Clause 4.—(VARIATION OR TERMINATION OF RELIEF, &C.) (Hansard, 19 February 1964)

§ Mr. John Temple (City of Chester)
I beg to move, in page 4, line 16, at the end to insert: (2) No action under the foregoing subsection shall diminish the relief granted to any ratepayer unless the circumstances of that ratepayer have changed. My proposed subsection is perfectly clear. Its object is to give certainty to the ratepayer who has been granted relief by the local authorities that that relief will not be varied if the ratepayer's circumstances have not varied although the circumstances of the local authority may have varied.
It seems to me that in drafting subsection (1) the Government draftsmen were slightly misunderstood by the person responsible for writing the Explanatory Memorandum. That part of the Explanatory Memorandum dealing with Clause 4 states: Clause 4 empowers the rating authority to vary or end relief at any time if there has been a material change of circumstances…". It would appear from the Explanatory Memorandum that what was thought at that time was a material change of circumstances of the ratepayer. Only during discussion in Committee did it emerge that the relief which the ratepayer had been given to expect during the year could be varied if the circumstances of the local authority varied.
My right hon. Friend had something to say about this particular point, which we discussed in detail. As reported in column 177 of the OFFICIAL REPORT for 12th February he said: I have undertaken to consider that without giving a firm promise of an Amendment "—.[OFFICIAL REPORT. Standing Committee G, 12th February, 1964 c. 177.] So at that moment my right hon. Friend was giving consideration to this matter.
I waited until such time as the main Government Amendments appeared on the Notice Paper. Seeing that he had 1322 not taken steps to alter in any way Clause 4,[...] tabled an Amendment. I do not claim that the drafting of the Amendment is perfect. However, the object is perfectly clear and I hope my right hon. Friend, if he cannot accept the exact words, might recommend the House to accept the spirit of the Amendment, because I think it quite contrary to the views of all of us that we should expect the ratepayer who has been given relief or can expect it to have it taken away from him under unexpected circumstances.
My right hon. Friend said, as reported in column 177 of the OFFICIAL REPORT for the same day that, in fact, this happening was most unlikely. During the course of that discussion he said that it may well be that some local authority would gain a nuclear power station or two and, therefore, the rates would come down. [AN HON. MEMBER: "One, not two."] At any rate, one would make the rates go down considerably. I cannot see that the local authority on the occasion of the rates going down slightly would seek to vary the relief granted for a period of only a year to a particular ratepayer.
I take the view, which, I think, is shared by my right hon. Friend, that it is wholly unlikely and very improbable that rating authorities would behave in this way, but I submit that if we leave the Clause as it is every local authority which is giving a relief on rates will have to print in small letters at the bottom of the rates notice, "This relief may be varied without notice because there may be a variation in the circumstances of the local authority". Therefore, the ratepayer, who may be a hardship case, will be worried by the fact that rates may be varied without a change of circumstances in his case.
The local authority will get the 50 pet cent. grant from the Government. That makes it more unlikely that it will seek to vary this relief. My Amendment I think extremely reasonable. In the circumstances I envisage it would be quite possible for the rating authority to give more relief, but it would not be possible to diminish the relief which had been once granted. I believe that is the spirit in which the Clause is drafted. I am seeking only to put the actual meaning which I believe lies behind the Clause 1323 into the wording to get precision and certainty.
I think that the ratepayers themselves have every reason to expect this relief which has been granted to them after they have gone over all the hurdles the Parliamentary Secretary described in Committee. If they have satisfied the local authority on all these scores they are perfectly entitled to think that their rate relief cannot be diminished in any way during that period of one year.

