VALUATION COURTS (HEARINGS) (Hansard, 1 December 1958)

§ Mr. Charles A. Howell (Birmingham, Perry Barr)
The matter to he discussed on the Adjournment tonight is the refusal of valuation courts to allow the postponement of a hearing on application. The basis of my argument I wish to propose to the House tonight, to use the words of a Lord Chief Justice, is that not only should justice be done but should also be seen to be done. In this instance, I want to suggest that not only was justice not done, but that it also does not appear to have been done; and that that may cause considerable apprehension throughout the country.
I put a Question to the Minister as far back as June. I asked him, in effect, how many requests for postponements under the Local Government Act, 1948, had been refused by the tribunal for each area for each year since 1948. The Minister's reply was: I regret that this information is not available."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th June, 1958: Vol. 590, c. 52.] I have not been in this House long, as you know, Mr. Speaker, but I have heard you say on more than one occasion that when a Minister has given an Answer, even though the Answer is not acceptable to the Member, there is nothing you can do about it and nothing that the Member can do, other than raise the matter on the Adjournment. To try to get some more information, and because I felt that the Minister could have given me that information had he so wanted—it would have materially helped my case if he had given that information—again, on 26th July, I put a Question in a similar style, asking what had happened about this particular tribunal.
On 29th July, the Minister said this: I regret that this information is not available. But in amplification of previous Answers and correspondence I can assure the hon. Member that applications made in good time and with sufficient reason given are not refused. 986 That is the essential point of my argument. Time was given, and a reason was given. It may well be that the Minister could say that the courts, acting in a judicial capacity, can decide in their own minds whether it is a good reason or not.
I went on to ask the Minister a supplementary question and this, again, is the crux of the matter: Does not the Minister agree that where the Act specifically lays down that an appellant can appeal to a lands tribunal only if he or his representative attends the court, there is a moral obligation on the court to permit the case to be postponed on written application from the appellant sent several days previously Alternatively, would not he agree that it is an injustice to a workman to deny him the right of postponement because he or his representative cannot attend, and that it is an injustice for the court to give a decision in those circumstances? The Minister replied: I cannot agree that proceedings of this kind are unfair and unjust. One must bear in mind that the members of the local valuation courts are themselves serving unpaid… That is a remarkable statement for the Minister to make.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman was not suggesting that because these people are unpaid, like lay magistrates, one gets less justice from laymen than from a stipendiary. I can hardly think that he meant that, but that is what was implied.
The Minister added: …in the case which the hon. Gentleman has in mind a request for postponement was received two days before the proposed date of the hearing, with no explanation given. In the circumstances the court, in the exercise of its discretion, decided that it would not grant the deferment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th July, 1958; Vol. 592, c. 1125.] On getting that reply, I gave you notice, Mr. Speaker, that I would endeavour to raise the matter on the Adjournment.
I want to draw attention to the Minister's last few words, because what he said was not true in fact. What makes it worse is that the Minister knew that. I have had correspondence with him. The Minister said, "with no explanation given". I have a carbon copy of the actual letter sent to the Clerk to the Stafford North Local Valuation Panel, which reads as follows: With regard to the above appeal, due for hearing at Burton-on-Trent on Thursday next, I have to advise you that my representative 987 now finds the date inconvenient to attend; I have, therefore, to ask you to postpone the hearing to a future date. Surely the fact that his representative could not attend explains why he wanted the appeal postponed.
Burton-on-Trent is not in my constituency, but the fact that I have been in correspondence with the Minister and had applied for the Adjournment Motion is known to the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Jennings). Last week I wrote to the hon. Member to remind him that the Adjournment debate was being granted to me tonight. I have had the hon. Member's support and sympathy throughout this matter and, therefore, I feel no responsibility for taking up a case in another hon. Member's constituency, particularly as the hon. Member happens to be on the Government side.
Another matter in which I have to declare an interest is the fact that the property in question is a terraced house in which I was born and the present tenant is my only brother. I have had experience of these tribunals, having been vice-chairman of an assessment committee in my home town. In 1948, when the Minister had this Order made, I was appointed to a tribunal in which I served until earlier this year. My brother asked for advice, and I gave him what I thought was good advice. It is fair to assume that, not having done any public speaking in his life, he did not feel competent to go before the tribunal to put his own case.
My experience is that it is tragic to see many working-class people going before the tribunals and attempting to put their case. They simply are not competent to do it. They do not know the points to raise. They are often left with the statement to the chairman that in their opinion the assessment is too high, but they cannot explain why they think it is too high. Obviously, when my brother requested me to take his case I felt free to do so because by that time I had left the tribunal. I took advice and found that I was eligible to do so. Indeed, I should have been able to do so earlier because it was not in the area where I sat.
There is, for lay members of tribunals, a very good booklet published by one of the authorities on rating and assess- 988 ment, the Rating and Valuation Association. I have found it very helpful and have recommended it to others. It costs 6d., but the price does not compare with the value to be derived from it. In Chapter II it explains the appeal procedure to laymen, but in my opinion there is a serious omission. It says that a person who has appeared before a local valuation court and is aggrieved by its decision may appeal to the Lands Tribunal. That is all it says about it, and there is a very important omission.
Fortunately for any appellant who wishes to appeal, after the decision has taken place—that is an important point—when the decision is sent to the person concerned there is a note attached which says that any person who appeared or was represented at the hearing of the appeal by the court and is aggrieved by the court's decision may, within 21 days from the date of the decision, appeal by notice in writing to the Lands Tribunal. That is the important point. A man who does not appear or is not represented, loses his right of appeal under the 1948 Act.
Section 48 (2) of the 1948 Act says: The procedure of local valuation court shall, subject to such regulations, if any, as may he made in that behalf by the Minister, be such as the court in question may determine, and every such court—

