§
Amendment moved [11 January]: No. 7, in page 1, line 18, at end insert—
'business electoral college" means a body comprising voters appointed under section 3(1)(c) with responsibility for electing the business voters entitled to vote in ward elections.'.—[Mr. McDonnell.]
Mr. Deputy SpeakerWith this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 8, in page 1, line 19, at end insert—
'employees' electoral college' means a body comprising voters appointed under section 3(1)(d) with responsibility for electing the employees' voters entitled to vote in ward elections.'.No. 19, in clause 3, page 2, line 33, leave out from `person' to second 'a' and insert—'elected from the business electoral college comprising voters appointed by'.No. 56, in clause 3, page 2, line 33, leave out from 'person' to 'ordinarily' in line 34 and insert—'elected from the business electoral college comprising voters appointed by qualifying bodies which are'.No. 22, in clause 3, page 2, line 37, at end insert—'(d) is a person elected from the employees' electoral college comprising voters who are employees of a qualifying body which is ordinarily in occupation for relevant purposes as owner or tenant of the whole or part of a hereditament situated in that ward which is shown in the local non-domestic rating list as having a rateable value of not less than £200.'.No. 58, page 2, line 37, at end insert—'(1A) The business electoral college shall reflect the range of business activity within the City, and shall comprise relevant business operational constituencies for which a qualifying body must register based upon its principal business operation; and the proportion of voters to be elected from a business operational constituency will be determined in proportion to the number of qualifying bodies registering for a particular business operational constituency in relation to the total registrations.'.914 No. 57, page 2, line 37, at end insert—'(1B) The employees' electoral college shall reflect the range of occupations operating within the City of London, and shall comprise relevant occupational constituencies for which an employee must register based upon his/her principal occupation as defined under the DFEE Standard Occupational Classification Major Groups; and the proportion of voters to be elected from an occupational constituency shall be determined in proportion to the number of employees registering for a particular occupational constituency in relation to the total registrations.'.No. 23, page 2, line 37, at end insert—'(1C)The number of business voters elected from the business electoral college shall be no more than 2000.'.No. 24, page 2, line 37, at end insert—'(1D)The number of employee voters elected from the employees' electoral college shall be no more than 2,000.'.No. 59, page 2, line 41, at end insert—'(2A)—(1) For the election of voters to represent the business operational and occupational constituencies within the electoral colleges, each vote in the poll shall be a single transferable vote.(2) A single transferable vote is a vote—No. 29, page 3, line 18, at end insert 'subject to subsections (1C) and (1D) above'.
- (a) capable of being given so as to indicate the voter's order of preference for the candidates for election as members for the constituency; and
- (b) capable of being transferred to the next choice when the vote is not needed to give a prior choice to the necessary quota of votes or when a prior choice is eliminated from the list of candidates because of a deficiency in the number of votes given for him.'.
§ Mr. McDonnellAt the weekend, we all filled in our census forms. When mine asked who I work for and what my job entails, I said that I work for my constituents and that my job is to represent their interests and to legislate in their interests. Tonight, we have the opportunity to legislate in the interests of all of London, and that is why I have tabled the amendments. We have the opportunity now to retrieve this flawed Bill—some would say fatally flawed—to save the Bill from itself and to rescue the City of London corporation, whose promotion of the Bill has been unacceptable, both in Committee and now. We are now in our third year on the Bill, during which time there has been ample opportunity to respond to the amendments, which were before the House previously.
I wish to rescue the Bill's chance of instigating a proper reform of the City of London corporation. The amendments seek to institute a reform to enable all those who live and work in the City—and, yes, who possess property—to have a say about their environment and community. I accept that the City is not only a single community, but many communities. The amendments seek to reflect the complex, diverse and yet interdependent communities that the City comprises. That includes the residents, the workers—the "employees" to whom the amendments refer, who spend their working hours in the City—and the businesses that occupy or tenant the City area.
The amendments are compromise proposals that could allow the Bill to pass through the House in a form that would make the new structure of local government and the governance of the City of London corporation so robust that it would render the City sustainable for another 800 years. They are a compromise. I recognise that they move away from the principle of one person, one vote, and accept that a business vote will continue in the City. 915 I understand that some of my hon. Friends will be anxious about such a compromise, but the amendments also ask for a compromise from the City of London corporation and the Bill's supporters in the House. Although they accept the continuation of the business vote, they also ask for an acceptance of workers' right to vote for the City of London corporation. That is a compromise that would not achieve what I would like—the establishment of a soviet in the centre of London—but which would balance the different communities: the residents, business and workers.
I ask the City of London corporation to advise its representative—some would add the words "on earth"—the right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster, the Bill's sponsor, and its friends in the Government, to accept these compromise amendments and to let the Bill soar on to the statute book. Failure to accept the amendments will mean that one of the key communities in the City—employees and workers—will remain disfranchised. It creates the wealth on which the City's reputation is founded, but it currently has no voice.
§ Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)On the question of workers' votes, I would like to get some answers at this early stage, as there could be some problems later. Will the workers vote on the basis of one member, one vote? Will the trade unions allow block votes? Will everybody vote on the principle of one member, one vote, or will some unions supposedly use block votes, if they want to do so? Would such votes be made on the basis of the parliamentary Labour party votes, which are divided into thirds? Finally, are we talking about the same City that 6,000 people were trying to get rid of yesterday? Is that the same City that we are trying to prop up?
§ Mr. McDonnellWhen I commenced discussion of the amendments in our previous debate, I proposed to begin by taking hon. Members through them. My hon. Friend raises issues of detail that I shall address in due course. We are referring to the City of London. The City of London corporation covers what we euphemistically call the square mile, so he is right about that point, and I give him that assurance.
§ Mr. Andrew Dismore (Hendon)My hon. Friend might recall an intervention that I made in our previous debate, in which I said that it might be easier for him to give us a general overview of how the amendments fitted together before he spoke in detail. Having re-read Hansard this afternoon, I am even more concerned that we are getting the detail before the overview. I am being given a lot of detail, but I am finding it difficult to fit that information together without getting the bigger picture first. I know that he has prepared his speech along those lines, but perhaps he could look further into his notes and make some comments of a more general flavour, so that we can see how it all fits together before we discuss the detail.
§ Mr. McDonnellLet me address the structure of the debate and resolve this matter. I suggested that I should proceed by taking hon. Members through the amendments and examining the implications of each one. I proposed to explain their role and how they operated together to introduce the electoral college mechanism, and then to 916 explain their purpose and the principles on which they are based: that is, the basic premises on which they were promulgated.
Some of my hon. Friends were anxious about that approach and wanted me to give the bigger picture before I set about the detail. However, the very hon. Members who were concerned about getting bogged down in the detail then participated in a rather lengthy debate about white van men and so on—a discussion that was tedious at times. I do not want to take that route, tempting though some hon. Members might find it. Instead, I want to take a clear, decisive and expeditious route, and to set out the principles that underlie the amendments.
§ Mr. Harry Barnes (North-East Derbyshire)I find the position that my hon. Friend outlines somewhat confusing. The batch of amendments that we are considering begins with amendment No. 7. We are being given details about the nature of the electoral college, but the lead amendment asks for further consideration of the Bill to be delayed for six months. I am concerned about the arguments, because that proposal sounds somewhat different from the suggestion that he is trying to accommodate the City in order to advance the Bill's progress.
Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. I should explain to the hon. Member that we are not discussing the proposition to which he refers and that it is not the practice of the House to do so. We are discussing the amendments whose numbers were read out at the beginning of the debate.
§ Mr. McDonnellMy hon. Friend is confused because of the numbering of the amendments on the amendment paper. Amendment No. 7 seeks to introduce a business electoral college. The establishment of the overall electoral college of businesses, employees and so on flows from that proposal.
§ Mr. BarnesI should like to clarify the position. When I entered the Chamber, I collected an amendment paper for 2 May, the first page of which is numbered as page 201. Amendment No. 7 states that on further consideration of the Bill—
Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. I have already ruled on this matter. I must say to the hon. Gentleman that the number 7 appears on the amendment paper in parallel with the name of the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. McDonnell) and refers to what follows. All that appears above is a motion that is not part of the group of amendments.
§ Mr. BarnesI apologise for being so slow, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I now understand the point that has been made.
§ Mr. McDonnellThank you for that clarification, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I do not want to speak in too much detail at this stage, but I should like to set out the principles that underlie the amendments—I shall, of course, explain their detailed implications in due course—and then argue a justification for their adoption on the basis of addressing the key concerns of each of the main political parties in the House. I hope fairly swiftly to send all hon. Members skipping through the Lobby in support of the 917 amendments. I hope that they will sing the "Marseillaise", even if I cannot persuade them to sing the "Internationale". Although I could explain at length to those who do not understand it the difference between the underlying principles of the two anthems, I shall not. If they wish to understand the difference, which is relevant to the amendments, between a bourgeois democracy and a workers' democracy, I simply refer them to Karl Marx's writing on the Paris Commune and V.I. Lenin's "Left-wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder".
The Bill is basically undemocratic: that is the difficulty with it and the ground on which many of us oppose it. It undermines the principle of one person, one vote. The amendments maintain that principle at least in part. I accept that the City corporation does not want to give up its undemocratic—some would say anti-democratic—Franchise, which allows for a business vote. In the Bill and the amendments, that vote is based on a property qualification, which runs contrary to every other method of democratic election in this country.
The amendments try to take account of the strong argument that has been presented in favour of maintaining the business vote. It has been argued that it is justified by the intensity of business activity in a small area. The City is a business district and I therefore accept that, to make progress, we need to create a structure of governance for that area that includes a business vote. However, I also want that structure to reflect the rights and responsibilities of the other stakeholders in the City of London corporation area.
The amendments define the stakeholders as the employees—the workers—and the residents. I am trying to develop an argument that enables us to reach a compromise and leads to a swift passage for the Bill.
§ Mr. Kelvin Hopkins (Luton, North)I have followed the debate with interest on previous occasions. My hon. Friend used the word "compromise" often this evening. Will he reassure me that he has not devised a compromise too far and that he is not conceding too much to those who take a different view from my hon. Friend and me about providing a genuinely democratic system for the City of London in future?
§ Mr. McDonnellIf the franchise is to be reformed, the City corporation has made it clear in statements to the House and through the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster, who sponsors the Bill, that there are some steps that it will not take. It will not relinquish the business vote or allow an amendment that provides for a straight residential vote or a combination of residential and employees' votes. In tabling amendments to provide for an electoral college, I am searching for a compromise that takes account of the three elements in the stakeholder society.
§ Mr. CorbynWill my hon. Friend remind us of the number of residential voters and the number of business votes that will be added to it by the Bill and the amendments?
§ Mr. McDonnellI am told that there are approximately 5,000 residential voters, although I am open to correction. 918 They are currently swamped by the business votes. In the amendments, I am trying to create an electoral college, which means that residential votes are never outweighed by business or workers' votes.
§ Mr. DismoreUnder my hon. Friend's proposals, would residents have at least half the votes so that their votes would equal those of businesses and employees, or would each group have a third of the votes, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) suggested?
§ Mr. McDonnellAs we develop the debate, my hon. Friend will realise that I am trying to introduce a mechanism whereby the residents will have a permanent majority over the combined votes of business and employees. That would provide some protection for the residents.
