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Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough): Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Brooke: I had not quite finished the quotation. I shall give way when I have done so.

The Green Paper goes on:

"We look forward to detailed discussion with the Corporation in the Autumn."

I give way to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Leigh: My right hon. Friend mentioned aldermanic elections. A friend of mine, Mr. Malcolm Matson, was elected in an entirely proper way by his ward to the aldermanic bench. Then, for no good reason that I can divine, he was prevented from taking his place on the aldermanic bench. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that if the Bill goes through, that unfortunate state of affairs cannot arise again?

Mr. Brooke: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I, too, know Mr. Matson, and have known him for a long time. My hon. Friend describes accurately the circumstances of that episode. It is the case--arising not out of the Bill, but out of the rules of the City corporation--that such an event will not occur again. I can confirm that to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Andrew Love (Edmonton): I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. Throughout the rest of local government, aldermen have been abolished. Does the Bill contain provision for that, and if not, should it include such provision?

Mr. Brooke: I understand the hon. Gentleman's question. As local government in the City of London goes back many centuries before it was developed in other parts of the country, the tradition of aldermen is a particularly old one in the City--older than in much local government that was formed in the 19th century. The royal commission to which I referred acknowledged that the City of London was different from other local government, it acknowledged that the City was an anomaly, and it argued that it should continue to exist, with reform. When aldermen were abolished elsewhere by legislation in the 1970s, the aldermen in the City of London were retained and are not affected by the Bill.

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The discussions referred to in the Green Paper have taken place and have been fruitful. The White Paper entitled, "A Mayor and Assembly for London" records in paragraphs 1.25 and 1.26:

"In New Leadership for London we made it clear that we do not propose to abolish the City Corporation. In reaching this decision we were relying upon the assurance that the Corporation would continue its work in promoting inward investment and financing studies for the benefit of London as a whole, and had accepted that it must respond to the need to improve its electoral arrangements. The Corporation has produced its own proposals for reform which have been the subject of consultation and discussion with those who live in the City and the variety of bodies which operate there."

Mr. McDonnell: I sit with the right hon. Gentleman on the Committee that is considering the Greater London Authority Bill, and am now the secretary of his fan club because of his articulateness in that Committee.

On the statement by the Labour party before the election, does the right hon. Gentleman consider that the commitment not to abolish the City corporation was conditional on adequate reform proposals being brought forward as a result of the Bill, and that if adequate proposals are not brought forward during this Parliament or this Government's term of office, abolition may well proceed? The reforms must therefore be genuine, proper and democratic.

Mr. Brooke: Perhaps I made the mistake of not completing the quotation before I gave way to the hon. Gentleman, as I did in the case of my hon. Friend. However, I shall respond to the hon. Gentleman. I am not, of course, privy to what went on in the Labour party in the run-up to the election. I detect, however, that the City corporation got the message that was being communicated to the City about the need to reform its electoral arrangements. The corporation has presented the proposals to the Government in order to verify that the Government were seeking that degree of electoral reform.

It may be helpful if I quote the paragraph in the White Paper, which states:

"These proposals involve both reforming the existing franchise in order to prevent abuse and the extension of the electoral system to give a wider variety of bodies and organisations voting rights within the Square Mile. We shall continue to maintain an interest in the Corporation's proposals for reforming its franchise as they develop."

In that sense, the hon. Gentleman is quite right--we are in real-time business.

I happily give way to the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn).

Mr. Tony Benn (Chesterfield): The right hon. Gentleman will know as well as any of us that there has never been any change in our electoral system without a Speaker's Conference. It has always been understood that the Boundary Commission and electoral reform of all kinds have developed in this way. Can he explain to the House what it is about the City that allows it to change its own electoral system, without considering the impact that that would have on the rest of the country, or the interests of the parties involved? What gives the City the right to draft its own constitution? Is it a city state? Is it an offshore island? What is the status of the City that allows it even to contemplate such a change?

Mr. Brooke: I take the spirit of the right hon. Gentleman's question. I have had the pleasure of listening

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to many of his speeches down the years. The fact that the City was so early into democratic principles--much earlier, I fear, than even Parliament--means that much of what we are discussing is hallowed, but there is a charter going back to the reign of Edward III in 1341.

The right hon. Gentleman will recall that when we were discussing the White Paper on reform of the House of Lords, I raised with him the fact that he had omitted from his list of House of Lords reforms the 1857 proposal that there should be life peers in the House of Lords, which was defeated in the House of Lords. It was in exactly the same year that the last comprehensive reform of the City of London occurred.

The ability for modification has persisted. When the right hon. Gentleman was a member of the Cabinet in 1969, three wards of the City of London had their boundaries altered within the City, without reference to the Boundary Commission. I am not in any way holding him responsible for that--it would not naturally have fallen to the Postmaster General, although in a funny sort of way it might have done, because postcodes might well have been involved. It has been a persistent fact that the City has that ability.

Mr. Benn: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the Representation of the People Act 1948, which abolished the business vote, is to be repealed in part by this Bill, which will restore the business vote in contradistinction of the law laid down for the whole country by the post-war Parliament?

Mr. Brooke: I am very hesitant to disagree with the right hon. Gentleman, whose historical knowledge is much greater than mine. In 1948, neither he nor I was in the House of Commons, but he was a member of the Cabinet in 1969 when the business vote was taken away in local government elections. There is a slight hazard in his using parliamentary elections as a read-across into what happened within the City of London. When the 1969 Act was passed, the then Home Secretary, the noble Lord Callaghan, specifically accepted the business vote in the City and retained it because the City was different from other entities of local government. In that respect, he was echoing the judgment of Lord Herbert in the royal commission approximately a decade earlier.

Mr. Tony Baldry (Banbury): Having heard almost "The Guinness Book of Records" number of points of order, I wondered whether my right hon. Friend could help me. If the Bill is passed, will more or fewer people living and working in the City of London be entitled to vote for the common council?

Mr. Brooke: The number of people who will cast votes in the City of London will go up substantially. The number of residents voting will be the same as the number of residents allowed to vote now, but the number of people voting will rise by 39,000.

Dr. Brian Iddon (Bolton, South-East): What is the percentage of the total votes that residents would have in future, compared with now? Would it remain the same, would it go up--or would it go down, as I suspect is the case?

Mr. Brooke: In the natural order of things, and in the light of the answer that I gave my hon. Friend the Member

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for Banbury (Mr. Baldry), the percentage of votes cast by residents would fall if the number of residents' votes does not go up, and the number of business votes does go up. However, it is not quite as simple as that. The residential vote is concentrated largely in certain wards, where the percentage of votes held by residents will continue at the same level. Therefore, no change will occur in terms of the election result.

Mr. Iain Coleman (Hammersmith and Fulham): Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the percentage figure in terms of resident voters will fall from one in four now to less than one in 10?

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