Localism Bill

My Lords, we have removed—or will remove as we go through, as I understand it—the mayoral arrangements associated with referendum mayors. As the noble Lords will understand, there are two sorts of mayors: mayors who are elected by the local electorate under the Local Government Act and mayors who would have been elected under the new provisions. We have now removed the new provisions on shadow mayors and at the same time taken out the mayoral management associated with that—that is the referendum mayors. However, mayors can still be introduced under the previous legislation. On my understanding—and I will need to be absolutely clear about this—the provisions relating to the mayor and the chief executive can still be carried out because a local authority can elect to do it now anyway. Unless there is disagreement coming from the Box, I will take it that that is what we are talking about now. We swept out so many amendments that, like the noble Lord, I have not had a chance to chase up on those. If that is not the case, I will advise the noble Lord in due course. The noble Lord has asked a number of questions that, under the circumstances, I will be very chary about answering because I think we need to be absolutely clear what bits are in and what bits are out. I think it would be helpful if I came back to those, and I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment for the time being.