HC Deb 11 December 1919 vol 122 cc1774-80

(1) Section two of the Public Libraries Act, 1892 (which imposes limitations on the amount of the rate winch may be levied for the purposes of that Act) shall cease to have effect, and where the expenses incurred by any library authority for the purposes of the Public Libraries Acts during the financial year current at the commencement of this Act exceed the amount produced by the maximum rate which the authority have power to levy for the purposes of those Acts, no part of those expenses shall be open to objection on the audit of the accounts of the authority on the ground that the statutory limitation on expenditure has been exceeded, if and in so far as the expenses were in the opinion of the Ministry of health reasonably incurred: Provided that if the library authority of any library district, either at the time when the Public Libraries Acts are adopted for the district or at any subsequent One, by resolution declare that the rate to be levied for the purposes of those Acts in the district or any specified portion of the district in any one financial year shall not exceed such sum in the pound as may be specified, the power to raise a rate for the purpose of those Acts in that district shall be limited accordingly, and any such resolution shall not be rescinded until the expiration of twelve months from the date on which it was passed. (2) Any expenses incurred by the council of a county under the Public Libraries Acts shall be defrayed out of the county fund, and the council may if they think fit, after giving reasonable notice to the overseers of the parish or parishes concerned, and in the case of an area situate within a borough or urban district, after consultation with the council of the borough or urban district, charge any expenses incurred by them under those Acts on any parish or parishes which in the opinion of the council of the county are served by any institution which has been provided or is being maintained by that council under those Acts: Provided that the council of a county shall not charge any expenses so incurred on any parish or parishes within an existing library district without the concurrence of the library authority of that district. (3) The accounts of the receipts and expenditure under the Public Libraries Acts of the council of a county shall be audited in manner provided by Section seventy-one of the Local Government Act, 1888.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Sir F. BANBURY

This is a most extraordinary Clause. First of all it will appeal to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham (Sir J. D. Rees), because it abolishes the penny rate and allows any rate to be imposed for the purpose of a public library. That is a very wrong thing to do at the present moment. Not only are we groaning under the burden of enormous taxation, but every time those of us who are unfortunately ratepayers receive a demand note, as I did only two days ago, we find that the rates are increased enormously. In the part of the country in which I have the misfortune to live, there has been an increase of something like 25 per cent. in my rates during the last year, and now there are to be further increases in order to enable certain hon. Gentlemen to read Dickens and Thackeray and other interesting books. I do not doubt it is a very good thing to do, and I hope when they took them away they always returned them, but there are a good many things which we should all like to do but which we are not able to do in these days, when there is very little money in the country and when we have an extremely extravagant Government. Therefore, I object strongly to this Clause, which does away with the limit of a penny rate. It may be all right that the county councils, in addition to the existing authorities, should have power to levy a rate, but that that rate should be increased beyond a penny is, I think, extremely wrong, and I hope there are sufficient economists left in the House to back me up in that particular matter and to reject this Clause. It is a most extraordinary Clause, and I cannot understand what can have happened to the draftsman or the Department of the Government which is supposed to be responsible for this Bill. All through this Bill the Education Department is the Department concerned, but when we come to Clause 4 we find a limitation of the penny rate abolished, and the only limitation is this: "In so far as the expenses were in the opinion of the Ministry of Health reasonably incurred." What on earth has the Minister of Health got to do with it, unless it is that my statement that the libraries were in many cases used in the cold weather by people who wanted to go in and get warm is correct, and that the Minister of Health, thinking that a good thing, has introduced this Bill so that a large sum of money may be spent in conducing to the health of the particular people who are likely to use the libraries?

Mr. RAFFAN

He takes the place of the President of the Local Government Board.

Sir F. BANBURY

Does he? I do not know; I am so confused with all these various new departments and officials, but after all, this is a question for the Education Department, and surely it should be left to them to say whether or not in their opinion the expenditure of money is likely to increase the education of the country. What has the Ministry of Health got to do with it? I do not think the Local Government Board has been absolutely abolished, has it? [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes!"] I am sorry to hear it, because the introduction of the Ministry of Health into this Bill would lead me to suppose—in fact, I am quite certain—with the predilections of the right hon. Gentleman who is the head of the Ministry of Health that economy does not in the least matter. He has not any idea of economy. He sees something which he thinks is good and is prepared to spend any money on it, and not always with success. He sometimes has to abandon a Bill which he has brought in—no doubt for excellent purposes—and has to introduce another Bill to do that for which the first was framed. Therefore, if you are going to bring in this right hon. Gentleman to exercise economy and business principles over a county authority, I think you are-going to fail grievously, and I would much prefer my right hon. Friend on the Front Bench as the authority to decide whether or not the proper amount of money is being expended in this way. But I do hope the Government will consider whether it is advisable at this particular moment to give a blank cheque to the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. LEWIS

My right hon. Friend has failed to observe, I think, that the first paragraph of Clause 4 is divided into two portions, the first dealing with the abolition of the limitation upon the amount of the rate, and the second dealing with the expenses which are incurred by any library authority "during the financial year current at the commencement of this Act." The fact is that during the current financial year library authorities have found it almost impossible to carry on, and there are certain library authorities who, unless they are to close branch libraries in all directions, will be obliged to exceed their expenses for the current year. The proper authority for audit in a matter of that kind is the successor to the functions of the Local Government Board, namely, the Ministry of Health. My right hon. Friend has asked why the limitation should be abolished. I will give him the reason. From all parts of the country we have been receiving the most urgent appeals on behalf of the local authorities who are themselves responsible to the ratepayers for the abolition of this limit. As a matter of fact, the men in their employ can hardly live at the present time. I feel sure my right hon. Friend, having regard to the increased cost of living, would agree that these men are entitled to some advance on their salaries. War bonuses in some cases have not been paid to these men, and they have had the mortification of seeing their colleagues in the same municipal offices receiving one bonus after another, whereas, owing to the limitation of the 1d. rate, it has been quite impossible to give them any increase. I am sure my right hon. Friend is a. man of humanity and would desire to see these men treated fairly. At the same time, there are libraries all over the country which are not able to order any new books at the present time so circumscribed are their powers. It has been felt by the local authorities throughout the country that the time has arrived for the abolition of this limitation. They cannot go on otherwise.

