My Lords, I begin by taking up the penultimate point that the noble Baroness made in relation to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, about the mandate, as it were, for police functions being transferred. She said that the electorate in a mayoral election for a combined authority area would know whether or not the police powers were to be transferred. However, I do not see how that fits with new subsection (1) of new Section 107E in the Bill, which states:
“The Secretary of State may by order provide for the mayor for the area of a combined authority to exercise functions of a police and crime commissioner in relation to that area”.
That looks as though the Secretary of State will take that decision before a mayoral election. If that is the position, it does not become an optional matter at all on the face of it, does it? The mayoral candidates will be stuck with a decision that has already been made and will have no choice over whether they wish to take on that role. Therefore, I am puzzled by the position which the noble Baroness described.
I am also still not entirely clear about the police and crime panel position. Is it intended that within a mayoral authority which, one way or another, ends up with the police and crime commissioner role, there should be a separate police and crime panel, as is now the case, or will that role be exercised by members of the combined authority, which is a rather different scenario? Perhaps we need that to be elucidated but, again, if the noble Baroness cannot do that tonight there will no doubt be time before Report to determine the issue.
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The real problem here is the one that has run through all our debates, which is about the degree of powers to be exercised by an individual. My noble friend Lord Liddle is comfortable with the concept of these powers being transferred to a mayor but many of us in your Lordships’ House are not, for the reasons very effectively given by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. These are two huge jobs. Certainly, the police commissioner job was designed to be huge and the mayoral job will be huge. In any event, it is of course a matter for the mayor whether he delegates that job—and if he does, the virtues of the combination that are lauded by my noble friend are, I submit, somewhat diminished. In effect the job would be being done by
an appointee of one individual—the mayor—as opposed to what we have now, which is an elected position, or what the position was before with the police authorities. I am afraid I do not find that I can share my noble friend’s enthusiasm for this proposition. This matter seems fraught with potential difficulty and, again, I think we will have to return to it at a later stage.
There is just one other matter. The noble Baroness indicated that the boundaries might be tailored, as it were, to suit the existence of a combined authority. If there was an overlap, she appeared to suggest that the additional area would be separated out. What then happens to the policing in those areas? Will they have to have a separate police and crime commissioner or will they be consigned to an adjoining non-mayoral police authority? What will be the process for determining the policing for that area which will not be included within the combined authority area? Again, the Minister may need some time to reflect on this—or more particularly, to get others to reflect on it— and perhaps we can have that discussion before we get to Report. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.