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Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley): Does my hon. Friend agree that more concerns emerged on Second Reading? The Government say that they want a mayor for London with power and strength, but during the debate the Minister said that they also want a London authority that will shackle him and tie him down. That tiny glimpse is one reason Londoners need to understand the details.
Mr. Ottaway: My hon. Friend is right. One of the interesting features of the Second Reading debate is that more speeches were made against the detail of the proposals than for them. That is why we should have the last word in detail before Londoners go to the referendum.
The Minister for London and Construction (Mr. Nick Raynsford): What was the Second Reading majority?
Mr. Ottaway: Why are the Government asking Londoners to decide on something that the Government have not been able to decide on? Why are they asking the views of Londoners when they have only a hazy view themselves? Why are they putting the option of reform to Londoners when they do not know the details themselves? So far, the details are wrapped up in a 61-question consultation document.
The Government are saying, "We want you to say yes, but we do not quite know what the question is. We want you to say yes, but we do not yet know what we want you to say yes to." It sounds like the new Labour version of "Blind Date": "My girl friend has agreed to marry me, but I do not know who she is yet. All the Government say I should do is cross my fingers and hope for the best." Londoners are being asked to express their views before the Bill setting up the Greater London authority has been published. They will have to make up their minds before the Bill has been debated and examined in this place or anywhere else around the capital.
Once upon a time, the Labour party contended that pre-legislative referendums, such as that proposed for London, were the wrong way to proceed. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) reminded the House last week that the Secretary of State for Wales once said that the trouble with pre-legislative referendums was that there were so many questions that could not be answered. He was right, and boyo he should know.
Without the legislation having passed through its parliamentary stages, no one can know exactly what the Government have in store for London. No one can know what plans they have for the capital's future. No one can know what the Government are up to. How can the public know what they are supposed to be deciding on? How can people be sure that the details of the Government's proposals are right for them and for London? How can they be sure that they are not being deceived? The position is very unsatisfactory. It reflects poorly on a Government that came to office on a platform of openness and freedom of information and on their confidence in Londoners to take decisions for themselves. Above all, it reflects poorly on the Government's idea of what they think democracy for London is all about.
Within 200 days, the public will be asked what they think of the idea of a directly elected mayor and assembly.
Mr. John Wilkinson (Ruislip-Northwood):
Things are not even as clear as that--the schedule refers only to an elected mayor, which is why we have tabled an amendment. This is the most fraudulent blank cheque proposed in recent times by any legislature for municipal politics.
Mr. Ottaway:
My hon. Friend is right. The Bill refers to a
How can the public know what they are supposed to be deciding? How can they be sure that the details of the Government's proposals will be right for them and for London? It is all a poor reflection on a Government who came to office on a platform of openness and freedom of information.
Within 200 days, the public are going to be asked what they think of the idea of a directly elected mayor and assembly, yet they will have little idea of what powers either will have, once those powers are laid down by Parliament--the only body that can decide on them. With the referendum only a few months away, we have still not even seen the White Paper.
On Second Reading, the Minister gave a commitment to publish one in the spring. The Oxford Dictionary says that spring is from 20 March to 21 June: I hope that today the Minister will be a little more precise. At the moment we have only a Green Paper containing a few principles and a series of questions, each one of which is linked to others. How can anyone be expected to form a viewon a set of principles? However undemocratic and extraordinary that may seem to us and to voters across the city, that is exactly what the Government are asking Londoners to do.
On Second Reading, the Minister said that he had received some 1,200 responses in the Department during the consultation period that ended last month--hardly a ringing endorsement of the proposals, hardly a mandate from the people of London with which to launch such a major reform. The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) said that his constituency alone had produced 6,000 responses. My party has received many more--
Mr. Ottaway:
Well, if we can get more than 6,000, I should have thought the Minister can, too.
What details does the Green Paper give away? The Greater London authority will be inclusive, small, effective, influential, audible, strategic, democratic, efficient and consensual. That sounds to me suspiciously like the noble aims that led to the old GLC. What Londoners want to know and have the right to know is the devil in the detail. The Government are asking them to say yes in a referendum based on principle alone.
A range of issues need to be faced up to in clear and precise terms, but the legislation will not be available by the date of the referendum to tell us what those details are. The Committee deserves better; so do the people of London; so does everyone with an interest in London's future, from the City to the boroughs to the man on the Clapham omnibus.
The Government have given away no details of the timetable for the advice that they want on the electoral arrangements for Greater London--matters covered by clause 8. It is all very well saying that the Secretary of State has powers to set a timetable to require the Local Government Commission for England to provide its report
on the arrangements, but there is no mention of the precise timetable that the Secretary of State intends to follow. Why not? When does the Secretary of State intend to act? When does the Minister expect the final report to be issued? What about the interim report? The Bill does not say, the Minister does not say, and nobody knows the answer.
