VESTING OF SEWERS AND OTHER WORKS IN LOCAL AUTHORITY. (Hansard, 10 April 1968)

§ Mr. Willis
I beg to move Amendment No. 30, in page 9, line 26, to leave out paragraph (c).
This is rather more than a drafting Amendment. It is very important. Subsection (1), (c) vests in the local authorities all private sewers connecting with their sewers or sewage treatment works, whether constructed before or after the commencement of this section; In Committee we tried to get some clarification or some easement of this for local authorities, with an Amendment to the effect that the private sewers should first of all he accepted as public sewers by a resolution of the council, which would have allowed it to stage these operations in a way which did not impose too heavy a financial burden on the council. The Amendment was not accepted and we have the subsection still in this form.
As was pointed out in Committee, this places a fairly substantial financial obligation on local authorities. I remind my hon. Friend that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Clark Hutchison) said that, as a result of this Clause. Edinburgh would be faced with in annual bill of over £30,000. The hon. Gentleman pointed out that there was not a very clear definition of pipes or anything like that and that, unless there were a clearer definition in the Bill, there would be disputes between local authorities and owners in cases of blockage and so on, with the result that there would be delays.
Since then, I have had handed to me a letter raising again this whole question of lack of definition as well as the point about the substantial change which has to be made. It points out that, once this legislation comes into operation, a very substantial burden will be placed on local authorities. It says that the situation is further complicated by the lack of a precise definition of the word "building".

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The right hon. Gentleman cannot debate the Clause at the moment. We are discussing his proposed Amendment to delete subsection (1,c).

§ Mr. Willis
I am grateful, Mr. Speaker, for your guidance, but in order to decide what constitutes a private sewer we have to discuss what is a private sewer in relation to a building and this is all in relation to subsection (1). It is because of the lack of definition that local authorities—or at least a number of them—are concerned. The first point concerns the definition of "building". What does "drain" mean? According to the Bill, drain ' … means any pipe or drain within the curtilage of … premises used solely for or in connection with the drainage of one building or of any buildings … within the same curtilage; How does that affect, for example, terraced housing? The letter also refers to Regulation 137 of the Building Standards (Scotland) Regulations, 1963 which directs that the … land on which the buildings are to be erected shall be deemed to form land in the same occupation notwithstanding that the buildings are intended for different occupation. This, of course, could make a considerable saving to the local authority because, instead of its having to take the drain to each house, or each building, it just takes it to the one building. This is important in connection with subsection (1). It is likely, with a better definition, to place an even bigger burden upon the local authorities. I do not want to repeat all the submissions made to me, but the letter goes on: It is interesting to speculate on the future interpretation of 'drain' and subsequently 'sewer' as defined in the Bill. Could the vertical waste and soil pipe in a block of flats be held to be not a 'drain' and therefore a 'sewer' maintainable by the local authority? If so, this will add to the expenditure to be incurred by larger burghs.
Having studied this matter more fully since the Committee stage, I have discovered that there are many problems. There is a lack of clarity in the Bill. The definition Clause does not help much. It does not answer the question I have asked as to the proper interpretation of "drain" or "sewer". In Committee it was suggested that the Under-Secretary should seek to obtain the views of local authorities, an exercise that was not carried out before the Bill was introduced.
This provision places a substantial new burden upon local authorities. Whenever the Bill becomes operative, each local authority will be faced with 1471 a substantial increase in its rate burden. This is the last thing we want to do without giving local authorities the opportunity of phasing it or of taking steps to prevent this burden from falling upon them at one blow.
The provision has caused considerable concern. There is a lack of precision in the Bill. No method is proposed by which a local authority can assume this new responsibility and this new expenditure in a manner which fits in with its ordinary administration and which is in the best interests of those whom it serves. I do not suppose that the Under-Secretary will accept the Amendment, but he should give us more information than we have been given up to the present about what this means. What are the definitions? What are the burdens? How does my hon. Friend expect local authorities to absorb this burden in a reasonable manner?

