HC Deb 25 June 1957 vol 572 cc167-76

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Wills.]

10.10 p.m.

Mr. Peter Smithers (Winchester)

It is my purpose tonight to bring to the attention of the House, of the Minister and of the wider public outside the House a plan which is actually in operation and facilities which are now available for a large number of people to make use of if they so wish. I am going to describe those who may make use of these facilities, what those facilities are, where they are available, by whom they are administered, and how they are financed and to appeal for their wide use during the coming year.

I think that all those of us who have ever taken part in local government must be fully aware of the great enthusiasm which people in this country bring to bear upon it. I was myself an ordinary member of a rural district council. Throughout my years of service upon it I could not help but be impressed by the way in which my colleagues devoted themselves to their duties, not as a matter of politics but for the love of the art of government.

We are all, I think, aware of the many defects which over the years have grown up in our system of local government. The series of inquiries, and proposals for the reform of local government, are evidence of that fact. But I sometimes think that although we are self-critical we do not sufficiently take account of the very large amount of experience of local government available in foreign countries, and that we are not sufficiently open to consider foreign methods when reforming and improving our own. The object of this plan is to enable those engaged in local government in this country to become better acquainted with European methods.

First of all, who may take part in the plan? The answer is, any member of any local authority, whether elected or official. The point here is to make experience of the working of local government on the Continent of Europe available to the kind of people who would not normally come in contact with it. Mayors, clerks of important municipalities, and so forth, are able from time to time to travel at the expense of their local authorities, but the rank and file councillor or official does not have the same opportunity. This plan is intended for the rank and file.

What is available? What is available is very simple, but, I believe, very valuable. It is three nights free hospitality in the house of a member of some Continental local authority. The visitor may take his wife if he so wishes. His host undertakes to instruct him in the working of local government there on the spot in his own municipality. Where is this available? That is, I think, a question which can now be given a quite impressive answer.

Ten European States are taking part in this plan, including our own country. They are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Western Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. Within those countries, 178 local authorities are participating by offering to receive visitors for instruction on the terms which I have mentioned, that is to say absolutely gratuitously.

By whom is the plan administered? It is administered by the two international organisations already existing, the International Union of Local Authorities and the Council of European Municipalities, under the chairmanship of a member of the Council of Europe. They are great international organisations with long experience of these matters and have joined together to administer this plan. It will thus be observed that, unlike other proposals of recent years in the European field, this one sets up no new machinery. I hope that may be considered to be a merit. How, then, is it financed? Here again this scheme demands no direct Government finance, nor indeed any municipal finance. It is based upon voluntary hospitality which has been shown by the response on the part of the hosts to be available in most generous measure from members of local authorities throughout Europe.

Any expenses which fall outside of the existing organisation are of such a small nature, in the publication of the annual yearbook of the plan, that I think they can hardly be considered important. They are defrayed by the Council of Europe. Anyone who wishes to know where these facilities are available and to make use of them in the course of his travels, whether on pleasure or business, need only consult this handbook to find within it a local authority within easy reach of the place to which he happens to be going.

An important feature of the scheme, and one very necessary to its success, is that it does not depend in any way upon reciprocity. Obviously, the world being what it is, there are a good many places to which people will willingly go to be instructed in these matters, and other places to which they would less willingly go. It would be a pity if people who happen to live in the less attractive places in the world were debarred from taking part in the scheme. The host authorities have generously accepted their part as hosts without expecting that everybody who comes to them will, through members of their own local authorities, necessarily reciprocate by acting as hosts.

It has taken some time to set up this machinery and, as chairman of the small administering committee, I should like to record my deepest gratitude to the International Union of Local Authorities and the Council of European Municipalities for the great amount of hard work which they have put into the construction of the organisation and for the experience and advice which they have been able to give. Particularly I should like to offer my thanks to the Municipal and Regional Committee, now the Local Government Committee of the Council of Europe; to its chairman, my friend the Mayor of Bordeaux, and to my British colleagues from both sides of this House who serve on the Committee for their help in bringing the machinery into its present state of readiness.

