English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2026 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

50A: Clause 9, page 11, line 4, leave out “not more than 7”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would remove the statutory cap on the number of commissioners that may be appointed by a mayoral authority.

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[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, this group has a number of amendments in my name: Amendments 50A and 51B; Amendment 53A to Schedule 3; and Amendment 196A. There are two separate issues involved in these amendments; I will speak first to those that relate to the restrictions on the number and roles of commissioners.

Last week, we had a really useful debate on the areas of competence. In a sense, this debate shadows that because the commissioners are supposed to shadow the areas of competence. Those of us who were thinking about other areas of competence—in particular, the arts, culture and so on—were looking for some flexibility. These amendments seek similar flexibility in the related roles of commissioners.

New Section 29A, to be inserted by Clause 9, says that mayors may appoint up to seven people and that their functions align with the competence areas. This is potentially an unnecessary example of central control. I would argue that mayors should be free to appoint people to roles determined by them. Why do I think this? Because every area is very different and every area will have different priorities.

Broadly speaking, the areas of competence are wide-ranging. We were arguing that the arts and culture should be an additional area, but they could be within one of the areas of competence; this may mean that a mayor will wish to appoint an additional commissioner. I use this as an example because it is what we were debating last week. This issue is important because you need to bring in the right people for the right jobs, covering those areas of competence and where mayors will make a particular and special emphasis.

It also makes the devolution framework very rigid for the future, which is bad for two reasons. First, it would require primary legislation to enable a change in responsibilities and job titles, or to add more commissioners. Over time, I suspect there will be new priorities in different areas. Secondly, the restrictions would also prevent mayors appointing people to roles which they might want to fill, inhibiting the innovation we want to see from the devolution model—which, in general terms, I think we all applaud. For example, some already appoint active travel commissioners, who would either be out of scope in terms of the legislation or be prevented from continuing in their roles. The amendment, therefore, deals with this by getting rid of the restrictions.

Fewer restrictions would allow mayors to make commissioner appointments to different roles, depending on the needs of their own area, region, county or counties. For example, instead of a single transport and local infrastructure commissioner, we could see some areas appointing a bus commissioner or an active travel commissioner under these provisions; such appointments would still be subject to other scrutiny provisions on commissions contained in Schedule 3 to the Bill.

Overall, this change would create the right kind of flexibility in the mayoral model, while keeping mayors responsible for keeping a lid on costs through transparency and scrutiny. I anticipate that the Minister will argue that we have to have restraints on costs, and I do not disagree with that.

My second area of interest in this group is the restrictions on mayoral political advisers; Amendment 196A deals with that issue and argues for mayoral special advisers. Currently, the central government model of transparency and flexibility on special adviser appointments has, I think we could fairly argue, been a success in balancing value for money for the taxpayer with the ability of Ministers to bring in the right level of expertise.

I recently read a really interesting book called Every Journey Matters, which looks at the history of the first 25 years of Transport for London. The thing that emerges very strongly from that account of TfL’s first 25 years is the quality of advice that TfL was able to tap about commissioners, support staff and, effectively, special advisers—though I do not think they were called that back in the day. All the mayors have drawn on that and, I think, benefitted from it. One could fairly argue that TfL is one of the most successful metropolitan transportation networks and systems in the world, and the quality of advice has made that difference.

Therefore, the model from the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 should be applied to mayors, given their increasingly broad role and responsibility. There are three issues relating to the current system of appointments of political advisers by mayors. First, mayors are able to appoint political advisers only if it is covered in the relevant secondary legislation; in other words, they are governed by secondary legislation. Most mayors are allowed only one political adviser under relevant statutory instruments, which also cap the pay at the level of local government political assistance, which is something like £45,000. This opens the potential for differences which are unfair and need to be standardised. Secondly, there are no requirements for transparency on mayoral political adviser appointments or pay, unlike for government special advisers under the 2010 Act. Thirdly, there is no code of conduct for mayoral advisers, unlike for government special advisers, though the code of conduct is not required under primary legislation.

The amendment applies the central government model of special advisers to mayors; it would deal with these issues by allowing mayors to appoint mayoral special advisers, subject to an annual transparency requirement, and by their being paid in line with the relevant commissioner allowances, which the Bill already specifies should be determined by remuneration committees. It also moves away from the political adviser designation, so that mayors may be able to appoint special advisers to fulfil a variety of roles, just as Ministers are able to. Mayors can then bring in the people they need as they wish, subject to local oversight on pay and public scrutiny of the total cost, as we do with national government.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I did confirm that the commissioners will be subject to the Nolan principles. I will go back over Hansard—I always do after these debates—and if I have missed anything, I will certainly write to the noble Lord.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an absolutely fascinating debate. It has made me think a lot about the history of local government and how it has changed over 150 or 160 years. There was a time when we had aldermen, but they were abolished. We have had two-tier government, county boroughs and so on, but things have changed there too. The introduction of commissioners is a very progressive move, so I cannot agree with the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Jamieson, on that point. I can see that the accountability framework for commissioners is very important; they will have a powerful job.

