Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for having given me the opportunity of speaking to Amendment 89, as it enables me to apologise to the Minister for the contumacious manner with which I treated her on Monday, and to say that I am delighted to be able to speak on an amendment that is without controversy. As the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, will know, the letter from the Remembrancer, the Parliamentary Agent to the City, was copied to me by virtue of my previous membership of the House of Commons on behalf of the City. I do not propose to rehearse what the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said because I think he admirably made the case the City asked him to. I join him in hoping that the Minister can meet his and the City’s request. Perhaps I may reinforce the reference to the City’s ancient practices, which were involved in the passage the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, communicated. They go back a long way. The Remembrancer is the only local government officer in the land who is allowed to go anywhere within the Palace of Westminster without let or hindrance. I have known the last four Remembrancers; they have all been men of the highest probity and sobriety, which is more than can be said for the first holder of that office. In 1571, when the office was created, the initial appointment was of a drunken poet. Since I am citing the City of London as one of the cradles of our democracy, I shall reinforce it with a case in the Westminster part of the constituency. Charles James Fox, whom I greatly respect, was the Member of Parliament for the City for 26 years, while I was the Member for only 24, so he gets the bronze medal for being the third longest serving Member for the City since 1283. He had the experience of fighting Midhurst, where there were only seven voters, and Malmesbury, where there were only 13, until he arrived in Westminster, where there were 6,000 electors, which was what I will describe as a serious election. So liberal was the franchise in Westminster, and thus nurturing and fostering democracy in this land, that when the Great Reform Bill came in, the franchise was tighter than the Westminster one and therefore, as a result of the Bill’s passage, the electorate at Westminster fell.