My Lords, Amendment 62 from the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, seeks to place a requirement on the Minister of the Crown to publish a draft devolution Bill within 120 days of this Bill gaining Royal Assent. I understand and agree with noble Baroness’s desire to ensure that local authorities can request powers from central government. However, this is already possible for any principal council under our existing devolution legislation. Any such council could ask for functions to be conferred on it, and the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016 provides that public authority functions can be conferred on local authorities by statutory instrument where the statutory requirements are met. These include consent from the local authority and approval from Parliament.
The devolution framework in the levelling up White Paper sets out our policy offer. It provides a comprehensive menu of options for devolution within a functional economic area or whole-county geography, underpinned by four key principles. The options are multifarious, whether that is moving towards a London-style transport system to connect people to opportunity, improving local skills provision, or being able to act more flexibly or innovatively to respond to local need. There is not a one-size-fits-all approach to English devolution, and areas will want to choose the right model for them.
There is no need for this to be set out in a new Bill: these functions all already exist in primary legislation and, as I said, can be conferred on a local authority via secondary legislation under the 2016 Act. I hope that that is of some help to the noble Baroness and that she will not feel the need to move this amendment when it is reached.