My Lords, I think that these are three very important amendments, and my name appears on Amendment 172. It goes without saying that the fair funding review has been undertaken for too long and that it is reasonable that within one year of this Bill being enacted the publication of the fair funding review should happen. I also think that the other amendments are very important, but Amendment 87 really matters because it says that
“a CCA may request that the Secretary of State publishes an assessment of their funding, including in relation to any new functions”.
In other words, is the right amount of money being given to undertake the tasks which the CCA is due to undertake?
All of this relates to the amendment in the names of my noble friend Lord Scriven and myself that relates to fiscal policy. There is an issue that we need to debate about fiscal policy and the powers of CCAs—we have the concept now of “trailblazer authorities” and I think the trend is a good one. Nevertheless, I want to be reassured that Ministers understand that local authorities cannot be expected to undertake things, and nor can CCAs, unless the local authorities or CCAs are able to fund them. For that reason, all three amendments in this group seem to me to be particularly important.