HC Deb 22 February 1861 vol 161 cc852-9
MR. AYRTON,

who had given notice to move for— A Select Committee to inquire into the local taxation and government of the Metropolis, and the expediency of constituting the Metropolis a county of itself, for the administration of justice and the better management of its affairs. Said, that in rising to move for the Appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the Local Taxation and Government of the Metropolis and the Local Administration of Justice therein, he wished at the outset to disclaim any desire, such as had been imputed to him, of absorbing every district authority in the Metropolis, and substituting a single corporation which should administer all its affairs, he entertained no such desire. On the contrary, he adhered to the principle upon which the Local Government of the Metropolis was originally established— namely, that there must be Local Boards for district purposes, and, at the same time, a corporation aggregate which should deal with all those questions which could not possibly be discussed by the Local Boards or Vestries. If that principle had been constantly adhered to as the Metropolis increased, there would have been no necessity for now discussing the subject of Metropolitan Government and Taxation. Unfortunately, it had not: attempts had been made to get over the difficulty by partial Legislation, and during the present century not less than 400 Acts of Parliament had been passed to dispose of small and inconsiderable questions as they had arisen. At length, Lord Llanover introduced a measure which was somewhat comprehensive, and if that measure had given perfect satisfaction, all further trouble might have been avoided. It had not, however, answered the expectations of those by whom it was framed. It had not satisfied the inhabitants in consequence of the manner in which the Metropolitan Board was elected; and it had not satisfied the public because that Board had not sufficient powers to enable it properly to discharge its duties which it ought to undertake. Last Session the House was troubled with a Bill upon this subject of such vast dimensions that it could not pass it, and he supposed that a similar measure would be introduced this year. Difficulties were always arising as to water, gas, or the Thames; but a still more important question demanded attention. The Board of Trade had invited the House to take some steps to prevent the Metropolis being placed at the mercy of a number of railway companies. Another difficulty which was much felt was, that the communication between the two banks of the Thames was in a most unsatisfactory state. Tolls were exacted at one place; in another there was a tottering bridge. The Metropolitan Board of Works, when asked by the Metropolitan Members what they wished to do, presented a schedule of works which they desired to carry out, the cost of which would be £15,000,000. That was a most alarming demand; and this formed one branch of the inquiry which he desired that a Committee should undertake. The second branch of the inquiry related to the administration of justice, which was different on one side of Temple Bar from what it was on the other; and, to the injustice of withdrawing men who lived in the heart of the Metropolis from their homes and business to serve as jurors at Guildford, or somewhere in the middle of Kent. The third head of the inquiry which he desired was the Local Taxation. The inhabitants of the Metropolis complained that the direct taxation levied upon them was increasing year by year, and also that they were subject to a large amount of indirect taxation. The City of London claimed the Metropolis as a private inheritance, and levied from it a sum of £60,000 or £70,000 a-year, which, it said, was as much its private property as was the estate of any individual. A Committee sat on the subject but made no report; he desired, therefore, to rake up the investigation and see whether there were not some abuses arising out of antiquated pretensions no longer applicable to the existing state of things. When such enormous sums were collected from the inhabitants, it became necessary to inquire whether they were justly levied, by whom they were collected and to what purposes they were applied. No one could have a right to levy indirectly a special tax on the inhabitants of the Metropolis, and, at the same time, to be wholly irresponsible as to the application of the funds. He desired to have the subject sifted to the bottom, with the object of procuring the ultimate establishment of an efficient local administration. It was of the utmost importance that in the governing body of the Metropolis all classes should be represented. Not merely ought the respectable shopkeeper to take part in its deliberations, but it should also include men of rank and station; and, by acting on proper principles a local administration would be secured, which would act in accordance with the true interest of the inhabitants, and thus command their respect, at the same time that it would prevent the City from being given up as a prey to schemers and speculators. The hon. Member concluded by moving That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the local taxation and government of the Metropolis, and the local administration of justice therein.

VISCOUNT ENFIELD

said, he rose to second the Motion, though he could hardly say that he was very sanguine as to the result of the inquiry. The difficulties in the way of satisfactory legislation were enormous, and were every day increasing in magnitude. All those interested in the welfare of the Metropolis, therefore, owed a debt of gratitude to the hon. Member (Mr. Ayrton) for his attempt to grapple with them; and he would no less be entitled to the thanks of the House if through the instrumentality of the Committee they were saved in future from the eternal repetition of metropolitan questions. He had no wish to cast blame on the Metropolitan Hoard of Works, but from its very birth it had been impossible that it could give satisfaction to the ratepayers. Not one of the extensive questions connected with the gas companies, tolls, the administration of justice, or the direct and indirect taxation of the citizens, had received a satisfactory solution, and he feared this Augean stable hardly admitted of being thoroughly cleansed. The Committee, however, was a step in the right direction, and he hoped that whoever consented to sit upon it would not shirk his share of the work, hut would earnestly strive to do justice to all concerned, and to bring about a result satisfactory to the House and to the country.

