Greater London Authority Bill

moved Amendment No. 25: The noble Baroness said: I shall speak also to Amendment No. 26 and to Clause 8. This need not detain us for as long and I hope it will give the Minister an opportunity to explain the need for the clause, which concerns the mechanisms for the appointment of the head of paid service. If I were a conspiracy theorist, which I am not, I could construct a scenario in which the Mayor might use a veto over the appointment of a particular candidate and by those means eventually get a head of paid service who would either do the Mayor’s bidding or not be very strong. It is therefore appropriate to ask the Minister to justify the clause. In particular, I refer to the issue of delegation which the head of paid service can undertake. Amendment No. 26 would provide for the unanimous view of the Assembly. The Committee will not need to be reminded that a number of the Assembly are of the Mayor’s party. None could be described as biddable, but they would tend to support the Mayor as a sort of default mode. They are also responsible for the role of the Assembly and, along with all other Assembly Members, they agree that if the head of paid service is given these new powers, he should exercise them personally and not be able to delegate the power to create or delete posts from the establishment. I beg to move.