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Mr. Bermingham: My hon. Friend is using the word "agent". I have scoured the Bill: what is an agent?

Mr. McDonnell: That was the first question that I asked. I would welcome a definition from the promoters and from my hon. Friend the Minister. If we are talking of a person acting on behalf of an organisation, it should be relatively simple to put him on some form of electoral roll. If the agent is an organisation, matters become more difficult. Who are the agents of that organisation? It becomes extremely difficult to define and is open to abuse because it is not transparent. I would welcome a clear definition of "agent" from the promoters.

Dr. Godman: The aim of amendments Nos. 3 and 5 may not be to protect the interests of existing voters. If my hon. Friend fails to persuade the House to vote for those amendments, is it likely that the present electors--the people who live in London--would become a minority in the new electorate established by the Bill? That is an important question. It may be an indirect consequence of the Bill that the present electors become a minority.

Mr. McDonnell: That is one of the issues that has been raised consistently throughout the debate and in

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Committee. Our concern is that if organisations, particularly businesses, are qualifying bodies under the clause and can therefore appoint voters, they will swamp the residential vote.

Assurances were given to the Committee that the promoters would introduce a wider package of reforming measures. Their statement today says:

The Bill forms only part of a wider package of reforming measures, and the Promoters have given the Select Committee formal undertakings as to the implementation of the remainder. These can be dealt with by the Corporation's legislative mechanisms and do not therefore require Parliamentary powers.

Some of those measures would entail the re-warding of the City of London corporation to protect the resident voters. Although those assurances were given to the Select Committee in June last year and we received statements like the one today from the promoters in June, July, November and January, the reform package has not been completed. Therefore the protections that my hon. Friend seeks have not been secured.

That is why it is critical that we debate amendment No. 3 properly tonight. The amendment would go some way to providing that protection by deleting the passage from lines 10 to 19 which allows the manipulation of the system, making it possible to become a qualifying body by being a director, officer, employee and so on, or an office holder.

The amendment would also strike at the heart of the concept of "agent". It would resist this democracy by proxy, and the substitution of the elector by other nominees. It would require physical presence. Occupation of

any hereditament, or part of a hereditament, means occupation by personal physical presence there.

That is what the amendment would achieve.

In addition to the words "director" and "agent", clause 2(1)(b) refers to the catch-all concept of office holder.

Mr. Kelvin Hopkins (Luton, North): The concept of physical presence is clearly important in elections, but in general and local elections we make provision for postal voting for those who cannot be physically present. Has my hon. Friend given any thought to that?

Mr. McDonnell: I tried to clarify that in previous debates. There is a distinction between those who are temporarily absent from their normal residence, and those who have no connection with an area. That is why this Government have tried to deal with the ridiculous provisions for the overseas vote introduced by the previous Government, whereby someone could vote in my constituency, for example, although he had not been there for 20 years. We have tried to restore the local connection. That is based on residence, either current or sometime previously. The Bill does not enable us to re-assert that principle.

Amendment No. 65 would delete lines 14 to 16 of clause 2, which relate to the concept of office holder. That is the final catch-all. If one is not personally, physically present to qualify, one can do so by being a director or officer, or one can appoint an agent. If that is too much trouble or costs too much, one can set up an office for an office holder. The beauty of that arrangement is that it avoids any payments to an agent, because it can be an unpaid office holder.

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What is an unpaid office holder? That sounds like a member of the family. It sounds like some form of sinecure. What type of office is envisaged? I would welcome a response to these questions and a clear view from the promoters. Perhaps they can provide that in a future statement. Are the offices restricted? What is their range?

Let me give an example. Does any activity pursued on behalf of a firm enable the person pursuing that activity to be described as an office holder? If the office is unpaid, what is the relationship between the individual in occupation and the body that qualifies on the basis of his occupation? What is an office holder?

The wording suggests that the activities of the office holder

for the performance of whose functions accommodation is being provided by a qualifying body

are not irrelevant. Functions are performed within that accommodation, but the clause does not define what office that person or persons will hold in relation to the performance of those functions. The wording is extraordinary. On that basis, virtually anyone who passes through a venue, or who has some vague relationship to a company, can enable it to become a qualifying body, qualifying for votes in the City corporation.

The office holder does not necessarily have to be an office holder of that qualifying body. The clause refers to

a holder or any paid or unpaid office for the performance of whose functions accommodation is being provided by a qualifying body.

It does not specify that that is an office holder of that qualifying body.

There may have been an error of drafting. I understand the intent, but it is not reflected in the content. A person operating from accommodation provided by a qualifying body may be unrelated to that body, may not be an employee of that body and may not be performing a function of that body. That is muddled drafting, which could open up a vista of abuse and manipulation.

The muddle continues into the next paragraph. What is a "qualifying body"? The drafting is unbelievable. I asked the House of Commons Library to provide advice. Amendment No. 3 would strike out this paragraph as well. In the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead, it is gobbledegook.

The clause states:

"qualifying body" means a body corporate or an unincorporated body other than a partnership within the meaning of section of the Partnership Act 1890 . . .

I want to explore what that means because it is almost meaningless as it is currently drafted. I have asked for a definition of "body corporate". It usually means a body that is incorporated under a public or private statute other than the Companies Acts. A good example is a private water company or, previously, the Post Office. It also includes companies that are incorporated by a royal charter and probably those that are incorporated by prescription. The City of London corporation is a good example.

Although the term "body corporate" is used to distinguish a body from companies under the Companies Acts, in general usage, it could include such companies. It may also include companies that are incorporated

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overseas. How much stakeholding can foreign companies have in the City of London corporation? That question was asked earlier. Under the definition that I have given, a body corporate could be a body that was incorporated overseas.

I asked the Library for a definition of an "unincorporated body". If we have at least some definition of a body corporate, what is an incorporated body? The response said that "unincorporated body" would probably cover almost every entity apart from an individual. That is startling. It means that almost everything apart from an individual is an unincorporated body. However, we cannot be sure because our advice from the Library states that the meaning will depend on the context because it can be further defined. The term that is used in the Companies Act 1985 is applied widely, but that measure contains no helpful definition.

"Unincorporated" could include partnerships, building societies, friendly societies, corporate and joint ventures, co-operatives and other mutual bodies, and unincorporated associations. It could even include such bodies as police authorities. The previous debate that we held about hospitals might therefore be relevant. The Library said that "unincorporated body" was a catch-all term. The clause states that a qualifying body is a body corporate or an unincorporated body. That is extraordinary. In other words, it covers anything apart from an individual.

However, for some bizarre reason, the clause excludes

a partnership within the meaning of section 1 of the Partnership Act 1890 . . .

I tried to clarify that. As a Member of Parliament, stumbling through a private Bill, I believed that it should at least be comprehensible to us before we enacted it, if we enact it. I dutifully asked the Library to trawl through the definition of partnership in section 1 of the Partnership Act 1890. I challenge the majority of hon. Members to understand the relevance of the exclusion of such partnerships. Section 1 of the 1890 Act states:

Partnership is the relation which subsists between persons carrying on a business in common with a view of profit.

I cannot understand why, having included bodies corporate and unincorporated bodies, the Bill excludes partnerships that are established to pursue profit.

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