Greater London Authority Bill

My Lords, I shall pick up points that were made in Grand Committee on the same amendment. Would the noble Lord consider it appropriate to view the strategy, as it is described in the amendment, as a statement of good practice? Might not different strategies or different consultation processes be appropriate for different situations? We spent some time in Grand Committee considering what was meant by consultation, and all noble Lords who spoke were concerned to distinguish between a consultation that was for information, a consultation that might be a referendum—although this country does not go in for referendums much—and a consultation that is genuinely asking, ““I have some ideas. You tell me how you respond, and I will go away and think about them””. No doubt there are grades in between. When the noble Baroness replies, I will be interested to know whether she thinks that it should be a single strategy or a menu of good practice. I make that point because we already may be in danger of doing what some of us have told ourselves out loud that we must not do during this Bill; that is, to personalise the office of Mayor to the current office-holder. Whatever our individual views about the decisions and actions of the current office-holder, we need to stand back. As one who has criticised the Mayor on his consultation, I will be the first to offer that point. Perhaps I may also respond to what I think was possibly a nudge from the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, when he spoke to the previous amendment. He may have felt that I was simply representing the Assembly. I have declared my interest as chair of the Assembly and as a joint president of London Councils. One might say that my heart is still very much in a local base, having spent a long time as a local councillor. I shall do my best to make it clear to your Lordships when I am speaking on behalf of the Assembly. At this stage, noble Lords may assume that unless I say otherwise I am certainly speaking on behalf of these Benches. We are at a political point in the proceedings.