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Mr. Clifton-Brown: In reviewing clause 8, can the Minister tell us, as the Minister for Transport in London failed to do, why, technically, the commission should consider the Local Government Commission's recommendations rather than those of the boundary commission? We have not had an answer to that technical question, which has been raised by several hon. Members.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 10 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Mr. Simon Hughes:
What do the Government estimate will be the costs of clauses 11 and 12? They provide for money to be spent, and now is the time for a Minister to put on record the estimated costs. Conservative Members sometimes complain that the exercise will cost the taxpayer a great deal, but we think that it could be cheap to set up. What advice does the Minister have about costs?
Mr. Raynsford:
It is impossible to give an estimate at this stage, because it depends entirely on what remit is given to the Local Government Commission. Were it to involve a lengthy and protracted examination of complex constituencies, there would obviously be greater costs than if it were a relatively simple matter relating to existing boundaries that might need some modest modification.
I cannot give the answer that the hon. Gentleman requests, but there is no question of any expenditure being made until after a positive referendum result, by which stage there will have been a statement in the White Paper of the Government's intentions in relation to the boundaries. We will then be in a much better position to give him the information that he seeks. I hope that he accepts that the provision is sensible.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 11 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Mr. Simon Hughes:
I accept entirely that the matter may not be elaborated until after the referendum and that no money will be spent before then, but it would be helpful to know what the Minister's advisers suggest that the expenditure in connection with the referendum will be. Someone must have done an estimate. This does not depend on the boundary commission; it involves setting up the arrangements for the referendum. A ballpark figure would interest those who read our proceedings.
Mr. Raynsford:
If the hon. Gentleman refers to the explanatory memorandum, he will find that we have already indicated that we expect a maximum provision of
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 12 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Mr. Simon Hughes:
This is a very important clause. It says that it is the short title, but the Bill should not, by any definition, have a short title. Had we known what the Government were going to say in Committee, we would have sought to amend the short title to read that the Act should be cited as the "Greater London Authority (Referendum), You Can Have Any Choice You Like For Democracy in London Provided It's the One We Give You and You Won't Have Any Other Alternative Act 1997."
The serious point is that it is disappointing that, at the end of the Committee stage, the Government are still wedded to giving the people of London only the Government's choice. We are grateful, however, that the Minister conceded that that is only a matter of pragmatism, and that it would be acceptable if two questions that do the job could be formulated. We have already started work on that. I am sure that the Minister is looking forward, as are others, to the two-question alternative. I am sure that it will be persuasive and that he will find it impossible not to support it.
Ms Glenda Jackson:
I trust that the hon. Gentleman has not made this point simply because he neglected to
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 13 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Bill reported, without amendment.
Mr. Eric Pickles (Brentwood and Ongar):
I present a petition on behalf of my constituents relating to the location of an accident and emergency unit in a hospital close to my constituency. They are concerned that, after a lengthy and fair inquiry, the recommendation that it be sited at Harold Wood may be overturned. It has been signed by 16,500 electors in my constituency and states:
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. Kevin Hughes.]
Dr. Vincent Cable (Twickenham):
It is a pleasure to raise this matter on the Adjournment, albeit at a very late hour, and to resume a dialogue with the Minister for Transport in London, albeit on a very different subject. Perhaps I can summarise briefly the essence of my concern. I am concerned with the behaviour of the Port of London Authority--a public trust and a statutory public authority--which has been behaving irresponsibly. It has imposed large increases in mooring charges--in effect, rents on boat dwellers--on the tidal waters of the Thames in a way that is likely to cause considerable distress. The increases will cause many residential boat owners to leave their accommodation because they are simply unable to pay owing to sharp increases for which there has been no consultation.
I ask the Minister to have a fresh look at whether she can intervene informally, not by using her statutory authority but by using her good offices to bring the parties together to seek an amicable resolution. Failing that--and if the PLA continues to behave in an arbitrary and unsatisfactory way--I ask her to use her statutory authority in terms of the appointment of the non-executive directors of the PLA. Looking further ahead, I ask her to look at whether a more effective system of regulation--possibly an ombudsman--needs to be introduced to protect people from the arbitrary misuses of authority.
This is important, and goes way beyond my narrow constituency concern. There is a broad issue of principle here, and the Labour party's election commitment to provide security in housing is very much part of that. A group of people have been rendered extremely insecure as a result of a large increase in what is effectively their rent. Many already have insecure tenure arrangements, as the arrangements that pertain to boat owners are often not as secure as for those with normal property relationships. The already high level of insecurity will be enhanced by these large increases.
I am speaking on behalf of a substantial number of boat owners in my constituency--approximately 230--the majority of whom are affected by the increases. However, there is a larger community in the country--about 30,000 people occupying 15,000 boats--who will be following this discussion with considerable interest.
The broader interest that I want to highlight relates not simply to the particular problem of the boat dwellers but to the question of the accountability of quangos--in this case, it is a completely, rather than quasi-autonomous, agency, and could be called a "cango"--and the ability of the Government to call them to account for unsatisfactory behaviour. In a letter to me, the Minister said that this was not a matter in which the Department played a part, and that the changes in question were a commercial matter for the Port of London Authority. I would beg to differ: that is, in part, an error. If it is true, it is an extraordinary statement of the ministerial approach to accountability. The PLA is a public body and must be brought to account, and there are mechanisms by which the Government can do this. Let me give a little background. The system of tenure on the Thames and other waterways is extremely
complex. Many authorities are involved, but I am concerned only with the Port of London Authority, which was established in 1968. It was given a clear statutory duty; not, as the Minister has suggested, to behave commercially--that is not the language of the Act. The Act says that the PLA should levy the
Our objections fall into two parts--they relate partly to the process and partly to the charges. As regards the process, the PLA argues--this is part of the Act--that the boat owners can resort to arbitration. In correspondence with me and some of the boat owners, the Minister seems to feel that the concept of arbitration in this case is reasonable. I ask her to consider why, in practice, it is not. Many boat owners cannot resort to arbitration, including the substantial number who are, in effect, tenants of licensees and so have no direct access to arbitration. That is the most vulnerable category, because they can be asked to quit their moorings at 28 days' notice. They are very insecure. I visited some of them last Friday; many were reluctant even to be photographed because of their insecurity. They are not able to pursue the arbitration route.