(a) shall, unless the court otherwise order, on the application of any party to the appeal and upon being satisfied that the interests of either party would be prejudicially affected, sit in public;

(b) may take evidence on oath and shall have power for that purpose to administer oaths."

It goes on: On the hearing of an appeal to a local valuation court— (a) the appellant… shall be entitled to appear and be heard as parties to the appeal and to examine any witness before the court and to call witnesses. It is quite explicit that the man should be given an opportunity to appear and be heard. When an individual gets 14 days' notice of the sitting of the tribunal, there are 101 ways in which he may be prevented, right up to the last moment, from attending. Take, for instance, railway signal-men, guards, drivers, and so on, who cannot be relieved from their duties, unless a relief is available. I have had about thirty-six years in the traffic department of the railways and I know 989 bat, often, a man is told, only a few hours before he wants time off, that no relief is available.
What is to be the position, if a man is then deprived at the last moment of the opportunity of appearing in a case of this description? It seems to me that where a man has an excuse, and has made an excuse, for not being able to attend the tribunal, the court ought to fall over backwards to enable him to fulfil these conditions of putting his case, particularly when it knows that the fact that he has not attended has barred him from making an appeal against their decision.
That is a most important point. If the decision could have been appealed against, the seriousness of taking the decision in the absence of the man would not have been half so serious. The strange part about it is that when the tribunal fixed the date it chose a rather peculiar one, the date of the municipal elections. Of course, municipal elections take place in Burton-on-Trent as they do everywhere else, but that fact was not the reason for the appellant asking for an adjournment.
The reason was because of something else, on which I wish to make the position clear. The House had decided to debate the very important question of Cyprus on' that date. While I had agreed to conduct this case, by the Saturday I knew that I should not be able to get away from the House to do so. I did not want the tribunal to know that I was conducting the case, so I personally typed a letter to the clerk of the tribunal—I make no apology for that—saying that it would be inconvenient for the representative to attend.
That letter was sent on 3rd May, on the Saturday. The Minister, in his letter to me, said that the letter was not received till the 6th. I cannot account for that. I know that the letter was posted on the 3rd. The hearing was not until the 8th, so the tribunal had two clear days. In his correspondence, the Minister has admitted to me that it would not have been so bad if the clerk had replied in those two days telling the appellant that he must attend to ask the permission of the court to postpone the case.
Personally, I do not think that is correct. I do not think that it should have been necessary. It should have been obvious to any tribunal that when 990 an individual has had no say in the fixing of the date—unless, of course, the tribunal has evidence that it is a fictitious appeal and that the man never intended to attend—the postponement should have been allowed.
I have sat on tribunals when we have broken off for lunch and when, on resuming, we have been told that someone has telephoned to say that he cannot attend. The tribunal has invariably given that person permission to come at a later date. That sort of thing happened regularly in Burton-on-Trent. It happened at the tribunals on which I sat, when brewers or their representatives found it impossible to attend. I wonder what would have happened if one of the large breweries had asked. Would the tribunal have taken the same decision? I think not.
There is a point in the letter from the valuation clerk which I think it was an impertinence to include. It said: I regret that it was not possible at such short notice to ajourn the hearing of the appeal which has been outstanding since 15th August. That was some eight months. It was not the appellant's fault that the appeal had been outstanding all that time. The valuation officer gets five months in which to handle the case, "fiddle" the case, or forget the case, before he does anything. Then the matter goes to the clerk of the tribunal and the date is fixed. The matter had been out of the hands of the appellant since 15th August.
To tell him that one of the reasons why the refusal was given was because the appeal had been outstanding since 15th August is an impertinence, and I hope that the Minister will take notice of that fact. He said that it was not possible owing to the short notice. Does it matter what notice is given so long as the court is asked? Surely two days—more according to the date of the letter—is enough time for the hearing of other cases to be arranged. If, as the Minister said, the court did not meet frequently, I am convinced that there would be other cases and that if the hearing of this case had been postponed, there would have been sufficient other cases for the court to have heard that day.
The letter from the clerk is dated 8th May, the date of the appeal, and the form accompanying it is also made out on that date, so that the clerk lost little 991 time in posting the letter, which arrived the following morning. Nor did he lose any time in telling the appellant why his application had been declined, and the case adjudged against him in his absence.
Although I have other evidence, and there are other points in the correspondence with the Minister which I wanted to repudiate, I want to leave the hon. Gentleman sufficient time to reply. I hope that he will answer the points I have raised.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. J. R. Bevins)
