Greater London Authority Bill

moved Amendment No. 2: 2: Clause 2, page 2, line 33, at end insert— ““(2A) After section 42A of the GLA Act 1999 insert— ““42B Consultation strategy The Mayor shall produce and publish a consultation strategy containing information about the procedures in respect of all matters upon which he is required to consult under this Act including— (a) procedure for consultation, (b) persons or bodies to be consulted, (c) arrangements for publicity, (d) arrangements for provision of copies of any strategy and amendments thereto, (e) arrangements for conducting public participation in respect of new strategies or amendment thereto, (f) arrangements to permit reasonable timetable for consultation, (g) arrangements in respect of responses to consultation including provision of written statements.””.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, the amendment would place a duty on the Mayor to publish a consultation strategy that would have a clear and unequivocal indication of his consultation processes. It would ensure that the Mayor was entirely transparent in his execution of the consultation procedure, the bodies that he consulted, the communications that he undertook during the consultation, the timetables that he set for it, and the arrangements that he put in place for responding to it. It would, in effect, provide evidence that the consultation that the Mayor carried out was accountable and subject to scrutiny. In Grand Committee, we rather strayed from the main point of our very useful discussion. However, the noble Lord, Lord Harris, who is not in the Chamber today, summed up rather well the point that we were trying to achieve when he said: "““The whole purpose of electing people to hold office in public life is for them to exercise their judgment and subsequently to be held accountable for that judgment””.—[Official Report, 30/4/07; col. GC 9.]" I suspect that the noble Lord did not realise how close his position was to ours on this amendment. Obviously the amendment is not intended to insist that the Mayor reacts to and accepts everything in the consultation. Far from it; he has to exercise his judgment. Rather, the amendment will ensure that the Mayor is accountable for the way in which he carries out the consultation. This is very important; the Mayor should not be able to claim that significant consultation has been carried out without being able to show how and by what means he has carried it out. The frame of reference should be clearly set out so that it is not possible to conduct a hurried, unpublicised consultation and later claim that there has been some. Government departments regularly carry out consultations and make available on websites and so forth their means of carrying them out. They need not be costly or bureaucratic. The amendment simply calls for the Mayor to have a proper process for consultation. I beg to move.