There is the broader issue of the difficulty of trying to introduce arbitration into such disputes. I shall draw an analogy. If an employer cut the wages of his workers by 50 per cent. and said, "Fine, if you don't like it, you can always have individual arbitration on your individual wages," we would consider that to be a breach of the concept of collective bargaining. Surely the Minister, in her political capacity, accepts that collective bargaining is essential to protect vulnerable groups.
If one of the water authorities increased charges by 200 per cent., 300 per cent. or 400 per cent.--which is the size of increase that many boat dwellers now face--and said, "If individual water consumers want to dispute this, they can take us to individual arbitration; they can take their solicitor along and fight this in the courts," we would regard that as a gross abuse and grossly unsatisfactory. We have regulators to manage such a problem. Asking individual boat owners to pursue the route of individual arbitration is totally inappropriate to the problem. The process is wrong and arbitrary, and, I would argue, an example of maladministration.
I referred to the terms of the 1968 Act. The Port of London Authority is not required merely to observe commercial principles. The Minister is right to point to the fact that it must be commercial, but it must avoid the misuse of monopoly power. It is clear that in this case there is a monopoly, because there is a gross excess demand for moorings. Individual boat dwellers are not able to pull anchor and go somewhere else: they do not have that discretion, so we are talking about an abuse of a monopoly.
An important factor is that the increased charges in no way reflect any improvement in services. I visited some of the moorings at the end of last week, and saw that large amounts of driftwood had accumulated over months. The Port of London Authority makes no attempt to provide services to those people. That stands in considerable contrast to some of the other authorities. The waterways authority imposes charges that are somewhat higher than the present PLA charges, although much less than the new ones, but, unlike the PLA, it offers in return a comprehensive range of services on thousands of miles of canals and rivers.
The Minister wrote to me and explained that she expected the Port of London Authority to operate commercially. What exactly does that mean? I have a copy of the PLA's annual report and accounts, which contains about 10 pages of balance sheets and cash-flow statements. There is not a single reference to the charges earned from boat owners. It is an utterly trivial element within the overall accounting framework of that corporation. That is not surprising. According to my rough calculation, the additional revenue that it will earn from these steep increases is about £10,000, which is ridiculously small for an organisation with a turnover of £20 million: it barely pays for half the salary of one of its non-executive directors. It is a trivially small part of its overall commercial operation. The imposition of this increase was an oversight by top management and had little to do with hard commercial principles. If the PLA were seriously interested in applying commercial principles, it would address itself to anomalies such as the fact that pleasure craft are not charged navigation duties.
I now come to what the Minister can do to alleviate the situation. The least that she can do--not acting in a statutory capacity but simply as a reasonable person who has oversight, albeit indirectly, of the Port of London Authority--is to call in the parties to get them to discuss matters, as we and the Residential Boat Owners Association have requested. I find it difficult to fathom why she is reluctant to do so. I do not know whether she feels that I would be bringing along a group of roughnecks who will break the crockery at her Department and behave irresponsibly. I remind her that the honorary president of the association is Madam Speaker. It is a respectable organisation and its members simply wish to sit down and discuss matters with the PLA.
We are asking the Minister, in a reasonable tone, simply to hold a conversation. If she finds that difficult and if the PLA persists in imposing highly unreasonable charges, she might consider the use of her statutory power, as she does have some. That power lies in the appointment of the non-executive directors. I remind her who some of those people are. They were appointed under the previous Government and bear their stamp. For example, the chairman, Sir Brian Shaw, is paid £50,000 a year for a part-time job, which he doubles up with being chairman of the Automobile Association and a director of Enterprise Oil. The gentleman who was probably directly responsible for the increases is a Mr. C. W. Jonas. He has a £19,000 part-time salary and combines that work with being a director of Railtrack.
Those gentlemen have absolutely no background whatever in the sort of problems that I am describing--the problems of managing a sensitive relationship with
a group of home owners on the Thames. Their whole background is in commercial shipping--no doubt they are very competent at that. I ask the Minister to try to impose some of her authority on the PLA by asking one or other of those directors to stand down and, perhaps, to be replaced by someone who is a little more aware of the concerns of the houseboat owners.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
"may be cited as the Greater London Authority (Referendum) Act 1997."
It is a matter of convenience. The proposed title is short and appropriate to the Bill.
11.6 pm
"The Petition of residents of the parliamentary constituency of Brentwood and Ongar and patients of Harold Wood Hospital
To lie upon the Table.
Declare that it is in the interest of local people, and in the strategic interest of the National Health Service, to build the new accident and emergency unit for Barking, Havering and Brentwood at Harold Wood Hospital
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons support their plea for this much needed unit
And the petitioners remain, etc"
11.8 pm
"best charges that can reasonably be obtained . . . excluding any elements of monopoly power."
The principles behind that stricture have been observed for the past 10 years with an amicable arrangement between the Residential Boat Owners Association and the PLA. For 10 years, a general formula, based on the lengths of boats, was applied. It was a simple administrative procedure with relatively low costs which was accepted by all parties. What has caused that to break down is that the PLA has arbitrarily and without consultation imposed a new system without any redress for the boat owners.
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