Sir F. BANBURY

May I interrupt the right hon. Gentleman to ask where is the ratepayer to get the money from? That seems to be forgotten by all those people who are anxious to do philanthropic work with other people's money. The ratepayer is in just as bad a position as these people in the library who have not got the increase of salary that they think they ought to have.

Mr. LEWIS

It is for the local authorities to judge, for they are responsible to the ratepayers. Surely we cannot leave these men to starve under the conditions to which reference has been made? This is their life's work. Under all the circumstances, it is absolutely necessary to take this action.

Sir J. D. REES

I feel it my duty to rise and say that the very points that, occurred to my right hon. Friend (Sir F. Banbury) occurred to me. My right hon. Friend on the Front Bench says that the libraries find it difficult to carry on. The ratepayers find it difficult to carry on, too! The ratepayer has two pockets; out of one he pays rates, out of the other taxes. Between the two operations his pockets are very nearly empty. My right hon. Friend refers to the humanity of the thing. Why is he not equally humane to the larger number as to the exceptional few who draw salaries at these libraries? He says they cannot live. How many ratepayers find it difficult to live? The position of the taxpayer and the ratepayer really seems to me to be overlooked by educational authorities; and I cannot but deplore that, following upon grants to Serbian youths, and to certain officers for education at Oxford and Cambridge out of the taxes, we should here have proposed the abolition of the penny rate, and the giving to the local authorities of these extended powers to add more weight to the already crushing burden imposed on the taxpayer.

Sir J. BUTCHER

I am entirely in sympathy with the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman up to a certain point. But I quite agree the penny rate is insufficient. Is that, however, really a reason for the abolition of the limitation? To entirely remove the limit at this late hour and in a small House is really a strong order. The right hon. Gentleman says that the ratepayers can bring the local authorities to book. We all know that the control exercised by the ratepayers over the spending of the local authorities is very small. The case is analogous to this House, where, I am afraid, we indulge in some expenditure that the electors look upon with great disfavour. Therefore, I would really suggest to my right hon. Friend that while he is perfectly right in removing the penny limit it is not right, indeed it is rather dangerous, to leave absolutely unlimited discretion to the local authorities as to the amount that they spend on the libraries. In saying that I must not be understood not to have sympathy with the reading public. It is absolutely necessary that you should provide literature for the public; though, as regards what has been said to-night, I do not feel that it is necessary to place in the hands of the public some of the modern novels presented to them. I have inquired in various places as to the books that are read by the public, and a great many of the modern novels are perfectly worthless rubbish. If they would read the works of Dickens, Scott, Jane Austen, and the older novels, well and good, but some of the rubbish I refer to is not only immoral, but perfectly useless. I would earnestly beg the right hon. Gentleman to put some limitation upon the spending powers of the local authorities.

Mr. W. R. SMITH

I trust what has been said will not delay the passing of this Bill, because—

Notice taken that forty, Members were not present; House counted, and forty Members being found present—

Mr. SMITH (resuming)

I hope nothing will be done to-night to prevent the possibility of this Bill going through. It has been suggested that our public libraries are more or less useless institutions which have failed to serve the purposes for which they were created. As a member of a local authority, it has been a most agreeable surprise to me when the report of the library committee has been presented to see how much the library has been appreciated and also the good class of literature that has been read. It is not correct to say that the libraries are being used merely for the reading of novels, because I know that scientific and historical works are in great demand, and it would be lamentable just at the time when we have developed this taste in our young people to do anything to unduly limit these facilities. These matters are always in the hands of the ratepayers. The elections in boroughs are annual, and there are ample opportunities of checking public expenditure, and if the local expenditure exceeds a reasonable limit the electors always have the means of checking it. I think it would be a great pity if the library movement were restricted in any way.

Sir F. BANBURY

The idea that the ratepayers have any control in this matter is absurd, because the vast majority of them do not pay rates and do not care what the expenditure reaches. The people who are interested are so small in number that they do not exercise any check at all upon local expenditure. In the large towns the majority of the electors, as they do not pay rates, are not affected by the extravagance, in fact they encourage local authorities in their extravagance. I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for one of the Divisions of Yorkshire is anxious that there should be a limit put to the expenditure. I do not know whether it should be 1½d. or 2d., or what is the right figure, lent I do think that it is absolutely necessary that there should be some limit. I understand that you have put the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," and therefore it is not possible to move an Amendment at the present time. Would the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill allow this Clause to be negatived in order that on the Report stage an Amendment limiting the amount may be put in? [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] If he will do that, all opposition to the other stages of the Bill will cease, but, if not, we shall have to divide on the Question. "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. LEWIS

If I correctly interpret the general sense of the Committee, they are not in favour of a limitation of that kind. If a limitation of 2d. or 3d. were fixed that very fact very often would be an inducement to an authority to go up to that limit. Therefore, in the interests of economy, it would be an ill-advised thing to fix any limit in the Bill. I trust that the House will accept the Clause.

Question put, and agreed to.