CLAUSE 22.—(Power to reduce Exchequer grants.) (Hansard, 18 February 1948)

§ The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Woodburn)
I beg to move, in page 14, line 47, at the end, to add: and he shall not make the reduction until the said report is approved by a resolution of the Commons House of Parliament.

Mr. McKie (Galloway)
Although the words in this Amendment go a certain way to satisfy my anxieties, they do not go the whole way. I am sorry that the local authorities concerned will not have the benefit of a local inquiry into all the circumstances of the case. That would have been a far better way of dealing with the matter. We expressed this view in the Scottish Grand Committee, but the Joint Under-Secretary was quite obdurate. Now that the Bill has been recommitted to a Committee of the whole House, the occasion should not be allowed to pass without a word of protest being uttered.
I speak from the point of view of one who is concerned with small local 1199 authorities—small boroughs and also the county councils of two counties, the rateable values of which are not high, and both of which are very scattered areas indeed. I might point out in passing that we are here dealing with the possibility of a reduction in an Exchequer equalisation grant or an Exchequer transitional grant payable to a council by such an amount as the Secretary of State may think just. I hope that as a result of my words of warning there will be no cases such as I am envisaging, but certainly the possibility of such a reduction is not one which any local authority, whether it be a small borough or a county council, in a poor rateable area can regard with equanimity. The two counties which I represent will suffer considerably, for I understand that the grant which one local authority will receive under the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1929, will be reduced from £86,000 to ¢32,000—

§ The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Robert Young)
I cannot allow the hon. Member to discuss that matter on this Amendment.

Mr. McKie
I was aware that you would probably not allow that, Sir Robert, but I am only referring to it by way of illustration of my point that local authorities which are already confronted with serious losses will not view calmly the possibility of these reductions being made at the will of the Minister.

§ The Deputy-Chairman
The Amendment relates to the report, and it is that to which the hon. Member should address himself.

Mr. McKie
I have said that these local authorities will not view with favour the possibility of a report, incorporating the Minister's reasons for reducing grants, coming to this House for affirmative Resolution without a full inquiry being held within the ambit of the local authorities concerned. That is the only point I wish to make. I am sorry that the Secretary of State for Scotland has not seen fit to go further than he has done, and I am sure that my fears will be shared by many small local authorities in Scotland. I hope the Joint Under-Secretary will have a word to say about the way in which it is intended to operate the Amendment to which the Committee is being asked to agree.

§ Mr. C. Williams
I welcome this Amendment, because when a reduction directly affecting a local authority is made, the House of Commons, who by this Bill are delegating their authority, should be the final court of appeal and should be able to decide on these matters. However, if there are to be many of these reports—and I hope there will not bean additional burden will be laid on the House of Commons to examine them. It is becoming almost impossible for the ordinary Member to have any knowledge whatever of the whole of the reports and orders which he is supposed to examine. It is only right I should point out that we are likely to be overwhelmed with the amount of work involved in these reports. I wish to ask the Minister for one piece of information which will be helpful. On what basis will these reports be made? It is not very useful to have a report unless we can be told the basis of that report.

§ The Deputy-Chairman
This is a very simple Amendment. The only question is whether the reduction shall be made until the report is approved in the manner suggested in the Amendment.

§ Mr. Williams
Yes—as to whether I approve of the report. It is a very simple matter, but I am not at all sure that I want to have that report.

§ The Deputy-Chairman
I must again remind the hon. Member that the whole question is whether the reduction shall be made until the report is approved.

§ Mr. Williams
We are being asked to accept the fact that we are to have this report—

§ Mr. Bevan
I think that perhaps I can extricate the hon. Member from the awful quagmire into which he has fallen. We have already passed this point half an hour ago on the English part of the Bill. All we are now doing is to propose a consequential Amendment, bringing the law applicable to Scotland into line with the English law. The hon. Member apparently did not notice that at the time. This Amendment is purely consequential upon what we have already done, and brings Scotland into line with what we have already determined for England and Wales.

