HC Deb 20 July 1933 vol 280 cc2019-29

4.25 p.m.

Mr. STANLEY

I beg to move, in page 13, line 37, at the end, to insert the words: (b) an application for a licence to expire not later than an existing licence under which the vehicles to which the application relates are authorised to be used for the purposes of a business which the applicant has acquired or intends to acquire; or. This Amendment is to meet a point raised by an hon. Friend in Committee. He asked that the holder of a licence who disposed of his vehicles should have the definite right to transfer that licence to the man who purchased his vehicles. I was not able to concede that, because I wanted to maintain the principle that no one has a vested interest in the licence. But what I suggested was that in cases of this kind the discretion should be given to the licensing authority if they saw fit to make use of the simplified procedure which is allowed in certain cases and which dispenses with the necessity for advertising and for the hearing of objections. This Amendment is designed to give them that discretion, and I think that it will substantially meet the point which was made by my hon. Friend.

Amendment agreed to.

4.27. p.m.

Sir GERVAIS RENTOUL

I beg to move, in page 14, line 11, at the end, to insert the words, and such inquiries shall be held in public. This is another Amendment of the same extremely reasonable and hopeful kind that I moved last night, which the Minister was gracious enough to accept. I hope that he will take a similar course with regard to this Amendment, because I believe it is only right and proper that a tribunal which will be dealing with matters of great importance, where large interests are at stake in which not only the applicants but the general public and others are concerned, should not hold its inquiries as a general rule behind closed doors but in the light of day. We had a discussion on this matter during the Committee stage, and I must confess that my hon. Friend's reply left me entirely unconvinced, because in substance it simply amounted to this: "I do not find myself able to accept that this Amendment is in the interests of the applicant, inasmuch as if inquiries are held in public the applicant necessarily feels that he is put to the heavy expense of employing counsel, solicitors, agents and others to represent him, and I want to avoid that." I do not know whether the Minister would suggest that if in- quiries are held in private applicants are not to be allowed to be represented, because I should have thought that they would be as entitled to be represented if the inquiry were in private as if it were held in public. My hon. Friend was then reminded that under the Road Traffic Act of 1930 all applications with regard to public service vehicles and so forth are held in public, and perhaps I may read what he said on that point: It is true, as a matter of fact, that the precedent of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, is in favour of my hon. Friend's Amendment. In that Act we did make it compulsory for every application to be publicly held, and it is because of that precedent that I am submitting an altered procedure to be permitted. It has undoubtedly been found that the result of making every application, however trivial, heard in public is that the applicants have gone, perhaps voluntarily, but at any rate have gone, to greater expense than they need have done. They think that because it is a public hearing they have got to turn up with a retinue of counsel, solicitors and agents and all the other expensive paraphernalia, if I may so describe them, of such applications."—[OFFICIAL REPORT (Standing Committee A), 2nd June, 1933; col. 363.] I would like to ask the Minister—I would almost go so far as to challenge the Minister on this point—whether he has any reason to believe that applicants under the Road Traffic Act are so dissatisfied with the proceedings being held in public that they would like an Amendment of that Act to enable them to be heard in private? I have made some inquiries, and from all the information I have been able to gather those who have had to make applications under the Road Traffic Act, whatever criticisms they may have against it on other points, certainly desire to retain the provision that these applications should be held in public, both in their own and in the public interest. The House will notice that on the very next Clause the Minister has put down an Amendment in regard to public inquiries. The Amendment is: In page 14, line 32, after the word "unless" to insert the words: he is satisfied, after holding a public inquiry, if the holder of the licence requests him so to do, that. I agree that there may be cases in which the proceedings, or some part of the proceedings, should be held in private, but that could easily be provided for, and I submit, with as much emphasis as I can, that it is most desirable, as a general rule and subject to any safeguards which the Minister may think fit to insert with regard to private hearings of the whole or any part of certain applications, that these proceedings should be in public. I submit, indeed, that a public hearing is really essential in order to secure that respect for the decisions of the licensing authority which, I am sure, we all desire should attach to them. The principle has already been laid down in the Road Traffic Act, and it is not a principle that any of the applicants under that Act desire to see changed, and I submit that the same principle ought to apply in this case both in the interests of the applicant and of the public as a whole, and, indeed, one might add, of the administration of justice.

