Yesterday’s debate on the Greater London Authority Bill highlighted the biggest failings of our Parliamentary process – the lack of any need of relevant experience to lead on a subject for any of the parties.
Both the main opposition parties have an MP with direct experience of the London Assembly (Lynne Featherstone and Bob Neill) yet neither used that expertise to its best by allowing them to lead on the topic.
This is an absurd situation. Just because someone shadows a Government department it doesn’t make them the most qualified person to speak on every area of their brief. This was certainly true yesterday of Tom Brake (LibDem) and Jacqui Lait (Conservative).
As we commented during the blogging of part of the debate MPs on both sides of the house continually referred to the non-existent ‘Greater London Assembly’ demonstrating a paucity of knowledge or understanding of the body their were debating.
Against that background one would have hoped that Lynne Featherstone and Bob Neill would have been allowed to showcase their direct experience of the Assembly.
The debate would have been greatly improved and the bill better scrutinised.
