Greater London Authority Bill

My Lords, we support almost everything that the noble Baroness seeks to do in this group of amendments. The exception is her opposition to Clause 26, on allowances. That would involve the chair and vice-chair of the ““Fire etc Authority””—the ““etc”” refers to the mere matter of emergency planning—receiving allowances. Those officers have substantial responsibility and carry out important work. In Grand Committee we raised our concern that similar provisions should be brought into effect with regard to the police authority in different sets of primary or secondary legislation, but we would not like to see that go. On the major issue of the composition of the fire authority, the noble Baroness is absolutely right, and she referred to comments made by my noble friend. As I said earlier, this is not the place to debate particular actions taken by a particular Mayor, but one must be informed by knowledge of what is possible. Whether or not it is possible is also a matter for debate because, as I said earlier, it appears that the Mayor’s actions are wrong in law. So far as I can see from the statement that he issued this evening, we still have no London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. It now seems not to exist—it has no membership. I use this opportunity to put on the record that I do not support how the Mayor has dealt with this matter. Certain of his concerns are not wrong; for example, those about representation and diversity, which are hugely important matters. I extend that not just to gender and ethnicity, or perhaps what is called ““visible ethnicity””—belonging to a visible ethnic minority community—but to all the other factors with which we are familiar when dealing with issues of diversity and equality, including age, sexual orientation and religion. However, this is a big issue. I am falling into the trap that I am warning against—that of relating what is going on at the moment to the provisions in the Bill—but I have realised perhaps more starkly than I ever thought possible what might happen, and the noble Baroness is absolutely right to ask the House to consider whether this is really the way forward. I do not want to become involved in the question of whether the Mayor’s powers should be limited because of the way that the current officeholder exercises those powers, but it is very hard not to be affected by what is going on at the moment.