4.33 p.m.

Mr. McKEAG

This Amendment follows on the lines of one for which I was responsible when the Bill was in Committee and which was then rejected by the Minister. It is an Amendment which I heartily support, because it concerns a matter of considerable importance. Under this Bill tremendous powers are being given to a Government Department. I regard that as a danger in itself, and if, in addition, we give a licensing authority power to hear these cases in private we are treading a very dangerous path indeed—the slippery slope to complete and uncontrolled bureaucracy. As was said yesterday by the hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. Williams), we are by this Bill creating semi-monopolies. It is eminently desirable, therefore, to have the greatest measure of publicity as a safeguard against any element of corruption. To hold these inquiries behind closed doors is obnoxious and foreign to all our ideas of the administration of justice. The powers of the licensing authorities are, to say the least, quasi-judicial, and to hold these inquiries in private would be an entirely new procedure and one of which the House ought to beware. It is a retrograde step, in my view, and, speaking with some little knowledge of the operation of the Road Traffic Act, I am convinced that it would not be in the best interests either of the public or of the applicants themselves. It is possible, as my hon. and learned Friend suggested, that on rare occasions an applicant might be assisted by an inquiry being held ill private, but any possible advantage in that direction would be more than offset by the potentialities for abuse. If we are to have restrictive legislation of this nature, for goodness' sake let us have the light of day shed upon its administration. I hope the Minister will accept the Amendment, and that if he does not my hon. and learned Friend will press it.

4.37 p.m.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Thomas Inskip)

This is a matter upon which reasons may be advanced on either side, and not one upon which it is possible for anybody to come to a very clear and final conclusion. It must be a question of the balance of advantages. Generally speaking, I suppose, everybody in the House would be in favour of publicity, but publicity which is a source of unnecessary expense and, still more, of unnecessary delay, may be too dearly purchased. I would refer to the Section of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, on which my hon. and learned Friend has relied as a precedent. It is not quite a precedent for his proposal. Under the Sub-section which my hon. and learned Friend wishes to amend, the licensing authority is not compelled to hold an inquiry at all. He may, the Clause says, hold such inquiries as he thinks necessary for the proper exercise of his functions under this Act, and I am inclined to think the Amendment is not quite adapted to the Clause as it stands, because it is adding a mandatory provision to what is a permissive one. It is not very useful to say that a man may hold such inquiries as he thinks fit and shall hold those inquiries in public. Obviously that gives him the opportunity of saying, "I have got to hold it in public if I hold it at all, and therefore I shall not hold an inquiry." That is a method by which my hon. and learned Friend's object would be easily defeated.

I am inclined to think that inquiries by the licensing authority will, in general, be held in public, for the very reason that it will probably be difficult for the licensing authority to get the full information wanted in many cases unless it is held in public, and in all proper cases there will be complete power on the part of the licensing authority to have that publicity which my hon. and learned Friend desires. But in many other cases there will be rather more information required than can be obtained by a letter, and it may be necessary to hold what is really an inquiry, but such a one as can be held quite conveniently, with complete justice to all parties concerned, by the licensing authority fixing a time and place, which need not be advertised and need not be held in circumstances which enable the Press and what are called the public to come in. Such an inquiry would certainly not be what my hon. Friend the Member for Durham (Mr. McKeag) described as "entering upon the slippery slope of bureaucracy." It would be a most natural and useful proceeding, suitable to the circumstances for which such procedure is appropriate. In Committee the Minister did refer to the expense entailed upon persons who are affected by Section 64 of the Road Traffic Act. That is a mandatory Section. It says: The commissioners shall, for the purpose of hearing and determining applications … hold public sittings at such places. They have to hold public sittings, and cannot determine an application without an inquiry, and in public. They are different provisions from those which my hon. and learned Friend wants to make by his Amendment, and although, as I say, it is impossible for anyone to say, as a matter of principle, that we cannot have public inquiries, I think the balance of advantage, as the result of the experience of the Road Traffic Act, is in favour of saying that the licensing authority may hold inquiries which he thinks necessary without giving any directions which will compel him to add to those inquiries the conditions of publicity. I only desire to add that when, in Committee, it was explained that parties concerned would, no doubt, be free to attend these inquiries by permission of the authority holding the inquiry, the hon. Gentleman who had moved the Amendment withdrew it. I rather suggest that on this occasion my hon. and learned Friend might like to follow the same course.

