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Mr. McDonnell: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Brooke: As my speech will be shorter than the one made by the hon. Gentleman, I shall wait a moment before giving way, although that is uncharacteristic of me.
Under some compulsion from the House, the hon. Gentleman's amendments were put, and I shall speak briefly in rebuttal of them. The most enjoyable moment in his speech was when he got to amendment No. 33 and, in a manner worthy of the former Member for Burnley--who, on one memorable occasion, said, "I intervene upon myself, Mr. Deputy Speaker"--
Mr. Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield):
Was that Dan Jones?
Mr. Brooke:
As my hon. Friend says, it was indeed Mr. Dan Jones. However, I should rather not take interventions unless they are absolutely necessary.
The substance of the remarks of the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington in moving the amendments was contained in his observations on amendment No. 13, which he described as the key amendment. He looked forward to amendment No. 33, which amended the schedule; that amendment also dwelt on the process. The majority of the other amendments were either paving or consequential amendments, so I shall run through them quickly; I shall concentrate on amendments No. 13 and 33.
I think that the hon. Gentleman would agree that amendment No. 7 was a paving amendment. He took the view that amendment No. 13 was the key amendment. It would make an insertion in clause 3 so as to require the conduct of a ballot of relevant employees to decide who is to be appointed as a voter. No details are given about how such a ballot would take place, or about how the selection of candidates would be made. In any case, the amendment is inappropriate, because it harks forward to a proposed amendment to the schedule--amendment No. 33--which links the entitlement to appoint voters to numbers employed rather than to rateable values. As will be apparent under the substantive amendment to the schedule, that system is not workable for reasons to which I shall come.
The hon. Gentleman spoke to amendment No. 16, to which I shall return because it is a little different from the
others. Amendment No. 17 appears to be consequential, as does amendment No. 19. Amendments Nos. 30 and 31 are also consequential.
Amendment No. 33 represents the heart of the hon. Gentleman's argument that, instead of an election system based on rateable value, we should have an election system based on payroll. The amendment replaces the existing scale of appointments in paragraph 1 of the schedule by a scale related to the numbers of employees. Qualifying bodies having up to 1,000 employees would receive one appointment, with one each for each subsequent 1,000. The possibility of using employees as an index was given detailed consideration before the promotion of the Bill. In the event, it became apparent that such a scheme would not be administratively workable.
Mr. McDonnell:
The right hon. Gentleman suggests that there was detailed consideration of the proposal before the Bill was promoted. Who was consulted in that detailed consideration? It was certainly not London Members of Parliament, London local authorities or many of those who were involved in the petition against the Bill. That consultation does not seem to have taken place.
Mr. Brooke:
The hon. Gentleman knows well that the Government made it clear that, if the corporation was not to be abolished, it had to reform its franchise. As it was to be reformed through the business vote, the consultations and discussions, not unreasonably, took place with business interests.
In the event, it became apparent that a scheme such as that to which the hon. Gentleman addressed his speech would not be administratively workable. Such an approach would also mark a departure from the current principle of business voting in the City, and would therefore set a precedent for commuter voting.
Rateable value has been chosen as the basis of the system for reasons of administrative convenience. By contrast, the allocation of votes by reference to the size of a company's work force would represent a considerable burden on business. The House should be aware that in developing the proposals for reform, the corporation gave full consideration to allocating votes on the basis of the number of employees. They found that asking companies to furnish the town clerk with their employment details is not as straightforward a task as it may seem.
Many firms hold their payrolls centrally in regional centres. That may include information on all employees, whether or not they work in the City, and extracting the information on employees working in the City may not be especially easy. At the same time, there is considerable volatility in the City work force, with a staff turnover of up to 26 per cent. per annum. That would mean that the number of people employed within a company--
Mr. Andrew Dismore (Hendon):
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Brooke:
I would be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would let me finish my point.
That would mean that the number of people employed within a company over a year will be highly variable. Adopting employment as a measure of entitlement to voting rights would therefore cause business greater
expense to comply with voter registration than is the case with rateable values. I shall now give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Dismore:
Will the right hon. Gentleman explain the difference between compiling a register of employees on a given day of the year, such as 10 October, and compiling an ordinary electoral register, as every local authority has to do--which is a much more complex job--on exactly the same date? Certainly in London boroughs the turnover of electors is greater than that of staff in businesses in the City.
Mr. Brooke:
The hon. Gentleman has been involved in the City of Westminster, and he knows the rate of turnover there. I very much doubt if there is the same degree of turnover in his constituency. At any rate, an annual staff turnover of 26 per cent. is massive.
It was also felt that if voting rates were allocated on the basis of employment, the scheme would become much more than just a modernisation of the existing business vote system. Allocating voting rights on the basis of employees rather than property would mean the introduction of a whole new principle into the British electoral system and might, as I said, provide a precedent for the introduction of the commuter vote.
The rateable value of a property occupied by a qualifying body will, in any event, have some relation to the number of staff that it employs and thus the size of the payroll. Within each ward, therefore, the properties with the largest rateable values also have the most employees. Recognising that there might be some properties that carry high rateable values, but have few employees, the Committee amended the Bill to provide that a company or qualifying body cannot receive a greater number of votes than it has employees. That will prevent the potential abuse identified by the hon. Members for Tatton (Mr. Bell) and for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) on Second Reading, whereby a qualifying body could sell voting rights to the highest bidder.
The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington will, as a result of the debate so far, be amply aware that the City of London Labour party is also of the view that the entitlement to vote ought to be related to the number of employees rather than rateable value. On day three of the Committee stage, Christopher Haines, chairman of the local Labour party, told the Committee:
Mr. McDonnell:
I shall not repeat what was said in a lengthy debate earlier, but I thought that I had made it clear to the right hon. Gentleman that the City of London Labour party, members of the Select Committee and other
Mr. Brooke:
I remind the hon. Gentleman that neither of us can rewrite history. The Select Committee sat in a quasi-judicial manner and made the determination that it did. The City of London Labour party chose not to press that particular element of its petition.
"We have commended to the Corporation an alternate proposal, that votes should relate to the number of staff employed by bodies within the City, a system we refer to as the payroll vote . . . However we recognise that to amend this Bill to incorporate the principle of payroll votes would be a fundamental change".
The City of London Labour party chose not to press the amendment in Committee and I hope that the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington will withdraw his amendments tonight.
9.30 pm
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