Lord Lansley (Con)

I have four amendments in this group: Amendments 26, 64, 304 and 333. They are all on the same point, which is that, in the Bill, the definition of a “relevant local government body” is expressed as mayoral combined authorities, mayoral combined county authorities and passenger transport executives. Those first two—mayoral combined authorities and mayoral county combined authorities—are, I think, based on the proposition from some months back that, over time, all the strategic authorities would move towards being mayoral strategic authorities. Since the original drafting of this legislation, we have completed the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act. Those of us who worked on that legislation will recall that Section 1 defines strategic authorities, and it does not do so by reference to whether or not they have a mayor; they are, basically, single-foundation strategic authorities, combined-foundation strategic authorities or county combined strategic authorities. It seems to me that, for the purposes of this legislation, the relevant local government bodies with which Great British Railways, in particular, and the Secretary of State should work would be all the strategic authorities. Why would we exclude those that do not have mayors? I say this because, whether it takes a year or two—or three or four—there will be some strategic authorities that may not have a mayor for a very long time. I do not say this because I want them not to have mayors; I am in favour of them having mayors. It is just that we are quite a long way from that happening. From my quick survey, looking across England, we probably have two long-term single-foundation strategic authorities: Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire. By my reckoning, at the moment, we have at least four, perhaps five, combined county authorities—Lancashire, Cornwall, Surrey, Devon and Torbay, and Norfolk and Suffolk—with no intention of having mayors. Interestingly, that includes Cornwall. The Minister will remember that, last week, when the Prime Minister was answering questions in the other place for a very long time, he referenced devolution in Cornwall and said “with or without a mayor”. Therefore, we are in a very simple position: we want devolution. We want GBR to have regard to the transport plans of strategic authorities. We want GBR to consult with strategic authorities, with the responsibilities that they have. We want statutory information sharing between GBR and strategic authorities. If we put “mayoral” in this legislation, we will restrict the availability of all the statutory consultation, information-sharing and advisory relationships between GBR and non-mayoral strategic authorities. I am sure that that is not anybody’s intention. The simplest thing to do would be to reference the definition of strategic authorities in Section 1 of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act; that would be altogether simpler and better in the long run.