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Mr. Ottaway: The Minister may say that it is not. The report continues:
- "The Chair Jim Fitzpatrick MP manipulated the meeting shamelessly to avoid even indicative votes."
Mr. John Wilkinson (Ruislip-Northwood): I want to stick to the detail of amendments Nos. 16 and 17.
I believe that they have merit, in that they will clarify to the electorate and make certain in statute a phraseology that will be appropriate for the purpose of establishing a directly elected mayor and a directly elected assembly in separate elections. The manner of election could not then be altered by the White Paper, or by the Government changing their mind after the passage of the Bill.
We have heard from the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) his strong desire for an indirectly elected mayor drawn from the ranks of the assemblymen. If, as amendment No. 16 seeks, a directly elected mayor were written into the phraseology of the Bill, that could not happen.
There is a strong body of opinion within the Labour movement in London, particularly in municipal circles, for the mayoralty to be indirectly elected and drawn from the ranks of the assemblymen. In that way, the assembly would have much more control over who would be appointed to the job. He or she would be in essence one of them, sharing the same culture and the same roots in local government within the Labour movement in London.
It is also exceedingly important that the electorate should know that the assemblymen would be directly elected. In that respect, I take a slightly different view from my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Ottaway), but not as regards objectives.
Like my hon. Friend and others on the Opposition Front Bench, I believe passionately in the importance of ensuring that borough opinion is represented on the assembly in the most effective manner possible. After all, Londoners identify with their boroughs. Traditionally, they draw most of their services from and elect their councillors for their boroughs, and, to a greater or lesser extent, there is a geographical, social and economic identity within a borough boundary.
In promoting the Bill, the Labour party seeks to move away from the traditional roots that are of the essence of our local democracy in London. We are led to believe that there may not even be constituencies, or, if there are, that they will be very large and not in any sense conterminous with the boroughs. They will be based on the prospective European Parliament constituencies within London, which encompass much greater areas.
I would argue that the assemblymen will require different personal qualities from those necessary for a borough leader. Assemblymen will be scrutineers. They will not need the talent, aptitude and background of executive action--the qualities necessary for an effective borough leader. The better they do their job on the assembly at the Middlesex Guildhall or wherever, the more time they will spend scrutinising the mayor's budget and challenging and testing his programmes, his policies and his projects for London.
It would be better if the assemblymen were directly responsible to the electors in their boroughs in exercising that scrutineering function. Furthermore, it would be much more appropriate if their term of office exactly coincided with that of the mayor--which could not happen if they were indirectly elected. In fact, halfway through the term of a particular borough representative on the London assembly, a borough leader could find himself out of office by virtue of a local borough election.
In respect of continuity and from a practical perspective, borough leaders are exceedingly busy people. Their primary duty is managing a very complicated
municipal operation on behalf of their electors. Most of them also have other careers. They are not full-time, paid politicians, as are many right hon. and hon. Members, and certainly Members of the European Parliament. The additional burden of travelling large distances across London to attend assembly meetings will not always be either easy or possible to fit in with the borough leaders' primary responsibility to their borough councils and electors.
If borough leaders fulfil poorly their responsibilities as scrutineers of and checks on the executive power of the mayor, their borough electors should be able to replace them or place some sanction on them. If they are merely indirectly representative of their boroughs--borough leaders seconded from their primary purpose of fulfilling a role on the assembly--and fulfil the role badly, it will be much harder for their electors to exercise any sanction on them, especially if they fulfil their primary responsibility of running their own borough well.
I whole-heartedly support my hon. Friends' strong determination to make absolutely sure that the voice of the boroughs is heard because that is what matters to Londoners. The concerns of my electors in west London and people in Hillingdon are utterly different from those in the City or the east end.
Under the electoral arrangements proposed by the Opposition, there is no way of ensuring that local interests are represented directly on the assembly and have an effect on the policies being promulgated and enacted by the mayor. There is much greater likelihood of ensuring that local interests are represented if there is a directly elected assembly--especially if the representatives on the assembly come from the borough. I would suggest one directly elected representative for each borough.
That said, I support the aims of my hon. Friends' amendments. I also hope that the Government realise that specifically inserting the words "directly elected mayor" and "directly elected assembly" would ensure that there was no possibility of jiggery-pokery after the Bill is passed.
Mr. Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam):
The Liberal Democrats will not be supporting amendment No. 15, for many of the reasons that the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson) has just described. He made a very powerful set of arguments for not supporting the idea of London borough leaders attempting to hold to account a directly elected mayor, as the Conservative party favours. I shall expand on that slightly.
The hon. Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Ottaway) argued strongly for a role for borough leaders, and we on the Liberal Democrat Benches would not disagree. One of the concerns that we will have, especially in the detailed consideration of the Bill that will bring the authority into its final shape, will be the relationship between the boroughs and the new authority. The danger is that, if that relationship is not clear in the referendum, the credibility of the Government's advocacy of a mayor and an authority could be undermined.
We want to ensure that we have a regional authority which gives strategic direction and a clear strategic lead in London. We want that authority to work full time on behalf of Londoners, dealing with matters that are not about hoovering up powers from local government but about taking powers away from the House and Whitehall.
One of the lessons that we should be drawing from the experiences of the Greater London council is that, all too often, there were turf wars between the GLC and London borough councils about who had responsibility for taking matters forward. The hon. Member for Croydon, South highlighted some areas where that tension could recur under the proposed arrangements.
The solution is not simply borough leaders holding an elected mayor to account. It is the Liberal Democrats' view that that is a recipe for blurred accountability. A question mark would hang over such an indirectly elected assembly about its mandate from the people of London to stand up to a directly elected mayor. Such a directly elected mayor could legitimately question the authority of such an indirectly elected body.
We have seen how inadequate the joint boards of representatives from each London borough--which were set up in 1986 when the GLC was abolished--have been as a means of holding services across London to account. Creating a larger joint board of London borough leaders as a way of holding an elected mayor to account is inappropriate.
For those reasons, we do not support the amendments. However, we believe very strongly that they represent a view which needs to be reflected in debate on the referendum. I hope that Ministers will reflect on the points that have been made. Those made by the hon. Member for Croydon, South have some support in London, although we would argue that they do not have adequate support.
Mr. Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire):
I support amendment No. 15, for two reasons.
The Government are setting some precedents about the way in which they are proposing to establish regional government. The Minister was rightly rebuked by the Liberal Democrats on Second Reading for construing the Bill as a strengthening of local democracy. It is in practice no such thing, but the establishment of a regional tier of bureaucracy.
If that regional tier is established in the way the Government propose, with no direct relationship with the boroughs, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson) eloquently explained, emphasis on the supposed strategic overview will simply lend distance to the body, as distinct from the day-to-day concerns of boroughs, which are often the most important aspect of the scrutiny, and must be applied to the directly elected mayor.
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