§ Sir John Gilmour (Fife, East)
The right hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) spoke of the substantial new burden this provision will impose. Very substantial new burdens are being placed upon those who did not in the past pay full drainage rates. It this paragraph were deleted, their right to connect their drains would be removed and a substantial burden which they are carrying at the moment would not pass to the local authority. The local authority, although it is getting an extra burden, is acquiring a considerable number of new drainage ratepayers.

§ Mr. Willis
Not in the cities.

§ Sir J. Gilmour
That may be so, but it certainly applies in country districts. As a result of the Bill, local authorities will collect drainage rates from many people who did not previously pay them. The local authority may be assuming an extra obligation, but it will in perpetuity receive extra rates which will go a long way towards defraying the costs.

§ Mr. Alex Eadie (Midlothian)
At earlier stages we tried to outline the difficulties which will arise. My right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) is right in saying that this proposition means ever increasing burdens for local authorities. My county 1472 is to dispense with special districts. I do not know how valid the argument of the hon. Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Gilmour) is about new ratepayers. He and I were at one time members of the same local authority. If there had been special districts in the county of Fife, the amount paid in sewerage rates by new ratepayers, in view of the heavy capital cost of bringing in sewerage, would be very small.
Midlothian has special districts at present, but they are to be abolished under the Bill. Additional rates will be placed on many. I know that it may be argued that it will be equalised. When in Committee the question of a local authority being responsible for internal drainage was discussed, I said in essence that a subsidy was being given to private housing. We were told that this would mean that private housing would be cheaper. My right hon. Friend and I said that we greatly doubted whether this was the way to give subsidies to private housing.
This issue is further bedevilled by the fact that nothing specific was said at earlier stages about how cities would be treated. In advance of the argument we said that surely we should not have amending legislation to the extent that the counties would be compelled to be responsible for internal sewerage while cities carried on as at present. We received a vague answer; my hon. Friend said that he was not yet in a position to tell us precisely what would happen. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Clark Hutchison) asked specifically whether there would be a change in relation to Edinburgh. I do not want to have to return to Midlothian and say, "We are having a revolutionary change. We are dispensing with special districts. We shall now be responsible for internal sewerage, but the ratepayers in Edinburgh are to carry on as before".
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will place us in an impossible position unless he can be more forthcoming. I hope that he can convince us that his propositions are sensible and will be beneficial to all ratepayers and that there will not be a difference between city, county and burgh. If that difference prevails, there will be nothing but confusion.