§ Mr. Williams
I have been wondering whether it is consequential. May I thank 1201 the Minister for his helpful interruption? I am so glad to find that he knows enough of his Bill to be aware that one Amendment is consequential upon another. I congratulate him most heartily.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
This is a painful story, and I am surprised at the Secretary of State for Scotland sitting dumb before his accusers. I should have thought that even the Secretary of State for Scotland would have been stunned when the Minister of Health said that an alteration of the law of Scotland was consequential upon an alteration which had been made previously to the law of England. The Secretary of State for Scotland, with that delightful naivety which is becoming one of his most surprising features, has said during the passage of the Bill: … we have been able to get through the House of Commons on Second Reading a Bill which might have been made into four separate Bills."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee on Scottish Bills; 10th December, 1947, c. 28.] That was the point which he was pleading—namely, that a Scottish Bill was being stitched to an English Bill. It led to the astonishing conclusion that he had then to run like a dog behind the butcher's cart, and put into the Scottish Bill any Amendments which had previously been put into the English Bill. There is no legal compulsion about this, but there is a moral compulsion. The Secretary of State for Scotland is put into the pitiful and humiliating position of having to get up and say that there was a pledge given in the English Committee, and so he has to follow it out here.

§ The Deputy-Chairman
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman does not seem to be now discussing the Motion that the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
The Clause, as amended, Sir Robert; and these are the Amendments. As the Minister of Health told us a few moments ago, the reason for putting in these Amendments is that he gave a pledge in Committee. The Secretary of State for Scotland has to conform and follow suit with regard to the 1202 Scottish provisions. It is a shocking, humiliating and very painful episode. I trust there will be no more of this, and I trust that it will not be necessary in future for the Secretary of State to come to the House of Commons, or to a Committee of the whole House, in such circumstances again. The House itself has had to rescue him already. The Scottish portion of the Bill was sent to the Scottish Grand Committee, where it could be considered—

§ The Deputy-Chairman
I do not want to interrupt the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, but I must deter him from this line of argument and remind him of the Motion.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
This is the first time that Part II of the Bill has come up for discussion by hon. Members—

§ The Deputy-Chairman
The Question is that the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman is going very wide of that Question.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
I do not wish to divide against the Question that the Clause, as amended, stand part.

§ Mr. Woodburn
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman is objecting to it.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
I am objecting to the humiliating procedure under which we are working.

§ The Deputy-Chairman
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman must stick to the the Question before the Committee.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
I was answering a challenge by the Minister and the Secretary of State. It was the Secretary of State who interrupted. I said that I was not desirous of dividing against the Clause, and it was the right hon. Gentleman who interrupted. If the Minister of Health wishes to make a speech, I should be glad to give way.

§ Mr. Bevan
On a point of Order. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman has not mentioned the Clause once. He has made no reference at all to the contents of the Clause, but has merely spent time discharging his bile.

§ The Deputy-Chairman
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman is going very wide of the Question that the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
I am sticking closely to the Question. I say that when it comes to the Secretary of State having to be defended by the Minister of Health for England, we have to come to a pretty pass.

§ Mr. Bevan
Obey the Chair.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
Certainly. I have the utmost deference for the Chair. I do my best on all occasions never to come into conflict with the Chair. I say that here we have a set of Amendments set down by the Secretary of State for Scotland to be inserted into this Clause—

§ Mr. Bevan
We are not discussing the Amendments. I think the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is now abusing his position, and that he is entirely out of Order. He has been pulled up five times, and yet continues to say the same thing over and over again.

§ The Deputy-Chairman
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman is entitled to discuss the Clause as amended, but he has not been doing so up to now.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
I am most willing to compliment the Minister of Health, not merely on defending the Secretary of State for Scotland, but on giving advice to the Chair. All that I can say is that we are in the presence of a Clause which has been amended by the Secretary of State for Scotland without one word of explanation coming from responsible Scottish Ministers. There have been three Amendments. Surely, when it comes to the Question that the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill, we have a right to speak. I have said what I wanted to say, and I do not wish to add anything to it.

§ Mr. McKinlay (Dumbartonshire)
As a humble back bencher, and as a Scotsman who has not the advantage of coming into this Committee to represent the Scottish Universities, I do not want to sink to the depths of the right hon. and gallant Member for the Scottish Universities (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot). I think that what has been added to the Clause improves it. I want only to express one regret, that while the Clause gives power to reduce the Exchequer grant, it does not contain power to raise the Exchequer grant if that should be considered necessary. It seems to me that this Clause, when it was 1204 before the Scottish Grand Committee, escaped the notice of the intelligentsia; it escaped notice that the Minister could do things by this Clause without affirmative Resolutions of Parliament. If those who were dealing with it in Committee upstairs were wise in deciding that affirmative Resolutions are necessary, I do not think it can be bad, because that provision was inserted into another Part of the Bill. It escaped the notice of the intelligentsia who represent Scotland when the matter was being dealt with by the Scottish Grand Committee.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
Has the hon. Gentleman read the minutes of the Scottish Grand Committee?

