Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I am happy to have this opportunity to put the noble Lord’s mind at rest about the issues he raised about ITAs and the notion of the combined authorities. He clearly intends his amendment to probe the Government on this matter because its effect would be to prevent combined authorities being accepted. I shall rehearse a little of the Local Transport Act 2008. Allowing the establishment of ITAs was a significant step that allowed local authorities to pool responsibilities and powers at a sub-regional level, where that was in their wider interest. As the noble Lord said, there are six ITAs. They came into being on 9 February, when they replaced the Passenger Transport Authorities in the West Midlands, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Merseyside, South Yorkshire and Tyne and Wear. Several other parts of the country are reviewing their existing transport governance arrangements at the moment, including considering whether establishing a new ITA might be the right way forward. It seems that the noble Lord thinks that we are going to subsume all ITAs into EPBs. I reassure him that we will have combined authorities only in so far as the EPB and the ITA agree that it makes sense for the economic development purposes to be served. The noble Lord asked what benefits that would bring. In some areas—travel-to-work areas or EPBs that may cover several districts or even more than one county—there is no doubt that the investment that may be needed to stimulate local economies, skills, FE colleges and so on would have transport implications. There may well be a compelling case for bringing the ITA and the EPB together to make sure that all that could be integrated so, if there is a challenge to a bit of the transport system, it can be addressed as part of serving the wider economic imperative for economic prosperity. Essentially, it will be something for local choice and will have to be shown to be genuinely beneficial because nobody wants reorganisation for the sake of it. I assure the noble Lord that EPBs are a big step forward but, if there are additional benefits to be gained by allowing authorities not only to set up overlapping sub-regional arrangements but to bring in a single body that can take forward transport and economic development together, that is an option that they might want to consider. I assure the noble Lord that it does not alter the workings of the ITA. If the local authority comes to the conclusion that there is an argument for changing the composition, it will be able to make that judgment, but there is nothing that will require it to do so. I will write to the noble Lord and make sure that I have answered all his questions.