All that is now required is that these facilities be made widely known to members of local authorities and for them to be encouraged to make use of them. I feel sure that if they are so known they will become widely used; for many of us when we travel on the Continent of Europe, unless we happen to be specially privileged, have sometimes a feeling of loneliness and remoteness from the institutions and methods of the people among whom we travel. There are many thousands of people in this country to whom the facilities of this plan are now freely available, and none of them need feel lonely when travelling abroad in view of the immense response in good will and voluntary hospitality which this plan has evoked.

I therefore venture to express the hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will feel himself able to say that this plan is a useful contribution towards encouraging the study of local institutions and increasing the pleasure which our people take in them, and that outside this House, this year and in the future, an increasing number of people will take advantage of the opportunity to become closely acquainted with the local government methods of other States and thus bring back to this country a new and lively contribution to our own institutions.

10.21 p.m.

Mr. John Hay (Henley)

My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Mr. Smithers) is, of course, the author—one might almost say the father—of the European plan for inter-municipal exchanges, and those of us on the Council of Europe and elsewhere who have experience of this particular plan know it by its generally accepted name of the Smithers Plan. My hon. Friend has dotted an "i" in posterity by giving his name to a plan. Everybody to be respectable these days has to have a plan, but my hon. Friend has done far better than some other people who have a plan attached to their names.

My hon. Friend has explained to the House the importance of inter-municipal contacts, and the plan has the great advantage, which he has already outlined, of not requiring the spending of a penny piece of public money. I think it is of very great value indeed for members of local authorities to have the opportunity of meeting their opposite numbers in local government in other lands. We all know that the world has become a much smaller place, and that there are great advantages to be obtained from a greater unity of Europe. I am convinced, from what I have seen of the operation of this plan and the reception which it has had in other countries, that the plan itself is a vital link in this great work.

Most of us in this country, when we think of the idea of European unity, look at it in a pragmatic way. We do not believe in grandiose theories. Others, perhaps, have different points of view, but that is our way of looking at it. This is a typically British practical plan, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary and the Ministry will do all they can to bring the facilities which this plan offers to the knowledge of members of local authorities.

I believe that it is only by the contact which is achieved through the method of this plan that members of local authorities from many different countries can not only meet and be friendly, but can also learn something about the way in which local government is administered in different places. It is one of the great advantages of the plan that it enables these people to meet, and, when they meet, to exchange information and ideas; and I believe that a great deal of good can come to our local government system in this country if the members know more about the way in which other countries manage these things,

We should not be entirely insular and think that we hold the keys to all the knowledge in local government affairs. Many of us, after opportunities of visiting local authorities and cities in other countries, know how good some of them can be and the bright ideas that they can have. Out of this plan a greater flow of exchanges will come about if it is adequately publicised in this country, and our local aldermen and councillors and officials of local authorities will learn more about the methods of other countries. I therefore hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will say tonight that he will do all he can to give this plan a fair wind.

10.24 p.m.

Mr. Christopher Boyd (Bristol, North-West)

I had not intended to take part in this debate, but I think it would be a pity if it were to conclude without a few words from an hon. Member on this side of the House in commendation of this scheme.

I have been a local councillor for a fairly short period, and I have seen just a little of how municipal government is carried on in a Continental country. I think that we are perhaps a little too ready to assume that we know all the answers and have all the best methods of doing things in this country. One gets the impression of more effective control in local administration in parts of Germany. It may not be a correct impres sion. One does not get the same feeling of irritation about local control that often exists in this country. I have no doubt that our Continental friends can learn many things from us. We ought not to close our minds to the idea of councillors going to see their opposite numbers in other countries they could gain much from it.

These contacts add greatly to the interest and enjoyment of foreign travel. If we try to find out something from people who are engaged in similar activities in other countries, travel is much more interesting. It adds greatly to its value if we go with a purpose like that of making contact with people of similar interests and activities. I hope that this scheme will be very fully utilised by local authority representatives in this country.

10.28 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. J. R. Bevins)

This short debate affords me an opportunity of congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Mr. Smithers) on his success in having his plan for inter-municipal exchanges adopted by the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe. I am sure that this must have followed a great deal of work on the part of my hon. Friend and his colleagues, and an enormous amount of work behind the scenes. I am also obliged to my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Hay) and to the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Boyd) for what they have so helpfully said.