§ Sir K. Joseph
As usual, my hon. Friend the Member for the City of Chester (Mr. Temple) has got on to a good point in substance, but I am going to suggest that we can rely upon the inherent reasonableness of local authorities and that it is not necessary to write into the Bill such words as he suggests.
Let me just make sure that we all understand the very narrow purview and context of this Amendment. Under Clause 2(3,a) the relief can be granted only for one rating period at a time. Therefore, the Amendment my hon. Friend suggests to Clause 4—he made this plain—cannot possibly limit the discretion of the local authority beyond the rating period itself. Nor is he seeking to do so. He is saying that it should not be open to a rating authority, because of a change in the circumstances of the rating authority itself, to reduce the relief which has been given during the rating period for which it has been given. We all understand that very narrow context of his Amendment. We are all agreed that it would be right and only fair to the other ratepayers, and to the taxpayers, that the rating authority should be free to reduce the relief already given in the same rating period if the circumstances of the ratepayer who has been given relief had changed sufficiently to justify such a reduction.
The question is whether we need write into the Bill an embargo on the rating authority to make such a change because of a change in the circumstances of the rating authority itself. It is conceivable that a rating authority's position could be radically altered in the way both I and my hon. Friend have suggested. My hon. Friend the Joint 1324 Parliamentary Secretary tells me that in his constituency there is a rural district—Thornbury—which does have two nuclear power stations. The arrival of a new power station in a rural district, when it comes into commission, can, of course, very dramatically alter the ratepaying prospects. I should make it clear that I agree with my hon. Friend that it is most improbable that a rating authority will wish to job back on the relief given to an individual ratepayer during the rating period for which the relief has been given. What the rating authority will do is to take into account its new resources when it comes, under Clause 2(3) to consider relief for the next rating period.
The trouble is that if we were to write in the Amendment to achieve my hon. Friend's purpose I fear his words would not cover the need, and we should have to spell out in very great detail a long embargo on a rating authority's action, which we all agree is inherently improbable because rating authorities are responsible bodies and will not job back in this way.
I am very willing to say to my hon. Friend that in the circular which will in due course go out to rating authorities I will draw their attention to the assumption that I am making that they will not job backwards because of a change in their resources, but I would far prefer not to complicate the Bill by writing in what would be a very heavyweight Amendment to achieve my hon. Friend's purpose. My hon. Friend shakes his head; but I have taken advice on this, and I am told that to make sure a rating authority would not job back, all the various reasons for which an individual ratepayer's situation might change would need to be spelled cut, if the rating authority's discretion were to be left as we would all wish.
I ask my hon. Friend to rest content with the assurance I have given him, and which I am only making, really, in the light of his arguments, and' not because I believe that rating authorities are likely to misuse their discretion in this way. I hope that my hon. Friend will not press his Amendment.

§ Mr. Charles Mapp (Oldham, East)
The House, in looking at the Amendment before us, and particularly in the light of the advice of the Minister, is in some danger, for the Minister now says 1325 that he is going to make recommendations to local authorities about something which is not in the Bill at all. The Bill does not make provision for that. Clause 4(1), as I see it, enables local authorities to vary, on the evidence available to them, their recognition of hardship to the individual, and to vary their decisions, arising out of the resources of the authorities themselves. Having reflected on what was said in Committee and studied the words of the Amendment, I have come to the conclusion that the Amendment would make the Clause far too rigid for the local authorities and it is quite unnecessary.
Clause 4(2,a) enables the owner-occupier in effect to obtain some remission by way of refund where certain conditions apply, while subsection (2,b) permits tenants to be able to receive periodical payments where conditions apply. Neither of the provisions would limit the local rating authority to considering hardship, either upwards or downwards, only once in the same rating year. These provisions are wide enough to give full flexibility to the local authority to make variations from month to month. This being so, meeting the point put by the hon. Member for the City of Chester (Mr. Temple) would invite hardship.
Under Clause 4(1), there may be a variation of relief for reasons which have nothing to do with individual applications by ratepayers. For example, one authority in 1965 may qualify for the relief under Clause I by having 10.1 per cent. people over the age of 65 among its population, but in the following year this proportion might fall to 9.9 per cent. Because of that purely statistical result, it will lose all grant under Clause 1.
In addition, its interest in meeting hardship, either upwards or downwards, as expressed in Clauses 2 and 4, will be clearly influenced by the fact that it will be getting less from the central Government. Its views on claims of individual hardship will change because it will be unable, for the first time, to meet the criterion laid down by the Government. In view of this sort of problem we should consider resisting the Amendment because of its rigidity or, indeed, subsection (1) itself.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. What we will decide is whether we insert the words 1326 proposed in the Amendment. What ever may happen hereafter or what we do with subsection (1) would appear to fall outside it.

§ Mr. Mapp
There is the prospect of the local authority, in dealing with the question of hardship, assuming that the bridle of these words is preponderant. Without the Amendment, it will have a range of decisions available. If it were to be limited by the Amendment it would probably accept a lower criterion for meeting hardship because it would be under the continuing requirement of being unable to change its decision within the same rating period. The Amendment, though well intentioned, is too rigid and the House should not accept it.

§ Mr. Temple
By leave of the House; I am naturally a little disappointed by the reply of my right hon. Friend in that, while apparently agreeing with the spirit of the Amendment, he cannot advise the House to accept it. I should not have thought that it was quite the heavyweight job for the Government draftmen that my right hon. Friend has made it out to be. However, recognising that this is an interim Bill, perhaps I can let this point go and accept my right hon. Friend's offer to deal with the matter in a Ministerial circular. Having said that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.