Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle said the intention is to ask whether the Corporation should be left as it is, reformed “or abolished”
A Green Party peer and former leader has launched a survey into transparency and accountability within the City of London Corporation.
The project, which is being run by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Investment Fraud and Fairer Financial Services, is asking parliamentarians and members of the public to comment on issues from governance to access to information and the role of the City Remembrancer.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle, a member of the APPG and leader of the Green Party from 2012 to 2016, wrote in an online article that the intention is to ask a simple question: “Should the Corporation be left as it is, fundamentally reformed, or abolished?”
A spokesperson for the City of London Corporation said its backing of financial and professional services supports high-quality jobs and helps generate £110 billion in tax revenues.
They added the Corporation is “proud” to invest in education, housing, culture and green spaces “that enrich the lives of people well beyond the Square Mile.”
The City of London Corporation, the governing body for the Square Mile, is distinct among the country’s local authorities.
While it has responsibility for a range of typical council functions, such as planning and housing, it also oversees areas which ordinarily fall out of remit.
For example, it runs a number of green spaces beyond the City, such as Hampstead Heath, as a registered charity, and has its own police force.
Its electoral system is also unique as it incorporates businesses, with organisations getting additional votes relative to the size of their workforce.
Some of these eccentricities have over the years led to critics referring to the Corporation as the country’s last ‘rotten borough’, a term used to describe corrupt and unrepresentative constituencies.
Baroness Bennett’s APPG initiative has been launched with these concerns in-mind, and is intended to assess transparency, democracy and fairness within the Corporation.
She wrote in an article for Parliament News last week that it was Labour Party policy to abolish the Corporation until Tony Blair became leader.
She wrote: “Through the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Investment Fraud and Fairer Financial Services, I have launched a project to ask a straightforward question: should the Corporation be left as it is, fundamentally reformed, or abolished?”
Her article states the case for asking “is neither arcane nor merely academic”, before running through concerns from the privacy afforded to the Corporation’s centuries-old endowment fund, called City’s Cash, to the business voter model.
She also raised the role of the City Remembrancer, “an advocate for the COLC within Parliament, supported by a legal team, whose role is to watch over the legislative process and protect the financial sector’s interests as laws are made.”
Baroness Bennett wrote the survey is intended to support “considered, evidence-based reform”, and that policy positions will be based on the APPG’s findings and developed through consensus.
“No other major financial centre has anything resembling the City of London Corporation,” she added. “Not New York, not Tokyo, not Frankfurt, not Singapore.”
The survey itself consists of six questions, including one asking outright what the future of the Corporation should be.
Commenting on the project, Baroness Bennett said: “Abolition of the City of London, the democratic black hole at the heart of London, has been Green Party policy since 2011.
“That policy recognises that the constitutional anachronism is one element of the financial sector’s excessive political influence, so evident in policies of successive governments, which cannot be allowed to continue.
“Too much finance in our economy is a major threat to our security, as we saw in 2007-8.
“The sector sucks resources away from the real economy rather than being a supportive utility for the farming, manufacturing and service sectors on which our lives and futures depend, while being a major contributor to global corruption and supporter of the manoeuvrings of autocratic regimes.”
A spokesperson for the City of London Corporation said: “Our support for the City’s world-leading financial and professional services means high-quality UK jobs, better public services, and helps generate nearly £110bn in tax revenues.
“We are proud to invest in education, housing, culture, and iconic green spaces that enrich the lives of people well beyond the Square Mile.”
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