§ Mr. DismoreI am reassured by that. However, my hon. Friend said that he was trying to provide for all the stakeholders in the City. One group—customers—has been left out of the equation. If we use modern parlance and "stakeholder", customers constitute one of the most important groups. When we discuss railways or the tube, we hear about customers. However, the electorial college that my hon. Friend proposes makes no provision for the consumers of City services.
§ Mr. McDonnellIn a subsequent group of amendments, I have tried to provide at least the opportunity for shareholders to have a vote. I could not devise a method of including a customer vote in the amendments that we are discussing because of problems of definition, inability to register and the cost that such a vote would incur. Perhaps one day, if the City publishes its accounts, we can ascertain the exact amount that it could afford for those administrative matters.
§ Mr. SkinnerWhat about the Commission for Racial Equality? Will black business men or stakeholders have a specific proportion the votes? Will that also apply to women? Those are the two big issues of the day. Will people have to sign a document? What chance have we got if someone on the other side will not sign it? A hell of a lot of people in the stock exchange and elsewhere in the City may not sigh such a document. Another almighty row would follow.
§ Mr. McDonnellThe Bill and subsequent amendments make some attempt to ensure that the voters reflect the composition, including gender and ethnicity, of the companies' work forces. That matter needs to be tackled. There is a dearth of women and members of ethnic minorities on the City corporation and its various committees. However, the amendments that we are considering do not deal with that, and I shall move on.
The amendments would establish electoral colleges, comprising businesses and employees. Each would be able to determine the eventual composition of the City corporation's common council. If the amendments were 919 accepted, the electorate would comprise the residents, the voters elected by the business electoral college and those elected by the employees electoral college.
§ Mr. Robert N. Wareing (Liverpool, West Derby)I understand that the Port of London health authority is in the City of London corporation. Would the amendments encompass it?
§ Mr. McDonnellI believe that any organisation that is defined as a separate business entity and has property or employees in the City of London area would be covered by the business electoral college. There may be problems, for example, in the case of City corporation functions that are contracted out. If the contract is won in house, the workers are employees of the City corporation, not a separate business. However, a private company or separate agency that operated a service on behalf of the City corporation would be defined as a separate business and, in my view, would fall in the remit of the business college.
7.30 pm
Let me explain how the amendments that I have tabled fit together—the overview for which my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) asked. I shall consider the amendments individually and examine how they hang together. The amendments are tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), and he and I have now worked together on them in four or five debates. I shall describe each amendment and how it contributes to the new stakeholder edifice.
Amendment No. 7 establishes the definition of a business electoral college as
a body comprising voters appointed under section 3(1)(c)of the Bill—with responsibility for electing the business voters entitled to vote in ward elections.This is an indirect system of election, and there are two stages to the process. The amendment proposes that the qualifying bodies defined in lines 12 and 13 of clause 2 should be gathered together into a business electoral college. The qualifying bodies would then be enfranchised to nominate—I have retained "in writing" from the original Bill—a person to persons to represent them and vote on their behalf in the business electoral college.Amendment No. 19 amends clause 3(c) to bring about that form of indirect election of the voter, who will eventually cast his or her vote on behalf of the qualifying bodies. The definition of "qualifying bodies" follows shortly, and basically covers the businesses themselves and certain other organisations. Those voters will then cast their votes in the overall City corporation ward elections. Amendment No. 19 therefore empowers the qualifying body to nominate its voter or voters, who will serve in the business electoral college, which will, in turn, elect the voters who will be qualified to vote.
This will be a two-stage, indirect election—there have been arguments about its complexity, but it is no more complex than the constitution of the United States of America, which provides for similar electoral colleges—which will also involve the election of a council, council leader and chairs of committees under the existing 920 systems of local government. I reject the insinuation that this is closer to the election of a Pope or the canonisation of a saint. It is a straightforward indirect election system.
§ Mr. SkinnerI want to bring this debate up to date. I do not know whether my hon. Friend has thought this through, but he sounds as though he is nominating people's peers. This would be no different. There would be people nominating someone to nominate someone to nominate someone else and, despite all my hon. Friend's best intentions of getting some decent people on to this body, we know what would happen. We would get the great and the good again, and the people at the bottom of the street would get left out.
§ Mr. McDonnellI understand my hon. Friend's concerns, particularly as both our applications to be people's peers were rejected. Never mind.
The selection of people's peers—or however we like to describe them—was carried out by a committee constructed by the Prime Minister under advice. The committee then nominated the peers—that is true. Under the mechanism that I propose, there will be nomination but there will also be forms of election. There is a difference between the two examples. I accept that this is a form of indirect election, but at the end of the day the route will lead to an election, particularly within the employers' electoral college. I accept that there is an element of nomination in the business electoral college.
§ Mr. DismoreFollowing the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), I wonder how the aldermen and the mayor fit into the picture. As I understand the rather convoluted arrangements that exist now, they are chosen from among the councillors of the City—the members of the common council—who would be chosen by the people chosen by the college, who would be chosen by the college, which would be chosen by the electorate. There could be five or six different stages before we got to the most senior positions in the council, which are the Lord Mayor of London and the aldermen. Is my hon. Friend perhaps saying that they could be the people's aldermen, elected directly under his proposed arrangements?
§ Mr. McDonnellI am surprised at this lack of understanding of the arrangements by someone who has been in the Labour party for so long. The party has had the mechanism for electoral colleges for nearly a century. The amendments reflect that mechanism. The electoral college determines the voters, who turn up at a conference and elect a national executive committee, which then elects a Chair and has, in previous times, worked with the parliamentary Labour party to elect the leader of the party who has gone on to become the leader of the Government and of the country. My proposal is a reflection of a democratic practice that has gone on for some time in this country. I accept that businesses have not nominated representatives to the Labour party conference, but who knows?
Amendment No. 56 would amend clause 3(c) and, as a result, a person would become entitled to vote in any ward of the City if, on the qualifying date, that person was
elected from the business electoral college comprising the voters appointed by the qualifying bodies which are"—ordinarily in occupation of a hereditament. I prefer the French pronunciation of that word, as it has a French origin, although other hon. Members prefer the English 921 pronunciation. Amendment No. 56 is a tidier and more comprehensive amendment than amendment No. 19, and it warrants support on that basis. It represents a slight variation on a theme.Amendment No. 58 deals with the composition of the business electoral college. Its objective is to ensure that the business electoral college—the BEC—reflects the range of business activity in the City corporation. Hon. Members will understand that I am keen to ensure that the City corporation has a balanced form of representation drawn from the expertise available to it in the different professions, business operations and companies operating within the square mile.
§ Mr. DismoreOne thing that is starting to trouble me about this method of dealing with the issue is the question of nationality. To be a residential elector in an ordinary election in the United Kingdom, one has to be either a British or Commonwealth citizen, a citizen of the Irish Republic, or—in certain elections—a citizen of other European Union countries. It is not clear to me from the amendment whether my hon. Friend has addressed the issue of nationality. For example, in this new global economy, a business in the City whose head office and main operations were in the United States might have no real interest in the United Kingdom except for its business premises, which might be an offshoot of a conglomerate based in New York or Washington. Is my hon. Friend saying that such people should have a say in the democratic elections of the United Kingdom?
§ Mr. McDonnellI am seeking to find in the Bill—perhaps its promoter can help me—a restriction that states that the voter who is eventually elected to cast a vote on behalf of a company has to be a British citizen. I accept, however, that that does not mean that the company has to have its main interest in this country. It could be a multinational corporation based elsewhere, and I accept my hon. Friend's concerns about such a company's interest in the future and in its stake in the City corporation and in this country. That is perhaps a matter that could be examined subsequently, and I am sure that the City corporation would welcome amendments to that effect.
In amendment No. 58, the City corporation is required to establish a structure of business operational constituencies within the BEC. Those constituencies would be operational, not geographical, and they should reflect the various business operations that take place in the City. Only the City corporation itself could draw up such a constituency structure, as only it has at its fingertips the required expertise and knowledge of the variety of business operations undertaken in the square mile.
The corporation would establish which groupings and businesses were interested in appointing voters to the BEC. They would be invited to register for their particular operational grouping or business operational constituency and my amendment, based on the number of businesses registering for particular operational constituencies, would ensure that voters elected from a constituency were allocated proportionately. Voters would be distributed to 922 the various operational constituencies in proportion to the number of qualifying bodies registered for each business operational constituency.
§ Mr. Skinnerrose—
§ Mr. McDonnellI have obviously lost my hon. Friend.
§ Mr. SkinnerNo, I have sussed this out—it is pretty clear. My hon. Friend has gone a long way to accommodate the people in the City. I know that he has a long-standing interest in London and all the rest of it, but something tells me that some people will get more than one vote. We have had that problem with block votes and electoral colleges; it has always been difficult to live with.
Before I go into the Lobby, I want my hon. Friend to give me an assurance. Would people in the City of London get more than one vote if they had more than one business interest? As sure as night follows day, we know that the Tories and their pals do not meddle in one business; they have their fingers in every conceivable pie. They would pile up votes left, right and centre while Joe Soap would not get one.
§ Mr. McDonnellI accept that there is a weakness in the proposal. An individual shareholder or owner of a company could participate in a number of companies. As a result, he could register in not one business operational constituency in the electoral college, but several. That is a definite problem but this is a compromise Bill. However, there is further a difficulty in that a resident with a vote could hold shares in a business, which could also have a vote. The Bill is not perfect, so I am simply trying to improve it.
§ Mr. BarnesPresumably, such a person could also be a City employee, so the electoral college could have three categories. A person might be involved in each and may have multiple votes.
§ Mr. McDonnellThe proposed voting systems are similar to those relating to the constitution of the Labour party. People may have multiple votes, depending on their membership of and affiliation to the Labour party. There is an inherent problem here, but we have identified a series of problems with the Bill and the amendment represents an attempt to arrive at a situation for which we could garner support in the Chamber. Perhaps amendments to the review mechanism, which I hope to debate later, could be tabled.
§ Mr. Kelvin Hopkins (Luton, North)I have been worrying for some minutes about my hon. Friend's reference to determining the operational and geographical constituencies according to which the election would be held. He suggested that those would be decided by the City of London corporation, but I am anxious that an external independent monitoring organisation such as the Local Government Commission has not been mentioned, even in respect of operational constituencies in the business community. Will he elaborate and reassure me? We do not want friends to be scratching each other's backs while the constituencies are determined.
§ Mr. McDonnellThe amendment deals with operational, not geographical, constituencies. Operational constituencies are defined as the different elements of the business electoral college that reflect the different businesses that operate in their different ways in the City. I have confidence in the City corporation, which would be able to provide an accurate definition.
Like any other organisation that acts in the public realm, the City corporation would be open to judicial review should it offend against reasonable behaviour. The Wednesbury principles, which provide that all relevant factors have to be taken into account and all irrelevant factors dismissed in determining a reasonable decision, would obviously apply to the City corporation's delineation of the business operational constituencies. Therefore, protection would be given to individual businesses and their members, residents and employees. I understand the argument for external verification, but the reality is that external verification could easily be pursued in the courts.
§ Mr. DismoreI am becoming confused about the reference to operational and geographical constituencies. It is not clear whether my hon. Friend is saying that there should be an operational constituency for each ward or one for the whole City. Establishing an operational constituency for each word would be complex and a different kettle of fish. Indeed, it could lead to multiple voting of the type described by my hon. Friends. Would there be one operational constituency for the whole of the City's borders?
