Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I have listened to this debate with great interest. I listened with great sympathy to the paean of praise for Telford by my noble friend Lord Grocott. I happen to know Telford because, when I was Defence Procurement Minister, among the agencies for which I was responsible were the Defence Support Group and the Defence Storage and Distribution Agency. I visited them in Telford on more than one occasion. I watched them doing superb work repairing vehicles that had been repatriated from Afghanistan after having been extremely seriously damaged by improvised explosive devices. I was immensely moved—that is the only word that I can use—not only by the skill but by the extraordinary dedication of the people who were working on that job. They knew how enormously important it was for the military and they were proud to do the job, which they did with absolute perfection and dedication. If any group of men and women in this country deserves special electoral recognition, I should find it hard to deny it to the people of Telford. Apart from that consideration, I had no idea that anybody was thinking of making a special concession to Telford. Neither was I aware of the attractions of the Scottish islands off the coast of Argyll. Having heard the idyllic descriptions of them from several quarters of the House this evening, I shall certainly make it a priority to visit that part of the country. With the leave of the House, I will revert to the City of London and speak in support of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, who spoke with the historical erudition that the House will associate with him. I also support the equivalent amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Hayter, which would have a similar, although slightly more forceful, effect. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, made a case for the historic privileges of the City and for the City of London’s right to continue to be recognised as a constituency, or as part of a constituency with that name included in it, as has been the case since Parliament existed. I follow my noble friends Lady Hayter and Lord Myners in making a more pragmatic case. I am in no way detracting from the historical case, but I think that there is an important practical reason for continuing to ensure that one individual—one man or woman—can be described as the Member for the City of London. So that I do not get into trouble, I had better declare an interest, although it is not really a current interest. Before I entered politics, I was engaged full-time in the City of London, latterly as a director of a merchant bank. I was a colleague of the noble Earl, Lord Home, with whom I shared an office at one time. I saw him in his place a moment ago, although he has now left the Chamber. Even after I had been elected to Parliament as a Back-Bencher, I continued my role in the City and subsequently, before entering the Government, I was on the council of Lloyd’s of London, which is one of the biggest insurance and reinsurance groups in the world. However, I have no current financial interest in the City of London. I am a liveryman of the Goldsmiths’ Company, which is one of the ancient City companies, but I do not know whether that in any way constitutes a material interest. Having said that, I recognise that it is difficult to say anything favourable about the City at the present time. Bankers and politicians are the two most unacceptable groups of humanity at the moment in this country and, indeed, elsewhere and we just have to accept that for the time being. As I have said in the House, there is no doubt that in commercial banking, which is just one area of activity that takes place in the City, serious professional mistakes were made. An awful lot of the criticism and, indeed, vituperation has, I am afraid, been all too well deserved. Nevertheless, the City of London is much more than commercial banking or investment banking, which is my field. The City of London involves stockbroking, securities trading, fund management, international fund management—an enormously important field of activity, as my noble friend Lord Myners said—commodities trading, insurance and reinsurance, both the company market and the Lloyd's market, and shipping. The Baltic Exchange is the world's greatest centre of trading in ship charters. I do not have the figures in my head, but we all know that the City generates an enormous proportion of gross domestic product. Some people may say that it is disproportionately great, which may be true in the sense that it would be nice to have a more balanced economy, but the solution to that is not to run down the great asset and generator of wealth that we have, it is to nurture it and ensure that we are in no way inhibiting the development of other sectors of economic activity. The City is an enormous national asset. It is the envy of Europe that we should have achieved here in London, in this time zone, far and away the greatest financial market in the world. It is a great source of employment. The latest figure which I have, which may be out of date but it sticks in my mind, is that half a million people work in the City every day. The vast majority of them come into the City. We have already heard from the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, that only about 4,000 or 5,000 people live in the City and some of them do not work there, so it is an enormous generator of wealth and employment. I think that the House is familiar with the importance of the City to the national economy and will therefore bear with me when I say that it would be an enormous mistake to deprive the City of a representative in Parliament who is explicitly that, who is the Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster, or whatever the name might happen to be. It clearly needs to be for the City and somewhere else, and Westminster seems to fit it very well, but it must be a single Member of Parliament for the City. If the City was divided between two, three or four constituencies—the neighbouring constituencies at present—that responsibility would not fall on any one man or woman. We would not have a clearly defined interlocutor for government who could say truthfully that he or she represented the City; we would not have one person to whom the City could appeal. Before I give way to my noble friend Lord Myners, perhaps I may say that he was an enormously distinguished Minister for the City. We need a Minister for the City and it would be nice if we could again have such an able and effective Minister as my noble friend, but the Minister for the City, by definition, is not a representative of the City; he is a member of the Government constrained by collective responsibility. There may be occasions when the Government want to do something that the City does not want, or the City wants to make representations to the Government to do something else. In those situations, it is necessary that the City has a genuine representative in Parliament in the form of a man or woman who has in his or her title the phrase ““Member for the City of London””.