Greater London Authority Bill

I am grateful for all the contributions on this amendment. None of them surprised me much, except, perhaps, the Minister’s 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 components—I 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 inthe 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.