Greater London Authority Bill

My Lords, it has been an interesting debate. The Minister will be pleased to note that I do not intend to trade quotations from the KPMG report. I am pleased that the amendment has extracted from Defra a few better arguments than it managed to put forward at previous stages of the debate. I congratulate my noble friend on extracting those arguments from officials in the department but ask him to consider one central point. Although I agree that you can sometimes make almost any system work to some extent, I question whether this system will efficiently deliver a waste disposal-driven set of solutions within the timescales we seek and achieve the best financial and cost-effective solutions. It is difficult to believe that a system which has at its heart a collection and recycling-driven agenda run by a collection of people with primarily those responsibilities is less likely to produce a solution than a system where there is a central authority, the main function of which is the effective and efficient disposal of waste and which has that kind of executive authority. We must agree to disagree, but I ask him to think a little further about that with his officials. On the question put by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, about whether the existing powers are sufficient, the legal advice that we have been given is that our amendment is needed to achieve our objective. Although noble Lords may not agree with our objective, the amendment was tabled not for rhetorical purposes but to achieve the objective which my noble friends and I are trying to achieve. I shall consider the points made and beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 38 [The general power of the Authority: duty to have regard]: