Clause 73
Local Transport Bill [Lords]
9:30 am
Ann Winterton (Congleton, Conservative)
Obviously, there are PTAs where political balance may change—I think we have that in our own area, in South Yorkshire. It comes back to the drawing up of the governance order in the first place. I am sure that there would be discussions during the drawing up of a governance order, because the process is that the local authorities concerned decide how they feel governance could best be improved. The proposal goes to the Secretary of State and then to Parliament for a decision under the affirmative resolution procedure. I am sure that if, during that process, it was felt that there was an attempt to try to skew things for the future, that would be reflected in the debates in the House. It is not necessarily always possible to prevent some of the problems that we are discussing. It may be that, as a result of that, those coming forward with governance orders might not want co-opted members to have voting rights, for example, although they might wish them to sit on the authority. Our aim is to achieve what people feel is the best approach for their own area.