HC Deb 06 March 1964 vol 690 cc1797-806

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

4.2 p.m.

Mr. John Page (Harrow, West)

I am most grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me to raise on the Adjournment the matter of the farm water supply at the Roxeth allotments site at Harrow, and also to my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for being here to answer the debate, having sacrificed a number of very important constituency engagements to do so.

At first glance the making of a grant of £167 to Harrow Borough Council would appear to be too insignificant to raise in the House, but I hope to show that it has more important overtones. It would take too long to tell the whole story chronologically. However, all the facts are known to the Minister, and as far as I know none of them is in dispute. So I will merely give the following summary as a background.

In June, 1961, a scheme was proposed by the Harrow Borough Council to provide water for 213 allotment plots at Roxeth. The scheme was then postponed for nearly a year. In July, 1962, application was made for loan sanction to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, and notification of a request for grant aid and for the necessary application form was made to the Ministry of Agriculture, supported by detailed specifications and plans. Loan sanction was formally received from the Ministry of Housing on 15th August after an unannounced visit had been made to the site by an officer from the Ministry of Agriculture.

On 9th October the grant application was sent from Harrow to the divisional office of the Ministry of Agriculture at Guildford, the delay being caused by the water company, which was slow in giving its approval. The form presents us with two important facts. These are, firstly, the clear statement in the form, in capital letters, that grant would not be made if work started before written approval were received, and, secondly, that the proposed starting date for work was 22nd October, just under two weeks later.

On the 15th October, in reply to the application, a letter was received from the Ministry of Agriculture's divisional headquarters at Guildford making a new request for a second competitive quotation to be submitted for the work. This was answered by Harrow Borough Council on the 1st November. On 22nd October work began, and on 5th December, the Ministry wrote to say that due to a second unannounced visit from one of its officers, who saw that the work had started, no grant would be given. Subsequently, after a lot of correspondence my hon. Friend has upheld that decision.

I now come to three reasons, any one of which will, I hope, convince my hon. Friend that the grant should be made. The first is on the ground of fact, the second on the ground of procedure and the third on the ground of administrative efficiency. First, on the ground of fact, I am not denying that by the letter of the law the borough council was at fault in letting the work begin without written authority being received. There is no dispute about that. Nevertheless, I draw my hon. Friend's attention to a letter from the Ministry's Guildford office dated 9th January, 1963. It was sent by Mr. Merritt, the divisional executive officer, and I quote one paragraph: It is the firm rule of the Ministry's agreed subsidy scheme that grant cannot be paid in such circumstances and exceptions to this rule are only possible where it is shown that the applicant was misled in some way by the Ministry into thinking that he had authority to start work. I submit that there is substantial evidence that the borough council was misled. First, there was the visit of the officer from the Ministry early in August, after which loan sanction was received. It seemed inconceivable then, and it seems inconceivable now, that two visits within a few weeks by two technical officers from the same division could be authorised to inspect an allotment site where no work was being done.

Secondly, on 15th October, a letter from the Ministry acknowledging the application for grant aid—in which the proposed starting date was clearly shown—did not mention a starting date when asking for a second tender—a new procedure and a request never made before and never mentioned in previous correspondence. I take the view on those two grounds that the borough council was misled into believing that grant sanction had been or would be given.

My second main ground is that of procedure. I take the view that applications for grant such as this should receive different considerations. An application from a body such as the borough council of Harrow, the largest non-county borough in the country, with an impeccable record of efficiency and integrity, should receive rather different consideration from that which might be accorded a private individual farmer with no technical backing to his application and no such efficient record of public service behind him.

There is a story that on 4th September, 1939, the head of the finance department of Lever Bros. telephoned the Treasury and asked what action he should take in connection with certain foreign investments. The reply which he received from the Treasury was, "My dear chap, you must make your own decision. I always understood that Lever Bros. had Dominion status." We in Harrow are not asking for Dominion status. But we think that applications from a council such as this, signed by officers of standing, should be received by the Ministry with the same reasonableness and with the same give and take as any man would expect from his equals in a profession. On the basis of the public service record of Harrow, I feel that this small technical fault should have been forgiven.

My third reason is on the ground of administrative efficiency. Though the arguments are less direct, they are the most telling of all. My hon. Friend and his colleagues are engaged on the Government's plan to modernise the life of this country and they are taking steps to modernise the machinery of Government. Already the reorganisation is taking place of the Ministry of Public Building and Works and the Ministry of Defence.

Against this background, can my hon. Friend honestly justify the procedure whereby two technical officers of his Department, from the same division, within 12 weeks of each other drive 100 miles to visit an allotment site on which no work is being carried out to verify a very simple plan and specification drawn up by experienced and highly-qualified men? If my hon. Friend wishes to justify this, how can he reconcile his judgment with the procedure of the Minister of Transport, who agrees to the spending of £60,000 to £70,000 a year on maintenance and minor improvements of the roads in Harrow without explanation, and totally at the discretion of the same borough engineer whose plans, involving the Ministry in £167, were examined twice on two occasions by two of his Ministry's experts before work was allowed to begin.

The Ministry's explanation is contained in a letter dated 28th February, 1963, again from Guildford and signed by the divisional executive officer, Mr. Johnson. I should like to read an extract: I confirm that an inspection of the site was made in August last by a professional officer of the Ministry's agricultural land service, whose function it was to report on your council's application to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government for loan sanction. It was not within his duty or competence to report on the technicalities of the proposed water supply scheme itself. That paragraph of that letter was written in the knowledge that on 6th July, 1962 the Harrow Borough Council had given notice to the Ministry that it intended to apply for grant and that on 10th July the application was made to the Ministry of Housing for loan sanction. I believe that this a mint example of the kind of procedure which horrifies the taxpayer and shocks the confidence of the community in particular Departments and in the Civil Service in general. This is the kind of procedure which particularly dismays the ordinary business man in daily contact with problems such as this.

I do not wish to seem to criticise the Civil Service. I have said before in this House, and I say again, that, individual for individual, civil servants are more efficient, more dedicated and more confident to do their jobs than those who hold equivalent appointments in private industry. What I do criticise are the archaic, fussy, expensive and outdated procedures which the Civil Service is made to adopt. I long to see a great change being made in departmental procedures, which will result in a smaller, higher-paid Civil Service, which is flexible and responsible enough to make quick decisions.

Everything that we have discussed today, in all this correspondence between Harrow and Guildford, should and could have been decided by one telephone call between Harrow and Guildford. I hope that my hon. Friend will not embarrass the House by feeling that it is necessary to justify the procedures of his Department, any more than I would find it necessary to justify the making or acceptance of the grant in connection with water supply to allotments by referring to the fact that the allotment holders of Harrow are at present subsidised to the extent of £6,000 a year by their fellow ratepayers.

I do not feel that this third argument provides merely ground for the payment of the grant; I feel that it goes further than that, and that the Harrow Council should be entitled to a fee of at least £167 for having acted as management consultants to the Minister, showing him the way in which vast economies could be made in the administration of his farm water supply scheme. I hope that the Minister will either get the O. and M. men from the Treasury, or a firm of outside consultants, to investigate the scheme in order to see whether it can be streamlined and, if so, to use that streamlining as a pilot for other schemes.

I ask my hon. Friend, at leasure, to read over the points which I have made this afternoon and not to turn them down today. I hope that he will agree to see whether, on consideration, he can take a new view of this matter. If he were to allow us the grant he would not be losing face and he would not be letting down his Department. He would merely be showing the determination of his right hon. Friend and himself to see that in his Department the rules are working sensibly, and that his Department is not working to rule insensitively.

4.18 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Scott-Hopkins)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. J. Page) for the courteous and kind way in which he has put the case for the Harrow Borough Council. I am sorry that he strayed from the straight and narrow path to a certain extent in his rather broader attack upon the methods of the Civil Service, and in the adjectives he used. The actions of the Civil Service in this case have my full backing. I take entire responsibility for the way in which these officials have behaved, and for the actions they have taken in this case.

The case that he has put forward on behalf of the Harrow Borough Council, and its grant in respect of a water supply, is a sad one, and I can understand the feelings of frustration under which the council and my hon. Friend must be labouring. As he has pointed out, the sum is a small one. Even so, I am sure that he would be the first to agree that no matter how small the sum involved, we must be sure that the administration of public funds is correct, and that the public interest is safeguarded. If laxity creeps in on a small scale, there cannot be proper safeguards on the large scale.

Mr. John Page

indicated dissent.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins

My hon. Friend shakes his head, but I know that he will agree with me in principle.

We must not blind ourselves with sympathy in this case. The fact is clear. The council began its work on the scheme without first obtaining written sanction and approval from my Ministry. By doing so the authority broke one of the most important conditions of this scheme of grants, and I know that my hon. Friend does not disagree with me about that.

We go to a great deal of trouble to make sure that applicants for farm water supply grants are fully aware of the conditions which they must observe if they want expenditure on a water supply installation to be eligible for grant aid. A memorandum of grant conditions is issued with the application form, although my hon. Friend did not mention that. The form and the memorandum contain a very clear warning that no work will be eligible for grant unless the applicant has obtained the written approval of my Ministry before starting work. My hon. Friend underlined that point, and I am glad there is no dispute about it.

Mr. John Page

Is this form identical whoever the applicant is—whether an individual or a council?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins

That was my hon. Friend's second point, and I shall come to it. Time is running just a little short and we must deal with things in their order.

There is nothing unusual or unreasonable in this rule. It enables us to make sure that the proposed work qualifies for grant, that the scheme is technically sound, that no unnecessary work is included, and that the essential work is to be carried out as economically as possible. I would ask my hon. Friend to read those words at leisure some time during next week, because they are essential to the scheme, without which it would not be possible.

My hon. Friend's second suggestion was that we should make an exception in favour of the Harrow Borough Council because of its efficiency and excellent record of public service. That sounded to me rather like special pleading. I wrote to my hon. Friend, and told him that there is absolutely no reflection on the council's record, reputation or integrity. That is taken for granted. I accept what he says about that, and I hope that he accepts my assurance.