I am indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester for letting me see the brochures of this plan for exchanges. I see that the 1957 brochure has already arranged one very important inter-municipal exchange, which, perhaps, will not be universally welcomed, by putting the City of Glasgow into the County of Essex. Nevertheless, these brochures are most interesting and I am sure will be very helpful to any hon. Member of this House, or to any member or official of a local authority, who is interested in taking advantage of this most admirable scheme.

The plan is designed to encourage private visits between members and officers of local authorities so that they can get to know each other better and learn something of local institutions in other countries. This is a wholly admirable aim, and I am sure that there is a great deal that we and our European neighbours may learn from each other in this way. These individual contacts—that is what they are—must improve understanding among European countries. Local government is not a separate compartment of national life, but is, of necessity, bound up with the political and social structure of the country concerned, as we as a Parliament, will see when we presently debate the reform of local government.

It is for that reason that the study of local government systems in other countries should either be undertaken seriously or, if not seriously, not at all. Sometimes, what appear to be similarities between two systems of government are more misleading than helpful, because they conceal wide differences of method and approach. I am sure that my hon. Friend would agree with me there.

Here in Britain, our own system of local government, of course, owes far more to history than to logic, and it has given us a pattern of local authorities whose relative independence of central Government is one of its most important and, perhaps, one of its most commendable characteristics. I say that, notwithstanding the contribution made by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley in the debate on the London County Council Bill. I suppose that we all have the itch from time to time to restore this or that local authority to the path of rectitude as we happen to see it at the time. In this matter of independence, we differ fundamentally from some Continental countries, where the systems are based on the French model, local authorities being very closely linked with the centre, far more so than in our own country.

Again, the sphere within which our local authorities work is limited both by tradition and by Statute to what are essentially local matters. Here, the line of demarcation between local and national affairs is fairly clearly defined. But, of course, this division varies from country to country, and it is an important point of distinction for either a Frenchman or German coming to this country or a Briton visiting a European country to bear in mind.

In the Ministry of Housing and Local Government we have a constant flow of visitors from abroad. Some of my advisers can speak from experience, and, indeed, occasionally, with some feeling, of the difficulties which lie in the way of anyone trying to relate the local government system of one country to the conditions in another. It is chiefly for that reason that Her Majesty's Government—this, I think, is true of all post-war Governments—have been rather cautious about authorising expenditure either out of rates or out of taxes for the financing of journeys abroad.

It is the great merit of the plan about which my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester has been speaking tonight, this particular plan for inter-municipal exchanges, that it seems to avoid this particular difficulty, in that it imposes no financial liabilities either upon the ratepayer or upon the taxpayer. It avoids public expenditure, yet, as my hon. Friend has rightly said, it seems to provide for visits in such a way as is likely to give the best results. Speaking for my right hon. Friend and his colleagues, I say to my hon. Friend that we wish this plan every success. We hope that it will be widely used by members and officials of local authorities.

It has been suggested, by two of my hon. Friends, I think, that my right hon. Friend ought, perhaps, to consider giving Government publicity and support to this scheme. I have taken the opportunity of discussing this matter in the ordinary course of events with my right hon. Friend, who takes the view that exchanges between local authorities are best left in the hands of local authorities, without direct Government intervention. It is true, of course, that some local authorities are already participating in the plan, and the attention of the various local authority associations has been drawn to it. While my hon. Friend will not, I think, expect me to go further than that this evening, I hasten to assure him and his supporters on both sides of the House that all that has been said this evening will be drawn to the attention of my right hon. Friend, and such action as we can take to encourage and stimulate this movement we shall certainly take.

Mr. Hay

May I just put to my hon, Friend one point in connection with what he has just been saying? I appreciate his difficulty in intervening in exchanges between local authorities, but would it not be possible to issue, or could he not consider issuing, a circular simply stating that, under the auspices of the Local Authorities Committee of the Council of Europe, this plan has been prepared and has been operated now for a year and a half, and that further information can be obtained from any of the organisations which have been mentioned tonight, from the I.U.L.A. or the Council of Europe? Would my hon. Friend consider that?

Mr. Bevins

I understand the way in which my hon. Friend has put that suggestion. I have no intention of being ungracious or churlish in a matter of this sort. I am in entire sympathy with my hon. Friends and will certainly bring the suggestion to the notice of my right hon. Friend.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-four minutes to Eleven o'clock.