Member

I take the noble Lord’s point about the, to some extent, financial nature of those criteria. However, our experience is that the inspection regimes will cover a wide variety of things, including many other services and so on, so I think that that framework is enough as regards whether we decide that an authority is ready to be an established mayoral strategic authority. I hope that those criteria demonstrate to the noble Lord how seriously the Government take these matters and I therefore ask that the amendment be withdrawn.