LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS BILL (Hansard, 31 May 1956)

§ THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (LORD MANCROFT)

My Lords, the Local Government Elections Bill is a modest but useful measure and one to which I hope your Lordships will be able to give approval. I hope also that I shall not occupy too much of your Lordships' time in explaining this rather complicated measure. Its main purpose is to secure that rural district and parish council elections are held together throughout the 652 country in the interests of convenience and economy.

Before 1933, the only method of election of parish councillors for which the law provided was by show of hands at a parish meeting, except that a poll could be demanded at the meeting after the vote had been taken. The defects of this method were obvious, and, as a partial remedy, the Local Government Act, 1933, empowered the county council, at the request of a parish council or parish meeting, to order that the parish councillors should be elected by nomination and, if necessary, a poll—that is, in the same way as members of any other local authority. Many such orders were made, but the widespread survival of the old system remained a cause of dissatisfaction, until it was finally abolished by the Representation of the People Act, 1948. This reform was widely supported and welcomed, and no-one, so far as I know, now wants to return to the old system. Indeed, the National Association of Parish Councils have said that they are firmly opposed to any radical alteration in the present method of election of parish councillors.

Since 1948, however, parish council elections have been held throughout the country on three occasions; and, as a result of this experience, the National Association of Parish Councils and many individual parish councils have expressed their concern about the high cost in relation to their rateable value of elections in many of the smaller parishes. The Association have said that cases where the cost of the elections exceeded the product of a 3d. rate were fairly common, and in a number of instances the cost was equal to an 8d. rate, or even more. Many of your Lordships probably have personal experience of the bewildering complexity of electoral arrangements in rural districts.

During the past few years, discussions in which the Home Office has taken some part, have been held between the National Association of Parish Councils and other local authority associations concerned. A number of useful suggestions have been made for administrative economies, and these are being followed up locally. In addition, other proposals, involving legislation, were agreed on. These were embodied in a Private Member's Bill, introduced in another place in March of last year. Unhappily, the Bill made no 653 progress; but, believing that the proposals contained in it should be given effect and that the parish councils should know where they stood without undue delay, the Government have now adopted the Bill.

The principal proposal is that rural district and parish council elections should be combined in all cases. The law already provides that, where elections of rural district and parish councillors are held on the same day for the same area, they shall be combined and the cost shall be equally divided between the two councils. This, I think your Lordships will agree, is a most economical arrangement, and the principal object of the Bill is to provide for its operation in every parish.

There are three kinds of election in a rural district: county council elections, which happen every third year; parish council elections, which do the same; and rural district council elections which happen every third year in about half the rural districts, but in the other half take place every year. Where rural district council elections are held each year, one third of the council is elected. For example, if the rural district council area contains three parishes, A, B and C, each returning three councillors, then in one year there is at present an election of the three councilors from parish A, in the next year an election of the three councillors from parish B, and in the third year an election of three councillors from parish C. But parish council elections are only held once in three years. Therefore the parish elections in two of the three parishes cannot be held in the same year as the rural council elections for these parishes and the parishes cannot share the cost with the rural district and must therefore pay the full cost themselves.

To get over this difficulty Clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill provide for the next parish council elections to be postponed in these instances to the year in which the rural district councillors will be elected; and from then on the rule of synchronisation will be permanently established. I am sure that everyone will welcome this change. I think it is pretty generally thought, though not universally agreed, that county council elections should be kept separate from district and parish council elections. But between rural district and parish councils there is an intimate relation, and there is clearly 654 everything to be said for combining their elections universally.

My Lords, the other main provision of the Bill—Clause 4—deals with the payment of the expenses of parish council elections. These fall on the parish. Many of your Lordships will no doubt recall the debate some three years ago when my noble friend Lord Merthyr spoke so eloquently about the heavy burden imposed on parishes by the cost of their elections. He suggested, among other things, that some at least of the expense should be spread a little more widely by charging it either to the rural district council or to the county council or to both. But as my noble friend and predecessor, Lord Lloyd, said at the time, this would be contrary to the long-established principle that each local government area should bear the cost of its own elections; and the Government see no reason to dissent now from the views then expressed.

The Bill therefore leaves each parish to pay for its own elections. It makes improvements, however, in the method of paying for them. At present the parish council has to pay. The Local Govern-merit Act, 1933, provides that the amount to he raised in any year to meet the expenses of a parish council shall not exceed a rate of 4d. on the parish without the consent of the parish meeting, or of 8d. without the approval of the Minister of Housing and Local Government. Your Lordships will remember the celebrated case of an East Anglian parish council which was unable to take any" action during the whole of its three years of office because it had expended on its election the whole of the sum which it was entitled to expend.

There is another point. As your Lordships probably know, the present method of payment is extremely cumbersome. The cost is met initially by the rural district council, who have to recover it from the parish council. To get the money to pay the bill the parish council include the amount in their precept to the district council, who raise the money by levying a rate on the parish. All this involves complicated book-keeping transactions between the two councils. Clause 4 of this Bill therefore provides that the cost is to he paid by the rural district council out of a rate levied on the parish concerned. This, of itself, will not reduce the cost to the parish, but it will simplify 655 the procedure, and it will mean that the cost of elections does not figure in the parish council's own budget. The rest of the Bill is of comparatively minor importance and there is nothing to which I need specifically draw your Lordships' attention.

I apologise for having taken rather a long time to explain the details of a fairly simple Bill, but the details are complicated and I think important. I think your Lordships will agree with me that an active parish council has a value in rural life far exceeding its statutory powers, and I am sure that noble Lords on both sides of the House are glad to take any opportunity to remove obstacles to the success of these local bodies. I therefore confidently commend this Bill to the House as a useful and practical measure of reform, and I beg to move that the Bill he now read a second time.