| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Burstow: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. McNulty: Only if it is good.
Mr. Burstow: I shall endeavour to honour that request. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Bill ought to include some specific provisions to enable the election expense rules to apply from the point at which people declare their prospective candidacies--and, indeed, start campaigning, as a number of Members of this place and elsewhere appear to have done so far?
Hon. Members: What about the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes)?
Mr. McNulty: I think the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) meant serious candidates. To give him his due, that is a fair point--in the context of the Mickey Mouse contest that we are having now. If I thought seriously that this was the start of what ultimately will be the contest between the candidates in May 2000, he would have a more serious point. In general terms, that matter must be addressed--not least because the essence of some of the American models was all about going out and buying a mayoralty with the individual funding of particular people. That was wrong. That was a good point--I will give the hon. Gentleman that one.
In terms of the London and national media, where is the debate about the future vision for London? Where is the debate about the strategy that London should be taking, on a cross-party basis, into the 21st century? It is not there. It is about who can pose with Puss-in-Boots last and look best, which has let down London by offering nothing about what London needs from the mayor and the assembly.
We need more than putative Tory candidates suddenly developing--out of nowhere, almost--concern for London; concern that is far too late to be taken seriously, and far too two-faced to be treated with anything other
than contempt. That is the case whether it is a Tory candidate who does not know his arts from his elbow and does not know fact from fiction; or a gallivanting spiv who sells second-hand cars--a putative Dick Whittington, whose experience shows that he owes more to the first name of that illustrious mayor than to the second.
Surely Londoners deserve better from the media and from the candidates concerned. It is essential throughout what is left of the run-up to the first mayoral election that all parties have grown-up processes to select their mayoral and assembly candidates--processes that reflect London's diversity and are as inclusive as possible. To take far wider the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North, London by its nature is a rich and varied community. More than 35 per cent. of its electorate are black or Asian in origin. That must be reflected across all parties in the mayoral or assembly candidates if Londoners are to take us seriously as politicians and as political parties.
In general, business welcomes the Bill's proposals, as do the traffic professionals, with whom the right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk had so much difficulty. Despite what was suggested on Second and Third Reading of the Greater London Authority (Referendum) Bill, the police fully accept the proposals. Everyone accepts them, except the Tories, who seem simply not to understand the notion of strategic governance or what London needs for the future, and the Liberals, who as ever play whingeing schoolboy games. They are loaded with pomposity and divorced from reality, and think that they are playing with a little Lego set rather than a vital element of our constitution.
There are key elements of genuine concern that could have been brought out far better in the debate in the media and in the House, but the overall provisions of the Bill are to be welcomed. As someone who served for 11 years on a borough planning committee and for about four years--it seemed longer--on the London planning advisory committee, I accept that some greater clarity may be needed on the specific planning proposals in clauses 226 to 241, but I do not believe, from my reading of the Bill, that they are loaded against the boroughs, or that we will have a nasty GLC mark II that is inherently anti-development and will try to stop areas of London doing what they want.
The key to the spatial development strategy is the word "strategy". The relationship between borough unitary development plans, the spatial development strategy and the role of the mayor will pan out in the appropriate fashion. Concerns about borough planning powers are misplaced.
To those who have the pleasure of being on the Committee--that is a plea not to be on it, I hasten to add--it will become clear that the spatial development strategy, the London development agency strategy and the transport strategy must be pulled together if they are to prove effective.
Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex):
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty), who laid great emphasis on the word "strategy". That is the word that one uses when one does not really know what to do; hence "strategic rail authority", when the Government have no policy of their own on the railways. It was a bit rich for my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) to be lectured by the hon. Gentleman, who said that she did not understand the Bill's provisions for transport, when it became increasingly obvious during the Secretary of State's speech that he did not understand what to do with the tube.
We have heard much about the functions of the proposed authority and the conflicts that might arise. There were interesting contributions from Government Members about the voting system and whether open lists should be introduced. I wonder whether we will have a re-run of the European Parliamentary Elections Bill on that issue. There were many contributions from Opposition Members--not only Conservative Members--about hypothecation of road charges, and I will return to that later.
It is something of a privilege for me to be at the Dispatch Box tonight. I think that I am the only Front Bencher from any party who has spoken for his party on the Scotland Bill, the Government of Wales Bill and now the Greater London Authority Bill. Such is the serendipity of politics. Speaking as someone born of Scottish parents, with a Welsh name and born a Londoner, perhaps I am qualified to do so, however. By a further irony, my wife's grandmother turned on the lights of the Greater London council in the building that is now an aquarium, and my father turned them out. I take great pride in both actions.
The Queen's Speech referred to the need to help to make London a world-class city. If it is the Government's policy to approach the establishment of a Greater London authority on the basis that London is not already a world-class city, that might explain the absence of media interest in this debate to which the hon. Member for Harrow, East referred. The Bill presents the potential for a vast new layer of bureaucracy. There is a strong case for a mayor in a co-ordinating role, but the Bill proposes a huge panoply of powers and duties. As my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk pointed out, the Bill is twice as long as the Scotland Bill, which has far more constitutional significance.
The composition of powers on transport for London contains not the prospect of integration, but the danger of conflict. Everything done by the boroughs can be second-guessed by the mayor under clause 131, and everything done by the mayor can be second-guessed by the Secretary of State under clause 124. As usual, the Government are trying to have it both ways. They pretend to be in favour of genuine devolution, but allow the control-freak mentality of Ministers to maintain ultimate control over everything.
The research conducted by the London chamber of commerce showed that business sees transport as the priority issue for the mayor, and that point was echoed by many hon. Members tonight. Once again, the Government are trying to have it both ways, which is leading to the dither and delay that have become a feature of the Government's transport policy. Over all looms the
presence of the Treasury, which remains the ever-present ghost at the feast of any transport debate under this Government.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |