I will speak also to Amendment 70. During Committee, noble Lords expressed concern that Parliament should be fully informed on the nature of devolution deals and proposals. We have considered carefully the points raised, and we agree that we could strengthen and extend the information available to Parliament. Amendments 33 and 70 are intended to do this. They provide that when a Secretary of State lays a draft order in Parliament, in addition to the order’s Explanatory Memorandum, he will also lay a report explaining what the order does and why he proposes to make it. The report would need to include details of any consultation.
In Committee, we considered several amendments from noble Lords about consultation. Among those were requirements for the Secretary of State to undertake consultation before putting orders before Parliament. We consider that where consultation is undertaken, it is most appropriate that this is at local level by the areas developing the proposals, but it may be appropriate for the Secretary of State to consider such consultation as has been undertaken, and it is right that Parliament should know about such consideration, so my amendments require that the reports to be laid in Parliament contain a description of any consultation and any representations considered by the Secretary of State—and any other relevant evidence or information considered appropriate to include.
For example, in respect of consideration of policing within any deal, the Government would fully expect police and crime commissioners to be part of discussions early on in the development of those proposals at local level. Where the transferring of PCC functions to a mayor is proposed, the report would therefore include descriptions of the discussions that have taken place on this matter between local PCCs, the combined authority and the Government.
I believe that these reports, together with the Explanatory Memoranda, will ensure that Parliament will have all that it needs to consider the orders implementing devolution deals and the governance changes put before it. I beg to move.