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Mr. Hughes: No one is suggesting a re-created GLC--but I do not accept the point about a lack of interest
anyway. There was plenty of interest in the last general election, just as there would be in a contest between two philosophies of how to run a capital city, led by groups of people with leaders putting differing views. If the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats each put their views, under declared leaders, just as the electorate warmed to that in sufficient numbers at the general election--between 70 and 75 per cent. voted in it--they would do the same in London.
There is, however, a danger to which the hon. Gentleman did not allude and which even the hon. Member for Brent, East may not now wish to defend. It should certainly not be permitted to change the leader the day after the election. If the Prime Minister leads his party into an election, the electorate requires a guarantee that he will be sitting in the biggest chair at the Cabinet table the next day.
The alternative is equally dangerous--I say that as one of the people who has featured on this problematic road. If a mayor is to be directly elected, most of the debate will concern not policy issues or the structure of local government but who the mayor will be. Will it be Jeffrey Archer; will it be Ken Livingstone; will it be Richard Branson or one of the Spice Girls? [Hon. Members: "Or Simon Hughes?"] Or me.
Yet that is not the most important question. The most important question is: what will the elected person do? What will his policies be? So the electorate should be given the chance to decide whether they want an election dominated by a personality contest or one dominated by debates on the issues. If we fight the election in teams--that does not rule out independents taking part--we will get an election about politics and policies, not about personalities.
We are asking the Committee to vote to allow the electorate of London to decide whether it wants the leadership to be accountable to the assembly or to be divorced from that accountability. The latter would be dangerous and novel, not to mention unwise. We have hitherto been relatively well served by our parliamentary system, and by the prime ministerial system of democracy. We think that that system should be tried, to begin with, in London too.
Sir Norman Fowler (Sutton Coldfield):
As the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) has said, this is one of the most important questions of these debates. There was a great deal in his remarks with which I fundamentally disagreed--on regional government, tax-raising powers and proportional representation--but luckily, as all that was out of order, I need not detain the House by responding to it. Fortunately, the one part of his speech that was in order was also the part that I agreed with--the need for two questions in the referendum.
The fact is that, outside the ranks of the Government, very few support the proposition that there be just one question for the people of London. There is a consensus around the idea that there are two issues--possibly more, but at least two. They are: should we have a directly elected mayor; and should we have a directly elected assembly? My party supports a directly elected mayor, as I said on Second Reading and before, but we are not in favour of a directly elected assembly.
We want two questions, in which view we are supported by a range of people and newspapers.The Times, speaking of the Minister's paper, said:
There are others who support the Government's proposals but who also want a two-question referendum. Consider The Guardian's editorial, which the Minister--even on his own admission, I think--so misleadingly quoted on Second Reading. He broke his quotation in mid-sentence, thereby entirely changing the meaning. The quotation goes:
It is not just opponents of the Government's position who want two questions: it is also their supporters. This all reveals an amazing lack of confidence in the Minister's and the Government's case. They do not seem sure enough of their own proposition to put it to the public in London. The Labour manifesto said that the purpose of the referendum was "to confirm public demand". How is that possible if the public are not allowed to express their views?
The Government know that there is public support for a mayor, but not nearly so much support for an assembly--
Mr. Raynsford:
What is the evidence for that?
Sir Norman Fowler:
I hope that the Minister will accept our suggestion, and allow the public to decide. Why will he not allow the public to decide?
Mr. Raynsford:
The right hon. Gentleman claims that there is evidence of support for a mayor but not for an assembly. Perhaps he could give the House that evidence. Perhaps he will tell us where that evidence is in terms of public opinion, not selective newspaper quotations.
Sir Norman Fowler:
These are newspapers such as The Times and The Daily Telegraph. [Interruption.]
The First Deputy Chairman:
Order. The Minister cannot behave like this in Committee.
Sir Norman Fowler:
The Minister is getting terribly excited and going red in the face. He is blustering.
Mr. Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield):
Is it not extraordinary that the Minister should talk about public opinion? I thought that the whole purpose of the referendum was that it should be a sounding of public opinion. Otherwise, we need not have one. The Minister can go away and look at his opinion polls and his crystal ball, consult his colleagues, and get on with it. I thought that the referendum was the consultation process with the electorate.
Sir Norman Fowler:
My hon. Friend misunderstands the Government's purpose. The purpose of their referendum is not to find out what the public think. What the Government want is some sort of rubber stamp on the proposal that they are making. That is the whole point. That is why the Minister gets so indignant. That is why he is so sensitive. That is why he goes so red every time the issue comes up. It is the most revealing display that I have seen since the Deputy Prime Minister lost his temper on a particular issue.
Mr. Pickles:
My right hon. Friend is being quite unkind to the Minister. The Minister is a sensitive man. I suspect that he secretly agrees with my right hon. Friend, but there are others in the Government preventing him from following his natural inclinations.
