Greater London Authority Bill

moved Amendment No. 117: 117: After Clause 49, insert the following new Clause— ““Government Office for London The Secretary of State shall by order designate those functions of the Government Office for London which shall be transferred to the Authority.”” The noble Lord said: The amendment flows from the arguments made by myself and my colleagues at Second Reading when we sought to argue that there was no longer any logic to the continued existence of the Government Office for London in its current form and that its functions should be transferred to the authority. The amendment is an attempt to provide a mechanism for doing so. It would allow the Secretary of State, by order, to designate those functions of the government office which should be transferred tothe authority. In that form, it is a modest amendment, not requiring everything to happen overnight, but allowing functions to be transferred over a period. Why? The principle argument is that the Government Office for London is completely unaccountable. In that respect, it is no different from any of the other regional offices across England. The difference is that there is an elected regional body to which it could be accountable. It was interesting to hear about the Museum of London, which is accountable up and down the place. The Government Office for London is, in reality, accountable to no-one. There is a strong logical argument for it to be based in the authority and accountable to the Assembly, so that those working on the functions which the government office currently provides should be required to explain how they perform them. Elected London politicians should be able to effectively scrutinise how functions of the government office, as it now is, are being undertaken. What are those functions? Fortunately, the review which the Government undertook last year clearly sets out the functions of the Government Office for London in the new era. The first objective is to provide, "““high quality regional and local delivery within and between local areas””," across the region. Setting this out in more detail, the Government explain that the role of government officers is being transformed, no less, from the administration of national grants to a more strategic relationship with local areas around overall performance. It seems to us that that is the kind of thing a regional body should be looking at. The second objective is: "““Effective policy design for national programmes maximising impact on PSA delivery””." The Government state: "““In this role GOs””—" government offices— "““will provide performance and policy feedback to departments””." Would it not be sensible if that policy feedback were informed by the views of the authority and the Assembly? The third objective—there are only three—is to provide: "““High impact regional strategies improving regional outcomes””." Again, the document says: "““In this role GOs will support the development of regional strategies””." Where are regional strategies developed? In very large measure, they are developed by the authority and scrutinised by the Assembly. It is therefore logical that the functions of the government office should sit there. What functions are we talking about? There is a whole list of them but, as progressive transfers, three cry out to be moved to the authority straightaway. The first relates to public health. I do not want to repeat our debates at Second Reading and in Committee about the peculiar role of the health adviser and the deputy health adviser, but, given the role of the authority in public health, it is logical that the public health activities of the government office could, and should, easily rest with the authority. The second function relates to the reduction of drug misuse and the goal of working with crime and disorder reduction partnerships, drug action teams and others. Again, this is logical, given the authority’s role and interest in this area. Such a function could be moved very quickly. The third function relates to crime reduction policy. Again, this is logical, given the authority’s role in relation to the Metropolitan Police. There is logic in moving some of these functions from the government office, and there is a democratic deficit to be addressed. We have suggested a modest way of doing this, and we look forward to the Government accepting the logic of this proposal. I beg to move.