UK Parliament / Open data

Transport for London Bill [Lords]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Requiring the Secretary of State to go through a process of producing risk assessments and so on is clearly extremely burdensome. It is quite clear that TfL will have to carry out those functions itself in order to justify what it is seeking to do.

Amendments 7 and 8, which the hon. Gentleman pressed in particular, are new and were not considered on 16 March 2015. The clear issue here is that exercising powers under clause 4 is subject to the consent of the Mayor, when he is granting security on borrowing or acquiring companies, and the consent of the Secretary of State, in respect of core assets and revenue. I could go into a long and detailed explanation of why that would be unnecessary. The point is that these amendments would create legal uncertainty over the whole question of what the requirements would be. They would also create uncertainty about TfL and its subsidiaries exercising the necessary flexibility around assets and revenue streams.

Since the Bill was deposited—this is a very important aspect—the operational funding from central Government has been reduced, as has been said during the debates. It will now be removed entirely, but much earlier than anticipated. The Bill, including clause 4, will assist TfL in its efforts to achieve further savings and efficiencies, while at the same time upgrading transport networks, which, I remind the House, support new jobs, new homes and economic growth in London and right across the UK. I therefore hope that the hon. Gentleman will not press those amendments to a vote, because they are completely unnecessary, would create tremendous uncertainty and, indeed, would impact on TfL’s ability to generate the sorts of savings and to create the types of work that we all want to see.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

608 c312 

Session

2015-16

Chamber / Committee

House of Commons chamber
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