§ Mr. Dempsey
The House is indebted to my right hon. Friend the Member for 1473 Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) for having tabled the Amendment. I was not a member of the Standing Committee, but it is obvious to me that unless the paragraph is deleted there will be a widespread imposition on Scottish local authorities. I do not think there is any doubt about that, because if local authorities are to take private sewers into public ownership we are entitled to know how many private sewers there are in Scotland and what is the annual maintenance cost of these. These are subjects about which we should have information. What surprises me is that we have not heard any member of the Opposition say that he is opposed to this form of nationalisation. They are obviously in favour of it because they realise that some speculators will be relieved of a financial burden which can be prodigious having regard to the nature of the work involved. We are entitled to have some details of what the local authorities will be taking into public ownership.
Where is the demarcation line between what is taken into the ownership of the local authority and what remains in private ownership? I have been able to follow the reasoning that some people will be worse off because they will be paying increased rates. If this subsection means that the services will be taken over by the local authority, then I can see that as regards rented houses, in which tenants pay increased rents according to rent tribunals and where the houses have not been repaired and the services have not been improved, it will cost them a lot extra if they have also to meet the cost of local authority ownership of sewerage services.
My right hon. Friend should make it clear what standard of maintenance will be acceptable by the local authorities before they take over. Before local authorities take over and maintain private roads these have to be made up to certain standards. We want to hear what are the acceptable standards to be laid down before the local authorities take on such a financial burden.
Having said that, I should like to know if my hon. Friend can give us some figures as to the cost of this project to the local authorities in Scotland. Will this cost be considerable and how is it of be refunded? To what extent, after having worked out the cost, will the local 1474 authorities be able to claim repayment? Have they got to get some specific elements of the rate support grant to meet this cost or will there be a direct approved expenditure grant towards the cost of taking over and maintaining these private sewers? It is quite possible that the maintenance of the private sewers will be as costly as, if not more costly than, the actual acquisition. I think it is wrong for any decision to be taken in the House of Commons on a blank cheque basis without the facts and figures, the costs and financial implications, being known to this body. This is a reasonable approach to the problem. I do not want to be difficult, and it is not that I wish to embarrass my hon. Friend or his colleagues, but we are rather apprehensive about giving a blank cheque to any one to indulge in such a financial and physical transaction about the economies of which we know nothing. This is not a businesslike way of managing any enterprise, whether it concerns sewerage, roads, housing or any other Department of the Scottish Office.
On the basis of what my hon. Friend replies I shall make up my mind and take a decision. I require to strike a balance. I may fully support my right hon. Friend's Amendment, but if my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary can relieve my mind of any inordinate financial worries I shall be very pleased to help him in his effort to get this Bill approved this evening. I was not a Member of the Committee and did not have an opportunity to raise these points. I have spent too many years in local government not to appreciate the financial implications of this particular subsection, and I should not be doing my duty to my constituents or to Scotland if I did not raise these pertinent points now. I hope that the Under-Secretary will be able to give me a satisfactory answer because on his reply will depend my action in connection with my right hon. Friend's Amendment.

§ Mr. Buchan
We have had a long debate on this and to some extent it covered some of the points dealt with in the discussion in the Committee stages and also in the discussion on Clause 1. I do not want to go into all the aspects which have been raised. The question whether Members opposite approve of this form of nationalisation could be a 1475 double-edged argument on this side, too, because we are concerned to try to create the best possible kind of public sewerage. I think the right hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) put his finger on one of the sensitive points in the whole Bill.
My hon. Friend the Member for Coat-bridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) raised the question of costs. It is a bit difficult to estimate these. He regards this as a blank cheque but with a thing like this it is quite impossible to make an accurate estimate of everything that constitutes a private sewer. It was said in the Committee that Edinburgh had estimated that it might be of the nature of £30,000.

§ Mr. Willis
Very little cost.

§ Mr. Buchan
It might be a very little cost. A lot will depend on what is involved at any one point in the way of maintenance, and so on, but that is the estimate that was made. However, the cost cannot be defined very accurately, although hon. Members will have seen the reference to the estimate which we made in the original drafting of the Bill of £100,000 up to 1970. An hon. Member raised the point whether this specific item of local government expenditure would be covered by the rate support grant in the normal way, as happens at the present time. It would and to some extent sewerage may also attract a grant under the Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act of 1944 and the Local Employment Acts of 1960 to 1966. I think this covers most of the hon. Member's worries on this point.
The effect of the paragraph he is referring to here depends on the definition of "drain" and "private sewer", as the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East said, and I wish I could have a blackboard with me—as I said in the Committee—so as to try to explain this, because it is highly complicated. I hope the wording of my previous explanation in Committee was clear. If not, I regret that we do not yet use charts and blackboards so that I could illustrate it. However, a drain is a pipe which lies within the curtilage of the premises and serves only that curtilage. If it goes into the street or into a neighbouring property or serves more than one curtilage it ceases to be a drain and becomes a private sewer. It 1476 then becomes the responsibility of the local authority. I accept that the definition of "private sewer", "public sewer" and "drain" in our definition Clause is not particularly helpful, but that is the clearest definition I can give to the hon. Member and that is what we have in mind.

§ Mr. Willis
What about the tenement building with the drain running down it?

