Clause 10.—(PAYMENTS FOR TOWN DEVELOPMENT.) (Hansard, 27 June 1961)

§ Sir K. Joseph

I beg to move in page 11, line 13, at the end to insert: Provided that any amount carried to the credit of the Housing Revenue Account of a local authority in respect of such a contribution shall be left out of account for the purposes of subsection (2) of section four of this Act. This arises from an Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) which he later withdrew in Committee but which caused us to discover an anomaly.

The anomaly is that my right hon. Friend's contribution to town development schemes under Clause 10 has to be added to twice the gross value when carrying out the Clause 4 test, and thus makes it slightly more likely that any local authority will only be entitled to the lower level subsidy. On the other hand, the contribution of an exporting authority under Clause 10 does not have to be added when carrying out the Clause 4 test. This is an anomaly which my right hon. Friend undertook to remove, and the Amendment removes the anomaly by excluding the contribution made by my right hon. Friend when considering the Clause 4 test. This Amendment, therefore, is for the benefit on the whole of all receiving authorities, and I hope the Committee will accept it.

§ Mr. MacColl

This is my big moment. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for explaining the purpose of this Amendment, and I am grateful to him also for assuring us that this is for the benefit of the authority. I find this rather like the Northern Rhodesian constitution. It is extremely difficult to know precisely who is gaining from what. But our intention was that this would help the authority and I am glad to have the hon. Gentleman's assurance.

There is one small point on drafting which it is almost impertinent of me to mention. There is a point about which I am not clear. If anybody is working through Clause 4, how does he know that this exemption is made in Clause 10? If I were a town clerk and started at the beginning, making calculations, I should assume that it was included. But then when I reached Clause 10 I should discover that it was pushed out, and so 322 I should have to start again. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will either explain the matter now or look at it later on?