4.43 p.m.

Sir STAFFORD CRIPPS

Matters of this sort are always rather difficult of determination, because they fall into one of two classes. They are either administrative inquiries or judicial inquiries. I think it has generally been accepted, in the law of this country that a judicial inquiry must be held in public, but in the case of an administrative inquiry that question has been left in different cases in different positions. The difficulty in approaching a problem of this sort is to determine whether it is an administrative or a judicial inquiry. From the point of view of the applicant, the person who is likely to get a refusal, it is always a judicial inquiry. He always hopes the matter will be determined judicially, and not looked upon as a mere departmental matter to be decided by administration. Personally, I should have thought that these inquiries fell into the class of judicial inquiry rather than into the class of administrative inquiry, and that therefore it was right to incorporate a provision that they should be held coram populo, which is the basis of a judicial inquiry.

But there is another point which arises out of the form of the Sub-section as it stands and what the right hon. and learned 'Gentleman has just said as regards the possibility of having a public inquiry. He will have very fresh in his mind a recent case in which this question was raised—I think it, was under the Industrial Assurance Act—in which there were no words saying whether the inquiry was to be in public or not. The Commissioner was entitled to hold it in public, and the actual complaint was that the public had been allowed in, that reports had appeared about it, and that some of the assurance society's business had been published, which had done the society considerable harm. Reports had been put out and accusations made, without approval, and the society took the attitude that the Commissioner was not entitled to sit in public and that the inquiry was an administrative inquiry which had to be conducted not in public. I think that this Sub-section raises a somewhat similar difficulty, and that questions might well be raised under it as to whether the licensing authority can sit in public. An applicant may say: "I strongly object to my business"—or whatever it may be connected with this—"being done in public." The assurance society objected in that way, and it is an attitude which any defendant or complainant may take if they have a rather bad case.

I do not think that it is satisfactory for the Minister to rely upon the power, which is not expressed in the Bill, of the licensing authorities to hold meetings in public if they require to do so. A clear statement one way or the other should be put in. I hope that the Minister will take the view, as I press him to do, that the inquiry is of a judicial nature and ought to be in public; if he will not accept that view, words should be inserted that will entitle the licensing authorities to hold inquiries in public if they consider that it is proper to do so. That would clear up all doubt on the matter. The Minister cannot say that this is purely administrative; it is judicial, and I am sure that the learned Attorney-General will agree with me that in every case it has been the tenor of our law that a judicial inquiry must, and ought to be, held in public.

4.48 p.m.

Mr. ANEURIN BEVAN

May I emphasise the point which has been made by my hon. and learned Friend? When the power to grant licences was taken from the local authorities and was vested in commissioners, many of us had great doubts as to whether the Statute applied to them or not. Many of us felt, that although a good deal of fault might have been found with the way in which local authorities had discharged their duty, those authorities were subject to public pressure, and could not very well allow nepotism in their decisions without there being public consequences of that nepotism. In many parts of the country, when local authorities arrived at decisions which many of us regarded as undesirable, those decisions had to be merely ventilated, and the councillors were held responsible and had to pay the price. When commissioners were appointed, many of us had considerable doubt, because, unfortunately, what they had to decide in many cases were not questions of law, but questions of fact. The law itself is not clear on the matter, and such is the case with the Bill. For example, whether a man should be granted an "A" or a "B" licence is very largely a question of fact, in which several interests are involved. If those interests were merely the interests of the applicant for the licence and those of the Minister, it would be easy for the Minister, or for the commissioners, to arrive at a decision that would be universally accepted, but if you have not merely the relationship between the applicant for the licence and the Minister, but other and conflicting interests, there should be an inquiry of the most public kind possible.

