My Lords, in broad terms I very strongly support Amendment 37A. I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, talked in terms of the Public Accounts Committee, which is slightly different from a committee that will simply review and scrutinise the authority’s financial affairs. It is actually about the efficient and effective use of public money, and one of the objectives of devolution is to ensure that local areas spend money more appropriately so that the spending is more effective in the outcomes it achieves.
That has to be audited in some way. The only way that that can be done is in something like a public accounts committee for the area of the combined authority. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will look at that suggestion as I think that it would help enormously, first, in ensuring that the Government’s objectives are being delivered but, secondly, in giving the public confidence in the expenditure of the money that they are paying for through taxation.
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I say to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, that it is always very difficult to know who should appoint an independent chair, but I think that I heard him talk about a number of independent members. I would be happier with a situation in which there were a number of independent members of such a committee because I think then you would get a spread of expertise and experience that would enable the public to have confidence in its deliberations.
There are three amendments from these Benches in this group—Amendments 38, 39 and 40. Broadly speaking, they seek to give two powers to the overview and scrutiny committee. The first is the power to delay a decision in order to enable further public consultation to be carried out where the overview and scrutiny committee believes that that is necessary, often because information that is required has not been given to it. Secondly, Amendment 40 gives the overview and scrutiny committee powers to compel other bodies, including the combined authority, to provide information to the committee and to specify what form this information should take.
I am very heartened by the Minister’s response to the last group of amendments because, if the public are to have confidence in the functioning of the combined authorities, which is, in practice, an additional layer of local government, we have to get the overview and scrutiny right. Judging by what the Minister said, I think that is now the Government’s intention, so I hope that between now and Report we can have the necessary discussions to progress on that.