HC Deb 06 March 1963 vol 673 cc590-2
Mr. Prentice

I beg to move, in page 39, line 38, after "particulars", to insert: of any exemption granted under section 38 and the grounds thereof and I can make the point briefly. The Committee lays down the procedure by Which the Minister will receive annual reports from the local enforcing authorities. It states that he may by order prescribe the matters to be dealt with in the reports. Our objective is the simple one of making certain, by writing it into the Clause, that the Minister shall be informed in those reports of any exemption which is granted under Clause 38.

We are anxious—and the Minister, on other occasions, has said that he, too, is anxious—that exemption should be granted only in exceptional cases. Clearly, therefore, he should be informed when an exemption is granted and he should be aware from the reports which he receives whether certain local authorities are granting more exemptions than he would consider proper. He would be able to see from the contents of the reports which local authorities are inclined to give more exemptions than others. This is something to which his central inspectorate could then give attention.

That is our objective in the Amendment. It is in line with the Minister's objectives and, therefore, he has yet another opportunity to do something which we invited him earlier to do: that is, to accept on Report one of the Amendments moved from this side of the House.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Robert Grimston)

It would be convenient, I think, to take with this Amendment the following one, also in line 38, after "such", insert "other".

Mr. Prentice

Yes, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that would be convenient.

Mr. Hare

I genuinely appreciate the objectives which the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) has stated, but I do not consider that we should be justified in imposing on local authorities the altogether disproportionate burden of reporting that these two Amendments would necessitate. There may be large numbers of individual exemptions from particular requirements—for example, village shops from requirements relating to piped water—and it would not be profitable to require authorities to give details of every case. I hope that the hon. Member realises the force of this argument.

I assure the hon. Member that we intend to keep a close watch on the granting of exemptions by enforcing authorities and we shall ask them to state in their annual reports the total number of exemptions granted from the various requirements of Clause 38. This, surely, will go a long way to meeting the point made by the hon. Member. In addition, we intend to publish national statistics of exemptions in the report that I, as Minister of Labour, will present to Parliament. I hope that in view of these assurances, the hon. Member will be willing to withdraw his Amendment, because we cannot accept it.

Mr. Prentice

In the circumstances, I think that I can withdraw the Amendment. I think that the point is largely met by the Minister's statement that he will require local authorities to give the number of exemptions. We hope that in that spirit any local authorities which are clearly granting more exemptions than was expected will be the subject of the attention of the central inspectorate which will be established by the new Clause moved earlier by the Minister. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment by leave withdrawn.

Mr. Whitelaw

I beg to move, in page 39, line 44, at the end to insert: (2) A copy of every report made in pursuance of the foregoing subsection by an authority shall be kept at the authority's offices, shall be open to inspection by any person at all reasonable hours free of charge and shall be supplied to any person on payment of a reasonable charge therefor. This Amendment will require a copy of the annual report submitted to my right hon. Friend by each local and fire authority on their activities under the Act to be open to inspection at the authority's office by any person at all reasonable hours free of charge. In addition, the Amendment provides for the report to be supplied to members of the public at a reasonable price. I think that this was the object of an Amendment put down by hon. Members opposite. It is a reasonable object and in line with our general aim of encouraging public interest in the administration of the Bill.

Amendment agreed to.