Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-13
Topic: Government Operations
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): Amendment 5 sets a default term of office for an elected mayor of a combined authority area and a default date of the election for the return of an elected mayor for a combined authority area. Amendment 8 is a minor and technical amendment As the Bill currently stands, the term of office and the date of election are set by order by the Secretary of State. Following the comments of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and an amendment brought forward by the noble Lords, Lord McKenzie and Lord Beecham, in Committee, we wish to include default provisions in the Bill to apply in cases where specific orders are not made The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee suggested that the Bill’s order-making powers should be limited to specifying the timing and frequency of metro mayor elections only at the initial establishment of the office of mayor. We do not believe it right to limit the order-making power in this way, as I shall explain, but to provide some assurance that with Amendment 5 we are following the precedent in the Local Government Act 2000, which was referred to by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. It provides in the Bill default timings of mayoral elections and the mayoral term. Equally, to retain the flexibility needed, the Secretary of State will be able to make specific orders under paragraphs 2(a) and 2(c) of new Schedule 5B to the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. The amendments providing for the default position in no way curtail the scope of the order-making powers in Schedule 5B The ability for the Secretary of State to set the timings of elections by order allows for the fact that there is currently no single pattern of local elections across the country with which a new mayoral election may be synchronised. It also recognises that devolution deals will be bespoke, and therefore it is possible that different arrangements may be sought by, and agreed with, different areas. For example, an area may wish its mayoral election to be held in a year when there are no council elections, but another area may wish to combine mayoral and council elections. Again, for example, while we expect that probably most deals with metro mayors will have mayoral terms of four years, it is possible that an area may wish to have, say, five-year terms similar to the parliamentary term Returning to the default position that we are providing, it reflects that in general a mayoral term will be four years and the election will take place at the same time as council elections in the combined authority area. Hence, under the default provisions, the first election of the mayor will take place at the next local council elections not less than six months after the order creating the mayoral combined authority comes into force, and elections will be every four years thereafter Amendment 8 is a minor and technical amendment to ensure that the provision in the Bill applies equally to the disqualification of an individual in respect of their being, or being elected as, a mayor, as well as more specifically in relation to their being, or being elected as, the mayor for that area.