§ Mr. McDonnellMy view is that we are discussing one for the whole of the borders on the basis that elections would have to be run according to slates of candidates rather than lists of individuals. That would be manageable, given that there are only 5,000 residents. The amendment would also overcome some gerrymandering of ward boundaries, although we were given assurances by the City corporation that there would be reforms in that respect. However, I do not believe that any have been carried out.
§ Mr. DismoreNow I am becoming worried. My hon. Friend referred to slates. Did he mean open party lists or closed party lists? Did he mean any kind of party list?
§ Mr. McDonnellMy remarks represented only a supposition, not a proposal. Rather than use geographical districts, we should pay regard to the reality of what is a business district in total. Therefore, rather than define geographical constituencies, we should define constituencies of interest in terms of the work force and the businesses. I have confidence in the City corporation being able to draw up a list of the various business operational constituencies adequately to reflect the range of activities that go on in the City of London.
§ Mr. DismoreIf my hon. Friend is referring to slates of one sort or another, could a particular occupation dominate in the City? Could there be a solicitors' slate, whereby a batch of solicitors could outvote all the other occupational groups? Could the stockbrokers have a slate? We would end up with what we have already, so how would the reforms help?
§ Mr. McDonnellWith great respect to my hon. Friend, no protection against solicitors is known to man or beast 924 or other, but let me explain by exemplifying how the structure would work. I shall draw on the City corporation's latest report on London's contribution to the UK economy, which was published in November 2000 and commissioned from the Centre for Economics and Business Research.
In examining the financial contribution of London and the City, the report defines the major activities and business operations in the London and City economy. Therefore, it describes the industrial or business composition of the City of London area. It also shows that operational constituencies could readily be drawn up, although I accept that they could be numerous.
The report says, for example, that separate operational constituencies could be established for banking, finance, insurance, business services and leasing as well as for service sectors including communications, transport, storage, distribution, hotels and catering. The amendment would allow for that. Alternatively, business operational constituencies could be constructed that would delineate a company with multiple roles and then determine which role was dominant within that company, or the company could opt for a particular business operational constituency.
The corporation may wish to group businesses in broader and less numerous business operational constituencies. For example, banking and finance might form one group, insurance a second, business services a third, and distribution, communications, hotels and catering a fourth. If the amendment were accepted, the corporation's town clerk would invite all qualifying bodies—by advertisement and by letter—to register, allowing them to opt for a particular business operational constituency. The town clerk—I believe that the City corporation describes him as the chamberlain—could be required to investigate the appropriateness of a qualifying body's registering within a particular operational constituency, if the registration was challenged. There would therefore be an element of protection against abuse of that kind, and against practices that would constitute manipulation of votes.
§ Mr. CorbynI apologise for having missed part of my hon. Friend's speech: I had to pop out briefly.
In the case of a business involved in multiple operations and performing a number of different functions, how would the clerk decide on the sector to which that business should be allocated?
§ Mr. McDonnellI think that it would be open to the business to opt for a sector, and to demonstrate that it was opting for the sector in which most of its activity lay, by reference to its accounts. Its trading practices could point to the operational constituency in which it would fit.
§ Mr. CorbynI take the point, but the profitability of one sector or another might well not be synonymous with the labour-intensity involved—the number of people employed. The Bill might give more votes to fewer people because those people produced more cash for the company, rather than giving more votes to a larger 925 number constituting, essentially, a service within the company. The latter group might well be disfranchised, or at least have a reduced franchise.
§ Mr. McDonnellRegistration in the business electoral college is based on status as a business, not as an employer. Employees will be eligible for the employees' electoral college under the proposed system.
§ Mr. SkinnerWhat happens when there is a takeover? We know that business is global now. That means that foreign firms become involved, but presumably they will not have votes at the outset. How will they get votes distributed once they have taken over British firms? This sort of thing is happening all the time. Moreover, banking firms are moving into production, consumerism and so forth.
The more I hear about this proposal, the more I perceive that it contains the seeds of its own destruction. I am not all together happy with the great effort that my hon. Friend is making in regard to the electoral college. Furthermore, I want to know whether there will be a cap on political spending in the so-called constituencies, because I envisage a lot of fiddling.
§ Mr. McDonnellI would expect the normal rules pertaining to local government elections to apply to expenditure controls. As for takeovers, mergers and the like, they are an inevitable part of commercial life. In the event of a takeover, if a business changed its operation it would move into another category at a subsequent election.
§ Mr. DismoreWhat worries me is the possibility that a business would plump to go into an operational group that was under-represented, thus maximising its vote, perhaps out of all proportion to its real operational activity.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) mentioned election spending. Election spending is calculated, per voter, on the basis of residential qualification. How can that possibly work in terms of employees, of whom there may be a million? Will there be a million 10 pences to be spent, or will the system be run in a different way?
§ Mr. McDonnellThat could well come within the remit of the new Electoral Commission, which is examining electoral practices overall. I think that the calculation should be done on the basis of a straightforward single amount for a business, rather than a quota basis relating to employment or turnover, but that is a matter for subsequent discussion.
Certainly the issue of plumping between business operational constituencies needs to be tackled. I think the town clerk should be responsible for ensuring the appropriateness of a location within a business operational constituency, although that is open to challenge. A business might try to disguise its overall operation illegally: it might apparently be operating in one field but plumping in another. That would be a matter for the town clerk to investigate.
§ Mr. HopkinsIs there not a striking similarity between the system proposed by my hon. Friend and the system 926 adopted by the TUC general council in regard to industrial groups? The difference is that the earlier arrangement was determined by a democratic set-up, elected by ordinary people year on year Any irregularities or changes were monitored, and voted on democratically. This proposed system, however, is open to abuse: that is suggested by all that has been said so far. The problem is that the City corporation, rather than an external, independent body, will determine the arrangements.
§ Mr. McDonnellAs we are both ex-TUC apparatchiks, my hon. Friend and I understand the flaws in the TUC system. However, when I deal with the employees' electoral college my hon. Friend will note that it strongly reflects the TUC's voting structure and occupational groupings.
§ Mr. DismoreMy hon. Friend said that the town clerk would determine whether a business was plumping. Would the determination be on the basis of the town clerk's own inquisitorial powers to look into the matter following a complaint from an aggrieved person, and would a business feeling that it had been ruled against unjustly have the right of appeal?
§ Mr. McDonnellAccording to normal practice in local government, when a matter is drawn to the attention of the chief executive or the monitoring officer—in this case, the town clerk—that is done on the basis of a complaint. Generally, however, that person will have powers of inquiry. Any further appeal is normally made either to the courts or, in some instances, to the Secretary of State. I think there is an opportunity here at least to instigate some form of appeal.
§ Mr. CorbynI am sorry to return to the issue of the Human Rights Act 1998, but my hon. Friend will be aware that under that Act every citizen who feels aggrieved about any matter has a right to have the matter determined by an independent body—independent, that is, of those making the decision in the first place. Clearly the town clerk, as an employee of the council, can hardly be deemed independent of his own decisions and therefore able to take an objective view of them. There must either be recourse to the courts, or recourse to a similarly constituted, duly independent body. That is now a provision in the European convention on human rights, and in the 1998 Act, with which the Bill must comply.
§ Mr. McDonnellAny business person, any employee and any resident could, under the amendments, challenge the wrongful registration of a business within a business operational constituency. The town clerk would operate in the same way as the monitoring officer within local councils. The monitoring officer is seen to be independent, not operating at the behest of the political officers of the council or on behalf of the council itself, in undertaking a review and therefore a decision. My hon. Friend is right, however: there is a right of appeal to courts of law under the amendments, as there would be in other circumstances.
Votes in the business electoral college will be allocated to each operational constituency on the basis of the proportion of registrations for each business operational constituency. 927 I was tempted to introduce a market performance incentive to the system by suggesting that the allocation of votes could be based upon the financial contribution of that particular sector to the City economy, or even more radically upon how many staff the businesses or a particular sector employed—but economically incentivising democratic participation was rejected as being too challenging and almost too Thatcherite.
8 pm
Amendment No. 23 limits the number of voters elected from the business electoral college to no more than 2,000. There will be about 5,000 residential voters—residents qualify under clause 3(1)(b) of the Bill. They will still continue to qualify for votes in City corporation elections. It is important that we protect the residents from being swamped by either business or employee voters, or a combination of the two. The amendment would cap the number of business voters elected from the business electoral college at 2,000, but I emphasise that it would not cap the number of voters eligible to be nominated by qualifying bodies to the business electoral college itself at the first stage of the indirect elections.
§ Mr. SkinnerWill those be recorded votes? If so, people with tons of money will be buying them. It only needs someone like, say, Maxwell to come on the scene and to buy votes and all the rest of it. If they are recorded votes, he has got them in his pocket. He could be switching pension funds left, right and centre; he could be running the show before we could say Jack Robinson.
§ Mr. McDonnellI have not addressed in these amendments the issue of whether the votes will be recorded, or whether they will be by secret ballot. I have taken it as inherent in the democratic system of this country that all elections for a section of local governance of any nature would be by secret ballot, although that matter may be addressed in subsequent amendments. Alternatively, if we pass the Bill tonight, it may be addressed in the subsequent first report that is instigated under the legislation to review the operation of the new system.
§ Mr. DismoreI pick up my hon. Friend's point about the balance between the business vote, the employee vote and the residential vote. It was my impression that the residents would still continue to work in the historic wards that go back to mediaeval times, with those wonderful ancient names. Is he effectively saying that the amendments would sweep away all those great traditions of history and that residents would have to vote as part of the overall amorphous square mile mass, breaking down the historic traditions of the little wards in which they live?
§ Mr. McDonnellI would not wish to break down the honorific functions of the individual wards. I have maintained that tradition, which has been built up since mediaeval days. However, I envisage one single entity: the City corporation voting area. It is not, to be frank, unlike one of the individual wards of any particular borough within London. In fact, the residential population in an individual borough ward is probably higher than it is in the square mile as we know it.
§ Mr. BarnesIf I understand my hon. Friend correctly, he is saying that there would be at out 5,000 votes for 928 residents. His amendments give 2,000 to businesses and 2,000 to employees, so there is a possibility that residents could rule the roost if they acted together. That has some attractions, but normally under electoral college provisions, especially those taken from the Labour party, which has seemed to influence a great deal of my hon. Friend's ideas, the practice is a third, a third, a third—no single group begins to dominate another. Can he explain why he has not picked up that particular position?
§ Mr. McDonnellLet me go through it step by step. I am sure that hon. Members would welcome the idea that the objective is to protect the residential vote—the residents themselves. The amendment would ensure that no stakeholder group—my hon. Friend is right—was able to predominate over the residential voters. That would set in the constitution of the City corporation what in effect is being set in the Bill: the primacy of the residential qualification as against qualification by business presence or ownership, and qualification by presence in the City as an employee.
My hon. Friend is correct: it is primus inter pares. The residents are prime in terms of their status within the hierarchy. We need to protect the residential vote. That protection would be in the Bill if the amendments went through. It is an acceptance that the residential vote. because it reflects the overall tenure of democracy and every other section of government structure in this country, must be primarily protected.
§ Mr. CorbynI support the amendments and, as my hon. Friend will know, I have endorsed them in any event, but another amendment perhaps needs to be considered: whether there should be a positive disbarment on people voting in both the residential and the business sector. It does not seem clear whether the amendments cover that issue. People could have two votes.
§ Mr. McDonnellThere may be some opportunity to draft such an amendment at a later date or during one of the regular reviews. I have not undertaken that task with this batch of amendments, largely because I felt that it was too complex and unwieldy.
