Greater London Authority Bill

I shall respond first to the noble Lord, Lord Harris and help with the situation in New York. In fact the mayor of New York is now limited to two terms, I accept; otherwise I suspect Mayor Giuliani might still be mayor—but that is another issue. Incidentally, the city councillors in New York are also limited to two terms. There is much debate in New York about whether that term limit should be removed, and considerable public opposition to the removal of that limit. The Conservative amendment is moved because of the present incumbent, but on our part that is not the case; our amendment has the same intention as the one we moved at the time of the original Bill. At that time Mr Livingstone agreed with us. We have always believed, and still do, that there should be a term limit for the Mayor of London. If the amendment were to be accepted, there might then be a question about when it was implemented—I accept that to bring it in with less than a year to go before the election is capable of misinterpretation, as we have heard today—but the principle remains the same. The suggestion that we cannot change this because it was not in the original Act flies in the face of the precedent quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, about the American Constitution, which the Americans changed. President Roosevelt was the only president to hold office three times; Mayor Livingstone might well be the only Mayor of London to do so. With the Bill we have an opportunity to change the system. Several noble Lords, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, asked: what is the difference? As my noble friend said, the crucial difference is between a parliamentary system where power is shared—although perhaps sometimes more in theory than in practice—with a Cabinet Government, with a Parliament or with a local authority with a number of councillors, and a presidential system that puts executive power in the hands of one person. That is why we are moving an amendment to this effect. It is outside the purpose of the Bill to apply to all elected mayors, but London was the first place in this country to have a directly elected Mayor with executive powers. Personally I would extend a term limit to all other elected mayors for exactly the reason.