Lord Jamieson (Con)

My Lords, I too declare my interest as a councillor in central Bedfordshire. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for bringing back this amendment. In Committee, we discussed how much of this Bill, despite its title, centralises rather than devolves. This amendment would enable a strategic authority to devolve a competency or function to a more local level. As other noble Lords have pointed out, strategic authorities cover large geographical areas, whereas parish and town councils have long been promoted in this House as vehicles for genuine localism and community empowerment. It is why, elsewhere in the Bill, we have our own amendments to support the role of town and parish councils. We support devolution. However, this amendment is not simply an amendment to devolve community empowerment. That is the first subsection in the amendment. There are further eight subsections, and we have some reservations on the details and complexities in these additional subsections. Delegating competencies or functions must be accompanied by clear assessments of capacity, resource and capability. It must avoid additional bureaucracy, and duties imposed must be practical in their implementation. That said, I thank the noble Lord for his efforts and for the spirit of this amendment, which we agree with. I hope the Government will give serious consideration to how powers can be genuinely devolved to local levels to support town and parish councils, and how local authorities can be enabled to exercise them effectively.