Greater London Authority Bill

London First has always supported the strong mayoral model. Anything that seeks to confuse his role as the leader, accountable for his decisions, is a backwards step. In that sense, I entirely support what the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said. However, it is arguable whether this rule that there must be a two-thirds majority of the Assembly on the budget achieves what we seek. We all agree that the Assembly needs to be in a position to carry out effective scrutiny; I am not entirely clear that the rule enables the Assembly to hold the Mayor to account on whether he is spending his money wisely and well, as I would want it to be able to do, but not to decide how he spends his money. For example, he has probably spent too much money on buses, and it would have been good if someone had held him to account for that. The other aspect of the current model that I dislike is that it has the unintended consequence of getting the Mayor to align with minority parties to gethis budget through. That seems an unintended consequence on anybody’s part. The conclusion that I reluctantly draw is that the current situation is the best that we can have, but I am concerned about financial accountability.