The point of the first group of amendments is that they go some way towards a compromise, acknowledging that the electoral principles of the City corporation have come partly into line with those underlying the remainder of local government in this country: the primacy of the residential vote. The electoral qualification is and should be based on residency but, because we accept that it is a business district, other factors should be taken into account when determining qualification to vote—business operation and employment.
§ Mr. DismoreCan I put a suggestion to my hon. Friend? It seems that he is creating an enormous, complex bureaucracy that will no doubt cost a lot of money to administer. Has he considered simply using existing City structures to corporate the business college: the City livery companies and the guilds? There is already a prototype format. It would not take a great deal to tart them up a bit to meet the basic principles that he is trying to advance.
§ Mr. McDonnellLater, I shall address that issue. In effect, this group of amendments does that. They are a 929 reconstitution in a democratic form of the old system of guilds, but within what we describe as business operational constituencies.
Amendment No. 8 defines an employees' electoral college as a body comprising voters who have been appointed—again, indirect election—and who have responsibility for electing the employees' voters, who are then entitled to vote in the ward elections for the City corporation. By ward elections I mean the election overall: the general election within the City corporation for the common council. The employees' electoral college is a straight comparison with the business electoral college.
Amendment No. 22 amends clause 3 by inserting a description of how the employees' electoral college will be formed. The electoral college will be based on a form of employees' or workers' suffrage. The amendment enfranchises employees who are employed within the City of London. They will be eligible to elect from among themselves their colleagues, who will then serve in an electoral college reserved solely for employees: for workers.
Those members of the employees' electoral college will in turn be eligible to elect voters, who will be qualified to cast their votes in elections for the City corporation for the first time since the original days of the guilds. It returns to the mechanism originally envisaged when the City corporation was established and empowered under the monarchy.
§ Mr. DismoreIs the definition of employee that my hon. Friend is using for the purposes of his franchise the same as that which commonly applies in employment law, or has he another in mind?
§ Mr. McDonnellWe should maintain a consistency across legislation, and the definition will be that which is within employment law. My hon. Friend will have some points to make on that, but consistency is important as the matter has an impact on registration.
§ Mr. HopkinsI am interested in my hon. Friend's description of the employees' electoral college. I am concerned about whether the employee representatives will be independent of their employers. In other industries and the business world, we have trade unions, which guarantee protection for workers. Where trade unions do not exist, we see token representative organisations and staff associations, which are under the control and influence of the employer. How independent will the representatives be, and what guarantee will we have of their independence?
§ Mr. McDonnellIt is not for this Bill to encompass those forms of protection, but there is the potential for protection in law for employees against intimidation by employers in no matter what respect of their activities. Some of this Government's trade union legislation would provide some protection, but I would welcome any further amendments that my hon. Friend might feel were needed.
§ Mr. DismoreOn the definition of employee, I am sure that my hon. Friend has had many letters—as have I— 930 about the people affected by IR35, whose employment position is somewhat anomalous in terms of employment legislation; they are not technically employees but, for taxation purposes, they seem to be becoming employees. Bearing in mind how many people in the City are probably working under the terms of IR35, where would they fit into his mechanism? Are they employees or not? If not, will they be disfranchised?
§ Mr. McDonnellUnder that definition, they would be seen as employees; otherwise they would fall outside the system altogether and would not be eligible for membership of the employees' electoral college. They might then be eligible for membership of the business operational constituencies of the business electoral college because they would be seen almost as self-employed. My own view is to corral them into the employees' electoral college.
§ Mr. SkinnerWhat are we talking about here? Is it sweetheart unions? Is it just one union? Is it unions without strikes? Is it a works council? My hon. Friend chose his words carefully in response to the earlier intervention about the trade unions from my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Mr. Hopkins). We ought to get this straight; is this the German system, or what is it?
§ Mr. McDonnellWithin the City corporation, very few employees operate within trade unions. Much as my hon. Friend and I may wish employees in the City to be trade unionists and their trade unions to represent them in some form through the employees electoral college, I do not believe that that is feasible at this stage. However, our proposal may be an incentive for trade union organisation within the City corporation, so that employees can come together and mobilise colleagues' votes to pursue policies through the City corporation.
§ Mr. DismoreIt seems to me that my hon. Friend is actually proposing a disincentive to join a trade union. If the employee franchise were organised around the trade union system, that would be an incentive to join, as those concerned would get their vote within the system. What my hon. Friend proposes means, effectively, that it does not matter whether someone is a member of a trade union or not; they still get the vote. It would be much simpler to ask the trade unions to organise the franchise vote—they are used to organising elections, under the control of the Electoral Reform Society—to get rid of all the enormous superstructure that my hon. Friend seems to be creating, at great public expense.
§ Mr. McDonnellIt may well be that that mechanism could be used in future, but it is open to us at the moment to facilitate the trade union role within the City of London corporation through this Bill, although that might be an incentive for a form of organisation at a subsequent date.
§ Mr. DismoreI wish to refer to the status of office holders who are not employees within the terms of employment legislation. For example, police officers who work for the City of London police are not employees, but hold the office of constable. Also, some of those who 931 work for the Port of London Authority are, I suspect, office holders rather than employees. Throughout the City, one finds all these ancient offices—
Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. Interventions are becoming far too long. An intervention should be brief. If hon. Members wish to develop arguments about this group of amendments, they should seek to catch my eye later.
§ Mr. McDonnellThank you for your protection, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon makes a valid point about office holders. I have sought in another amendment to delete the reference to office holders from the Bill, as that could produce a problem of corrupt practices. I understand that it might have a deleterious effect on others. The indirect form of election in the employees' electoral college mirrors that of the business electoral college, except in one instance.
Amendment No. 57 seeks to ensure that the employees' electoral college reflects the range of occupations operating within the City of London. My aim is to ensure that there is a balance between the occupations and the expertise that can be drawn upon in electing the employees' voters. I propose that the employees' electoral college be composed of occupational constituencies. Under the amendment, employees will be invited to register for their respective occupational constituency.
The constituencies that I have suggested are not geographical but occupational and should be based upon the Department for Education and Employment's standard occupational classification major groups. This classification categorises the various occupational groupings within our economy. These were recently changed. The changes received a fair amount of publicity because they were relatively contentious in terms of definition. Naturally, some of the groupings will be less relevant to the City of London or, in some instances, totally irrelevant: for example, agricultural occupations. If so, there will be either few or no employees registering in these categories.
As the amendment would ensure also that votes allocated within the employees' electoral college—the EEC; a provocative title if ever there was one—are to be in proportion to the number of employees registering for each category, set against the overall total registered, it can be seen that categories of no or low registration do not undermine the concept or structure of the electoral college. This goes back to the roots of the City of London corporation in the original guilds. Here we have occupations grouped within occupational constituencies; in fact, we are now re-establishing the guilds in all but name. It is a form of guild socialism developed by Pannekoek, the Dutch socialist, in the last century.
As with the business electoral college, I am proposing that the number of employee voters elected from the employees' electoral college be limited to no more than 2,000. This will mean, under the amendment, that the employees will not be able to swamp the residential voters or combine with the business voters to swamp the residents' interests. However, there will be opportunities of combinations between residents and employees versus business interests, or vice versa; that is the fair play of democracy. 932 Rateable value is an issue addressed in the Bill, because qualification will be based on it, in some form.
§ Mr. WareingI am a little mystified about how some of the people who work in the City will be categorised. My hon. Friend mentioned those who work in banks and in transport, but what about cleaning ladies? Where do they fit in? For example, would a cleaning lady employed by a bank fit into the banking and finance section? What about academics who teach in colleges in the City of London?
§ Mr. McDonnellI apologise to my hon. Friend, but I have left behind the note that I received from the Library which lists the major groups in the Department for Education and Employment's standard occupational classification. It classifies people not with regard to their business operations but in relation to their profession, such as solicitor or teacher. I can supply my hon. Friend with the information later, but I am not sure which category cleaners would come under. However, the categorisation reflects the intent of his comments. It ensures that the electoral college reflects comprehensively all those activities that the employees undertake and is grouped according to the work that they undertake, rather than the business that employs them.
§ Mr. WareingIt seems to me that no matter what work is done by an individual in a bank, say, it would make sense for him to cast a vote in that section, because he would know the people involved. I gave cleaning ladies as an example, but there are many others who are spread out over diverse operations and should cast a vote within the operation that employs them.
§ Mr. McDonnellThat is exactly what the amendment will achieve. It will group people who have a commonality of interest as a result of the work that they do, not as a result of the company for which they work. However, my hon. Friend may wish to examine subsequent amendments on qualifying bodies that consider how other groups of employees could exercise their vote.
§ Mr. DismoreHow does my hon. Friend envisage the nationality qualification applying to employee votes?
§ Mr. McDonnellThe City corporation has been helpful on that point in the past—anyone entitled to vote in the City of London area also has to qualify under the national and local government legislation that applies elsewhere with regard to citizenship. It is open to debate, now that our society is changing, whether other forms of citizenship will arise at a later date, especially in relation to the European Union.
In terms of the business electoral college and the employees electoral college amendments, I have adhered to the requirement of the original clause in the Bill that the qualifying body should be ordinarily in occupation for relevant purposes as owner or tenant of the whole of or part of a hereditament situated in that ward that is shown in the local non-domestic rating list as having a rateable value of not less than £200. I have done that for simplicity's sake and in a spirit of compromise. My hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr. Cohen) has criticised that level as too low in previous debates. However, my amendment, which caps the number of 933 voters derived from each electoral college, would serve more effectively to balance sectional interests than a crude hike in the rateable value qualification.
§ Mr. HopkinsI worry about the robustness of the democratic arrangements for the employees' electoral college. I am concerned about whether individuals will feel free to put themselves forward, lest they incur the displeasure of managers and those representing employers. When people cast their votes, will they feel genuinely free to do so, and will they feel that the secret ballot is genuinely secret?
§ Mr. McDonnellThere will be opportunities for abuse, as exist in any electoral system. That is why the City corporation should have opportunities to examine codes of practice by which companies, individuals and others will have to abide in the operation of the system. For the GLA elections, hon. Members will recall that we endorsed a set of electoral rules to apply to those elections—
§ Mr. Brookerose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now proposed.
§ Question put, That the Question be now proposed:—
§ The House proceeded to a Division.
§ Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Sylvia Heal)I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.
