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Mr. Simon Hughes: I agree that a variety of options are available. What we must do first is escape from the idea that there is only one option. Once we have broken out of that cell, we must consider what options are serious runners. I would say that the option presented by the Tories--the option of having only a mayor--is worth considering.
Mr. Forth: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but, in my current greedy mood, I will press him and see whether I can carry him a little further down that road. He conceded what to many of us is a very important point. The whole argument revolves around that point, does it not? Let us put aside for a moment the question whether we think any of this is a good idea--whether it is necessary, or whether, as one of my hon. Friends suggested earlier, there should be an option on the referendum voting form called "None of the above".
I pose that as a semi-serious suggestion. Why are we forced to say one thing or the other? Many people may want to turn out and cast their vote rather than staying at home and saying, "I do not want any of this, thank you very much. I do not think it is necessary." Those people may think--as the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) said so eloquently--that it could be damaging, or that it would not work. That may be a question that people would want to consider; but there are others, are there not?
The difficulty underlying the proposals revolves around the inadequacy of the process of asking questions involving very complicated issues in a simple form. Among the issues that we are considering, or asking the electorate to consider, is not just the question whether there should be an executive mayor, never mind whether he emerges in the assembly or is directly elected; not just whether there should be an assembly sitting, as it were, on top of the boroughs; but, crucially, the relationship that would exist between that mayor and that assembly: how
they would interrelate, how they would react to one another and the precise relationship of the checks and balances involved. Those are crucial questions.
Dr. Tonge:
Will the hon. Gentleman give us the benefit of the experience of his party? I know that it has recently posed two totally different questions in the form of a single question, and has put that question to its membership--or what membership it can identify. I understand that that is quite a problem.
Mr. Forth:
It may or may not surprise the hon. Lady--who does not yet know me all that well--that I was not greatly in favour of that exercise either. The point that I was trying to make is that it is surely unreasonable to ask people to make a decision on such important matters without going fairly deeply into the way in which the institutions concerned are expected to work. It is not good enough to ask, "Do you want a mayor?", without giving people some idea of the proposed relationship between the mayor and the boroughs, the mayor and the assembly, the assembly and the boroughs or any permutation of those.
As I pose those questions, it becomes obvious that it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to reduce those matters to the formulation that is perforce required in the referendum. That is my point. I have not even dealt with the other crucial permutations. The electoral system is a subject very dear to the hearts of Liberal Democrats. Many people may like the idea of an assembly, but only if it is under the traditional, single-Member, first- past-the-post system. They may be familiar with that system and want to identify directly with their assembly member, as they do with their Member of Parliament.
Mr. Wilkinson:
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. The Labour Government's draft proposals would do away with that close, democratic, territorial connection. Many Conservative Members, including me, would be quite happy with a directly elected assembly containing assemblymen who represent our boroughs. My constituents want someone whom they can identify as fighting for them and their interests. If they cannot have that, why on earth should they vote for what my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) called a pig in a poke?
Mr. Forth:
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Let us be fair to the Labour party. It is consistent in its view of representatives. Its Members of Parliament--I think that we now call them the terracotta army--are expected to do nothing in the House, and to have little or no relationship with their electorate. We shall be told next week that it expects its Members of the European Parliament to have no relationship with their voters. It would be consistent for Labour to argue that members of the assembly should have as little relationship with their electorate as Labour Members or Members of the European Parliament have with theirs under the Labour party's other proposals. Funnily enough, I do not condemn the Labour party for that, because at least it is consistent.
When talking about those options to our voters, we are in danger of making an awful lot of assumptions about the formulations. We should not simply ask them, "Do you want an assembly?", without telling them about the relationships between the mayor and the boroughs or
the assembly, or what electoral system will be used. Even if we had complete clarity on those issues beforehand, there would not be a sufficient range of options in the questions to allow people legitimately to exercise a choice. Knowledge, clarity and awareness are wonderful, but if people cannot exercise their judgment on the basis of that information through the mechanism of the questions in the referendum, the whole exercise is bogus.
I have not even come to one of the most crucial problems: our old friend the question of money. Unless we ask people, as we asked the people of Scotland, whether they are prepared to pay extra taxation to finance the authority, or to give the mayor or the assembly the power to raise taxes to spend, the whole exercise will be seriously undermined.
The hon. Member for Brent, East would surely find that argument attractive. He and I may agree on the matter. People may like the idea of a mayor, and may want a mayor or an assembly to exercise widespread powers. If he is expected to undertake Londonwide projects and to do good things for London and its people, surely it is not unreasonable to ask the electorate whether they want the mayor or the assembly to have powers to raise extra taxes to make those aspirations a reality. That seems a reasonable proposition.
The hon. Gentleman rightly nods and smiles. We are not to have any of that. Not only will the people of London not be offered proper choices, options and related questions on which to exercise their judgment, but some questions will be missing. Sadly, they are missing from the options that are offered by my hon. Friends but, on this occasion, I shall forgive them for that.
Perhaps we must look for the least worst that is on offer. I strongly prefer the questions that my right hon. and hon. Friends have tabled, because at least they offer clarity and choice that will take people some way down the track. I would prefer to see a wider range of questions, but I pay tribute to my right hon. and hon. Friends for at least giving the crucial option that was missing from the original formulation offered by the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey. He has generously offered a return to the matter and has said that we could try to get together and reformulate it in some way.
Mr. Simon Hughes:
A Conservative Member has said that part of the Bill is a bit like a blind date. That was a good analogy. I am prepared to make a blind offer to the hon. Gentleman, and Ministers may know the answer to my question. I would be happy for the two questions to have the two preferred options from the consultation paper. That would at least offer people an alternative. There is no need to get stuck on specifics, because there are ways of getting the two preferred options in front of the electorate, and on Friday we shall know what they are.
Mr. Forth:
That is a helpful suggestion. It seems that everybody except the Government is trying to be positive and helpful. We have become rather used to that over the
I hope that the hon. Gentleman's comments will be widely studied, because they have given a unique insight into the way that the Government works, not least in the light of what was said in the Chamber earlier today--much blow-hard nonsense about open government, modernisation and pre-legislative consultation. The debate illustrates the opposite--closed minds, single-minded determination to drive through a narrow set of proposals, and the brushing aside of all helpful and constructive suggestions that were made in the Chamber or by people outside in the process of consultation.
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