My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Heseltine for setting the context for some of my answers tonight. We do not intend to make lists to prescribe anything. We want to hear proposals from local authorities—single local authorities or whatever they might be. As my noble friend said, we want to hear about their vision for the future of their areas. I hope that that answers some of the questions that were raised.
The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, referred to Amendments 71 and 72. As with the other amendments which the Delegated Powers Committee considered today, these can be discussed further on Wednesday, when the committee’s report will be available.
I was asked whether single local authorities could make proposals to the Secretary of State. The answer is yes.
The noble Lord, Lord Low, asked about social welfare reports. Whatever the merits of these issues—and I can see their importance—again, these are matters for local areas, and indeed perhaps for combined authorities, to respond to if that is considered right locally. They are not matters for a generally enabling Bill providing the framework for devolving powers as part of a bespoke deal.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked why there should not be a prospectus for local authorities to respond to. Again, a prospectus tempts us to shift from our bottom-up approach to devolution to an approach driven by the Government’s ideas about what may or may not be devolved. That goes back to the comments of my noble friend Lord Heseltine. We are totally wedded to the bottom-up approach of having conversations with those in any area for whatever they propose for devolution.
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The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, also wanted me to confirm whether that applied to any single authority. The answer, again, is yes, and that includes unitaries, districts and counties but not London boroughs.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, asked: if local authorities can have devolved powers, why do they need to have combined authorities? Local authorities may wish to work collaboratively across their administrative boundaries and across wider functional economic areas in order to promote economic growth. There will be some areas—I mention Cornwall again—where a single functional economic area will involve a single local authority.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked exactly what will be a combined authority’s responsibilities for any skills service. When a combined authority’s responsibilities may relate to the skills service, it will depend on the particular deal in question. The responsibilities will be what that area agrees in its deal. For the Government now to specify what the responsibilities will be would defeat the object of this enabling devolution approach, as explained so well by my noble friend Lord Heseltine.