If we think about it, some of those combined mayoral authorities will cover large geographical areas. My own likely combined mayoral authority involves East and West Sussex, which is about 100 miles from one end to the other and about 50 miles wide—and East Anglia covers a similarly large geographical area. It is right that we have these commissioners appointed and can hold them to account, because they will have a very important job to do. That is one reason why I thought that introducing some flexibility in terms of the patch or territory they cover, or the policies, was so important. However, I have heard what the Minister has said about that, and I hope we can reflect on some of those issues before Report.

On the points I made about political advisers and special advisers, I simply say this: again, it relates to the size of the task in front of mayors and commissioners. The salary is some £45,000 a year, which is generous but not pitched at a level one would necessarily expect to attract the very best. We need to have good quality political advisers involved in these strategic mayoral authorities. In my time as a local government leader, I did not see fit to have a political adviser—I got more than enough political advice from the Labour group, daily, and sometimes beyond that. But political advisers and special advisers are of immense value. When I first became a Minister back in 1999, what the civil servants used to say to me that was of value was that they had access to a special adviser who understood the thinking of the Secretary of State and their Ministers. That is really important, and that is why I thought it worth having a discussion about introducing special advisers into these very large strategic mayoral authorities. However, I have heard what the Minister said about that, and I shall reflect on it some more. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 50A withdrawn.

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As has been said—I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, who said it—accountability is absolutely essential in a devolved system. It is critical if the system is to work effectively. I believe that committees such as this could provide that accountability; I do not believe that, at the moment, we have sufficiently transparent, strong and comprehensible accountability built into the Bill as drafted.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I rather suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, and I are fishing in a similar pool here. My Amendment 196B is all about local accounting officers and is designed to help to improve the level of scrutiny and accountability for each mayoral strategic authority.

The system of departmental accounting officers and their requirement to appear before the Public Accounts Committee is often used to justify value for money—an issue that could prevent proper devolution—but this is because accounting officers are technically meant to be able to justify all spending even if, in reality, the decision to devolve to a different authority has been made. With the development of the new combined mayoral authority model, we need to learn from those models being used by the devolved Administrations where accounting officers’ responsibilities have been given to the relevant bodies.

This amendment would look to devolve AO responsibilities to new local accounting officers, who would be local and accountable to the relevant authority’s scrutiny bodies for any spending by an established mayoral strategic authority. This is loosely based on the relevant legislation for Welsh accounting officers. The relevant body here might include a local public accounts committee; the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, made the case for that.

This amendment is designed to be helpful. The Minister may say that it is unnecessary but, in my view, it would be a genuine move towards devolved accountability—in terms of models of funding and allowing places to innovate while retaining an appropriate level of scrutiny. With the development of devolved mayoral combined authorities, we need an extra layer of accountability that looks at the way in which public money is spent. For too long, local government has been burdened with more responsibility, less funding and fewer opportunities to innovate and develop; at the same time, to my way of looking at things, local authority accounting practices have not really moved on from where they were in the 1990s. This amendment is an attempt to be helpful, very much in the spirit in which the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, spoke to his amendment.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I will make a brief comment on Amendment 196B, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, which is worth discussing further, especially given how it fits with Amendment 191 from the Lord, Lord Bichard, which I strongly support.

The question I asked myself, perhaps trying to anticipate the Minister’s response, was: would it duplicate existing audit and scrutiny arrangements? I came to the conclusion that I do not believe that it would. Audit answers the questions of whether the accounts were properly kept and whether the acceptable processes and procedures were legally carried out. But this amendment addresses a different and much more important question: is public money being spent effectively across the whole system? Audit is retrospective, siloed and looks at individual organisations after the event. Local public accounts committees, as proposed in this amendment, would look across organisations in real time. They would look at how councils, mayors and public service partners are actually working together—they are not the same things.

The Bill deliberately—and correctly, in my view—will push power and spending into shared collaborative arrangements, but our scrutiny remains fragmented, organisation by organisation. This mismatch is the gap that Amendment 191 would fill. Without it, no one body would be clearly responsible for asking very basic questions such as: is it the case that joint working is working? Is it delivering value? Are overlapping budgets aligned with agreed priorities? Are partnerships working as intended? Audit does not do that—and scrutiny committees, as currently structured, will struggle to do that.

In contrast, this amendment would enable that. It is not more bureaucracy; it is better oversight. It is not another unnecessary new layer. The amendment is enabling, not prescriptive, and it allows Ministers to integrate these committees within existing audit and scrutiny frameworks. It provides coherence and not clutter, and in fact good system-level scrutiny actually reduces duplication by exposing it.

My main reason for supporting the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, is that devolution without strong, visible accountability risks undermining public confidence. If power and money are exercised at a mayoral strategic level, scrutiny must exist at that same level. Otherwise, we are asking people to trust structures they cannot see being properly examined.

In conclusion, Amendment 191 strengthens the Bill by aligning power, spending and accountability. It complements audit and scrutiny; it does not replace them. In fact, the financial cost of not having effective system-wide scrutiny could lead to duplicated programmes, misaligned budgets and failed collaboration, which will almost certainly cost a lot more than the modest investment required to make this work well. For these reasons, I hope that the Minister will give both ideas serious consideration.