My Lords, this amendment would require meetings and documents concerning the discharge of functions by the mayor or the combined authority to be accessible to the press and public unless they were necessarily excluded by existing law. This is important to ensure transparency of decision-making. The Minister has said on several occasions this afternoon that an elected mayor would be a single point of accountability. It is therefore important that that accountability is transparent.
The amendment talks about the discharge of functions in transferring any functions of the mayoral combined authority to the mayor under new Sections 107D or 107E introduced by the Bill. New Section 107D talks about the general functions of mayors. It says:
“The Secretary of State may by order make provision for any function of a mayoral combined authority to be a function exercisable only by the mayor”.
New Section 107E, which relates to the policing functions of mayors, says:
“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”.
On the face of it, the Secretary of State can require a further centralisation of power to the elected mayor from a mayoral combined authority, and it is clear that the function would be exercisable only by that single person. Therefore, if the power lies with a single person and there is a single point of accountability, it really does matter that that person and the decisions they make are seen by the general public to be properly accounted for.
The aim of Amendment 14A is to allow the Minister to counteract any slide towards behind-closed-doors decision-making. That seems to be all the more important given that, as the Bill stands now, overview and scrutiny applies only once decisions have been made and not while they are being discussed. I have a very serious concern that the Bill could be used to reduce the rights of the press and public to access meetings and information, without which the general public may not be properly informed or engaged. I do not want more and more decisions made behind closed doors. The Minister herself said in Committee in reply to our Amendment 42A that,
“the decision-making has to be in public”,—[Official Report, 29/6/15; col. 1810.]
but of course it is not just the announcement of a decision but the discussion that can matter profoundly, in that the discussion can explain how the decision was reached.
I fear that the Bill as drafted runs the risk of encouraging further secrecy outside the scope of the Local Government Act 1972 and subsequent regulations. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will agree that we should have on the face of the Bill the right of the press, the media generally and the public to attend meetings and to receive information, as is currently the standard within local government. I beg to move.