Schedule 1
Greater London Authority Bill
11:15 am
Michael Gove (Shadow Minister (Housing), Communities and Local Government; Surrey Heath, Conservative)
I confess that we would have been prepared to withdraw the amendment had the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington and my hon. Friends been successful in the previous debate. We sought only to improve the scrutiny power of the GLA, and the option in front of us was to ensure that confirmation hearings extend across the piece. As I have outlined, the view of every party in the GLA is that that should happen. Sadly, there is a split in the Labour ranks between the parliamentary party, perhaps jealous of its privileges or anxious to shield its old friend the Mayor from scrutiny, and those in the GLA actively engaged in scrutiny work, who have been deprived of a valuable scrutinising power.
What can Conservative Members do to help the GLA enhance its powers of scrutiny? We have outlined how another weapon can be placed in its hands by ensuring that its existing scrutiny power on appointments has teeth. We originally wanted to ensure that the confirmation process involves probing the views of those appointed to functional bodies, assessing their suitability and ensuring that their fitness for office and the views that they carry forward to the discharge of their duties are examined appropriately and transparently. We have been denied that opportunity, but we can ensure that the Mayor thinks twice before making appointments to the crucial roles of chairman or deputy chairman, because the assembly can block them by a majority.
One of the points about requiring a simple majority in the assembly, as I am sure the Committee will grasp, is that because it is elected under the proportional representation additional member system, it is extremely unlikely that any political party could ever get a simple majority. The only way in which a Mayor’s unsuitable nominations could be blocked would be if there were an effective coalition. The electoral system governing the composition of the GLA means that the tool we wish to provide the assembly with could not be fashioned into a partisan billhook. It would give the assembly, or responsible parties within it, the opportunity to block a future Mayor who wished to exercise his powers irresponsibly.
As the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington has pointed out, chairmen or deputy chairmen of the various functional bodies have at their disposal millions of pounds of public money. Through the amendment, we suggest that before the Mayor appoints individuals to those posts he should know that if he recommends people who are either politically convenient or to whom he owes a debt for some reason, and who are not up to the task, the GLA’s capacity to recommend that they not be appointed will force him to appoint individuals of real calibre.
I mentioned in the previous debate that in the United States the Senate has the power to recommend refusal in confirmation hearings. In the past, it has ensured that certain individuals who were inappropriate, either because of their ideology—such as the Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork—or because of other executive failings, could not be appointed. The Senate exercises that power with a degree of deliberation and an absence of partisanship in most circumstances, which bolsters its standing. For a simple majority in the GLA to prevent the Mayor from making an appointment is the most effective safeguard that we can think of against the frivolous, capricious, partisan or ideological or the brazen preferment of individuals who are unsuitable for the serious offices in question.
Given the failure of the Government to accept the amendment, I hope that they will look favourably on ensuring that the reserve scrutiny power can be exercised by the GLA.