Greater London Authority Bill

My Lords, I add my support to this amendment. I welcome government Amendment No. 56 as a step forward, but there are powerful reasons why we need to take this a step further; my noble friend Lord Warner has just asked when rather than whether, which is the key. I make my brief contribution on the basis of the rapidly advancing technology, which demands a London-wide solution. I recently agreed to facilitate a meeting with the Mayor’s office, on a purely pro bono publico basis, on behalf of a large multinational company at the leading edge of technology, with successful schemes in every continent of the world. It struck me that we were falling behind in some respects. As I listened to the dialogue, it became apparent that, while we talk about the political sensitivities of the Mayor, the GLA and the boroughs’ relationships, looking at it from the point of view of a technology-driven solution one cannot simply begin with some of the language that we find in Amendment No. 56. The amendment says that, "““the Board may provide advice on such matters as it thinks fit to any of the following—""(a) the Mayor;""(b) any London borough council;""(c) the Common Council;""(d) such other persons as the Board thinks fit””." Taking the point made by my noble friend Lord Graham, I think that we are in danger of generalising about all sorts of relationships—or, in energy terms, each stage in the fuel cycle. Clearly, no one is going to say that it is not Camden’s job to have a regular collection outside my London flat. There is a category problem in how we are discussing this. Equally, if we are going to move rapidly in the next 10 years to technology solutions with 100 per cent of waste possibilities being dealt with for the whole London area, that does not remove the fact that Camden must be somehow involved. Of course it must be. Executive decisions need to be made and contracts signed—they can involve not millions, but billions of pounds—to deal with a total energy cycle and waste solution for the whole London area. We must make provision for that in the Bill. One can obviously introduce another Bill, but Bills on this subject, as the Minister will perhaps confirm, come along not every five minutes, but every five years. We know how elaborate the discussions are that have to take place. I am sure that the Minister cannot respond in detail to my point now, but will he put around a note about the challenge posed by rapidly advancing world technology and say whether a timescale is not attached to the structural context in which we are speaking?