Sir Norman Fowler:
I had better leave the Minister to compose himself, because at some stage he will have to respond to the debate.
Sir Paul Beresford:
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the best way for the Minister to help himself, since he wants the evidence, would be to have the two questions?
Sir Norman Fowler:
That is rather what I have been saying. That is the whole point of what I am saying, and what others have been saying as well. What I find so extraordinary about the Minister's attitude is that it is not always firm opponents of the Minister who are saying this. The Guardian is on the Minister's side. It is one of the few papers which thinks that the Minister is right. But leave that to one side; he has some supporters. But The Guardian is then asking why the Minister does not put it to the public. That remains the question. Why does not he put it to the public?
Some hon. Members see this in terms of there being public support for a mayor but not for an assembly; and there is even less support for what some Labour Members want, which is a return, step by step, to the GLC. Conservative Members favour a directly elected mayor, but we would have an assembly made up of borough leaders. We favour that, because a mayor would have to work with the boroughs. There is no question about that.
We reject the argument that that will simply lead to conflict. Our fundamental belief is that the structure suggested by the Minister has conflict built into it at every
stage--and not only conflict, but layer after layer of local government. That lies at the heart of why we propose a two-question referendum.
It is important that we remember what the Government are proposing. They propose a directly elected mayor and a directly elected assembly, a regional development agency for London and a government office for London; and then we get to the stage of 32 borough leaders. Another piece of legislation coming in on the side, which the Minister might care to talk about at some stage, is the innovation Bill, which I understand will be introduced in another place, which will allow a directly elected mayor for boroughs as well. For the sake of argument, there could be a borough directly elected mayor.
One does not have to be a reader of The Times or a paid-up member of the Conservative party to think that that process is getting out of hand. But even if the Minister fundamentally disagrees with what I say, I should have thought that it was common ground that there is a case to be debated. What we find so offensive is that the Minister and the Government simply will not answer that case. They simply will not approach that case and take it to the public.
If ever there was inbuilt conflict, it is in the system that the Government propose. As the Minister knows, already, in the question that the Government are asking, they have revealed some of their internal uncertainty. At one stage, earlier in October, the question on the ballot paper was going to be: "Are you in favour of the Government's proposals for a greater London authority made up of an elected assembly and a separately elected mayor?"
When the Bill is published, the order is reversed, and the mayor comes before the assembly. I would have loved to be at the Cabinet Committee which decided that order. With any other Government, I concede that it would be a matter of no consequence, but with this Government one can just see the spin doctors debating which should come first. Obviously, their aim is that the popular idea of the mayor should take the assembly with it.
It takes no great powers of forecast to know what the next step will be if we have an elected assembly. The assembly will want more powers. There is no question about that. Whenever the Minister reveals what powers the assembly will have--we should remind him that it is not the White Paper that sets that down, but, as has been said, the Act of Parliament--those elected members will want greater and greater power. They will not be satisfied with an advisory role. They will argue that they are democratically elected, and will have an absolute and complete right to that.
Anyone who has been in government knows that, if powers go to the assembly, they will not be given up by the Government. The one thing that I did learn during 10 years in government is that getting powers out of Departments is extraordinarily difficult. Government will devolve powers from other organisations, but when it comes to themselves, there is turf battle after turf battle. Therefore, the powers will come from the boroughs. That is the fundamental importance of the Bill.
That is the issue that stands behind the Opposition's demand for two questions. Londoners should be able to say whether they want to put their future more and more in the hands of an intermediate regional assembly, or to
strengthen the borough council system which is closest to the public. We should be aiming not for a new elected assembly but for a mayor working with the boroughs. But when it comes to it, what is striking about the debate is the Government's lack of confidence in their arguments. They talk about reaching agreement and about consensus, but they are not interested in either.
"Two distinct issues require two different questions".
The Daily Telegraph takes a similar view. The Liberal Democrats adopt a view different from ours as regards the policy, but they argue strongly for two questions. I venture to suggest that some Labour Back Benchers have also argued for two questions. In due course, the Committee will be fascinated to hear what the hon. Member for Brent, East has to say. It would have been fascinating to hear what the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) had to say--had he been here.
"Mr. Raynsford dismisses the Conservative suggestion that the mayor could answer to the current 33 London boroughs as a recipe for disaster. Any mayor could simply buy off the boroughs by chucking goodies their way, bringing US-style pork barrel politics to the capital. The Minister is right"--
at that point, the Minister broke off in mid-sentence, though the rest of it reads--
"but he should make that argument in a campaign".
The editorial continues:
"The Government's package deal allows no room for those who want a mayor but no assembly or those who want an assembly but no mayor. We subscribe to neither view, but to deny them any expression on the ballot seems peculiar. After all, the whole point of a referendum is to allow all the people their say."
That is what the Minister chose to use to support his case.
8 pm
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