HC Deb 12 December 1919 vol 122 cc1841-7

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. RAWLINSON in the Chair.]

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £195,500, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment, during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Expenses of maintaining certain Harbours under the Ministry of Transport and for Grants for Harbours.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of TRANSPORT (Mr. A. Neal)

Hon. Members who happened to be present on Tuesday will remember that I asked leave to withdraw certain Estimates, including this one, in order that I might be in a position to put before the Committee with greater accuracy facts to justify the Vote. I am now in a position to reply to questions which hon. Members, quite properly and in a friendly way, addressed to me. The Vote is in respect of harbours which were under the jurisdiction of the Board of Trade and have now passed under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Transport by virtue of the Ministry of Transport Act and an Order made thereunder so recently as the 23rd September last. The Vote which I am submitting would in the ordinary course have been submitted on behalf of the Board of Trade. The first item in the account is in respect of Holyhead Harbour, and for which £1,500 is asked as a Supplementary Estimate. The original Estimate was £7,076. Of the sum now requested, about £100 is in respect of a small cutter. The balance is almost entirely due to the increase in war bonus to the staff employed in the harbour which has been granted under a recent award. Holyhead Harbour is a Government-owned harbour, and we are asking the Committee to finance the Crown's own property. The next item is in respect of Montrose Harbour. In 1918 two sums of £750 each were advanced by the Board of Trade, under Treasury sanction. On the 23rd May of this year the Treasury authorised the present advance of £750, and it is that sum which I invite the Committee to grant to-day. I somewhat erroneously stated on Tuesday that there was some question of an increase of wages in connection with the Montrose Grant. I believe that is not so, but it was a contribution towards revenue. A matter of greater importance relates to the River Wear, and the sum which is asked for is £193,142. In the year 1916 the Commissioners of the River Wear, who are the river and harbour authority, approached the Treasury for' financial assistance by way of loan to assist them to meet the charges which were becoming due in respect of special services, especially worked in connection with dredging which had been rendered necessary by naval operations, and which were vital to shipbuilding yards, which in turn were absolutely vital to our success in the War. The matter was referred by the Treasury to the Admiralty to report, and these facts appeared: A naval depot had been established there, and quay spaces and river berths had been given up for naval use, and the approaches were impeded by the defences which had been placed there. In addition to that the revenue of the Commissions had declined both in outward and inward traffic. The question for the Admiralty to decide was answered in a letter from the Board of the 6th January, 1917, strongly supporting the request. In these circumstances loans were made between the 5th February, 1917, and the 22nd February, 1919, amounting in the aggregate to £353,000. I can give further details if desired. These were carried on the Vote of Credit to the Board of Trade and dealt with in terms in the. Appropriation Account for the year. The present request is made under these circumstances: On the 1st April this year the Treasury decided—and I think the de-decision will meet with universal approval —that the procedure by way of Vote of Credit which had been essential during war-time was no longer available for ordinary purposes, and that services hitherto borne on such Votes must appear on the accounts of the appropriate Votes. It is because of that that I am here to-day asking for the consent of the Commitee to these Votes. The Board of Trade on the 25th June last advanced on revenue account to the River Wear Commissioners £43,000.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

At what rate of interest?

Mr. NEAL

I prefer to defer those details for the moment and to give the broad outline. I think it was 5½ per cent. or 6 per cent. Some of the loans were at 1 per cent. above bank rate, while others were at rates specified at the time of the advance. On the 25th June last, the Board of Trade, in pursuing a policy which had been settled earlier and approved by this House, made this advance on revenue account. The Ministry of Transport came into existence in August last, and certain functions were handed over to it in September last. On the 22nd October the Ministry of Transport, carrying out the policy to which it was pledged by its predecessors, and the decision of the Government, lent on capital account to the River Wear Commissioners, a sum of £50,000 to repay a loan which Was falling due, and became the successors to the security which the lenders had originally received. Those two sums amount in the aggregate to £93,000. They have been dispersed, and I ask the Committee to ratify the transaction. It is estimated that during the remainder of the financial year further sums may come in charge, one sum of £50,000 for capital, another sum of £35,142 for revenue, and a third sum of £15,000 which was promised, I believe, by the Board of Trade to be paid on the satisfactory completion of the south pier. Those three items amount to £100,142. They are not yet definitely agreed to, and in what I am saying I do not wish to betaken as giving the consent of the Government to the request made for those sums. The figures I have given amount to £193,442. It is a sum of £194,000 which appears on the Estimate. Now as to, future policy. Requests were made on Tuesday night by hon. Members in various parts of the House that they might be informed of the policy of the Government in future with reference to making advances to authorities, not profiteering authorities, but public authorities of the nature I have indicated. I cannot do better than quote a Treasury Minute of the 26th July last, in these terms: The policy of the financing by the executive of harbour authorities for the purpose of capital expenditure could only be adopted, if at all, after a comprehensive review of the needs of the country as a whole in the way of harbour facilities. It is precisely that kind of survey which is one of the functions of the Ministry of Transport.