§ The House having divided: Ayes 99, Noes 36.
| Division No. 201] | [8.26 pm |
| AYES | |
| Amess, David | Forth, Rt Hon Eric |
| Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James | Foster, Don (Bath) |
| Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E) | Garnier, Edward |
| Atkinson, Peter (Hexham) | Gill, Christopher |
| Baker, Norman | Gillan, Mrs Cheryl |
| Ballard, Jackie | Gray, James |
| Beggs, Roy | Greenway, John |
| Beith, Rt Hon A J | Grieve, Dominic |
| Bercow, John | Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie |
| Blunt, Crispin | Hawkins, Nick |
| Boswell, Tim | Hill, Keith |
| Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia | Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot) |
| Brady, Graham | Jack, Rt Hon Michael |
| Brooke, Rt Hon Peter | Jenkin, Bernard |
| Browning, Mrs Angela | Jenkins, Brian |
| Bruce, Ian (S Dorset) | King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth) |
| Burnett, John | King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater) |
| Butterfill, John | Kirkbride, Miss Julie |
| Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife) | Laing, Mrs Eleanor |
| Lansley, Andrew | |
| Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet) | Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E) |
| Lilley, Rt Hon Peter | |
| Chope, Christopher | Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham) |
| Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Rushcliffe) | MacGregor, Rt Hon John |
| McIntosh, Miss Anne | |
| Colman, Tony | MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew |
| Cormack, Sir Patrick | Maclean, Rt Hon David |
| Cotter, Brian | McLoughlin, Patrick |
| Davey, Edward (Kingston) | Madel, Sir David |
| Davies, Quentin (Grantham) | Mates, Michael |
| Day, Stephen | Maude, Rt Hon Francis |
| Donohoe, Brian H | May, Mrs Theresa |
| Duncan, Alan | Moore, Michael |
| Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter | Nicholls, Patrick |
| Evans, Nigel | O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury) |
| Ottaway, Richard | Swayne, Desmond |
| Paice, James | Syms, Robert |
| Paterson, Owen | Taylor, Sir Teddy |
| Pearson, Ian | Timms, Stephen |
| Randall, John | Tonge, Dr Jenny |
| Redwood, Rt Hon John | Tredinnick, David |
| Rendel, David | Tyler, Paul |
| Robathan, Andrew | Walter, Robert |
| Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry) | Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann |
| Ross, William (E Lond'y) | Willis, Phil |
| St Aubyn, Nick | Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton) |
| Sanders, Adrian | Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield) |
| Simpson, Keith (Mid—Norfolk) | Yeo, Tim |
| Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S) | Young, Rt Hon Sir George |
| Soames, Nicholas | |
| Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John | Tellers for the Ayes: |
| Steen, Anthony | Mrs. Jacqui Lait and |
| Stunell, Andrew | Mr. Peter Bottomley. |
| NOES | |
| Bailey, Adrian | Mallaber, Judy |
| Barnes, Harry | Marshall—Andrews, Robert |
| Bell, Martin (Tatton) | Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley) |
| Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield) | Palmer, Dr Nick |
| Campbell—Savours, Dale | Pickthall, Colin |
| Clarke, Tony (Northampton S) | Pound, Stephen |
| Cook, Frank (Stockton N) | Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E) |
| Corbyn, Jeremy | Russell, Bob (Colchester) |
| Cousins, Jim | Salter, Martin |
| Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S) | Skinner, Dennis |
| Godman, Dr Norman A | Taylor, David (NW Leics) |
| Golding, Mrs Llin | Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion) |
| Heath, David (Somerton & Frome) | Trickett, Jon |
| Hopkins, Kelvin | Vis, Dr Rudi |
| Iddon, Dr Brian | Wareing, Robert N |
| Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak) | Wyatt, Derek |
| Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston) | |
| Llwyd, Elfyn | Tellers for the Noes: |
| Mackinlay, Andrew | Mr. Andrew Dismore and |
| Mahon, Mrs Alice | Mr. John McDonnell. |
§ It appearing on the report of the Division that fewer than 100 Members voted in the majority, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER declared that the Question had not been decided in the affirmative.
§ Mr. McDonnellI am glad that we have been allowed to continue the debate on the amendment because it is so critical. I am a third of the way through my speech and wish to present my arguments to the House. I believe that they will enable me to engender sufficient support to ensure that the Bill will be amended in a suitable form.
§ Mr. CorbynOn a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I notice that you said that fewer than 100 Members had voted in the Division and that the debate must continue. That is absolutely right. However, we seem to have been here before with this particular miracle number of 99. Can you assure me that you are satisfied that the figure is correct and that someone is not about to run into the Chamber with a piece of paper saying that a hanging chad has been found in the Aye Lobby and that, by some miracle, a Jeb Bush lookalike will announce that 100 Members actually voted? Are you satisfied that we are in order in continuing this interesting debate with the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. McDonnell)?
§ Madam Deputy SpeakerIt is a not question of whether the Chair is satisfied; it is a matter for the Tellers.
§ Mrs. Jacqui Lait (Beckenham)Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I reassure the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) that I personally counted everyone through the Lobby? The hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) did not disagree with my figure at any stage.
§ Mr. Stephen Pound (Ealing North)Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I assure you that as I was in no way involved in the telling, it is almost certain that the figure is accurate?
§ Madam Deputy SpeakerI thank the hon. Gentleman for that comment.
§ Mr. DismoreFurther to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I can certainly confirm what my fellow Teller, the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait), said. I watched very closely—particularly when we got into the 90s—to make sure that the count was accurate. I absolutely confirm that 99 is the correct figure.
§ Madam Deputy SpeakerI thank the hon. Gentleman. I am sure that hon. Members are reassured that both Tellers are satisfied with the figure.
§ Mr. McDonnellIt is further evidence of the achievements of the Government's educational policy that mathematics has improved so dramatically in this country in the space of just three months.
§ Mrs. LaitMay I inform the hon. Gentleman that I learned my mathematics in Scotland when the Conservatives were running the country?
§ Mr. Tony Benn (Chesterfield)That is why the Conservatives have no Members in Scotland.
§ Mr. McDonnellThere is a problem with counting the Conservative party's votes in Scotland, but it has never been one of large numbers.
Let me proceed with my description of the amendments by returning to discussion of the employees electoral college. An argument has been made by the City corporation and by hon. Members that a college of the composition as determined in amendment No. 59 is not feasible because it is not practical to construct a register of employees eligible to vote for the members of the college. They also argue that such a register is not verifiable, is too costly or is too cumbersome to construct. That case has been advanced during informal discussions and formal debate in both the Committee and the Chamber.
I find that argument extraordinary, and want to confront it now and knock it out of court. Let us grind our heels in the face of it. Numerous mechanisms exist not only to record the employment of individuals by a particular company, but to be used by statutory bodies on a regular basis to effect the implementation of laws enacted by Parliament.
§ Mr. Tony BennI am sorry that I did not hear the earlier part of my hon. Friend's speech, but how would self-employed freelancers find a place on the register?
§ Mr. McDonnellThey would register under the business electoral college as individual self-employed 936 businesses and would not he covered by the employees' electoral college. I forgive my right hon. Friend for not following all of my speech, exciting though it may have been. I could revisit some of the issues for him, but that might not be appropriate.
To comply with existing legislation, every firm will have a record of its employees—its work force—for national insurance and taxation purposes, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon referred earlier. Every firm has a record of its employees for health and safety purposes. In addition, many have a record of the trade union membership of their employees. Those records are readily available, and the construction of an employees' register would be no more difficult, costly or cumbersome to establish. Recent legislation makes it possible to draw on such information for industrial relations matters and other purposes.
§ Mr. DismoreIs there a qualification for the length of employment, in the same way as someone has to be employed for a certain number of months before he receives the employment rights that entitle him to redundancy pay? Does my hon. Friend envisage that an employee would have voting rights from day one, which is when many employment rights apply, or would the employee have to work in the City for a given period before acquiring them?
§ Mr. McDonnellAmendments on qualifying bodies and the qualifying period relate to the length of time for which a business or director has a connection with the City. Indeed, the City corporation is covered by provisions on such connections. My firm opinion is that employees should have rights from day one.
§ Mr. WareingMy hon. Friend has not mentioned part-time workers. Do the amendments cover them?
§ Mr. McDonnellAny employee is eligible for registration under the scheme, including part-time workers. A growing number of people work part time in the City. My hon. Friend mentioned cleaners and other workers. They would be open for registration.
The registers demonstrate the facility to construct a register of employees. Even if the records did not exist or were not accessible, it would not be beyond the wit of employees to compile a register within their firm of people who were eligible to vote. That could be organised by trade unions, as was mentioned earlier. I am sure that they would assist in the role of registration.
The registration list would be open to verification or investigation by the City corporation's town clerk on demand, or as a result of a challenge by any individual or qualifying body, similar to the way in which the business electoral college could be challenged.
§ Mr. HopkinsI am concerned about the assembly of the register of employee voters. In normal elections it can be difficult to persuade people to put their names forward to be electors. There may be a large number of employees who would not bother to do so, and that might undermine the whole democratic basis of the elections and effectively invalidate them. If only a tiny minority of people chose to become electors, the situation would be like that in 937 Britain before the 1832 Reform Act was passed. What mechanism would exist to ensure that all employees were properly registered and exercised their right to vote?
§ Mr. McDonnellI do not believe that voluntary registration by employees would be a problem. It imposes no burdens on the person registering and would be seen as an entitlement. Many people would consider it an honour to be registered as an elector in the City of London corporation area.
§ Mr. Tony BennIt has been strongly argued that the whole basis of the Bill, as promoted by the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke), is the unique nature of the City which arises from the nature of the work that goes on there. That being so, is there any reason why retired workers should not have a vote? Someone who has retired will have retained the expertise that he acquired at work. As I understand it, my hon. Friend is trying to move from a catchment-based to an experience-based electorate, so has he given any consideration to the possibility that retired workers should be entitled to put their experience at the disposal of those who are elected to serve in the wards?
§ Mr. McDonnellIt is interesting that my right hon. Friend raises that point, because I have based the employees electoral college on the TUC model for the registration of unions and individual memberships, which was mentioned earlier. The trade union movement has debated whether retired members should not only be able to maintain their membership in the retired members section, but have an entitlement to a full vote in all trade union activities. Interestingly, trade unions have dealt with that problem in different ways.
I have not addressed that matter here, but it is open to debate. As my right hon. Friend suggested, it is clear that there will be a need, particularly as we move beyond the fixed retirement age, for greater flexibility to enable people to participate in democratic structures, especially within the City corporation. That needs to be considered, but I have narrowly defined an employee as someone who has a formal contract with a particular firm and is therefore registered with it for taxation and national insurance purposes.
The amendment does not place a duty on the individual to register, but provides that the employee can exercise his right to register. That addresses the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Mr. Hopkins).
§ Mr. BarnesIs not voluntary registration a dangerous precedent? In this country's election system generally, it is obligatory to register if one meets certain conditions. To mix up the different elements of the college so that some people, as residents, would have a duty to register and others could voluntarily do so would create a dangerous precedent.
§ Mr. McDonnellMy hon. Friend, who is an expert on electoral systems, has over two decades developed ideas for electoral registration reform, and I appreciate his point. I am trying to argue that we are not placing a duty on the individual. However, he is right to say that this is different from every other registration arrangement for local or 938 national elections in this country, in which there is a legal duty to register and failure to do so is punishable in law by a fine.
§ Mr. SkinnerWho will pay for the elections? Will there be free distribution of literature? What about the homeless people in the City? As a result of the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes), we have just legislated to enable homeless people to vote for the first time. Is my hon. Friend telling me that, in 2001, he is proposing a system that will give a vote to all the homeless people who hang around the City in the naive belief that people with a lot of money will give them a handout—Although, of course, they will not? Will homeless people get a vote? By the way, will the Opposition get Short money? My hon. Friend has to think the whole thing through, otherwise people will not buy it.
§ Madam Deputy SpeakerOrder. The hon. Gentleman is going slightly beyond the scope of the debate.
§ Mr. McDonnellMay I deal with the question of homeless people and knock the matter on the head? In the residential vote, residents—people with a residential qualification who live within the area—will be entitled to vote. Arthur Scargill, for instance, has a flat in the Barbican—socialist that he is, he would be able to register to vote. People sleeping rough on the streets of the City of London would be eligible to vote as residents of the City. Legislative changes promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for North—East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) enable rough sleepers to register to vote elsewhere in the country and, similarly, they would be able to vote in the City. That would overcome the problem.
With respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover, the matter that he raised does not relate to the amendment. With regard to funding the whole system, as I have said in previous debates, City cash available to the City of London corporation is never audited and is never published in accounts. It should be audited in published accounts to pay for the new electoral system.
§ Mr. WareingI look forward to the day when Arthur Scargill becomes Lord Mayor of London. I understand how the provision would work within geographical boundaries at a by-election. However, what provision would be made in the event of one of the employee representatives in the electoral college passing away?
§ Mr. McDonnellThe electoral college would come into being prior to the City of London corporation election. Under the amendment, the employees' electoral college would meet to elect voters who would eventually vote for the City of London corporation. Because the college would be elected by groups of employees within occupational constituencies, it would be open to a group of employees to elect a replacement within the relevant time scale. That would be the norm under any electoral system that is established. There would be one meeting of electoral college voters who would then determine the voters who elect the corporation.
§ Mr. CorbynMy hon. Friend inadvertently slipped into a difficult area a few minutes ago. He mentioned that the costs of the election would be borne by the City of 939 London. In fact, the norm in all United Kingdom elections is for the Home Office to bear the cost of electoral registration and, I believe, of electoral administration. Is there a different proposal for the City of London? Would an extra burden be placed on it or would it be borne by the Home Office, as is normal with other elections?
§ Mr. McDonnellI believe that an exception should be made for the City of London corporation because it is awash with money. No one can get their hands on that money and no one knows where the City cash is tucked away. It is treated as a private fund inherited from mediaeval times and is not audited publicly. In my view, the amendment could be a lever that opens those books for inspection.
§ Mr. Tony BennOn the question of money, it is a principle of the residential vote that residents pay council tax, so they get represented. There is no taxation without representation. Does my hon. Friend's amendment introduce the idea of representation without taxation? Surely, there must be mutuality. If somebody is entitled to vote in an election, he or she should also contribute by paying council tax. As I understand it, the business electoral college proposed by my hon. Friend does not lay upon electors with the right to vote any personal responsibility for council tax, which is a significant breach of the basic electoral principle.
§ Mr. McDonnellIt does not breach that principle because two thirds of local government expenditure comes from national Government. The businesses therefore have a right to exercise their vote at the local level as well, because of their contribution through the business rates to the national coffers, which is distributed down to the City corporation and others. The individual employees contribute through national taxation, which funds local government by two thirds. In some ways, the system of employees electoral colleges could root out some of the rotten borough corrupt practices which continue to be reported and alleged. It would give greater transparency to business and employee registers and would assist in overcoming the registration of voters at accommodation addresses. I shall not go into the detail of the reports of the corrupt practices that need to be eradicated, but I refer hon. Members to the City of London and Dockland Times of 22 May last year.
§ 9 pm
§ Mr. DismoreMy hon. Friend spoke about the people elected to the college casting their vote at a meeting. Can he explain how those arrangements fit in with the new arrangements for postal and proxy voting? The regulations are, of course, much more liberal now. Can he also tell me whether employees voting for their representative in the college will be entitled to a personal or proxy vote, as that raises certain questions, and whether members of the college will be entitled to a personal or proxy vote?
§ Mr. McDonnellThe same regulations that pertain to national and local government personal and proxy votes would pertain to votes within the electoral colleges and to the votes exercised by the voters elected from those electoral colleges, which go on to elect the City corporation.
940 The final amendment, No. 59—
§ Mr. HopkinsBefore my hon. Friend goes on, I am concerned about elections within the employee's constituency and the employer's constituency, and I am worried about my hon. Friend's comments about rotten boroughs. One of the mechanisms that makes our democracy work is the party system. If people do not know candidates as individuals, at least they know which political party they represent. Does my hon. Friend envisage political parties being given rights to campaign in both the employers group and the employees group to make the system meaningful and democratic, so that those voting would understand who the candidates were?
§ Mr. McDonnellThere are problems relating to the scale of the election. I understand that. The issues must be addressed, and that could be done in the review report for which the legislation provides. The report would come before the House. My hon. Friend may wish to take up the matter in three years, when my further amendment takes effect and provides for that report.
§ Mr. SkinnerHow does my hon. Friend propose to deal with the problem of voter apathy? Perhaps he will tell us all the answer. If we crack the problem in the City of London, we have a chance everywhere else.
§ Mr. McDonnellThere is no problem of voter apathy in the City of London. The measure would provide the opportunity to serve in a form of local government that controls vast sums, exercises massive powers, beyond some of the powers of existing local councils and London boroughs, and provides possibly the greatest opportunity for municipal travel in all of local government. I do not believe that there will be any shortage of candidates coming forward to stand for election or any shortage of voters.
§ Mr. SkinnerThere is a further issue. How much will the representatives be paid? My hon. Friend just mentioned that the City was awash with money.
§ Madam Deputy SpeakerOrder. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the House is discussing not candidates, but the electorate.
§ Mr. SkinnerThere will eventually be candidates—successful candidates. Before I enter the Lobby, I want to know how much they are to be paid.
§ Mr. McDonnellThe amendments do not deal with the payment of candidates. The payment of councillors elected to the City corporation is not covered by the Bill, but I shall try to provide my hon. Friend with the information after the debate.
§ Mr. SkinnerMy hon. Friend will write to me.
§ Mr. McDonnellI will write to my hon. Friend.
Amendment No. 59 proposes that, for the election of voters to represent the business operational and occupational constituencies within the electoral colleges, the poll will be conducted under a single transferable vote system. It is put forward in a spirit of compromise to 941 garner the consensus of the House. The amendment contains a description of a single transferable vote taken from the Northern Ireland (Elections) Act 1998 enacted by the House. I do not wish to give an elaborate description of the system; I included it because it more readily allows one to be confident that the people elected have the majority consent of the electorate whom they seek to represent.
In establishing a new system that seeks to balance interests and to bring together individuals, groups and organisations which have never worked together in such structures before, it is important to have an electoral system that garners majority support for the elected representative. The single transferable vote system set out in the amendment does just that by comprising a process which, by transferring preference votes as individuals either meet or fail to meet a quota for election, ensures that a majority is, in due course, as part of the process, assembled behind the elected representatives.
§ Mr. BarnesI understand that the single transferable voting system in Northern Ireland that has been described applies to the multi-Member constituency. We are discussing not the single transferable vote which operates within a single constituency, but a complex system. Some would argue that it is a form of proportional representation, but I do not think that anyone can explain how it works in a proportionate way.
§ Mr. McDonnellMy hon. Friend obviously seeks to be constructive. For more detail on the system, I refer hon. Members to the House of Commons Library research paper 98/113. It was upon examination of that paper that I came to table the amendment. I would ask for a separate vote on the amendment. Amendment No. 29 is a consequential amendment.
I come now to the supporting arguments for the amendments—the meat of my speech tonight.
§ Mr. DismoreI beg to move, That the House do sit in private.
§ Question put:—
§ The House divided: Ayes 2, Noes 109.
| Division No. 202] | [9.9 pm |
| AYES | |
| Bailey, Adrian | Tellers for the Ayes: |
| Mr. Andrew Dismore and Mr. Jeremy Corbyn. | |
| Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S) |
| NOES | |
| Amess, David | Brooke, Rt Hon Peter |
| Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James | Browning, Mrs Angela |
| Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E) | Bruce, Ian (S Dorset) |
| Atkinson, Peter (Hexham) | Bumett, John |
| Baker, Norman | Butterfill, John |
| Baldry, Tony | Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife) |
| Ballard, Jackie | |
| Beggs, Roy | Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet) |
| Beith, Rt Hon A J | |
| Bercow, John | Chope, Christopher |
| Blunt, Crispin | Clarke, Tony (Northampton S) |
| Boswell, Tim | Collins, Tim |
| Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W) | Colman, Tony |
| Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia | Cormack, Sir Patrick |
| Cotter, Brian | O'Brien, Mike (N Warks) |
| Davey, Edward (Kingston) | O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury) |
| Davies, Quentin (Grantham) | Öpik, Lembit |
| Day, Stephen | Ottaway, Richard |
| Duncan, Alan | Paice, James |
| Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter | Paterson, Owen |
| Evans, Nigel | Pearson, Ian |
| Flight, Howard | Pike, Peter L |
| Forth, Rt Hon Eric | Randall, John |
| Fox, Dr Liam | Redwood, Rt Hon John |
| Garnier, Edward | Rendel, David |
| Gill, Christopher | Robathan, Andrew |
| Gillan Mrs Cheryl | Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry) |
| Gray James | Ross, William (E Lond'y) |
| Grieve, Dominic | St Aubyn, Nick |
| Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie | Salter, Martin |
| Hanson, David | Sanders, Adrian |
| Hawkins Nick | Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk) |
| Heath, David (Somerton & Frome) | Smith, Jacqui (Redditch) |
| Hill Keith | Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S) |
| Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot) | Soames Nicholas |
| Jack, Rt Hon Michael | Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John |
| Jackson, Robert (Wantage) | Stunell, Andrew |
| Jenkin, Bernard | Swayne, Desmond |
| King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater) | Syms, Robert |
| Kirkbride, Miss Julie | Taylor, David (NW Leics) |
| Laing, Mrs Eleanor | Taylor, Sir Teddy |
| Laing Mrs Eleanor | Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion) |
| Lait, Mrs Jacqui | Timms, Stephen |
| Lansley Andrew | Tonge, Dr Jenny |
| Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E) | Tredinnick, David |
| Lilley, Rt Hon Peter | Tyrie, Andrew |
| Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham) | Walter Robert |
| MacGregor, Rt Hon John | Wareing, Robert N |
| McIntosh, Miss Anne | Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann |
| MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew | Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton) |
| Maclean, Rt Hon David | Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield) |
| McLoughlin, Patrick | Young, Rt Hon Sir George |
| McWilliam, John | |
| Madel, Sir David | Tellers for the Noes: |
| Maude, Rt Hon Francis | Mr. Dennis Skinner and Mr. Harry Barnes. |
| Nicholls, Patrick |
§ Question accordingly negatived.
§ Mr. McDonnellHaving dealt with the detail of the amendments in this group, I now turn to the meat of my speech and the supporting argument for the principle of the amendments.
I want to persuade hon. Members to support the amendments by showing how they fit in with the philosophy and principles of each of the major political parties represented in this House and how they are congruent with the manifesto commitments given by each of those parties at the previous election.
§ Mr. PoundI shall be interested to see how my hon. Friend intends to win over the Ulster Unionists.
§ Mr. McDonnellMy hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) mentions the minority nationalist parties. I shall not deal with their philosophies in this debate, although we may wish to consider them at a later stage.
I also wish to convince hon. Members who support the Bill unamended, out of loyalty to the City Corporation, that the amendments are in line with the history of the City Corporation and with more recent statements by its senior representatives on the role of the City and on its future.
943 First, let me address the Liberal Democratic arguments on these amendments. Liberalism has been the dominant ideology of this country for more than 300 years, from John Locke and J.S. Mill through to de Tocqueville. The liberal theory of what Macpherson described as possessive individualism has been the intellectual justification for the political and economic structures of this country. They have been adapted in support of the City corporation.
§ Mr. CorbynMy hon. Friend is getting slightly carried away. There is a history of undemocratic practices in elections in and around the City in the not-too-distant past. Indeed, I draw his attention to the fact that John Wilkes was the last radical to represent the City. He was removed from the House.