Does not the Minister think that Londoners should know about something so important now? Who has a vote--and where--is fundamental to the shape, the impact and the consequences that the Government's reforms will have. Nor will the Government let on anything about the method of election that will be used to elect the assembly. Will the details be in the White Paper? If we do not have the electoral report there could be some difficulty here. The Government have not said whether there will be multi-seat constituencies, single-seat constituencies or even a single Londonwide constituency. The only way to resolve these matters is to publish the Bill before the referendum.
Why is the Minister asking Londoners to express a view before he does?
Then there is the cost of the proposals. The Government will not say how the GLA will be paid for. Will the detail be in the White Paper? Will there be a levy on the borough councils, or directly on council tax payers; or will fares rise for those who use London's transport system; or will the money come from the uniform business rate? The Minister has not told us because he does not yet know himself.
Then there is the question of elected representatives and the bodies that will report to the GLA. Elected members will be in the majority in the myriad new organisations that will come from it. Will the details of this be in the White Paper or the Bill? What local knowledge and expertise will these representatives be expected to have? Will they simply be the choice of their respective parties? Will they be accountable directly to Londoners or just to the assembly? The Minister has not told us because he does not know yet.
Conservative Members believe that referendums should be held once the electorate have been given the full facts about a proposal, putting them in the best possible position to judge its merits or lack of them--
Mr. Raynsford:
Exactly what we are proposing.
Mr. Ottaway:
I therefore look forward to publication of the Bill and the Minister's acceptance of our amendment. He seems to think that a White Paper can be as detailed as a Bill: it cannot be. That is why we want a separate vote on our amendments. The electorate must be aware of the pros and cons and aware that Parliament has done its job of scrutinising the legislation. Good intentions are not enough: good intentions can change. Good intentions do not necessarily make good law. As the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey said, look at what happened in the Welsh referendum. The relevant legislation might be amended by Parliament when the House eventually has the chance to consider it.
Some minutes ago the Minister, from a sedentary position, urged me to remember the size of the Government's majority on Second Reading, thereby
displaying a degree of arrogance that shows he is not listening to the voters. May I take it that he is not prepared to accept a perfectly good amendment? Is he saying that the White Paper will be the last word? Of course he cannot say that, because the House may quite possibly amend a proposal that appears in the White Paper as the legislation goes through.
Holding a referendum on a loose set of flimsy principles is like asking the people of London to sign a blank cheque. Not even the Minister, I dare say, would consider that sensible--yet it is what he is doing. The Government's approach is profoundly undemocratic. While it is right to consult the electorate on changes of such importance, the fact remains that that should be done when, and only when, all the questions have been answered inside and outside the House; when all the details are known; when the House has discussed the proposals and decided their final form; when the final blueprint is before the people of London.
The Government are saying, "Give me a yes and trust me to sort out the details later." That is precisely whatthe recently elected Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Davies) did when he was leader of Croydon council. I wrote to him asking what the proposed GLA would take away from Croydon council. He wrote back to me in September last year, as the then leader of the council, about his party's plans for a strategic authority:
It sounds rather like a U-turn to me. That does not give me much faith in the Government's ability to stick to a policy and it cannot give the hon. Gentleman much faith in his party's ability to stick to a policy, but then he does not need me to tell him that.
Trust the Government. The electorate will wonder whether to trust them as they did on tuition fees. They will wonder whether they should trust them as they did on tobacco advertising. That is not much of a record to endear the Government's decision-making abilities and political judgments to London's 5 million voters.
I want to know as much as possible about the reforms. I have set out a series of unanswered questions that are likely to remain unanswered before polling day. When will the Government realise that it is not just my hon. Friends and I who want to know, but London's 5 million voters, 32 boroughs, many councillors and the Corporation of London? Other London Members of Parliament and those whose constituencies fall outside the London boundary but whose areas will be covered by bodies under GLA control, such as the proposed police authority, want to know, as do the 10 Members of the European Parliament and the Government office for London. Each and every one deserves to know precisely how the Government's reforms will affect them and how the creation of a London development agency will affect them, politically, financially and strategically.
When will the Government wake up to the fact that their failure to disclose detailed information on reforms before polling day is not something they can so readily ignore in the democratic society I thought we lived in. How can the Government so easily refuse to make available such vital and necessary information when what
they are proposing has such fundamental repercussions for all concerned about London? Why do they have so little regard for democracy in our capital city?
Throughout debates on the Bill, I have been astonished by the Government's lack of confidence in their proposals. Not only do they want to push through the plan for a directly elected assembly, lumped in with a directly elected mayor, but they will not surrender the detail of their reforms. The Bill should be about choice. With the Government's proposals as they stand today, the Bill denies choice. It denies us all, inside and outside the House, the detail that we should have before voting on the Government's reforms for London. Londoners are to be asked to give unconditional support for the Government's reforms. They ask all of us who live in London to sign that blank cheque and forget about what could happen as a result.
"Greater London authority, made up of an elected mayor",
who could be elected by the assembly. It is all very vague, and we hope to put it right later on.
5.15 pm
"Local councils will not be losing powers to this new body".
He trusted his own party when it was in opposition--and now look what has happened: a year later, the Labour party's Green Paper on London government describes 14 diminutions of the boroughs' powers.
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