Mr. HOGGE

We are obliged to the hon. Gentleman for the full statement which he has been able to give us. The minute quoted by the hon. Gentleman says that the policy of giving assistance to harbours in the United Kingdom must depend on the result of a comprehensive survey. That seems reasonable and fair, but the hon. Gentleman does not explain why this particular harbour has claims over the claims of others. On Tuesday night my hon. Friend said that the reason why the Wear Commissioners had got into a bad state was that originally pit props, iron ore and wood pulp were the three main items which were imported and that there was a great diminution in the receipts from those services. That is true of a great many authorities. A good many hon. Members could put up a special case for a particular harbour, and if I wanted to I could put up a claim for a harbour in the vicinity of my own Constituency. I want to know, is this comprehensive review being made? Is the Ministry of Transport now at work on this question of harbours in the country, or is it simply a selection of the harbours that ought to be developed? Can the right hon. Gentleman say in a sentence or two what is the policy, and whether the policy adumbrated by the Treasury Minute is actually being carried out by his Department?

Mr. E. WOOD

Apparently under this Estimate we are being asked to pass an Estimate which ought to have been brought before the Committee last year, and the Estimate itself includes advances which it was thought were originally included in the Estimates of the year previous to last year.

Mr. NEAL

As I have explained, they were dealt with under Votes of Credit, and appear in terms on the Appropriation Account.

Mr. WOOD

I was called out of the House for the time and did not hear that. I apologise to the hon. Gentleman.

Sir C. WARNER

While it is all very well to talk about harbour authority, yet we in this House are the authorities to grant money, and a comprehensive survey is not sufficient ground for the Ministry to make grants which the House knows nothing about. It is a question for this House to make a survey and judge whether the thing is necessary or not. It is not sufficient to say on the part of the Treasury that a comprehensive survey is being made by the Ministry before it has been brought to this House. Nothing about a comprehensive survey has been put before this House ! Our business is to look after finance. This comprehensive survey may be a very good thing, but it is not the business of the Ministry to spend money without leave of the House, and it ought to be taken into consideration in future Estimates that this comprehensive survey cannot be decided without being properly discussed in this House and reasons given as to the various claims of each harbour.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS

I should like to add a word of acknowledgment to what has already been said as to the courtesy of the Minister of Transport in having held over this Vote. We realise that the Ministry is only getting into its stride. It is the first time that Votes of this kind have been brought forward by the Department. I hope that these two Debates will convince the right hon. Gentleman that it is as absolutely essential that we should have some definite principle laid down on which these Grants are based. One immediately asks oneself why a Grant should be given to these particular harbours and not to a great many other harbours. There are unpleasant and inevitable comparisons suggested by looking at the list. Holyhead, in Wales, gets a very small Grant; Montrose, in Scotland, gets a very small Grant; the. River Wear, in England, gets a huge Grant; and Ireland gets nothing at all. I think that all these Grants are open to great abuses unless they are considered as part of a comprehensive policy applicable to the whole of the United Kingdom. I hope that if the House, pressed as it is for time, consents to pass this Vote with out any further explanation of the principle on which it is based, it will not betaken as a precedent for next Session.

The Minister of TRANSPORT (Sir E. Geddes)

I would like to reply to what has been said by the hon. and gallant Gentleman, that this is no precedent whatsoever, and I hope that if I fail in my duty in that respect, some of my hon. Friends will remind me of it. This Holyhead Grant is rather unlike the other two items. It is State property; the Government owns the harbour and the employés are State employés. The Montrose item is simply a revenue expense. They were unable to meet the interest on their loan, and they were assisted to that extent. The other item, which I would certainly say is no precedent whatever, because it is a war expenditure, is money spent at the request and on the recommendation of the Admiralty. I have heard from more than one speaker the, suggestion that there was some underlying reason why the North-East Coast, or-Sunderland, which is on the North-Eastern Railway, should be included. It was an expenditure incurred on the recommendation of the Admiralty. The money was given for two reasons; one was that the Wear was an important naval centre and the revenue was practically all gone. The portion of the assistance which is in this Vote is the balance of a total sum of £200,000 which the Treasury had already authorised, and it was simply pursuing the policy of the Board of Trade in enabling the Wear to keep this port open.

Mr. HOGGE

I do not quite understand what has happened. If this was a war ex penditure and the Treasury had authorised an expenditure of £200,000, why do we require this Supplementary Estimate now?

Sir E. GEDDES

The reason was that the Chancellor of the Exchequer desired to bring finance to the House as much as possible, and said that these items should come here and should no longer be borne on a Vote of Credit. The principle was sanctioned, but the money not passed. As to the point raised by another hon. Member, I shall certainly come here on any large questions of advances to harbour authorities. Such questions must come here in the ordinary way under the Transport Act. This is merely washing out the end of the War, and there is no intention of making a precedent of it at all. From now we get on to the regular procedure.

Major BARNES

It seems to me as if the good nature of the right hon. Gentleman has been imposed upon. This expenditure apparently ought to have fallen on the Admiralty. I gather that the only ground for giving a Grant to the Wear Commissioners was that they incurred some expenditure that was necessary for carrying on the War. I do not know whether the Minister of Transport is going to be so generous to the rest of his colleagues as to take over the burden of any other war expenditure in. the harbours. If he is, I shall be a little surprised. As far as other harbours on the north-east coast are concerned—I had had some experience with them—I rather gathered that where the Admiralty interfered at all with the harbours or required work to be done for their purpose the Harbour Authorities put in a claim to the Defence of the Realm War Losses Commission. I would rather like to know why that course was not pursued on this account. Have other Commissioners made application for the payment of dues?

Question put, and agreed to.

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