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Local Transport Bill [HL]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment No. 163B. I welcome the moves that the Government have taken to clarify local authority rights to determine the powers that are available to any non-elected members that are co-opted on to the new integrated transport authorities following local reviews. That is a change since the Bill left this House. It is absolutely right that the power should lie with the reformed ITAs to determine whether non-elected members have a voting role to play on their ITAs and what that role should be. However, there is a possibility that the powers given to the reformed integrated transport authorities under the Commons amendments before us today could, in certain limited circumstances, be abused. This issue was discussed at some length in the other place, but I am not sure that the significance of the arguments was fully taken on board. I tabled my amendment because I believe that only those integrated transport authority members elected by their constituent councils can properly decide what the powers of non-elected members should be. This is in contrast with the Commons amendment, which requires that the voting members of an integrated transport authority are those that should determine the rights of non-elected members. If a political group came to the conclusion that it was likely to lose power on an integrated transport authority, it might be tempted ahead of an election to ensure that it had politically sympathetic non-elected members in place and then to confer full voting rights on those non-elected members to keep it in power after the election, given that the number of non-elected members can be just below 50 per cent of the ITA membership. The voting rights conferred could include the right to determine future voting rights of those same non-elected members. That would surely be a negation of local democracy. The purpose of this amendment is to prevent that from happening by ensuring that the members appointed by the constituent councils could determine at any time the voting rights of the non-elected members. If the Minister cannot accept the amendment, I hope that he will be able to give a clear assurance that he will use secondary legislation to prevent the rights of non-elected members from being carried forward from one municipal year to the next, so that elected members have the ability to review voting rights on an annual basis and, in that way, to ensure that local democracy is protected.