Local Transport Bill [HL]

I support the amendment, as we need a good deal more clarity in this area. I was very grateful to the Minister for his comments at Second Reading, when he attempted to give some comfort on this issue. Nevertheless, while these clauses remain in the Bill, it is inevitable that there should be some confusion and concern about this role. First, it is not clear whether the powers of the Secretary of State would simply be to tell an ITA that it had to have a certain number of non-elected members and leave it to the ITA to choose who they were. I would have some difficulty with that, too, because it should be for the ITA to decide for itself whether to have other stakeholder members. However, I am not even clear whether the Secretary of State could decide who those members should be. That would be a step further, and so would be even worse. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, referred to road-user charging in this context. It is certainly important that, if an area is to introduce road-user charging—there is no doubt that this will be controversial—the people who are taking responsibility for that should be accountable in some way. However, the larger issue is the levy because, although the ITA has the right to go to its constituents’ authorities and ask them to raise a levy from the general public, it is only right that people should be locally accountable in some way and should not be foisted on the ITA by the Secretary of State. Finally, I invite the Minister to take a look at Clause 72(5)(f), which refers to the disapplication of Section 15 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989, which is about the duty to allocate seats to political groups. Will the Minister say in what circumstances the Secretary of State might determine that the political balance should be disapplied?