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Greater London Authority Bill

As I said earlier, I too am a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority. I should also declare—or, perhaps, admit—that I have chaired its finance committee since the authority was set up. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, referred to the rare occasions when the Mayor is wholly in agreement with a Conservative amendment. This may be one of those almost-as-rare occasions when I am wholly in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Harris. He has made the case against all these amendments very well and described the situation fully and accurately. I will not repeat all that he said; I simply endorse it without reservation. One of my concerns at the suggestion that the London Assembly scrutinise the exercise of the Mayor’s functions as a police authority is that there are only 25 Members of the Assembly compared to the 23 members of the police authority, nearly half of whom are not Assembly Members, and I simply do not believe that Assembly Members could—in terms of time, priority and workload—carry out that function as effectively as the police authority has done in the past seven years. It has not been perfect; we still have a long way to go and much to learn; but we have waited 170 years for London to have its own police authority, as distinct from the Home Secretary. It could work better but it has worked well, and this proposal would be a retrograde step. I also have considerable concern about putting all the executive power for policing in London and beyond, as has rightly been said, in the hands of any one person, whoever that office-holder might be. Primarily for the reasons eloquently expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, Amendment No. 72 fundamentally misunderstands the nature and work of the Metropolitan Police Authority. He explained accurately the extensive process, of which he and I were part, in appointing the current commissioner and deputy commissioner. It was very thorough and lengthy; the only part he did not mention was that we all watched the applicants’ professional media interviews, and scrutiny took place. The Mayor had a say in that; he made his views clear to the Home Secretary. Whether it is necessary to enshrine that in statute I am happy to leave others to judge, but it is entirely right and sensible that the Mayor of London should have a say.