§ Mr. McKinlay
Not only have I read the minutes, but I was present at the meetings of the Scottish Grand Committee. If I were as enthusiastic as some people make themselves out to be about Scottish affairs, I should have devoted more time to the Scottish Grand Committee than to harassing Ministers in charge of the English part of the Bill elsewhere, scoring cheap party points unworthily.

§ The Deputy - Chairman
The hon. Gentleman is making the same mistake as was made from the other side of the Committee just now.

§ Mr. McKinlay
I seem to have annoyed people whose philosophy is based on the humanities. I am sorry if I have done what I intended to avoid. Will the affirmative Resolutions be submitted to the House of Commons? Will the Secretary of State move them; or will they find their way among the very many documents which lie upon the Table, on which discussion takes place only if the eagle eye of the Opposition sees them? Quite definitely, the Clause as amended, is an improvement on what it was; but I think Scottish Labour Members ought to be rapped on the knuckles for not observing how the Clause stood when it was in Committee. I recommend the Secretary of State to continue to maintain his silence, because—although it is not for me to advise him—he has been deliberately provoked by the other side of the Committee for the purpose of making party capital.

Mr. McKie
Confining myself strictly to the Motion, may I say that I wish 1205 we could have had a little explanation from the Secretary of State about the way in which he proposes to operate the whole of this Clause. I am not dealing especially with the words we have just added, but, on behalf of the local authorities, and especially the small ones, I would say that there are justifiable fears on their part about how they may stand if the Secretary of State operates the Clause in any arbitrary manner. I am very glad that the hon. Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. McKinlay) has owned up to his sins of omission, and, indeed, to the sins of omission on the part of the Scottish Socialist Members generally with regard to this whole Clause. I would just enlighten him on one point. In Scottish Grand Committee we occupied sufficient time discussing this question to fill 11 columns of the OFFICIAL REPORT, although I am not aware whether any Socialist Members took part in that discussion. That is all I have to say on that matter.

§ Mr. McKinlay
Was an Amendment similar to that just accepted moved in Scottish Grand Committee?

§ The Deputy-Chairman
I trust the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. McKie) will confine himself to the Clause, and will not deal with any other question.

Mr. McKie
Up to the moment I have been careful to confine myself to the Question before the Committee. I was challenged by the hon. Member for Dumbartonshire to answer a question, and I was about to do so. I see from the OFFICIAL REPORT that the right hon. and learned Member for Hillhead (Mr. J. S. C. Reid) did move an Amendment substantially in agreement—

§ The Deputy-Chairman
We cannot now discuss an Amendment moved in the Scottish Grand Committee.

Mr. McKie
I was not proposing so to do. I was merely supplying the hon. Member for Dumbartonshire with the information he sought from me.
Coming strictly to the Question that the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill, surely we are entitled—especially after having had this Amendment added to it, which to be quite generous, goes a long way to meet our case—to know how the Secretary of State for Scotland pro- 1206 poses to operate this Clause in the event—I hope the unlikely event—of being compelled to reduce any grants to local authorities, borough or county, be these large or small. As you, Sir Robert, with your great knowledge of local affairs in Scotland will know, that is a matter which most of these authorities, particularly small authorities, watch very closely indeed. Under this Clause as it is now about to leave us, they are not allowed any special protection by way of local inquiry. It is all to be left to the arbitrary judgment of the Minister. I sometimes think that the Secretary of State for Scotland, in particular, is over-burdened with work now; he has many critical judgments to make, and we are not completely satisfied—

§ Mr. Medland (Plymouth, Drake)
Oh, dear!

Mr. McKie
I am sorry the hon. Member is so tired. He can easily leave the Chamber if he desires. We hope that the Secretary of State will not use these great powers, which we think may be exercised, in some directions, in an arbitrary manner. If he could say something about this, it might go a long way towards relieving any fears held by local authorities in Scotland.

§ Mr. Woodburn
I must confess I did not understand the torrent of abuse which came from the right hon. and gallant Member for the Scottish Universities (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot), which, I gather, was addressed to yesterday's Debate and not to this Debate.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
Who is out of Order now?

§ Mr. Woodburn
In reply to the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. McKie), I would say that the matter is quite simple, for under the Local Government Act the Secretary of State has power to hold an inquiry into any case of hardship such as that mentioned by the hon. Member. That was explained, as he may remember, in Scottish Grand Committee.