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Mr. Brooke: I shall give way, but the hon. Gentleman will understand, after what I have just said, if I animadvert to him in my subsequent remarks.
Mr. McDonnell: I am trying to sidestep becoming a parliamentary institution. On independent scrutiny, I have to tell the right hon. Gentleman that I made points about the ability of individual firms to fund proposals, the structure of balloting and postal balloting. That aside, will he advise me on what independent scrutiny there is of the registration of qualifying bodies under the Bill?
Mr. Brooke: I shall respond first to that point and then return to what I had intended to say. In answer to what the hon. Gentleman has just said, I must, if he will allow me, fall back on the ministerial prop of saying that I shall write to him. As for the references that he perfectly properly made in his speech, as his speech lasted in excess of 100 minutes, I should not wish to take an examination on the whole of it. I was seeking, as best I could, to ensure that I responded to his central points.
Before the hon. Gentleman intervened, I was about to say that I could not tell whether the fact that his references to ballots might drive a coach and horses through the City's intentions for the Bill was his ulterior and secret motive, but that I could say that that would be their effect.
Amendment No. 37 seeks to alter clause 3 to provide that hereditaments that cross ward boundaries are to be treated as located in the ward in which the majority of employees working at the hereditament concerned are located. The clause provides that cross-boundary properties are allocated on the basis of the ward in which the greater part of the building is located.
9.15 pm
The undesirability--if not the impracticability--of deciding location on the basis of where in the premises employees are located is not difficult to identify. Employees are not static, and an attempted assessment of the part of the premises in which the majority of them might be located at any given moment is likely to yield highly arbitrary results. Even if the amendment were read as implying reference to an additional parameter--such as where in the building the employees usually work--in deciding location, the results would be capricious. Allocation of the voting entitlement could, for example, end up being based on the position of office furniture in a room, and could be altered simply by moving the desks around.
Buildings have a degree of permanence, and the approach taken by clause 3 is consistent with that taken in other contexts, including, for example, the compilation of rating lists where hereditaments cross rating authority boundaries. That, I suggest, offers a much more practicable and precedented method of dealing with property that crosses ward boundaries.
Amendment No. 38 would add a reference to "relevant employees" in clause 3(7); it refers to schedule 1 and is consequential on amendment No. 26, to which I have already spoken. Amendment No. 40 would delete from clause 4(1) the requirement on qualifying bodies to ensure that the composition of the work force is reflected in the appointments made, and substitutes the requirement for a ballot. In speaking to amendment No. 34, I explained at some length why ballots do not promote a practicable way forward. Amendments Nos. 51, 52 and 56 are also consequential, as the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington pointed out.
Amendment No. 54 again refers to relevant employees and thus back to the issue of ballots. However, it substitutes for the table in schedule 1 an entitlement for qualifying bodies limited to the appointment of one person for work places where up to 1,000 people are employed and one more for each thousand thereafter. The effect of that would be to limit the entitlement of the vast majority of City businesses to one person. Only the largest City businesses--less than 1 per cent. of the total--would be eligible to appoint more. For the vast majority of businesses, there would thus be no prospect of participation by a cross-section of the work force.
There would be an absence of proportionality. The retail kiosk would have the same level of representation as the business employing hundreds of people. Such representation would then be triggered only if businesses went through the ballot procedure. For the reasons I gave earlier, that is not a reasonable expectation.
In addition to those elements, even if--for the sake of argument--it is taken as realistic to assume that businesses would voluntarily go through a balloting exercise to appoint one person, the overall increase in the City's electorate, and thus the level of representation of the City's diverse commercial interests, would be small and distorted. That runs counter to the Bill's intentions.
I have responded to the amendments in some detail to demonstrate to the House why the Bill, and especially the process to which this group of amendments is directed, have been framed in their current form. I hope that also explains why I have to invite the House not to accept the amendments.
Mr. Pound: It is with a slight reluctance that I speak in opposition to the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke). Normally, to see his name as a Bill's sponsor is similar to seeing the old sign outside Lords cricket ground saying that admission was 6d, or a shilling if Dr. Grace was batting. The presence of the right hon. Gentleman is usually the imprimatur of acceptability to the broad feeling of the House.
As the right hon. Gentleman walks to the wicket for what he has described as his last season at the crease in this place, with his club tie around his flannels, perhaps a decent touring cap rakishly worn over one eye, and his bat tucked under his arm, the plasters around its base bearing witness to many past struggles, many of us on both sides of the House will think of the last innings of John Berry Hobbs, Hammond, or any other great batsman. We shall look with sentiment at what has been--and will continue to be--a most distinguished career. Be that as it may, tonight the right hon. Gentleman is wrong.
Mr. Brooke: I much appreciate what the hon. Gentleman has just said. However, given the metaphor that he is using, is he aware that a predecessor as Member of Parliament for my constituency, Mr. William Ward, accomplished in 1820 the ground record for Lords of 278 when he played for the MCC against Norfolk? That remained the ground record for 105 years.
Mr. Pound: Very few Labour Members are not aware of that fact. As has already been mentioned, my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. McDonnell) and I had the benefit of education from the de la Salle brothers and the Jesuits. In fact, many of us thought that Lords was the Catholic cricket ground. We have learned more about it tonight and we have been pleased to do so.
It is a shame that the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster, as he takes guard at the crease in his last season, is faced, on the Labour Benches, by the rude mechanicals from west London. Although I have no doubt that, as ever, he will gracefully caress the crimson wanderer to the palings with the waft of the willow that has characterised his parliamentary style, he will, I trust, forgive some of us if we see ourselves as Eric Hollies to his Bradman, or even Lillee to his Edrich.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington. He is not yet my right hon. Friend although after tonight's tour de force, I have no doubt that the Cabinet beckons him. [Hon. Members: "Which cabinet is that?"] Unfortunately, it is probably the cabinet of Dr. Caligari or the cabinet used by Harry Houdini.
My hon. Friend has attempted to do what I thought to be wholly impossible. He has attempted to make better a bad piece of legislation and he has attempted to bring daylight, clarity, sanity and logic into the most bizarre mosaic of mediaeval mummery that anyone can look at without doubting that their senses still rest between their ears. How on earth can one justify the Bill?
There is only one intellectually sustainable case to be made for the Bill. I have my views on the amendments and, in my opinion, the City of London is in many ways an extremely successful institution. It would be a glorious addition to the London borough of Hackney.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) rose--
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. I am not sure which amendment the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) is addressing. I would be very grateful if he would start to address one of them.
Mr. Pound: Yes, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I give way to my hon. Friend.
Mr. Corbyn: Before my hon. Friend goes into detail as to which amendment would extend the boundaries of the borough of Hackney into the City of London, will he remember that the borough of Islington also has a boundary with the City of London, as does the borough of Tower Hamlets? We do not wish the City to be annexed to Hackney to the exclusion of Islington and Tower Hamlets. Will my hon. Friend reflect on that point?
Mr. Pound: I thank my hon. Friend for so brutally and publicly correcting me. Although the resident population of the City of London is about one third the size of an average London ward, why should not the three adjoining boroughs be refreshed by the addition of new wards from the City of London?
On the generality of the 20 amendments before us--the overwhelming thrust of which is to seek to input an element of democracy, participation and accountability into the Bill--I do not think that even the inclusion of the ingenious proposals and propositions put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington addresses the fundamental issue in the Bill. The problem is a yawning dichotomy in which a mediaeval structure, which is successful, does not have the courage to say, "We are remarkably successful. Yes, we are capitalist robber barons and we are something special."
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