Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill - Clause 19 - Advice of the Electoral Commission
Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill
5:30 pm
Mr Matthew Green (Ludlow, Liberal Democrat)
Thank you, Mr. Benton, for bringing me back to the point.
If approximately a third of the assembly is to be the top-up element—the bit that will tend to bring proportionality into the system—if there were only 24 members, it would be difficult to achieve proportionality with only eight of them. The smaller the number, the more difficult that is. I raise that genuine point of concern to elicit the Minister's view.
The larger the area from which members are elected, the smaller are the chances of a non-party political person such as the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Dr. Taylor) being elected. With strategic views in mind we may want such people to win elections for regional assemblies.
The Minister has cited London a lot in his answers, but, as well as GLA members, London has an elected mayor who carries out most of the executive functions. What happens in London is different from the way in which it is envisaged that the regions will function—unless the Minister plans to pull a rabbit out of the hat and say that the White Paper does not, after all, tell us what will happen. I do not think that he would want to repeat the exercise of setting up an elected mayor for all regions throughout the country.
The functions of the regional assembly members in the nine English regions—according to the Minister's list that will be the number—will be fairly different from those of GLA members in London. The Minister must be cautious about that. The functions and the way in which the system will work will be closer to the situation in Wales than to that in London. Wales has about 100 elected members—one from each parliamentary constituency plus top-up members. I do not say that that should be the system, but using London as the example is not truly reflective of the way in which things have been devolved.
As for the numbers, is the Minister being prescriptive for the long term? Many of us support the principle only as a stepping stone. We have already heard that the powers of the assemblies will be limited. If they are to be based on the White Paper and will never have more powers, many of us would be reluctant to see them set up—they would be super-talking shops. Those of us who support real devolution want real power from this place to be devolved down to a regional level, and want decision making to be taken down towards the people to give them a greater say. If the Minister shares the future vision of other matters transferring down to the regions, does he envisage the growth of regional assemblies to meet their extra work load? Would they reach a final point or would the process be ongoing?