Greater London Authority Bill

moved Amendment No. 116: 116: Clause 49, page 49, line 16, at end insert— ““(8) Any constituent body proposing to enter into any arrangements under subsection (2) above shall have regard to the needs and requirements of any constituent body with which it proposes to enter into such an agreement. (9) In making any arrangements under subsection (2) above, the Mayor shall ensure that the Authority secures adequate resources from the constituent body proposing to enter into any agreements under subsection (2) above to fulfil its functions. (10) For the purposes of subsections (8) and (9) above, the Mayor and the Assembly shall be treated as if they were constituent bodies separate and distinct within the Authority.””.”” The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 116 is grouped with government Amendment No. 116A, although the connection between them is merely that they relate to the same clause rather than have the same content. Clause 49 is about the provision of administrative, professional and technical services—the back-office services, as they are sometimes called, which is slightly derogatory, given that legal services, human resources, finance and so on are all extremely important, and are what the clause is about. My colleague on the Assembly paid tribute in the Commons to Anne McMeel, the GLA’s Executive Director of Finance and Performance, for the work that she and others are doing to bring these services together to achieve efficiencies. As she has since decided to move on from the Greater London Authority, I shall quite shamelessly use this opportunity to put into Hansard my recognition, and that of the Assembly, of the absolutely outstanding work that she has done. The Metropolitan Police Service, to which she is moving, had better look out. The amendment was moved in the Commons, and is intended to ensure that all parties are properly treated. I move it today to seek a comment from the Government on the position of the Assembly vis-à-vis the rest of the Greater London Authority. The answer from the Minister in the Commons, who gave assurances that every constituent body would be quite okay about this, did not seem to take on board the part of the amendment that says that the Mayor and the Assembly should be treated as if they were separate constituent bodies. The Minister there said that the Mayor would, "““consult the assembly before entering into any arrangement for the GLA to delegate or take on functional bodies’ back-office functions. The assembly will also be free to agree protocols””.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/1/07; col. 295.]" That may well be so, but it does not meet the point that the Assembly itself, as distinct from the Mayor, needs to have its access to shared services protected. That is the narrow point on which I move the amendment; there should be a specific requirement that the Mayor, as a constituent body, ensures that the Assembly, as a constituent body, is provided with adequate access to, and support from, shared services within the GLA group. I beg to move.