Greater London Authority Bill

My Lords, I support the amendment. Before the Government had even announced their intention to review the powers of the GLA, the London Assembly and the Association of London Government, which is now London Councils, jointly set up a commission on London governance. I was one of the members of that commission. We examined a wide range of issues that related not only to the GLA but to London governance, and included the functional bodies and Transport for London. The commission comprised all five parties represented on the London Assembly and the three parties on the ALG. It did not specifically include the City of London. It was the unanimous view of the five parties on the Assembly and the three parties on the ALG that, in terms of its governance structure, the fire authority worked best. In terms of governance, Transport for London, by a wide margin, worked least well—in fact, it was bad. That unanimous view was shared by the Labour Party, the boroughs, the Assembly and all of us. Long before the Bill was published, we came to the view that the governance of Transport for London should be based on the same model as that of the fire authority. I suspect, word for word, that is exactly what is proposed in this amendment. It is important. I speak more as a London borough councillor for many years than as an Assembly Member and I speak from almost daily experience. Of all the functional bodies and all that the GLA does, Transport for London, more particularly in its street management role, probably has the biggest impact—sometimes for good, but often not so good—on the London boroughs. At the moment, the Metropolitan Police Authority does not have such responsibility. But TfL is the body on which the boroughs should be represented. Therefore, based on the experience of a fire authority—on which we may say more later—that has worked well in its governance arrangements for seven years, it was the accepted view across the Assembly, the London boroughs and all parties, that, if we are going to change, this model should be adopted to make it more open, more transparent, more democratic and more accountable. It gives me great pleasure to support this amendment in the rather faint hope that the Government may see the light and use the opportunity of this amending Bill to improve on what they did in the original Act.