Clause 2
Greater London Authority Bill
10:30 am
Jim Fitzpatrick (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of Trade and Industry; Poplar and Canning Town, Labour)
The Government do not support the amendment. I accept what the hon. Member for Surrey Heath says in that we are trying to achieve the correct balance in many areas of the Bill, but we do not agree that the amendment addresses that aim. In preparing or revising his statutory strategies, the Mayor is required to consult within the GLA group, the assembly and the functional bodies before consulting more widely.
Clause 2, as the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington says, sharpens up the Greater London assembly’s role in policy development by placing an explicit requirement on the Mayor to have regard to the comments of the assembly and the functional bodies in response to consultation. It also requires the Mayor to write to the assembly, identifying which comments he accepts and giving his reasons when he does not accept assembly recommendations.
The amendment would require the Mayor to have regard to the comment of any body representative of the London boroughs when he consults on drafts or revisions to his strategies. Section 42 of the 1999 Act already provides that the Mayor should consult the London boroughs on draft strategies. The views of the London boroughs, alongside those of other external stakeholders, provide an important contribution to the development of the Mayor’s strategies. I feel sure that the Mayor carefully considers all those responses during the consultation process. It is not, therefore, necessary to place an explicit requirement on the Mayor to have regard to those comments, as the amendment would do.