My Lords, I will specifically address Amendment 66 in the name of my noble friend Lady Bakewell, but I will also refer to Amendment 86. On these Benches we broadly support these amendments because they ask some important questions.
Amendment 66 refers to the environment, which to all intents and purposes is a bit of an orphan in the Bill. One of the great advantages of CCAs, and of
gathering together councils on a bigger area, is that you can have co-ordination and efficiencies of scale on environmental issues that are more difficult in smaller units. There are great disadvantages to having large units, but on the environmental issue you need to exploit the advantages. On everything from the management of areas of outstanding natural beauty to recycling schemes—I am trying to produce contrasting examples—and particularly on transport issues, there are huge advantages to running on a larger scale. For example, you have the efficiencies of running a bus network that is not just in the towns and cities but serves the rural areas that feed into them. It is therefore very important indeed that those issues are at the forefront of the decision-making of the CCAs and that they report back on those decisions.
Turning to Amendment 86, I am sure the Minister will forgive me for some cynicism here. The first round of the UK shared prosperity fund and two rounds of levelling-up funding have posed more questions than answers on the criteria on which this sort of government funding is now being based. It seems that areas favoured by the Government are doing well, sometimes not for any good reason. There therefore needs to be accountability in the funding of CCAs.
If we look at the current patchwork of local government funding in England, there always tend to be huge discrepancies and illogicalities because you are always inheriting what has gone before. Areas change and develop, and sadly some areas decline relatively. Sometimes political decisions put some areas at a disadvantage while others thrive. The point I am making is that with CCAs you are starting afresh. It is therefore very important to explain why they are being funded as they are, not just through bald accounting but with a cost-benefit analysis. Amendment 86 is a very good idea.