Greater London Authority Bill

It is time that someone said a few words on behalf of long-suffering London taxpayers. Since the Mayor came into office, we have seen a surge in wasteful and unnecessary spending—spending on focus groups, research, consultancies, discussion documents, propaganda and advertising—in order to boost the role and image of the mayoralty at the taxpayer’s expense. What disturbs me most about the issues that have emerged from the debate, and about what we see in the Bill, is that its provisions will result in a further step away from value for money and proper financial accountability in the government of London. As a Conservative party member, I am delighted, because that will make it so much easier for us to win the next mayoral election. The provisions are an open sesame to this Mayor to go on his rake’s progress and to spend and spend and spend. He seems to have no sensitivity for how people are suffering from the extremely high tax impositions that he has already made, or for what is likely to happen when some of the scrutiny and powers to hold him in check are removed. It is absurd that a properly elected GLA will be unable effectively to veto an inappropriate or excessively expensive budget. We know that, last time around, the people of London were much more inclined to give Conservatives their votes for the Assembly in order to provide a check on the Mayor, because they knew his weakness only too well. The voters might now see that, as there is to be no check on the Mayor, it will be important to have a Mayor who understands that people find it difficult to earn the money that he wishes to take off them and that he should therefore spend less of it and spend it much more wisely. The Government have a similar version of that overspending problem. They are always asking us where on earth we would make economies, and claiming that they spend the money so well. There is an economy that would be very easy to make, and it should be in the Bill. It would involve the abolition of the Government office for London. What is the point of this nasty, unnecessary, wasteful, spendthrift quango, when we are spending all this other money—as national taxpayers and, for some of us, as London taxpayers—on an elected Mayor, an elected Assembly which tries in part to control him, and on proper borough government? My right hon. and hon. Friends who speak for London constituencies have made powerful points about how they believe that true democratic accountability should be devolved to, and rest with, borough government. I quite understand that. The City of London is a great place and it has its own mayor, who represents the City in a fine way. The City of Westminster, where I have a flat, has its own mayor and looks after the interests of Westminster residents very well, unlike quite a lot of the Labour boroughs one could mention. Those places do not need an elected Mayor coming in over their heads, not understanding their circumstances or their contract with their electors, to overrule and countermand their decisions. It is particularly frustrating for a well-run Conservative borough that tries to keep its council tax down to find that a socking great surcharge has been placed on the bill by a Mayor who has no sense of propriety or value for money in these matters and who obviously does not think that he has to answer to the electors of such a borough because he is expecting to get his votes from somewhere else, where people might not be paying the same bill in the same way. I know that it is late in the Bill’s progress through the Commons, but I think that, in the Labour party’s interests, the Government should think again about this matter. The Bill will enable the Mayor to exercise powers that will probably embarrass the Government and the Labour party, as he realises just how much power he has been given. All of us who would like to see proper devolution, preferably taking powers away from government at all levels, so that families, individuals and businesses have more power, think that where government needs to have more power, it should be exercised at the lower level—the borough level—rather than government of London or mayoral level. We would rather see that and that would make much more sense for the Labour party and for the Government’s alleged aim of wanting true devolution. The true unit of democracy in London is the borough. London was built up as a group of villages and smaller settlements, loosely coming together in some kind of federation. However, much more important than the federal level is the individual borough, to which people feel their loyalty and used to pay most of their tax. In some boroughs, we are now getting to the ridiculous position where the Mayor might start to take more off people than the borough itself. The borough provides a wide range of important services, but what is the Mayor doing that we want? I cannot think of anything that the Mayor is doing that I, as a sometime Londoner, want, and I know that there are many other voters who feel the same about the Mayor. He is a luxury that we can scarce afford and the Bill will make him even less affordable. Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time:— The House proceeded to a Division.