Member

The Bill envisages a structure for local and regional government outside London, in which a mayor collaborates with the boroughs that constitute the authority, and of which the mayor is the head. It is the boroughs—not a different, chosen assembly, but the boroughs—that must collaborate with him. In the London structure, there is collaboration at a practical level between the boroughs and the mayor, between the boroughs and TfL and between the boroughs and the Metropolitan Police. That is true at a practical level, but at a formal, decision-making level there is no role of collaboration for the boroughs in London, however many there might be. I am speaking of a matter of principle.