Greater London Authority Bill

My Lords, I will find myself repeating what I said in Committee, and I hope that I can do so with greater clarity, because I thought that I had given reassurance on this issue. However, I am happy to put the noble Lord’s mind at rest. I offer my reassurances again and hope that the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment. The amendment seeks to address a concern that any change in the statutory functions of the London Transport Users Committee—London TravelWatch—could lead to a significant increase in the budget requirement for the Assembly and adversely affect the ceiling by which the Assembly may increase its budget by amendment. With the GLA budget-setting process at the forefront of our minds, I presume, I would like briefly to set out the background. Clause 13 inserts into Schedule 6 to the GLA Act 1999 new paragraph 5A(9), allowing the GLA’s 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 or occasional items, such as the Olympic precept. The London Transport Users’ Committee does not come into this category. 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 Mayor’s budget would, therefore, have no bearing on its content. Aside from that, there is no need for the type of safeguard that the noble Lord wants, because under Clause 12 the LTUC budget forms part of the Assembly’s component budget. But the LTUC budget is such a small proportion of the Assembly’s budget—less than 20 per cent—that any change in the LTUC’s functions and, therefore its budget requirement, is very unlikely to have a significant bearing on the overall Assembly budget. A further important point is that primary legislation would be needed to make any change to the LTUC’s statutory duties. In that case, it would be appropriate to consider any funding issues resulting from such changes at the same time as legislation is being taken forward. That would be a much bigger requirement. To fulfil a promise that I gave to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, following our debate in Grand Committee, I reiterate an assurance about the Assembly budget. It is clearly within the spirit of the changes set out in the Bill that the Assembly is able to decide how best to allocate its budget within the agreed total of that component budget. Section 34 of the GLA Act enables the Assembly to do anything incidental to the exercise of its functions and provides the legal basis for the Assembly to take such decisions. I hope that that will help noble Lords. Returning to the amendment, I hope that I have been able to reassure noble Lords that there is no case for them to be concerned about and that the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, feels able to withdraw the amendment.