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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but interventions are increasingly stretching into mini-speeches. Could he make his point now, quite briefly?
Even at the end of the Bill's Committee stage, the Committee members, with the restraints that we were under, still felt that much more needed to be done.
Mr. McDonnell:
I accept that point. Although I had some anxieties about it, I think that the Committee, within certain bounds, did a reasonable job. Earlier in the debate, I expressed my anxiety that the Committee would not be able to take proper cognisance of some of the issues raised in Second Reading, and therefore would not be able to give the advice that was required of it.
When, for example, the City of London Labour party suggested enfranchising the work force, in a payroll vote, the Committee should have sought advice on whether it should seek such an amendment from the City of London corporation. I think that, at that stage, the Committee could have been sufficiently forceful to ensure that the corporation accepted the amendment being promoted by the City of London Labour party. I believe that moral pressure could have been employed to ensure that the amendment was accepted. I regret that advice on the matter was not taken by the Committee at that point, so that such an amendment could have been tabled. It was a valid issue in the Bill.
When I drafted amendments to enable that to happen--again I apologise to the City of London Labour party for not consulting it on my amendments' detail, which is most probably why they are not particularly eloquent ones--and sought the Private Bill Office's advice, I was told that the Private Bill Office would check whether it would be in order to amend the Bill in such a manner. My amendments were in order, and they were selected.
If Committee members and the City of London Labour party petitioners had been made aware of that fact, the point on the amendment could have been made more forcefully. The City of London corporation could have compromised on that issue, as it has on so many other, relatively minor ones--except for the right to veto, which is an important one. If that had happened, we would today have been debating a fundamentally different Bill. We may not necessarily have been happy with such a Bill, but we would have been closer to being able to say, "Some form of democracy is being practised in the City of London corporation."
Mr. Colman:
My hon. Friend has spoken about compromise. We have all received a letter from the City of London Labour party, which supports the Bill in its current state. Does he agree that the worst possible
Mr. McDonnell:
That is a valid point to raise when we are discussing an amendment, because the amendment seeks to amend the Bill, not to defeat it. If it were a wrecking amendment, it would not have been called. Therefore I take my hon. Friend back to the point that I made--I shall not delay the House--in relation to the earlier intervention.
When representatives of the City of London Labour party appeared before the Committee, they said:
I had a conversation with Kate Green, secretary of the constituency party--one of the best advocates for the Labour party that the party could have. In a considered way, working with her colleagues, she drafted amendments, discussed the matter in detail with the Corporation of the City of London, sought compromises and achieved some. Nevertheless, I believe that, if members of the constituency party had been aware that it was possible to amend the Bill in this way, they would have pressed further, and I believe that, in that case, the Corporation of the City of London would have provided us with something tonight that we could have debated, thus maintaining some semblance of a feeling that we were reforming.
I would willingly give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Sawford), who served on the Committee, to allow him to say whether that is his impression, because I believe that there is a real opportunity here.
Dr. Godman:
In relation to amendment No. 13 and the view of the City of London Labour party on the Bill, might I remind my hon. Friend that the promoters of the Bill have promised, inter alia, that
Mr. McDonnell:
It relates partly to a later amendment on the report of the Secretary of State, which I should like to discuss at some stage. However, I shall answer that question because it partly relates to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Putney raised, which is that the review of the wards is a significant amelioration of the current system. Who won that amelioration? The City of London Labour party campaigners and Malcolm Matson and other petitioners. That is excellent, but, even in that regard, a compromise has been accepted, because who conducts the boundary review? The Corporation of the City of London itself, because it does not come under the auspices of the boundary commission. In fact, one of the proposals that was advanced in the statement was that
Mr. McDonnell:
I shall press on, if I may.
That situation is very similar to that regarding the City cash; this does relate specifically to my amendment. One of the reasons to empower employees in the system is to enable them to have the power to have some oversight of the corporation and its finances. Some say that £1.6 billion is sitting in the City cash--money which is not audited by the district auditor or by the Audit Commission. It is a separate account, hidden from view.
Mr. Corbyn:
If the boundary commission is not involved--and if the court of common council is, in effect, the boundary commission--is my hon. Friend aware whether any of its decisions, were they to be perverse, could be challenged by judicial review on the grounds of fairness towards those who live and work in the City of London?
Mr. McDonnell:
I am not a lawyer, although I have some historical experience of libel law which I wish to put behind me. I would suggest that anybody, including the City corporation, is open to judicial review on the basis of the Wednesbury principles of reasonable behaviour. In any decision, the City corporation--as a local government body--would come under those Wednesbury principles which, as you know, require any body or individual, alderman, councillor or whatever--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. First, may I remind the hon. Gentleman to use the correct parliamentary language? Secondly, he is getting away from the amendments. I would be grateful if he would return to them.
Mr. McDonnell:
I apologise for the language, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It requires one to take a decision, having taken into account all the relevant factors and dismissed all the irrelevant factors. That is a definition of the Wednesbury principles.
The issue of the City cash is critical and relates to the boundary issue. The Committee observed that there would be the benefit of increased transparency if the corporation were to seek the opinion and experience of the boundary commission for England in conducting a boundary review. That is a request, and I urge the City corporation to accede to it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Putney asked why the amendments that I tabled were not previously pressed by the petitioners in Committee, and why the Bill does not contain them. We will have received correspondence from the two petitioners. One, from Malcolm Matson, sets out the basic arguments against the Bill and asks us to vote against it. On the amendments, however, the City of London Labour party wrote to a number of hon. Members, explaining their acceptance of what I consider to be
considerable victories for the party in its petitioning of the Bill. However, the party accepts that there has to be a further process.
The local Labour party was grateful to those hon. Members who supported and endorsed the proposed amendments by contacting the corporation. However, I am not sure how many pressed the issue of empowering the payroll vote, as is set out in the amendment. The Committee members and the petitioners were of a view that that was beyond the remit of the Bill, when clearly it was not. That is why we are debating the matter tonight.
The Committee was minded to go further, and the City of London Labour party was able to strengthen the amendments, to the extent that the Committee produced a Bill which was substantially different and essentially more democratic. The Labour party's letter lists those reforms. However, it was unable to list any proposal or amendment similar to my amendment on empowering employees because, like others, those concerned thought that it was beyond the power of the Bill.
My hon. Friend the Member for Putney prayed in aid the City of London Labour party, and said that we should accept what we have. If this does not happen, he suggested, there will be catastrophe--the status quo will continue for another millennium and we will never get the chance to make the body in some way accountable and democratic.
The letter says:
"We have commended to the corporation an alternative proposal that votes should relate to the number of staff employed by bodies within the City--a system we refer to as a payroll vote."
I shall not waste the time of the House by reading out more of the detail of the minutes, but they show that the representatives were obviously of the view that such an amendment could not be made to the Bill. I commend them for it.
"the number of members returned by residential wards will be reviewed to protect their proportion on the Court of Common Council"?
Does my hon. Friend know who will conduct that review?
"The City of London Labour Party agrees that the amended Bill delivers less than the ideal reform to bring the City into line with democratic local government practice. Further reform will not be easy but is necessary. The Committee itself made certain suggestions. The challenge will be to find ways to advance them."
The amendments take up that challenge.
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