I cannot agree that we should distinguish between an applicant of this status and the general run of farmers. Why should we? If we started making exceptions it is difficult to see where we would stop, and to accept this application would be quite unfair to those applicants who have been refused in similar circumstances. I hope that my hon. Friend will not continue with his special pleading on this aspect because, truly, he is putting forward an unacceptable thesis.

It is clearly better for everyone, including the applicant, for any differences of opinion to be settled before the work has actually started and before any commitments are made. I go back again to the fact that this rule about previous written consent has applied from the very start of the scheme, which came in in 1941. It applies to other schemes, of course, such as the Farm Improvement Scheme grants, and its strict application is generally accepted and known throughout the whole of the farming world and, I am sure, among local authorities also. I am sure that the House will agree that public funds must be properly administered, and can not be properly administered and safeguarded without this rule.

I come now to my hon. Friend's third point. Schemes for the provision of a water supply for allotments are often financed partly by Ministry grants under the water supply scheme, and partly from loans raised by the council concerned. Before local authorities can raise a loan they must obtain the sanction of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and an officer of my Ministry's Agricultural Land Service is usually asked for his advice on whether the scheme is eligible for water supply grant. That means that a second officer, one of our drainage and water supply officers, must also visit the site. These officers are both technically qualified.

My hon. Friend asked whether or not we could combine the visits of these two officers, but the purpose of the Agricultural Land Service inspection is primarily to make sure that the scheme is complete and economic, and can in all respects be recommended to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government as suitable for a loan, in other words, that the scheme is a viable one and suitable for a loan. The inspection by our drainage and water supply officer, on the other hand, is so that he may give any necessary advice on the technical aspects of the scheme. It might be necessary, for example, to change the position of pipes, or to put them at a deeper level. This is the sort of technical side advice which might be given by this officer. In practice, we find that few schemes proceed if a loan is not forthcoming and that is why the visit by our Agricultural Land Service officer is usually made first.

Those are the general points. May I now go briefly over the facts of the case. I do not dispute the facts, but we want to get them clear on the record. On 9th July, 1962, our Guildford office received a letter from the Harrow borough engineer and surveyor enclosing a plan and specification of the proposed supply to Roxeth allotments and asking for an application form for grant. The scheme was estimated to cost £670, but that is not the important point. The amount does not matter, it is the principle which is important. A grant of 25 per cent. would have been attracted, that is, of about £167.

The papers were first handed to an officer of the Agricultural Land Service, who visited the allotments—I do not know the exact date—some time between 30th July and 3rd August. The council maintain that it was this visit, and the issue of loan sanction on 15th August by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, which misled the borough engineer's department into believing that my Ministry had also approved the project for a water supply. This we cannot accept.

The Harrow Corporation has applied for farm water supply grants on five previous occasions, of which four were successful. It must have been well aware of the procedure, and that written approval was necessary before a scheme could be started. This is evident from the fact that the correct procedure has been followed in the previous four successful applications. I think it important to note that the application form for grant issued by the Ministry on 7th August was signed on 9th October—a fairly long time afterwards—by the borough engineer and surveyor. I accept that the reason for the delay, but, even so, it is a period of about six weeks.

In large type, above the signature, were these words, which my hon. Friend quoted, and I will repeat them: We understand that no work will be eligible for grant unless we have had the written approval of the Minister or his authorised agent prior to commencement … In the light of this, it would seem entirely reasonable to expect the council to be aware of the 'true position. We had to ask the corporation for some further information which is necessary—

Mr. John Page

It was never asked for before.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins

That is irrelevant. This is a justifiable rule to make certain that the tender accepted is right in the technical aspects and that the other method was not better on a comparable basis, even though perhaps more expensive.

The reply came back on 2nd November. Our drainage and water supply officer inspected this site on 22nd November and found that work was under way. Therefore, the corporation was told on 5th December that its application had been rejected because work had been started before we had given written approval for it. The borough engineer wrote on 18th December and explained that because his department was being reorganised at the time the application had been handled by an inexperienced officer who had mistakenly assumed that because loan sanction had been granted the work had been approved by my Ministry for water supply grant. I am sorry that this happened, but it was through no mistake on the part of the Ministry that the council started work before receiving written sanction from the Ministry.

I have reluctantly to insist that the conclusion which I came to is that the Harrow Council must bear responsibility for this unfortunate occurrence, and that we must accordingly refuse grant to the council. I am sorry that this is so and I quite understand the reasons which led to it, but that does not get over the fact that written permission was not obtained from my Ministry before the work was begun. If we are to safeguard public funds, as must be done in the public interest, this is a right and necessary rule.

I refute the suggestion that red tape or any kind of administrative nonsense was involved in this case. We had to send two technical officers to do two quite separate jobs of inspecting the site for two quite separate purposes. The fact that the inspections took place at different times is irrelevant. The Ministry has done everything it can to see that the regulations and the rules were followed. I am extremely sorry that the council has found itself in a muddle, because of an inexperienced officer's mistake. I quite understand the frustration which my hon. Friend and the council feel, but I can find no ground whatever on which to reverse the decision of my right hon. Friend and myself to refuse grant to Harrow Council.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes to Five o'clock.