Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

This is a fairly simple matter. I shall speak also to Amendment 194Q, which is in the same group. These amendments concern the names of the economic prosperity boards and the combined authorities. The combination of the two is bizarre. The Government propose to set up what they say will be the saviour of city regions or other areas called economic prosperity boards and they will then give the opportunity for economic prosperity boards to amalgamate with integrated transport authorities. Then the super-economic prosperity boards can be called combined authorities. I am conscious that I am trying to help the Government to give them more sensible names and not be quite so silly, which I do not really want to do with these bodies, because I would rather that they just disappeared altogether. Names matter. ““Economic prosperity board”” is a silly name because it risks being rubbished in a big way fairly soon after it is set up when it does not produce economic prosperity overnight, or even over five or 10 years. We should not name a body such as this by our hoped-for outcome; we should name it by its function. I therefore suggest ““economic regeneration board””, which is what it is. ““Combined authority”” is just a daft name, for which I suggest ““economic and transport board””. If the Government cannot think of a better name than ““combined authority””, I can just imagine trying to explain it to everyone in Greater Manchester, if they get one of these things, with its name, ““Greater Manchester Combined Authority””, up in lights on its building. On the other hand, it may invent a modern, trendy name and call itself, for example, ““Come and Go””. I remember the bus company in Manchester calling itself SELNEC. Nobody knew what SELNEC was, but because it was on all buses, people knew that it was the name of the bus company. A combined authority will not have buses running everywhere—or perhaps it will. Who knows? Perhaps it will go back to SELNEC. But they are silly names. I beg to move.