§ Mr. Buchan
This is one of the difficulties. Houses in a terrace normally stand each inside its own curtilage. There is a different definition in the building regulations but there it is for a different purpose, where the whole terrace might reasonably be regarded as one building. But I appreciate the difficulty, particularly concerning the use of the word "building", which is not defined.

§ Mr. Willis
Why cannot the definition used in the Building Regulations of 1963 be accepted for the purposes of this Bill?

§ Mr. Buchan
For the simple reason that a different function is being performed. It often happens that a sewer within the same curtilage serves a common purpose. If the sewer were in the street, we should all accept that it would be a public sewer, but by the accident of serving a whole area but being within the curtilege of the structure of the terrace or tenement house it is not.
We have had further consultations with local authorities, including the Edinburgh Corporation, as I promised in Committee we should do. The local authorities are not confused about the meaning of paragraph (c), although some of them indicated that they thought that it placed an excessive responsibility on local authorities. I cannot accept the intention of the Amendment—that there should be no responsibility on local authorities. Private sewers serve substantial numbers of properties, which should be a public responsibility, and which, incidentally, from time to time involve private owners in difficulties because of costs, and so on. Many of them lie in streets, but some are in back gardens. We think that local authorities should have an obligation to maintain this kind of apparatus and that paragraph (c) is 1477 a method of achieving it. We have indicated to the local authorities that we are prepared to consider other methods of achieving the same object, but it is a matter of great difficulty and an alternative formula is not easy to produce.
It has been suggested that a sewer should not be taken over unless we are satisfied, on the analogy of the private street, that it is in good repair. But again there is a practical difficulty, since in most cases it would be necessary to dig up the sewer to discover whether it was sound, and it is by no means clear who would have to pay for that. If the sewer were exposed, there would be no difficulty.

§ Mr. Dempsey
We know of sewer pipes which, due to lack of supervision, were not properly concreted in the earth and as a result eruption occurred. Does my hon. Friend think that local authority should accept the financial responsibility of properly reconcreting and rebedding the pipes, which should have been done when they were laid by the private owner?

§ Mr. Buchan
Before there is a takeover, local authorities have power to ensure that pipes are not in that condition. It is the local authority's responsibility to deal with the matter.
I recognise that a great deal of the difficulty stems from the definition Clause. It does not help very much to say that 'private sewer' means any sewer which is not a public sewer. But it is not at that point that difficulty arises. The difficulty stems from the word "drain". I am prepared to have another look at the definition of "drain" to see whether it may be modified. I cannot promise that we shall be able to arrive at a satisfactory definition. It is a complicated question. I am not sure that our definition is not necessarily right, but my mind is not closed to making an alteration if a satisfactory alternative definition can be found.

§ Mr. Willis
Do I understand my hon. Friend to say that he has had, and is, till having, conversations with local authorities about easing the difficulty of finding methods of taking over sewers in a more satisfactory way?

§ Mr. Buchan
I said that I was prepared to look again at the definition of "drain". We have had discussions with the local authorities, as I promised in Committee, but we adhere to our view that the basic principle of paragraph (c) is correct.
Concern has been expressed about the cost of take-overs, but hon. Members will be aware that there is another aspect of the Bill. Various provisions in the Bill will not be implemented until conditions are such that they should be implemented. But certainly there has been no move to alter the intention as it appears in the Clause and to which I must adhere.

§ Mr. Willis
With the permission of the House, may I say that I did not expect that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State would accept the Amendment. But the discussion has performed a useful service in showing us that my hon. Friend has gone to some pains to pursue the matters which we raised in Committee.
I am glad that my hon. Friend has consulted some local authorities about the problems which arise from paragraph (c). I hope that there will be further consideration of the definitions and that what my hon. Friend said about bringing the provisions into operation will meet the fears of local authorities. In view of the forthcoming way in which he has dealt with this matter, and since we spent a long time on it in Committee, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.