MR. SPEAKER

said, that as the terms of the Motion placed in his hands differed from those of the Motion on the Notice Paper, he wished to draw particular attention to the proposal of the hon. Member. It was, "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the local taxation and government of the Metropolis, and the local administration of justice therein."

SIR WILLIAM JOLLIFFE

expressed a hope that the appointment of the Committee would not prevent the consideration by the House of several useful measures respecting the Metropolis of which they had promise. The coal tax, for example, with the authority under which it was levied, and the objects to which it was applied, must shortly come under the notice of the House. That was an indirect tax levied upon the inhabitants of the Metropolis, but those who paid it had not the smallest means of questioning its appropriation. He trusted, therefore, that the Government by assenting to the Committee would not prevent useful legislation on that or any other subject of local interest.

SIR GEORGE LEWIS

The Government of the Metropolis seems to me to be a question by itself: our ordinary institutions for local government, the organization of a county and the organization of a borough—seem equally unsuited to the case of London. With a population now approaching 3,000,000, and with the enormous extent of our Metropolis, the diversity of its interests, and the magnitude of its distances, the attempt would be vain to govern it by a single representative body exercising the ordinary functions of a town council. It therefore becomes necessary to devise peculiar machinery for the local government of different parts of London; and I confess that appears to me a problem of very great difficulty. We start with this anomaly, that we have an ancient corporation representing what formerly was the entire, or nearly the entire, of the City of London, but which now covers only a small portion of its area; and aggregated round that small nucleus we have the principal part of the town which is exempt from the peculiar jurisdiction of the Corporation of London. Under these circumstances, Lord Llanover introduced a Bill for the establishment of a Central Board of Works, created by election from the various districts. It was a considerable advance and improvement on any institution which the Metropolis then possessed. But I am quite aware it was breaking ground for the first time in the constitution of a body representing the entire Metropolis, and, as a few years hare passed, I think its operations may well undergo scrutiny by a Committee of this House. I am, therefore, prepared, as far as the consti- tution and proceedings of the Metropolitan Board are concerned, to assent to the appointment of this Committee. There is, also, a variety of questions connected with the administration of justice in London which may fairly be brought within the scope of its inquiries. Possibly the Committee may have something to say on the Corporation of London; but I confess that, although I do not say it is impossible to propose some fresh changes in the constitution of that Corporation, I doubt if any addition can be made to the facts which are already in the possession of this House with respect to it. To that extent T consent to the Motion of the hon. Gentleman, and think his labours may be attended with useful results. But I do not understand that the appointment of this Committee is to hang up every measure of useful reform affecting this immense Metropolis during the present year, especially a measure affecting the coal duties, with respect to which legislation in the present Session is an absolute necessity. I never understood that the appointment of a Committee took everything out of the hands of the House, or that it was not competent for the House to pronounce an opinion because a Committee of Inquiry was sitting upstairs. I trust I shall not be understood as debarring myself from assenting to any measure which is in progress, although this Committee may be sitting, and its labours may be attended with beneficial results.

MR. LIDDELL

said, he should be very glad if he could extract something in the shape of a pledge from the right hon. Gentleman that he would listen to no deputations on the subject of the metropolitan coal tax until the whole question had been fully considered by a Committee. That tax was not more unjust and odious to the Metropolis than to the producers of the coal in the part of the country he had the honour to represent. He had heard unpleasant rumours abroad that the Corporation of London on the one hand, and the Metropolitan Board of Works on the other, had a strong interest in the continuance of that tax. That tax had been charged with heavy liabilities which would cease in 1868. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary would tell any deputations which waited on him on the subject that he should leave it to the discrimination of the Select Committee first to determine the question.

