Clause 16 - The network management duty
Traffic Management Bill
9:25 am
Viscount John Thurso (Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland (And Transport), Scotland; Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, Liberal Democrat)
The amendment would remove from the Bill the additional powers reserved to the Secretary of State over and above those reserved to him under the Greater London Authority Act 1999 by removing the reference to the GLA and the Mayor.
I do not intend to press the amendment; I want to find out the Government's thinking in respect of the GLA's devolution settlement. The 1999 Act sets out those matters that were considered appropriate for devolution, and transport and all that goes with it was a major part of the settlement. The Act makes clear the division of responsibilities between the Mayor, the GLA, local authorities and the Government.
The amendment would effectively remove the GLA from the clause, but I want to know whether the Government are intentionally looking at what was settled on the GLA and seeking to draw it back out of the settlement, or whether it is a precautionary measure by officials to accrue power, which they do as often as they can. My suspicion is that it is not deliberate and intentional. I suspect that the Government do not intend to reconsider the devolution settlement for London; rather, the Bill takes a belt and braces approach to try to reserve as much power as possible to the Secretary of State.
Having looked into the matter of reserve powers, I can find no precedent for such a move in other legislation or by other Departments. That raises an important point of principle. I therefore ask the Minister whether there is a deliberate desire to pull back powers that have been devolved, or whether it is thought to be good to get the powers back. If it is the latter, I wonder whether that course of action has been checked through, whether it has been discussed with ministerial colleagues with responsibility for London, and whether it fits within the devolution settlement.
The point that I am seeking to address is whether a deliberate move is being made to reduce the devolutionary powers and return them to the Department, or whether it is not specifically intended to do that. Since, in the latter case, the clause does do
that, I wonder whether it is appropriate that it should be done in that way.