Member

This is there simply to position the Government to confirm that they understand what devolution actually is. As I said right at the beginning, in my view this Bill is a staging post. I would like to have direct elections to strategic authorities, but I am the first to admit that that is very difficult to deliver because the systems do not exist for that to become a possibility. But, in time, that should be the objective; otherwise, there is a huge danger that we are not defining the powers and responsibilities of local government on the one hand and of mayors and strategic authorities on the other, which will become a source of conflict. I just hope that here in Committee the Government will be sufficiently open to discussions on this matter, which will assist the delivery of a more powerful form of devolution than is currently within the Bill.