Greater London Authority Bill

Amendment No. 5 is perfectly sensible, but I am not sure that it is necessary. I have long felt that it is an important role to give the Assembly more and appropriate powers in respect of some of the activities of the Mayor and the functional bodies. This would be an area where it would be useful for the qualifications and experience of individuals appointed to certain offices to be exposed and perhaps challenged and questioned by members of the Assembly. Therefore, I have no particular problems with Amendment No. 5; my only question is whether it is really necessary, given the power at Clause 4(1)(5) enabling the Secretary of State to extend the section by specifying further offices. It is really a question of whether that should be done by extending the list at this stage or whether the Secretary of State should be given that option at a later stage. Certainly, the principle of enabling the Assembly to question potential appointees is valuable. I do not want to start another debate about the American experience. However, without ever getting to a point similar to where Congress votes on some presidential nominees, some nominees may decide that they are perhaps not as suited as they perhaps thought they were for the offices concerned and decide to withdraw. I suspect that we might see that process without ever getting to the stage where the Assembly had to take a view on some of the individuals concerned.