CLAUSE 4.—(Special provision as to City of London.) (Hansard, 19 October 1939)

§ Mr. Peake

I beg to move, in page 3, line 1, to leave out from the beginning to the word "as" in line 5, and to insert: The foregoing provisions of this Act in so far as they relate to councillors shall apply to the Common Council of the City of London. I must apologise to the Committee for bringing forward a manuscript Amendment. This Clause deals with the special position of the City of London. The hon. Member for the English Universities (Mr. Harvey) raised the question of this Clause 1106 in the Second Reading Debate. The City of London requires some special treatment in a Bill of this kind for this reason. Aldermen in the city are elected for life. It was thought undesirable to give under Clause 1 a power by co-option of creating an office of alderman which would be held for the rest of a man's natural life, but that is the whole extent to which any special provision is required for the City of London. Clause 4 as drafted gives the City of London the option whether or not they care to adopt the provisions of Clause 1. I have seen representatives of the city and they do not wiant to claim any special exemption so far as councilmen are concerned. As the result of the Amendment which I propose, the elections of common councilmen in the City of London will become subject to Clause 1. The Amendment is restricted in its character and we had given the City of London rather more butter on their bread than they needed.