In the course of the last few months, decisions have been arrived at by the commissioners which have given rise to objections in many parts of the country; public meetings have been held and people have been convinced that the decisions of the commissioners were not arrived at in a spirt of judicial impartiality. That is a result that must always arise in these circumstances. We are granting licences to persons to allow them to make profits. Up to now, individuals, within the very wide limits set by the law, have been allowed to make profits in whatever way they thought best, and it was considered that the public interest would be best served by allowing the widest range of individual liberty. On this occasion, individual liberty is being restricted, and the State is granting licences to persons to conduct their business, or refusing licences in other cases. I am a, Socialist, and I consider that when the State intervenes in business in this way it is almost impossible for it to protect itself against charges of nepotism. Some men are to be granted lucrative licences and other men are not, and it is awfully difficult to construct a body of law which will ensure that that is done impartially.

Mr. MABANE

How does nepotism come in?

Mr. BEVAN

I say that it comes in at once, because there is no body of law and no system of equity to decide impartially between the two courses of action of saying to one man, "You shall have this" and to the other, "You shall not have it." You are giving livelihood to one man, and taking away livelihood from the other. Perhaps the hon. Member will provide the House of Commons with a system of jurisprudence which will be equitable. The real difficulty is that the State has embarked upon the regulation of business, but has not constructed any system of what might be called public good in accordance with which the licences are to be granted or withheld. We have here the bare skeleton and the beginnings of it, but it has not grown into a body of law, and "public interest" has not been exactly defined. Where the State intervenes in the arena of private interest, we should give to private interest the greatest possible opportunity of stating grievances and ventilating points of view.

I cannot quite see a point which has been made by the Minister. Surely it is not true to say that if the inquiry is held in public more expense is involved. I have seen inquiries held in public on more than one occasion in which, because it has been held in public, it was regarded as unnecessary to have a large number of witnesses. It is not the public that we are convincing, but the commissioner. If you had to convince the public, a large array of witnesses might he necessary. If we are to embark on legislation of this kind, we ought to protect ourselves and the public against the development of a system which might become an abuse in the future, particularly having regard to the interests involved, because we are now, not for the first time, developing a system of granting licences to people as a result of which great commercial profits might be made.

4.55 p.m.

Mr. STANLEY

The hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps) was right when he said that it was difficult to determine between a judicial and an administrative inquiry, but I would rather put the proposals of this Bill into a different analogy, and that is the analogy of the judge. We, in a, way, are impartial observers, but we want applicants for licences to get the fairest possible deal in the cheapest possible way. Hon. Members will realise that the whole expense of obtaining licences will be borne by the licence holders themselves, and it is from that point of view that we think that the authorities should retain the discretion to sit in private if they like. Hon. Members will realise that sitting in private does not mean just interrogating an applicant on his own. The hon. and learned Gentleman knows that the words "hold an inquiry" certainly give a right to the authorities interested to be there, and to be represented if they so desire. It is simply a question of whether the inquiries are to be held in a public room, in the presence of the public and the Press. It has been the experience, under the Road Traffic Act, where a public inquiry has to be held, that a great many applications of quite trivial importance have to be put down for a particular day when a public sitting is to be held in a particular place, and, what I consider now an unfortunate consequence—although some years ago I should have considered it rather fortunate—in order that the applicant who is to attend the hearing may provide himself beforehand with all the legal talent which his resources, limited or unlimited, may command.

Sir S. CRIPPS

Would not the hon. Gentleman prohibit counsel altogether in these inquiries? That would be a great step forward.

Mr. STANLEY

I would not take such a drastic step as that. That is the last thing I would think of doing. I believe that if we leave matters as they are, the applicant will suffer nothing. In the