noble Baroness said: The amendment also stands in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham. It would alter the majority of Assembly Members required for the Mayor to get his budget from one third to a simple majority. I proposed ““one third”” because the Mayor’s proposed budget each year will be rejected only if two thirds of the Assembly vote against it and if two thirds agree an alternative budget. He needs, therefore, only a one-third majority backing. At Second Reading I said that we were entitled to be informed by the experience of the past seven years, and that does not always mean personalising arguments. The system in issue, the votes that people exercise, the effect of those votes and the powers of those for whom people are asked to vote should be readily understandable if we want greater engagement with the political process generally. My seven years’ experience is that the public do not readily understand that the Assembly cannot block the Mayor’s budget when over half of its Members vote against it. The Government’s argument seems to be that the GLA is based on the model of a strong executive Mayor and that the ““two thirds””—or, as I would put it, ““one third””—requirement is ““entirely appropriate””. In what way is it appropriate other than that it was invented here? Of course the current Mayor likes the arrangement; it is very handy. At the most recent budget meeting of the Assembly earlier this year, as each of the component parts of the budget—for the GLA and the four functional bodies—met with a vote of nine for and 16 against, the Mayor shouted ““carried”” from the public gallery. The Government might have been a little more comfortable if the current incumbent had shown greater subtlety, but he made the point very clearly. I appreciate, too, that the Government are keen on continuing to promote the strong mayor model, but that is not a universal view. Members of the Committee perhaps read comments by ““Robocop””, Mayor Mallon of Middlesbrough, earlier this week, criticising the strong mayoral model, but I do not need to pray him in aid of this argument. It is not necessary to have this voting arrangement on the budget to achieve the strong mayoral model in London. The Mayor has all the executive powers. Even if 50 per cent plus one Assembly Members—a simple majority—voted against the budget, they would still have to agree an alternative, which would not be easy. The largest proportion of the GLA budget, including all the functional bodies, is made up of grant from central government and from fares in the form of Transport for London’s income through the fare box. The Assembly is very limited in what it could alter in practice. The design of the Greater London Authority should build on the PR system of election. One of its benefits is that Members have to look for ways of working together, which is generally a matter of finding common-sense solutions. I do not think that this arrangement for the GLA budget assists or reflects that. At the point where the Assembly could bite and where this new system of government could be shown to be effective, the Government drew back. We now have a system that pleases few people, with the notable exception of the current Mayor. The fact that the current Mayor is such a notable exception in his view should sound a warning bell to us all. I beg to move.