MR. LOCKE

said, be thought the proposed Committee would prove of compan- tively limited value if its inquiries were confined to the Metropolitan Board of Works. The right hon. Gentleman said that the constitution of a county was inapplicable to the Metropolis; but in point of fact the Corporation of London had a recorder, a common Serjeant, a Judge of a Small Debts Court, a militia, an artillery company, and a Court of Lieutenancy—in fact, everything which a county possessed except a Lord Lieutenant. He did not see, therefore, why the Corporation should not be extended, and why it should not be en trusted with those functions which were performed by the Board of Works. The complaints which were made against that Board were owing to the unsatisfactory mode in which it was elected. The City of London should no longer be confined to its present small area but extended, as in ancient times it had been, and for that purpose the Metropolis ought to be divided into wards, and the representatives of those wards elected by the inhabitants directly. The Metropolitan Board of Works was a kind of distillation. The members of it were selected by the vestries of the different parishes out of their own body, and not being elected directly by the people, did not enjoy the confidence which a corporation would enjoy. He did not see why the powers which were given to the Metropolitan Board of Works, should not have been given to the Corporation of the City of London, extending the bounds of the City from time to time as the Metropolis extended, so that there might be one great governing body throughout the Metropolis. He knew that that proposition had been considered over and over again by the right hon. Gentleman, who gave as his reason against it that the Corporation would be so powerful that it would interfere with the Houses of Parliament. [Sir GEORGR LEWIS: He bad never said so.] He had not the precise words of the Report of the right hon. Gentleman and his Colleagues, but the reason given was that if the Corporation were extended it would be too powerful a body. The Metropolitan Board of Works was not a powerful body. It was simply a great taxing engine, and taxing engines were not popular. The Corporation of London bad this advantage, that it bad property yielding it £60,000 a year entirely at its own disposal, which enabled it to make everybody comfortable; whereas the Metropolitan Board of Works had to levy heavy rates which made everybody uncomfortable. He thought the inquiry ought not to be confined, but that the Committee ought to consider whether the Corporation might not be extended to the whole of the Metropolis.

MR. PULLER

said, he was in hopes that the right hon. Gentleman would have stated that he intended to carry out the recommendation of the Commission with regard to the coal tax. The concluding part of the Report stated that Looking to the unequal incidence of the coal tax, and to the dissatisfaction which it creates in the district over which it is levied, we strongly incline to the opinion that even if it should not he thought expedient to disturb the existing arrangement for 1802, yet it is desirable to abolish it from that period, and to substitute for it a rate levied on the whole Metropolis. The principle of taxation was, that those should pay the burden who enjoyed the benefit. That principle was violated by the extension of the coal tax over a radius of twenty miles. He had heard a rumour that it was intended by the right hon. Gentleman (Sir George Lewis) to substitute for the present area of coal taxation the area adopted for police purposes. If the proceeds of the tax were devoted to the payment of the police there might be a reason for such a scheme, but as it was the proposal would not have common sense to support it. The tax, as at present levied, bore oppressively on manufacturers as well as on the poor. Those manufacturers who lived within its area must be placed at a disadvantage as compared with those who had not to pay the impost. He had heard from one firm that it involved a payment by them of £220 a year, and from another that it cost them £400.

SIR MINTO FARQUHAR

said, the right hon. Secretary for the Home Department, in January last year, had stated, on the occasion of introducing a Bill for the regulation of the Corporation of London, that it was his intention to deal with the coal duties that Session. The Corporation Reform Bill, however, fell to the ground, and the promised measure in reference to the coal duties fell to the ground also. The same promise was now repeated for the present Session, but he feared that though a measure might be introduced it would fall in the massacre of the innocents if its introduction were delayed to a late period. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would take into consideration all that had been said by his hon. Friend (Mr. Puller), and would not permit the coal duty to be levied any longer over an area of twenty miles from the Metropolis. The inhabitants of Hertford felt excessively aggrieved by this tax; and there was one singular circumstance, that coals which went to Hertford, and were there taxed, actually passed through Ware, which being just over the twenty miles from London, did not have to pay the tax,. The provision was one clearly unjust in its operation. The coal duty was re-imposed in 1845 until 1862, and therefore this was the proper time to consider the matter. He appealed to the justice of the House whether it was right that towns twenty miles off should still pay for metropolitan improvement. He hoped that his right hon. Friend (Mr. Cowper) would use all his influence with the Government to prevent the continuance of this evil.

SIR JOHN SHELLEY

said, that a discussion on the coal tax would be raised more legitimately on the introduction of the Home Secretary's Bill than it was on the present Motion. When that measure was definitely before the House, no doubt many hon. Members would be ready to say it was unjust that the town of Hertford should be made to pay the tax. He did not see that the House of Commons had anything to do with the local self-government of London. It was true that they passed a Local Management Act some time ago, and it was said that the Metropolitan Board of Works had not given general satisfaction. He was not one who condemned them. It must be remembered that that body had had great difficulties to contend with, and there was an old saying about giving a dog a bad name. That was what had happened to the Metropolitan Board of Works. If members of the Board did not do their duty, let others be chosen in their places, but do not let the Act he condemned because the majority of the ratepayers neglected their duty with regard to local affairs. He thought that before they decided on the continuation of the coal tax they should decide who was to have the expenditure of the money. He understood the Government had now appointed a Commission to inquire into the embankment of the Thames, and if that was so he saw no reason why the Government should not grant the coal tax for another year in its present shape.

Motion agreed to.

Select Committee appointed, To inquire into the Local Taxation and Government of the Metropolis, and the local administration of justice therein.