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Greater London Authority Bill

My Lords, I am not sure whether that was a rhetorical question or one that I now feel moved to answer. I do not want to encourage the dialogue here, but why is that particularly and peculiarly the case for the fire authority and not, for instance, the police authority? Why would we not extend this to every council in the land? Because it is against the democratic principles on which we run our public bodies. We elect people to run them. We do not appoint them because of any particular experience or accident of birth, and so on. It is a retrograde step.