Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am quite clear about that but it is always nice to hear from my noble friend. I look forward to the next group of amendments. As I was saying, it is understandable why the noble Lord has brought back these amendments on the preparation of regional strategies and the relationship of local authority economic assessments to regional strategies. I know that he is concerned that we should demonstrate how much this is an organic and bottom-up process. On Amendment 157A, we debated the notion of the regional strategy being established by the responsible regional authorities in Committee. There will be a touch of déjà vu, because I raised concerns then which I still hold. The problem with the word "establish" is that, rather than helping the cause of the noble Lord, it adds to the confusion. I will address the issue of who publishes the regional strategy in my response to the next group of amendments, but this amendment simply confuses the nature of what is involved in the process. We have made it clear in Clauses 69 and 70 that the responsible regional authorities would prepare the regional strategies. That is quite right because, as the noble Lord says, it is not the Secretary of State’s job to do this; it is very much in the hands of the joint authorities. I am happy to put on the record again that the Bill establishes what I believe will be a genuinely equal partnership between the RDAs and the local authorities with a genuinely collaborative approach in the drafting of strategies to achieve the regional objectives. I am happy to reassure the House again about that. The noble Lord is right that local economic assessments have to be the fundamental bodies of evidence for the regional strategy. Amendment 157E would make it explicit that new integrated regional strategies must take account of local economic assessments. I am sorry to disappoint him but I do not think that it is appropriate to go into that degree of prescription in the Bill. As we said in the policy document that we published alongside the Bill, we expect the local economic assessments to form a key part of the evidence base, which is why we have debated them at such length and put so much emphasis on the quality and consistency of that evidence base. They will inform the preparation of regional strategies. We also said in our policy statement that local economic assessments will form part of the evidence base for the examination in public of the draft regional strategy. That is where they will be challenged and scrutinised by people from many different disciplines and experiences, which is an important iterative part of the process. We have said that we will set out more details about how the assessments should feed into the regional strategy in future guidance, when we will have an opportunity to explore and emphasise their significance and to go into some of the issues that local authorities would find helpful. I hope that that provides sufficient assurance for the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.