§ Mr. Brookerose—
§ Mr. McDonnellI am not sure that an intervention can be made on a Member who is intervening, but one can be made on the main speaker. I give way.
§ Mr. BrookeI am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is most courteous, as he has been throughout proceedings. I hesitate to correct the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), but Wilkes, though a great man and though Lord Mayor, was never Member of Parliament for the City of London.
§ Mr. McDonnellI suggest that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North visit Hogarth house on the A4 to see the picture of Wilkes by Hogarth, which portrays a demon who did not necessarily support the democratic system overall.
§ Mr. CorbynI must insist on intervening again. The right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke) was hasty in attempting to intervene while I was intervening. Of course, he was not entitled to do so any way. My point was that Wilkes represented Middlesex and campaigned for a just electoral system, which did not apply, even in those days, in the City of London. Indeed, Wilkes represented the area that I represent, and the slogan was, "Vote for Wilkes and Liberty".
§ Mr. McDonnellMay I return to my appeal to the Liberal Democrat Members in the Chamber to support the amendment? My argument has at its heart the fact that liberal theory identifies the individual as the basic unit of society. To quote the excellent book "Using Political Ideas" by Barbara Goodwin, the
preservation of the individual and the attainment of individual happiness are the supreme goals of a liberal political system".My amendment reflects the liberal philosophy of the primacy of the individual and it would recast the City corporation franchise not only by protecting and promoting the rights of the individual resident voters who 944 qualify to vote by living in the geographical area of the City of London, but by establishing the democratic rights of the individual as worker or employee.
§ Mr. Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton)To help the hon. Gentleman, I should say that he has already convinced me and my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell).
§ Mr. McDonnellI thank the hon. Gentleman.
§ Mr. SkinnerMy hon. Friend did not convince them earlier. He is trying to woo the Liberal Democrats with his tin pot idea, but let me remind him that 99 Members went through the Lobby during the Division on closure. If 100 had gone through, his speech would have been cut short and he could never have referred to liberal democracy. The Liberals entered the Lobby with the rest of them.
§ Mr. McDonnellI say to the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) that, although we may have convinced him personally, a number of Liberal Democrat Members have consistently voted against such amendments at previous stages. In particular, in the previous Session of this Parliament, the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) was happy to accept a business vote. He even said that he was willing to accept a business vote in Southwark, which represented an astounding admission in respect of anti-liberal theory.
My amendment would protect and promote individual rights. Those rights would protect against the power of business by limiting the voting strength of voters enfranchised only by the possession of property, thereby reflecting the arguments made by those promoters of liberal pluralist democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville and Hamilton, the advocate of a liberal American constitution and author of "Federalist". Indeed, the constitutional arrangement that I propose for the City corporation is based on Hamilton's book.
My amendment reflects the liberal philosophical principle of the protection of minorities or potential minorities. Under the existing electoral methods of the City corporation, the residents are a minority under political siege. In promoting the Bill, the City corporation proposed, nay promised, that a raft of measures would be voluntarily introduced to protect the residents. I do not believe that any such measures have been introduced, hence the need for my amendments. I argued for de Tocqueville-like amendments that would enshrine protection of the electoral and democratic rights of the residents, who are a potential minority.
9.30 pm
At the root of liberal philosophy—modern liberalism, and Liberal Democratic party politics—is the importance of a voting system that not only protects the individual, but ensures that the Government, councils and, in this context, the City corporation are elected with the demonstrable support of the majority of the respective electorates. I have sought to go some way towards that objective with amendment No. 59, which introduces the 945 single transferable vote system—that is, proportional representation—to the business and employees' electoral colleges.
§ Mr. DismoreDoes my hon. Friend propose that the STV system should also apply to the residential element of the electoral college? If not, there would presumably be a rather mixed system—
§ Mr. CorbynA mongrel system!
§ Mr. DismoreA mongrel system, indeed. We would have a system in which the residents would be voting according to the traditional first-past-the-post system, while the other elements of the college would be voting according to the STV system. Does such a mix of systems create a democratic process? Will my hon. Friend also say whether voting for members of the council will take place according to first past the post or STV?
§ Mr. McDonnellI am happy to compromise with the Liberal Democrats so far, but only so far. That is why I have restricted my proposal to the first stage of the indirect election in the employees' and business electoral colleges, and have not applied it to the second stage, which involves members of those colleges' casting their votes for members of the City corporation. It is also my reason for not extending my proposal to the residential vote.
§ Mr. Tony Benn (Chesterfield)The American constitution and the philosophy of the Conservative party contain a principle of equal access to the law. When the Supreme Court came to consider the question of districts in the United States, it put to them the argument that equal access to the law meant equal access to the lawmakers—in other words, one man or one woman, one vote. Once we depart from that principle, we deny equal access to the law. That is a constitutional principle that I would expect every Member to accept.
§ Mr. McDonnellI would as well, but we have discovered during our debate not only that the promoter and its protector the City corporation do not accept that principle but, regrettably, that despite a century of Labour party tradition a Labour Government no longer accept it. That is why a succession of Labour Ministers have come here, fairly cravenly—I naturally include the Minister who is present now—to justify the Government's reassessment of their position. Let us put it no more strongly than that.
§ Mr. PoundBefore my hon. Friend proceeds with his stealthy seduction of the Liberal Democrats, may I counsel him to be slightly circumspect? By seducing the Liberal Democrats, he may lose the adherence of some Labour Members.
§ Mr. McDonnellMy aim is to go from party to party represented here, and to identify a consensus on the basis of which we can all support the amendments.
§ Mr. CorbynMay I assist my colleague in his eternal search for consensus? He said that the Minister had been 946 "craven". Can he tell us whether the Government have had discussions with him, or with the City, about the amendments and his attempts to reach some form of compromise? Are they party to the compromise, or have they yet to be hauled on board?
§ Mr. McDonnellWe have yet to receive a ministerial response to my amendments. I suggest, however, that the lines of communication between the City corporation and No. 10—and the Government overall—provide rather more access than those between the Government and me.
As I have said, I have sought to go some way towards achieving our objective by introducing a transferable voting system. Proportional representation systems have now been introduced for the election of the London mayor, the Northern Ireland and Welsh Assemblies, the Scottish Parliament and the European Parliament. My amendment is potentially a victory for the Liberal Democrats in what they describe as their campaign for "a fair voting system".
§ Mr. DismoreFor the sake of completeness, my hon. Friend would presumably wish to add the Greater London Authority to his list of bodies elected by proportional representation.
§ Mr. McDonnellI apologise to the members of the Greater London Authority. The omission has nothing to do with the effect, or lack of effect, that they may have had as an authority to date. I simply forgot them.
If the amendment were passed into law, it would potentially be a victory for the Liberal Democrats in their campaign for a fair voting system. I appeal to all Liberal Democrat Members, including the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey, wherever he is in his taxi at the moment, to support my amendments on the ground that they are congruent with and based on the mainstream of Liberal political theory. In addition, the amendments flow directly from the statements by the Liberal Democrats in their last general election manifesto in 1997.
§ Mr. BarnesIn the attempt to gain Liberal Democrat support with spurious proportional representation arguments about the single transferable vote in multi-member constituencies, Liberal Members need to be aware that 55 per cent. or so of the votes within the City of London elections would not be covered by the arrangements under the amendments.
§ Mr. McDonnellI was hoping that the Liberal Democrats had not noticed that, but never mind.
The amendments are directly in line with the statements in the last Liberal Democrat general election manifesto. They fulfil the desire, as stated in their manifesto to
modernise our politics and give people more say.They are based upon that belief thatevery citizen shares rights and responsibilitiesand thatpower … should be widely spread.My amendments fulfil most effectively that worthy Liberal Democrat vision of modernising "Britain's outdated institutions", tackling Britain' s "unrepresentative" political institutions—these are all direct quotes from the 947 manifesto—and thus renewing democracy. The argument that the Liberal Democrats advanced at the last election are the arguments of the amendments—that we should give people more of a say in decision making. If Liberal Democrat Members still believe in their manifesto statements of 1997, it behoves them to support the amendments.I turn to the reasons why Conservative Members should support the amendments.
§ Mr. SkinnerI am getting a bit fed up of this big tent philosophy. My hon. Friend has tried to get the Liberal Democrats in. Now he is moving on to the Tories. Where will it end? Ever since he opposed the measure many years ago in this Parliament, and a sterling job he has done, opinion poll ratings for Labour have gone sky high, which points to the fact that we do not need the Liberal Democrats and we do not need the Tories. According to The Sun today, we will get 420-odd Labour Members. Forget the big tent.
§ Mr. McDonnellThat is the form of political tribalism that the Prime Minister warns against.
I turn to the reasons why Conservative Members should support the amendments. It is difficult appealing for support for the amendments on grounds of Conservative philosophy or ideology, largely because there is a Conservative tradition that generally rejects notions of explicit philosophies. However, I wish to seek the support of Conservative Members on the basis of their association with and support for what can be described as liberal conservatism—that one nation Torylsm that stems from the radical zeal of Disraeli and which the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke) has shown throughout his career. My amendments seek to protect the individual while conserving the overall structure of the City corporation's electoral edifice.
By its very name and nature, conservatism is against wholesale change. My amendments seek to introduce a variation to the existing electoral structure. Nevertheless, they do not constitute wholesale change and preserve most of the corporation electoral practices in the City.
These amendments are very much in the mould of Edmund Burke, that great Conservative philosopher—or, as someone called him, "that drunken sycophant"—in that, in maintaining the existing corporation structure, they acknowledge the Burkeian argument that existing social and political forms have special virtue because they have been refined and sanctified by tradition. Having evolved over time, the conservative would argue that the existing structures have proven their success and viability.
§ Mr. Tony BennEdmund Burke was my predecessor as Member of Parliament for Bristol—a little while before I came here—but I hope that my hon. Friend remembers that his most famous phrase was when he referred to the public as "the swinish multitude", which triggered Tom Paine to write "The Rights of Man'. Of the two, I must confess that, despite my civic connection with Edmund Burke, I am a supporter of Tom Paine.
§ Mr. McDonnellThe record of my right hon. Friend in representing that constituency expunged the stain that Edmund Burke laid upon it.
§ Mr. PoundOn the subject of Burke, I was wrestling with Hazlitt the other night. In one of his essays—on the 948 difference between great speakers and great writers—Hazlitt described Burke as "the dinner bell", as whenever he rose to speak in the House of Commons, the Chamber emptied. I am reluctant to compare my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. McDonnell) with the late Member for Bristol, but praying Burke in aid may not serve my hon. Friend best, as Burke was noted for very seldom convincing anyone, including himself, of his arguments.
§ Mr. McDonnellI am trying to ensure that members of each party know that when they vote for the amendments, they do so on the basis of the philosophy of their party, as well as the modern principles on which they stand. That is why I referred to the Burkeian argument.
By maintaining the residential vote and the business vote and by accepting the concept—and even the level—of property qualification for many of the electors in the City, the amendments err towards the Conservative ideal of preservation of the status quo. The amendments do, however, ask Conservative Members to take a radical leap forward in terms of accepting the right of employees working within the City to have a role in electing the corporation.
In doing that, I appeal to two elements of traditional and modern Conservatism. The first is the promotion of the individual and the protection of his or her rights; the other is the radical Thatcherite tradition of empowering the individual in economic and political structures. My amendment that provides the right to the employee to vote in these elections is related to, and directly comparable to, the rights introduced by Baroness Thatcher's Government, who bestowed on members of trade unions the right to have a ballot before industrial action. My amendments—which empower employees, to a certain extent—are akin to the rights and powers that were provided by that Government, in which so many current Conservative Members served and to which so many look back as a golden age of radical conservatism.
