Miatta Fahnbulleh

I will make progress. The hon. Member for Guildford pushed back on commissioners, and I disagree with her amendments. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) that mayors need to be able to bring in additional expertise to do the very hard job that we and their voters ask them to do. Commissioners will be appointed by and accountable to mayors, and they will be subject to scrutiny. They are there to bolster the capacity and expertise of the mayor. All we are doing through the Bill is allowing the flexibility for the mayor to build the right team with the right skills and expertise in order to deliver the priorities for local people. Let me turn to the strong advocacy by my hon. Friends the Members for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) and for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales) for the tourism levy. Our mayors are advocating strongly for this measure. They have made an impassioned and effective case, but as I said in my opening remarks, I will not pre-empt the Chancellor. Tax decisions are for the Chancellor, and we will have a Budget in 48 hours. Let me pick up on the issue of CIL, which my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green and other Members spoke very powerfully about. We recognise that there is an issue here, one that needs to be addressed. We are committed to finding a solution; we will move quickly to do so, and we will set it out in due course. A number of Members also raised the question of the GLA powers, and I reassure my hon. Friend that the GLA already has an explicit power to acquire land for housing and regeneration. Existing safeguards remain in place, and the Bill does not change the current framework.