Greater or Lesser London
By KENNETH ROBINSON* N. one would describe the structure of Lon- don local government as rational. Admit- tedly a vast urban complex of 81 million people spread over some 700 square miles, which is also one of the great capital cities of the world and the nucleus of the Commonwealth, produces unique problems of administration. But the existing machinery, inadequate when it was evolved more than sixty years ago, makes no sense at all on paper today. That it works is little short of a miracle.
How did it all come about? Since Saxon times the City of London has been content to confine its authority to a mere square mile of territory, largely insulated by its special character and great wealth from the problems of London as a whole. , The County of London, established in 1888, even then embraced only part of the built.up area, and excluded the. City. Ten years later the County was subdivided into twenty-eight Metropolitan Boroughs, varying greatly in size and population, and local government functions were somewhat arbitrarily shared between the boroughs and the London County Council, the lion's share going to the LCC. London was circumscribed on the administrative map, but London continued to expand. The peripheral suburban areas, though essentially a part of London, were territorially part of the Home Counties (apart from one or two autonomous County Boroughs) and thus had no administrative link with the LCC.
So untidy a set-up was bound at some point to provoke demands for reorganisation. But all governments know that local government reform is a prickly subject, touching entrenched interests and strong loyalties, and tend to regard inaction as the best policy. It was not until Labour had held the LCC continuously for more than twenty years, not until Mr. Henry Brooke, ex-leader of the Tories at County Hallo, was at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, that the nettle was grasped. In 1957 a Royal Commission was appointed to consider the reorganisation of local government in Greater London.
Reporting in the autumn of 1960, the Commis- sion produced proposals that were revolutionary without being altogether unexpected. The LCC was to disappear in favour of a Council for Greater London with a limited range of powers, including traffic, planning, refuse disposal and fire services. The main units of local government were to be fifty-two Greater London Boroughs, ranging in population from 100,000 to 250,000 and formed by amalgamations of existing local authorities in London and the Home Counties. Responsibility for education, however, was to be shared between the Greater London Council and the boroughs on somewhat complicated lines. The City of London would retain all its old powers and privilege. 'Logic has its limits,' was all the Commission could say in defence of this.
A year of discussion with existing authorities followed and last November the Government published its own proposals in a White Paper. The recommendations of the Royal Commission were broadly accepted, with two important ex- * Member of Parliament for St. Pancras North. ceptions. The boroughs are to be larger—mini- mum population 200,000—and reduced to thirty- four in number. The education proposals, almost universally condemned as unworkable, have been dropped with a thud. The Government now pro- poses an entirely separate education authority for the Central area of London covering a population of some two million; outside this area education is to be the responsibility of the boroughs. The White Paper was the subject of a two-day debate in the Commons this week.
The plan had already met with a hostile recep- tion in most quarters. In the first place &touched the entrenched interests at many points. The County Councils of Surrey, Kent and Essex will lose large urban areas of high rateable value; those of London and Middlesex disappear with- out trace. The top-tier London authority, by in- clusion of the predominantly Conservative sub- urban periphery, is neatly converted from a Labour stronghold into what the party agents call 'Tory marginal.' Vigorously denying that political consequences had even been considered, the Royal Commission could hardly expect that this fortuitous result of its proposals would be overlooked by the Labour Party. There is dis- agreement too about the optimum size of the London Boroughs. Some people think they should be smaller than the Commission recom- mended, while others would prefer even fewer and larger units than the White Paper proposes.
By far the sharpest controversy surrounds the elimination of the •LCC.- The case for an authority exercising at least traffic and planning powers over the Greater London area and possibly beyond it, is a strong one, but need this involve the total destruction of the LCC? It was perhaps unfortunate that the LCC evidence to the Royal Commission was directed towards preserving the status quo, instead of steering change in the right direction. The London County Council has come in for a good deal of criticism in recent years, some of it justifiable, but its record in many res- pects is outstanding. One must weigh in the balance the imaginative redevelopment of the Elephant and Castle, and many other schemes, against the appalling muddle over Piccadilly Circus. In the post-war rebuilding of London, most of what is xsthetically satisfying and visu- ally exciting can be placed to the credit of the I.,cc Architects' Department. The brilliant team —and this is essentially a team effort—gathered together by Sir Robert Mathew and. Sir Leslie Martin will be dispersed if the LCC is to go. In- dividual boroughs will be unable to sustain any- thing comparable. The Council's patronage of the arts has been both generous and enlightened. But its greatest contribution has been in education. In its evidence to the Royal Commission, the Ministry of Education itself paid tribute to the LCC's reputation.
This fact is implicitly recognised in the White Paper. It is because it saw that London's edu- cation system could not be carried on effectively by a multiplicity of boroughs that the Govern- ment has now proposed a central authority over roughly two-thirds of the present LCC area. The arguments that have compelled it to take this step are hardly less relevant to other functions of the LCC. If we need a re-created London County Council for some purposes, is it so neces- sary to destroy the old one? Might not a more realistic solution be found in a less drastic redis- tribution of functions and boundaries?
All these criticisms, and many more, were voiced in the Commons debate on both sides of the House. The new Minister of Housing, Dr. Charles Hill (and if anyone still believes that this Government is serious about planning, let him reflect on this appointment), attributed them to 'inertia and fear.' There were, it is true, speeches made from local authority briefs pleading in effect for the status quo, but there was genuine anger too. The Opposition took the unusual step of tabling an amendment of rejection to the Government motion, which invited the House merely to 'take note' of the proposals, because it was clear that the Minister's mind was made up on everything but detail. Moving the amend- ment Mr. Michael Stewart developed_ an impres- sive case against the scheme. Few of his argu- ments were met by either the Minister of Educa- tion or Mr. Macleod who followed later from the Government Dispatch Box. Sir David Eccles con- centrated so hard and so effectively on demolish- ing the Royal Commission's original proposal for education that he failed to notice that he was making the case, not for the White Paper compro- mise, but for the preservation of the LCC as an education authority. It is hardly surprising that several Conservative Members refused to support the Government in the lobby. Three in fact voted for the Opposition amendment.
Dr. Hill seems determined to force through the White Paper plan in time for elections to the Greater London Council to take place in 1964. If the decision is final, there is much to be said for haste. Staff morale is sagging, uncertainty 'about the future and fear of redundancy are apparent at all levels in Town Hall and County Hall alike. The administrative chaos which is bound to accompany the change-over will not be lessened by delay. Yet many disinterested observers are convinced that it is the wrong solution, that to replace a functioning machine with much posi- tive achievement to its credit with a new struc- ture inspiring so little initial confidence is a wanton act, with a taint of gerrymandering about it. A strong case, was made in this week's debate for starting all over again.
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