I thank the Minister for his response and I thank noble Lords around the Chamber for their support, particularly that of the noble Lords, Lord True and Lord Horam, which I welcome. The noble Lord, Lord True, has done half of my summing up of the debate for me which I would otherwise have done. I want to look carefully at the Hansard report of this debate because I am still not clear about what is so special about mayors. I was really hoping that the Minister would explain what is so unique about that particular model. My noble friend Lord Woolmer made the point that you could have two adjoining authorities with the same geography, the same population and income, but one of them would have a fast track to automatic franchising purely because of the fact that it has a mayoral system rather than another one while the other would have to go through a very convoluted process.
I do not understand what it is about the mayoral model that is so important. It is not just about the geography and economics or even the strategic role, as the Minister has suggested; there is something much more singular about a particular local government structure. The fact is that we trust local authorities with making very serious decisions already. We entrust social services issues to them where they make life-or-death decisions about child protection. We trust them to take serious decisions in the commissioning of all sorts of services. It is not as if they do not already commission services and of course they have the expertise to do so. Running a bus service does not require particularly special skills which authorities do not already have. Some might not choose a franchising model, which is perfectly understandable, while others may want to have it. I do not quite understand what is so special about having a mayor in charge that would qualify them in this way.