The matter which the hon. Member for Perry Barr (Mr. C. Howell) has raised is familiar to my right hon. Friend because, as the hon. Gentleman said, it has been raised in Parliamentary Questions, correspondence and conversations with my right hon. Friend. The facts of the case are not in dispute.
The ratepayer was informed on 18th April, 1958, that an appeal would be heard by the local valuation court on 8th May. As I understand, it was the intention of the hon. Gentleman to represent the ratepayer, who happened to be his brother, at the proceedings. For reasons which the hon. Gentleman has stated, it was not possible for him to attend the hearing. The ratepayer wrote to the court on 3rd May asking for a postponement. That letter—and we have made careful inquiries about this—was received, according to our information, on 6th May, that is, two days before the hearing was due.
It is true that the ratepayer was not present or represented on 8th May and that in the result the court refused to grant an adjournment and proceeded to decide the appeal. The only reason given by the ratepayer in support of his application for postponement was that his representative, who was not named in the letter to the clerk, found the date inconvenient.
I perfectly well understand that the hon. Gentleman thought that, in the circumstances, it was correct not to disclose his identity as a Member of Parliament, but one of the incidental unfortunate effects of taking that line of action was that the court was unaware of the full facts of the application for 992 postponement. Clearly, it did not act unreasonably in feeling that the case for postponement had not been established when it was supported only by a plea of inconvenience.
The hon. Gentleman has implied that my right hon. Friend acted with less than good faith in one of his replies to a Parliamentary Question. That is not so. My right hon. Friend intended to convey on that occasion that the clerk and the court regarded the application for postponement as based solely on inconvenience, without any supporting reason for the alleged inconvenience.
The action of the court has had important consequences for the ratepayer. As the hon. Member says, as the law stands at present it is only the person who appears, or who is represented at a local valuation court, who is in a position to appeal to the Lands Tribunal. So it comes about that the refusal of the panel to postpone this case and the failure of the applicant or his representative to make even a formal appearance has removed that opportunity for appeal.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the powers in the Lands Tribunal Rules of 1956, and has suggested that if similar rules were applied to local valuation courts that would enable them, although it would not compel them, to reopen a case of this sort. At present, these rules do not apply to local valuation courts. My right hon. Friend is perfectly willing to consider whether any such provision could be made when the procedural regulations are next under review. I do not imagine that that review will take place for at least two years, but when it does we shall see that the point is considered.
Local valuation courts are independent judicial bodies. It is the case that my right hon. Friend has no power to review decisions or to direct the courts to reopen cases which have been decided. Neither, for that matter, can a court set aside its own decision or reopen cases in circumstances such as these. Therefore, there is one rather important point bearing on what was said by the hon. Gentleman. The actual granting of deferment is a matter for the court itself. The appellant cannot be notified of a decision before the court has actually met. Having said that, let me add that the clerks of some of these panels are 993 authorised by the chairmen to inform applicants in advance whether an adjournment is likely to be granted. In so far as it exists this practice is obviously desirable if only to enable the applicant to preserve the right to appeal to the Lands Tribunal.
In this case it may be a pity that the clerk did not make clear to the applicant that he should have attended to preserve his right to appeal. The fact is, of course, that the applicant left the panel very little time for correspondence, whatever the rights or wrongs of the dates may be. I am assured that there was only a matter of two days in which that correspondence could possibly have taken place. I do not think that there is any evidence to suggest that panels are unreasonable in refusing to grant postponements made in good time and for adequate reasons. The country is indebted to the members of these panels, as I think the hon. Member will agree, for the way in which they work in the public interest. We have no reason to think that they do not discharge their responsibilities with anything but scrupulous fairness.
One must keep this case in proper focus. The door is not finally shut. The applicant may start the procedure again by serving a fresh proposal on the valuation officer—

§ Mr. Bevins
I think I know what the hon. Member is about to say; that that procedure may have been followed already, but the trouble is that because of what has occurred any possible saving in the rateable value has been lost, probably for a period of two years.

§ Mr. Howell
The Minister is quite right; the date is affected. He may also be interested to know that a new proposal was put in immediately, but a week ago the applicant was told that it could not be accepted. That shows the time that elapses.

§ Mr. Bevins
At any rate, there it is.
I do not think that the hon. Gentleman has brought any new facts to the knowledge of my right hon. Friend. There are one or two things which I have indicated we may be able to do to eliminate the possibility of such a thing happening in the future. At the moment it is rare, but we shall study what the hon. Gentleman has said and anything else we can do to make this procedure more nearly perfect we will gladly do.

§ Mr. Howell
I am grateful to the Minister for what he has said. I did not expect anything else, but what he had said will be of great help to the public.