I accept that there are some amendments with which many Conservative Members will not be happy, and I would be happy if they sought the Speaker or Deputy Speaker's permission to vote on these amendments separately. In particular, I expect Conservative Members not to be happy with amendment No. 59, which proposes the introduction of a form of proportional representation to the business and employees electoral colleges. If there can be no separate vote, I would urge Conservative Members nevertheless to vote for the amendment, while metaphorically holding their noses.
§ Mr. BarnesThe amendments should appeal to traditional Conservatives—including the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke)—because they attempt to reconcile conflicting interests, which is an approach and tactic of traditional conservatism.
§ Mr. McDonnellThat philosophy also appeals to the more modern Conservatism as displayed in recent manifestos.
§ Mr. PoundSurely the quintessence of Conservatism was expressed in the opposition to the Reform Act 1832, and the Conservatives' love for rotten boroughs can lead 949 them only to oppose the amendment, because we are dealing tonight with nothing more than one great rotten borough.
§ Mr. McDonnellThat is why I have appealed to the Disraeli wing of the Conservative party, which formed a radical, reforming Government who addressed some of the abuses of power of previous Governments.
In appealing to Conservative Members to support the amendments, I draw their attention to the congruity between the intent and content of the amendments and the policies set out in their party's manifesto at the last election. In particular, I draw their attention to the statement that strongly supports my compromise amendments, which reads:
Radical changes that alter the whole character of our constitutional balance could unravel what generations of our predecessors have created. To preserve that stability in future—and the freedoms and rights of our citizens—we need to continue a process of evolution, not revolution.Conservatives embrace evolutionary change that solves real problems and improves the way our constitution works.On that basis, I argue for support from Conservative Members and for them to embrace the evolutionary changes set out in the amendments.I now seek to persuade my comrades in the Labour party, or colleagues in new Labour, to support my amendments tonight.
§ Mr. DismoreDoes my hon. Friend propose to advance two different arguments or the same argument with two different spins on it?
§ Mr. McDonnellThis is a legitimate attempt to demonstrate that the amendments can straddle the different political philosophies, and the more modern manifesto statements, of the three major parties that are represented in this Chamber.
The Labour party and its members and Government are not impermeable to rational debate, persuasion and conversion.
§ Mr. Tony BennI am not sure about that.
§ Mr. McDonnellLet us not put the issue to the vote. I take the view that the amendments are the direct products of more than two centuries of socialist philosophy and a century of practical and pragmatic Labour party political activity.
§ Mr. CorbynMy hon. Friend is trying to appeal too widely. I recall some strong debates in the Labour party during the late 1960s and early 1970s about the role of independent, working-class, socialist organisations and the incorporation of those within the state, hence the debate on works councils versus independent trade unions. Does not my hon. Friend think that there is a danger that we are going down the road of incorporation?
§ Mr. McDonnellThere is an argument that stakeholder democracy may be a form of incorporation. My view is that we need to engender support in the House on this 950 day and for these a amendments to enable us to legislate effectively. On a philosophical basis, I appeal to all the different political parties, and to the different strands in the Labour party, for support.
The Labour party is a democratic socialist party. I know so not only by my own experience, but because the Prime Minister tells me so in the excellent text that he produced in 1996, "New Britain: My Vision of a Young Country". Indeed, the Prime Minister is a socialist: he told us so in his maiden speech in 1983.
In my right hon. Friend's work, he sets out the analysis on which my amendments are based, and marshals the arguments and the justification for them. They would begin the process of constructing a stakeholder constitution for the City of London.
In his book, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister described stakeholder politics, building on the concept of the late John Smith that we should aim for
a citizens democracy where people have rights and powers and where they are served by accountable and responsive government.
§ Mr. DismoreHow does my hon. Friend square talk of giving people rights and powers with the amendment, which would give votes to businesses?
§ Mr. McDonnellLater in my speech, I shall demonstrate that the argument for democratic socialism under this Government is based on stakeholder participation. The compromise in this Bill is the extension of stakeholder participation to businesses in the City of London. We may not like that, but we have the opportunity to legislate on it tonight.
John Smith died before he could embark, in government, on the task of establishing a responsive local democracy. However, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made it clear that amendments of the sort under discussion this evening represent the mechanism by which the stakeholder society could be created. He argued that people are disaffected with local government because they feel no sense of ownership and because they have no stake in the political process. My amendments would extend the franchise to employees, and give them a stake in the new structure in the City corporation that may loosely be described as democracy.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister supported my view when he stated:
If we are to renew our democracy, we must start with local government—the government closest to the people.My amendments strike at the heart of the renewal of democratic local government. They would make a reality of my right hon. Friend's vision of a stakeholder democracy—if this does not get me a job, nothing will—that involves residents, businesses and employers. All of them would have a stake in the successful operation of the City of London and its corporation.My amendments would empower the many, and not just the few.
§ Mr. SkinnerMy hon. Friend has been at it since 7 o'clock, as near as dammit, and has never yet mentioned the word "class". There are bosses, and there are workers. I know that he wants to get everyone all lovey-dovey and 951 touchy-feely, but to this day bosses still sack workers. I hope that he will bear that in mind, despite his new-fangled ideas.
§ Mr. McDonnellThere is an opportunity for lateral thinking when we look at the constitution of the City corporation and its powers in the future.
§ Mr. CorbynI am getting quite alarmed. As I said earlier, I believe that there is a danger in incorporating just about everything into the new City of London. Would my hon. Friend be prepared to support a later amendment that may be tabled, which would simply put the process on hold? That would mean that all local government in the UK could be adequately consulted on the radical departure that my hon. Friend proposes in local electoral law and in its systems and administration. I realise that the amendments have been designed to fit the general ethos of the Bill, but does not he agree that there is a case for pausing and thinking a little more widely about the matter?
§ Mr. McDonnellAs I am just getting going in my speech, I do not want to debate the contents of other amendments. However, there will be an opportunity to table further amendments, and I should be happy to discuss them then.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) mentioned the conflict that has gone on in the past in the City corporation area, and in capitalism in general. In developing a stakeholder democracy, employees and residents may gather together to widen the powers of the City corporation to intervene in disputes between bosses and workers, as my hon. Friend described, which would effectively enhance the powers of employees.
§ Mr. DismoreMy hon. Friend talks about stakeholder democracy and follows the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) about consultation. The essence of stakeholder democracy is consultation with all relevant parties. My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. O'Donnell) has described how his amendments evolved, but he has not told us what consultation he has had with employees' representatives, such as trade unions, or with business in the City. He has mentioned the discussions that he has had with the City but not what other consultations he has had.
§ Mr. McDonnellThe problem with this legislation is that because it was not dealt with as a draft under other procedures in Committee, I do not think that the Committee process allowed for adequate consultation. I accept that. It behoves us to take time to consult the various interest groups further, not over these amendments, because I hope to legislate this evening, but possibly on the first review of the new structure that will be in place three years after the introduction of this legislation.
§ Mr. Michael Jack (Fylde)I have been listening with interest to the hon. Gentleman. Was his amendment inspired by a reading of "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist"?
§ Mr. McDonnellLater in my speech we may be able to deal with the exploitative relationship between workers 952 and their employers, using the example of "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist" and the workers in the decorating industry. I am trying to avoid class conflict in the amendment and build a stakeholder consensus for the first time.
§ Mr. Brookerose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now proposed.
§ Question put, That the Question be now proposed:—
§ The House divided: Ayes 91, Noes 34.
953| Division No. 203] | [9.56 pm |
| AYES | |
| Amess, David | Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E) |
| Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James | Lilley, Rt Hon Peter |
| Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E) | Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham) |
| Atkinson, Peter (Hexham) | MacGregor, Rt Hon John |
| Baker, Norman | McIntosh, Miss Anne |
| Baldry, Tony | MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew |
| Beggs, Roy | Maclean, Rt Hon David |
| Beith, Rt Hon A J | McLoughlin, Patrick |
| Bercow, John | Madel, Sir David |
| Blunt, Crispin | Mates, Michael |
| Boswell, Tim | Maude, Rt Hon Francis |
| Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia | Moss, Malcolm |
| Brooke, Rt Hon Peter | Nicholls, Patrick |
| Browning, Mrs Angela | O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury) |
| Bruce, Ian (S Dorset) | Öpik, Lembit |
| Butterfill, John | Ottaway, Richard |
| Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet) | Paice, James |
| Paterson, Owen | |
| Chope, Christopher | Pearson, Ian |
| Collins, Tim | Randall, John |
| Colman, Tony | Rendel, David |
| Cormack, Sir Patrick | Robathan, Andrew |
| Cotter, Brian | Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry) |
| Davey, Edward (Kingston) | St Aubyn, Nick |
| Davies, Quentin (Grantham) | Sanders, Adrian |
| Day, Stephen | Simpson, Keith (Mid—Norfolk) |
| Duncan, Alan | Smith, Jacqui (Redditch) |
| Evans, Nigel | Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S) |
| Flight, Howard | Soames, Nicholas |
| Forth, Rt Hon Eric | Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John |
| Garnier, Edward | Steen, Anthony |
| Gill, Christopher | Swayne, Desmond |
| Gillan, Mrs Cheryl | Syms, Robert |
| Gray, James | Taylor, Sir Teddy |
| Greenway, John | Timms, Stephen |
| Grieve, Dominic | Tredinnick, David |
| Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie | Tyrie, Andrew |
| Hawkins, Nick | Walter, Robert |
| Hill, Keith | Wells, Bowen |
| Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot) | Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann |
| Jack, Rt Hon Michael | Willis, Phil |
| Jackson, Robert (Wantage) | Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton) |
| Jenkin, Bernard | Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield) |
| Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham) | Young, Rt Hon Sir George |
| King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater) | |
| Kirkbride, Miss Julie | Tellers for the Ayes: |
| Laing, Mrs Eleanor | Mrs. Jacqui Lait and |
| Lansley, Andrew | Mr. Peter Bottomley. |
| NOES | |
| Austin, John | Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S) |
| Bailey, Adrian | Donohoe, Brian H |
| Barnes, Harry | Golding, Mrs Llin |
| Bell, Martin (Tatton) | Iddon, Dr Brian |
| Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield) | Illsley, Eric |
| Clarke, Tony (Northampton S) | Jenkins, Brian |
| Clwyd, Ann | Kilfoyle, Peter |
| Cook, Frank (Stockton N) | McDonnell, John |
| Cousins, Jim | Mackinlay, Andrew |
| Mahon, Mrs Alice | Skinner, Dennis |
| Mallaber, Judy | Taylor, David (NW Leics) |
| Marshall—Andrews, Robert | Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion) |
| Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley) | Vis, Dr Rudi |
| Pickthall, Colin | Wareing, Robert N |
| Pike, Peter L | Watts, David |
| Pound, Stephen | |
| Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E) | Tellers for the Noes: |
| Quinn, Lawrie | Mr. Jeremy Corbyn and |
| Sarwar, Mohammad | Mr. Andrew Dismore. |
§ It appearing on the report of the Division that fewer than 100 Members voted in the majority, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER declared that the Question had not been decided in the affirmative.
§ It being after Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
§ Debate to be resumed on Thursday 10 May.