My Lords, I would like first to welcome the offer from the noble Earl, Lord Howe, of a meeting. I suggest that plenty of time be allowed for us to discuss some of the issues that we have been trying to get to the bottom of in our debates so far.
I have six amendments in my name, and they all derive from a first reading of the Bill and the Explanatory Notes. Going back and reading it all again, you realise you actually need to place amendments on these matters. In this group, there are Amendments 69, 72, 75, 114, 120 and 122, and they all have a common theme, which is the centralisation of power and the need for checks and balances in the decision-making process.
Amendment 69 would delete Clause 8(3)(f), which says that
“section 15 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 (duty to allocate seats to political groups) in relation to an executive of the CCA or a committee of such an executive”
is disapplied. Therefore, it will not any longer be in place. That says to me that the deletion seems to encourage single-party control of a committee structure of a CCA. I just ask the Minister whether that is wise. It seems to centralise a power to an inner group of the CCA.
There has been a lot of discussion in the last group and then this one about district councils and their rights—clearly the meeting we are going to have will address some of those issues. Amendment 72 is a
probing amendment and would prevent non-constituent members of the CCA voting. I say that to draw an explanation of why a non-constituent member of a CCA should have a vote. Why should the non-constituent members of the CCA become voting members? Will they all have a vote, or will it be only some non-constituent members? There is a big issue of principle here. Is it not enough for a non-council-nominating member to be in attendance? It is a simple issue. If you are a full member, you have a vote, and if you have a vote, you must be a full member. In other words, we have to have a discussion about the rights of district councils to be full members and have full votes.
Amendment 75 then addresses the issue of associate members of a CCA having a vote at the discretion of the CCA. I would like the Minister just to explain in what circumstances an associate member would qualify for a full vote. Again, the process could encourage one-party domination, by giving a majority party the right to give a vote to an associate member of their choice—or do I misunderstand? I am very happy to have misunderstood, but I am probing to know what the intention actually is.
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Clause 27 as it stands gives the power to a mayor to appoint a deputy mayor from the members of the CCA. Amendment 114 would require this appointment to be approved by the CCA; in other words, it would not allow a mayor to have absolute power in the appointment. I think that is reasonable and would be a check on the power of a mayor, to ensure that we have balance in decision-making.
Amendment 120 would ensure that, when powers are delegated from a deputy mayor who has PCC powers to another person, this arrangement is agreed by the CCA and is felt by it to be appropriate. I was surprised to read that the mayor will delegate powers of PCC to a deputy mayor but that the deputy mayor can then pass on some powers to another person. We need to be much clearer about how that would work. In other places, the police and crime commissioner is being directly elected by the general public. We need to be really clear what the impact is going to be of the change we are going to pass through the Bill.
Finally, I come to Amendment 122. As it stands, the Bill requires at least two-thirds of a CCA to disagree to regulations drawn up by the mayor for recommendation to the Secretary of State. That is about disagreeing with the mayor, and I think that forcing two-thirds of the votes on a CCA to disagree is too high a barrier. It would be better, as I say in my amendment, for it to be 50%, which I think is a much more reasonable figure, because it would be a majority.
I hope the Minister will listen to these probing amendments and that, from the process we are about to follow, we will actually get something in the Bill that is going to be better. I want these powers of devolution to succeed. If they are going to succeed, what we do not want is for things to go badly wrong, and it is possible with a structure such as this that we could end up with them going seriously badly wrong.