| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. McDonnell: The hon. Gentleman is well travelled, and has gained his reputation from reporting from cities across the world. Is there any city of which he is aware where the franchise is given to the business vote--not as a business district or as a section of a community overlaid by a democratic body, but in its own right?
Mr. Bell: I have covered elections in about 20 different countries and in none of them have I found such an archaic and strange way of voting as that which we are discussing tonight. The proposed system involves a vote for £10,000 of rateable value; two votes for £20,000; three votes for £30,000; 100 votes for £1 million. What is this--votes for sale? Can we not buy them over the counter at Harrods? It is extraordinary, and out of keeping with the kilter of the times.
It is suggested that we are being asked tonight to vote for a world-class City, but that is what we already have. We need a world-class City with democratic institutions from end to end, and that is not on offer in the Bill.
Mr. Tony Benn (Chesterfield):
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke) on a speech of great charm, skill and knowledge. I congratulate him also on extending the principle of the private finance initiative to the electoral system. With the help of private capital, you can get more voters, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I suppose that I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for not adopting the full principle that instead of an election, a ward councillor's job would be put out to tender. That would be the simplest thing. Then, on polling day, the common clerk would announce the bids that had been submitted. That would save the cost of the election and would introduce a system in line with the philosophy that is becoming more widespread.
I am glad to see my hon. Friend the Minister for London and Construction on the Front Bench because, knowing as I do Government Front Benchers' commitment to modernisation and democracy, I know that he will advise the House to reject the Bill, for the reasons given by the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell). It is an act of brazen effrontery, as we approach the end of the century, to say that voters should be bought and appointed to run a city of such distinction.
The right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster said that he had a hereditary interest--and so do I. My grandfather was a founder member of the London county council in 1889. I have been looking at what he said at the time, and he said that
A Select Committee was set up in 1856 and, in 1867, another Select Committee was set up. In 1884, legislation was proposed to unify the City of London with the rest of London. Surely that is not too speedy for the House, even in its present mood. The Home Secretary, Mr. Harcourt--who used to have a dining room here, but lost out to Churchill--said that he could not give London control of the police because of "Irish outrages". Therefore, it was not possible for the Metropolitan police to be controlled by London. Maybe if it had been, we would not have had the Lawrence inquiry, because there would have been some local accountability.
From the beginning, there has been a tremendous struggle to make the City of London not only democratic, but a part of the greater city from which it draws much of its wealth. The commission of 1837 declared that it was
Mr. Benn:
The problem is that there are two police forces in London. There are the bobbies with the big hats which make them look like Roman centurions, and the Metropolitan police. If the police had been handled as they were in every other city, they would have been accountable to the police authority. The Lawrence case did not arise in the City of London--maybe it would have been different.
In response to a question from the hon. Member for Tower Hamlets on 21 February 1893, the President of the Local Government Board said that the Government intended to appoint a commission
You either believe in one man--or one woman--one vote, based on human rights, or you sell it all off, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster, with great charm, advised us that the centre of our great city--our capital city--should be subject to commercial purchase. The hon. Member for Tatton--I think that the Tatton doctrine will go down with the Nolan doctrine and others--said that that was unacceptable.
Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark, North and Bermondsey):
I am happy to follow the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) who, like the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell), has made it clear that the case for the Bill is a difficult one to make.
It is unfortunate that we are having to have such a Gilbertian debate about the government of such an important place. Whatever our view about the outcome, the City of London is hugely important to Britain. I hope that nobody will confuse the ridiculous set of propositions and counter-arguments that we are having to go through with a view that the City is not important and should not continue to be important, in the interests not just of London, but of Britain.
I should declare my interest, although even that too may have become a bit Gilbertian. As a member of a set of chambers in the Temple, although it is outside the City, I am a City of London elector, because tenants of chambers currently get a City business vote. I said somewhere else the other day that I had an interest because I was a voter, and was then telephoned by one of the elected representatives, who told me that I did not appear on this year's electoral roll. My clerk told me that he had left me off by mistake, so I may not be a voter this year, but I am normally a City of London voter and I have sometimes voted.
"the city remains socially and municipally isolated, as if it still hated the enemy without its invisible gates and feared contagion from contact with the world."
Being a scholarly man, my grandfather referred to the legislation. In 1837, the commission set up to look after the administration of the legislation in various towns said that
"there was no argument for applying the Act to other towns which did not apply with equal force to London."
London was excluded from the legislation. I can go back 160-odd years to argue that the case for reform has always been there. The House is a motorbike with four-wheel brakes--it deals so slowly with any movement that it detects. That is what I fear about the second Chamber. However, I will not go into that at all.
"unable to discover any circumstances justifying the distinction of the City from the rest of the metropolis".
Mr. Asquith--if I may cite some Liberal support in the spirit of consensus politics--said that it was both
"constitutional law and common sense that the Corporation of the City holds its property and privileges in trust, not for that square mile".
Mrs. Lait:
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a separate police force, called the City of London police, and that the force is responsible to the police authority, known as the court of common council?
"to consider the proper conditions under which the amalgamation of the City and the county of London can be effected, and to make specific and practical proposals for that purpose."
24 Feb 1999 : Column 468
That was 110 years ago--the man who asked the question was my grandfather. Alas, I did not know him--he died before I was born. However, he would turn in his grave if I did not speak on the matter to which he devoted his life.
In 1894, the royal commission presented its report. It said that it had
"conceded the whole case for unification, and for the inclusion of the City in the new London. It was proposed that the governing body of London should be elected in the same way as the existing County Council".
However, the Government lost office. A new Government came in, and Lord Salisbury--the Salisburys are always in there when skulduggery is to be done--addressed the Conservatives on 7 November 1894 and delivered a violent attack on the London county council. He described it as
"the place where Collectivist and Socialistic experiments are tried . . . a place where a new revolutionary spirit finds its instruments and collects its arms."
That was before the Labour party was formed. I can understand why Lord Cranborne and others are still at it.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |