THAMES VALLEY POLICE (AMALGAMATION)

HC Deb 21 March 1968 vol 761 cc737-61

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [18th March]: That the Thames Valley Police (Amalgamation) Order 1968, a draft of which was laid before this House on 14th February, be not made.

Question again proposed.

Mr. Speaker

I understand that at the moment of interruption the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdon (Sir I). Renton) was making a protest. I propose to call him later in the debate. He will have to ask formally for leave of the House.

9.58 p.m.

Mr. W. R. van Straubenzee (Wokingham)

I am sure that I express the appreciation of all those interested in this Order for the Ruling which you gave, Mr. Speaker, that our debate should be adjourned and resumed this night. I realise that we must not trespass on your good nature in the Ruling you have given, but I wish to say to the Under-Secretary that I am indeed grateful to him for the letter which he courteously wrote to me on 18th March on the subject of terminal compensation and on a detailed point as it relates to the Borough of Reading, a point which was argued earlier on Monday between the hon. and learned Gentleman and the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. John Lee). It will come as no surprise to the hon. and learned Gentleman to know that I do not find his letter satisfactory, but this is not the occasion to carry the argument further and I shall be corresponding with him.

The point to which I am grateful to have the opportunity of reverting is the question of the interim arrangements which, if I may say so, were so lucidly explained for the benefit of the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Hay), to whom we are all very much indebted. I want quite directly to pick up an inference that was present in two of the speeches made on that occasion. The inference was contained first in the admittedly impressive speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall) when he implied that, at any rate, that there had been delay before this matter was eventually referred to Mr. Mars-Jones. Perhaps more importantly, the Under-Secretary himself, while saying that he had sympathy with the authorities concerned, went on to say but it was late in the day we saw that no agreement was being reached about the transitional arrangements and that the allegation of the inspector being misled was raised."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th March, 1968; Vol. 761, c. 203.] "It was late in the day" said the hon. and learned Gentleman. The facts of the matter are, first, that Buckinghamshire wrote to the Home Office on 17th November. That is a public matter of which we are all aware, and it would be fair for the Under-Secretary to say that there was an inference in that letter that possibly agreement could be reached with the authorities concerned.

I appreciate that it is not usual for private correspondence at official level to be released, but I have had consultations subsequently with the Town Clerk of the Borough of Reading, part of which I have the honour to represent in this House, and he has authorised me to say that, at treasurer level, it was on 22nd November that the Borough Treasurer of the Borough of Reading made it quite clear that the proposals set out in Buckinghamshire's letter were unacceptable to Reading. Therefore, I make it clear to the Under-Secretary that the only possible "delay" of which Reading at any rate could be accused of being guilty was between 17th and 22nd November. By 22nd November the matter was clear: there could be no agreement.

Therefore, one is led to speculate—and here we are in the realms of pure speculation—why it was for so long a period as that between 22nd November and the date of the reference to Mr. Mars-Jones that nothing whatever happened. One can only speculate that the Home Office was still resisting the reference to Mr. Mars-Jones, and the Under-Secretary really must allow me to say that, subsequent to so doing and to receiving his reply, they have really proceeded with a haste which has verged on the indecent.

We all understand that the hon. and learned Gentleman did not for one moment intend to mislead, but in his speech on Monday he gave the impression that Berkshire was perfectly happy about the position we have now reached. My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. Astor) and I, who have the honour to represent part of that county in the House, have therefore made it our business to make quite certain of the position which we were both sure of on Monday night. We are both authorised to say—and I say it on behalf of my hon. Friend tonight—that, although its financial outlook is different from that of the Borough of Reading, Berkshire takes the strongest exception to what I will loosely call the second Mars-Jones procedure. If anything, it stands to benefit, but it regards the method by which the Home Office achieved this object as very reprehensible.

The Under-Secretary must understand that, possibly inadvertently, the coming into being of this important police force has started in a most unhappy atmosphere. My hon. Friend the Member for Henley most specifically did not ask, and I equally most specifically do not ask, that the coming into force of the Order should be delayed. That cannot be. It is common ground between all hon. Members and the Under-Secretary that all arrangements are now made. The force must clearly start on 1st April. All we are asking is that the hon. and learned Gentleman will give an undertaking that Mr. Mars-Jones or if he prefers, or if Mr. Mars-Jones prefers, another Inspector, shall be asked to consider this detailed matter and hear all parties and not merely one. There is ample precedent for this, as my hon. Friend reminded the House, in the Southampton scheme, where there is in existence a letter outside the actual scheme signed by all parties.

Although he has had a busy week, the hon. and learned Gentleman has now had a few hours to consider the representations made to him on Monday. I profoundly hope that he will feel persuaded by them and see that the quite small concession asked of him could be the way by which the coming into force of the Order could occur in an entirely new and improved atmosphere.

10.8 p.m.

Mr. Evan Lnard (Oxford)

I add my appreciation to you, Mr. Speaker, and others responsible for our having this opportunity of resuming the debate. It is important that representatives of all those very closely affected by the decision should have the opportunity of being heard, as well as representatives of the official opposition. I do not intend to detain the House for very long, because I have very little to add on the facts to the extremely lucid and persuasive presentation of the case by the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Hay) on Monday.

I should like first to describe exactly the condition of my own authority over the matter and particularly to emphasise an essential point of principle involved in the Home Office's action in agreeing to an essential element of the financial provisions for the new authority by private correspondence with the Inspector concerned, without adequate consultation with the authorities, which had been represented in the early inquiry but had no adequate opportunity for expressing their views on this point.

Oxford City has no objection at all to the long-term financial arrangements for the new authority. There is a very good reason. The provisions are based on a very simple principle, that contributions should be according to the capacity to pay, according to the principle of the adjusted rate product, which now that we have a national basis for assessment, is roughly proportionate to capacity to pay.

Because that is a just principle, it is the principle that we believe should be applied throughout the life of this authority from its earliest years. That, apparently, was the view of the Inspector when he made his report. But the proposal before us is that it should not be applied and that for the first three years, a special arrangement should be made. Let us make no bones about it. It is a special arrangement designed entirely to appease Buckinghamshire—possibly even designed to induce Buckinghamshire to be rather more compliant to the idea of the new authority as a whole and, therefore, to abate its initial opposition.

The financial effects on Oxford will be that, in the first year of the new authority, its citizens will have to pay about £28,000 more for the new authority than otherwise they would have had to do; in the second year they will have to pay about £21,000 more and in the third year about £14,000. The total over the three-year period will be about £65,000. This money will be transferred out of the pockets of the people of Oxford into the pockets of the people of Buckinghamshire who, as the hon. Member for Henley pointed out, are by no means indigent. Buckinghamshire is not a poor authority.

It is not easy for me to explain to my constituents why they should have to pay extra to the people of Buckinghamshire because Buckinghamshire has taken an extremely obstinate and stubborn line about the creation of this new authority.

I want now to consider the basic points of the principle involved. One really has to consider three separate stages during this rather unhappy story—the first stage, during the inquiry itself; the stage after the inquiry, when second thoughts were beginning to be had; and the stage after that, when it was the duty of the Home Secretary to consider the first and second thoughts of Mr. Mars-Jones.

The most remarkable thing about this story is the way in which these second thoughts were reached and a recommendation was made in private correspondence with the Secretary of State without any adequate opportunity for the other authorities affected—incidentally, the majority of the authorities concerned—to put their views on these proposals.

The most significant point about the correspondence is the emphasis on the fact that something which the Home Office counsel had said had been misleading and had therefore induced Mr. Mars-Jones to make a different recommendation from what he would otherwise have done or to omit to make a recommendation which he would otherwise have made. The most obvious and significant point about this is that, if that statement did mislead him, it is hardly surprising that it misled others present at the inquiry and that, therefore, it did not enter their heads that there was any serious possibility of an interim arrangement.

It is true that, as my hon. and learned Friend said on Monday, this reference by the Home Office counsel came towards the end of the proceedings, but that is not particularly relevant. In an inquiry of this kind, if there were to be any question of an interim arrangement, one would have expected the Home Office counsel specifically to have raised the point and thus given an opportunity to all the local authorities concerned to state their attitudes. One might have expected the Inspector himself to say something about it. This omission was made the more serious, because, I understand, one of the Home Office representatives, Mr. Goringe, a financial expert, even went so far as to say that it was the custom of the Home Office not to recommend financial arrangements of this kind which had not been agreed. This made it all the more unlikely that any of the authorities would suspect that it was likely that the Home Office would agree with the Inspector, or that he would recommend, any scheme which had not been fully discussed with their representatives.

So much for the events of the inquiry. It is quite clear that either the representatives were misled by the Home Office official into thinking that this question of interim arrangements would not arise, or it never entered their heads that there was such a possibility. These arrangements are extremely rare. Of all the amalgamations that have taken place, there have been only three or four where such a thing has been proposed. If this is the case, it would not be surprising if representatives did not think it necessary to say anything about this. They feel, inevitably, extremely aggrieved about this point, raised at the last moment and without adequate discussion at the inquiry.

After the inquiry we had this process of going back to the Inspector. Something must be said about the whole procedure here, and I hope that hon. Members will not be offended if I say that some of us feel there is something slightly reprehensible about the somewhat sly behaviour of Buckinghamshire in making private approaches to the Home Secretary, in moaning in a rather pathetic way about the disastrous effect of this proposed arrangement on its finances. This is a county which is by no means poor. It was suggesting therefore, that it would be a good idea to nut some of the burden on to other unfortunates in other authorities, and that perhaps the Inspector really intended to recommend something quite different from what he had recommended.

The Home Office agreed to look at this and to put it to the Inspector, without any word to any of the other authorities concerned. I assume that all this has taken place and Buckinghamshire has made the approach, and the Home Office has felt that perhaps its representative said something misleading. Then, one would have expected one of two things to happen. The Home Office could either have written to the other authorities and said that Buckinghamshire had made this point, and said that it thought something misleading was said at the inquiry and the financial arrangements should be modified to help it a little. It could have said that it was thinking of putting this to Mr. Mars-Jones to see if there was anything in it and could have asked for comments.

The second alternative was to go straight to Mr. Mars-Jones and to put the point that had been raised by Buckinghamshire, asking if it was a fact that he had been misled, and if so would he like to make further recommendations, to be discussed with the authorities affected. The Home Office did neither of these things. It wrote to Mr. Mars-Jones and put some words into his mouth, which he willingly and immediately accepted. He made his own recommendation, but he accepted the idea that there should be an interim scheme, and it was virtually adopted without giving any meaningful opportunities to the other authorities to say anything in opposition to the scheme.

This was not the end of the process and this point has not been sufficiently stressed. Even the second report, as it has been described, of Mr. Mars-Jones still comprised recommendations to the Home Secretary. There was nothing to oblige him to adopt these. We have to consider what would have been a just scheme to implement at this stage.

Mr. Speaker

Order. With all the goodwill in the world, I must ask the hon. Gentleman to speak for or against the Order. He cannot suggest an alternative, he cannot amend it.

Mr. Luard

I am not suggesting any alternative. I am speaking against the Order, and I hope that will be clear in a moment or two. I would like to pursue my argument about the action of the Home Office at successive stages of this procedure. After a second recommendation by Mr. Mars-Jones had been received, there was no obligation on the Home Office to accept this recommendation. It was the obligation of the Home Secretary to consider what was a just financial scheme. It is said that the interim arrangement was designed to soften the blow for Berkshire. When one is thinking of an interim scheme of this kind, there are other considerations that have to be taken into account.

Several of us in the Chamber at the moment have recently had experience of another Thames Valley authority—the Thames Valley Water Board—where very similar considerations were involved. Here too a number of authorities were joining together and a number of them were contributing in different ways in the form of their previous resources. Here again, a special financial arrangement was made, which was by no means acceptable to all those affected. The principle that was accepted was, to my mind, a more rational and just one. Those authorities which had contributed most in the way of resources by their previous investment were to pay least. They had a specially favourable financial arrangement. This was very beneficial to Oxford; I do not deny it. Oxford had been extremely public-spirited.

Mr. Speaker

Order. We cannot discuss the Thames Valley Water Board arrangements on this police Order.

Mr. Luard

I proceed from that to the matter of contributions for a police authority. Here again, Oxford had probably been the most public-spirited regarding its previous investment in its police force. It is for this reason that this scheme will involve some reduction in the rate to be paid for police by Oxford. Berkshire is going to have to increase its rate, because it had previously neglected its police force. It had not been paying so much as other authorities and, therefore, it is now going to be obliged to pay that much more.

If one is going to make an interim arrangement it would be possible to argue that Oxford should have benefited because Oxford police are men who were serving only in Oxford and they are now to be serving in other parts of the authority's area.

At each of these three stages it is arguable that an injustice of one kind or another has been done. The real point the House has to consider at the moment is not only whether there has been an injustice, but whether a decision has been reached in a right and reasonable way.

Like other Members, I am not suggesting that the Order itself should not be proceeded with, or that the amalgamation of the police forces should not take place. It is vitally important that the question of the interim financial arrangement, which was arrived at in such an unusual and unsatisfactory way, should be reconsidered. It is for this reason that I support the Prayer of the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Hay) and I very much hope that my hon. and learned Friend the Under-Secretary will agree to go to the Home Secretary and ask him to re-examine this aspect of the Order and to have detailed consultations with all those authorities which are to be affected so crucially by it.

10.25 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell (Buckinghamshire, South)

I do not often have the privilege of listening to and reading so many arguments which have been so wholly devoid of merit as the arguments which have been advanced in this debate against this Order.

I suppose a sceptic might say that I say that because I represent a constituency in Buckinghamshire and that the Order, in so far as it is being prayed against now, is to the financial advantage of Buckinghamshire. It may be so. It may be that one's judgment is clouded. But I hope that I shall succeed in persuading the House that there is no substance in the arguments advanced in favour of the Prayer.

My hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Hay), with whose judgment I so often agree on other points, said that this was not a matter where the financial advantage of Oxfordshire was a compelling force, but that he felt that there was a strong issue of principle here. However, it is the experience of us all that principles and economics get mixed up from time to time, and it is something of a coincidence that all hon. Members who support the Prayer represent the interests of authorities which would have a financial gain if it were to succeed. Equally, it may be said that those of us who are against it are in the opposite position.

May I correct the broad picture which the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Luard) put forward? He used some attractive phrases about money being taken out of the pockets of the ratepayers of Oxford and put into the pockets of the people of Buckinghamshire by these arrangements. However, Buckinghamshire itself does not want the amalgamation. The people of Buckinghamshire do not want the Order, and they do not want the financial arrangements. All of them are against their wishes.

We in Buckinghamshire were very happy with our police force, and the financial arrangements, whether those originally formulated or those formulated in the Order, are greatly to the disadvantage of Buckinghamshire and, in some degree, to that of Berkshire. Not a mere £30,000 or £65,000, but hundreds of thousands of £s will be taken out of the pockets of the people of Buckinghamshire and transferred to the pockets of the people of Oxford, Reading and other such places.

Mr. Luard

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman accept that, when I made that remark, I was talking about the effect of the interim arrangement on the people of Oxford, and not the scheme as a whole?

Mr. Bell

That was a correction that I made, because the hon. Gentleman said that the effect of these arrangements was that. The only effect of the change in the scheme which is being prayed against is to reduce the profit being made by the City of Oxford, the County of Oxford and the Borough of Reading. They will still be left with a handsome profit, but I think that they are annoyed because, just as they were about to share out the swag, along came this Order and suddenly they find that there is not quite as much booty to share out among themselves as they had hoped.

Mr. John Hay (Henley)

Would my hon. and learned Friend bear in mind that, when he talks about swag, the County of Buckinghamshire will obtain a very much larger police force than it has at present, as well as having a much higher rateable value per head of the population than any of the other authorities involved?

Mr. Bell

Let me point out to my hon. Friend that the higher rateable value of Buckinghamshire is something which goes on quite independently of this Order. It is because the people of Buckinghamshire are more industrious and successful than those of Oxfordshire.

Mr. Hay

Really!

Mr. Bell

I have been sorely tempted to say what I think and have thought for years about the administration of the Oxfordshire police, but I will not be tempted.

Everyone agrees about the broad shape of this scheme. It is a fairly predatory operation against the people of Buckinghamshire, but they say, "Be it so; the procedure is wrong". So we come to procedure and, here again, the broad picture can be outlined easily. There was an inquiry, which lasted six days. I use the word "inquiry" advisedly because it was an administrative inquiry. The Secretary of State would be advised by means of a report, and then he would make the Order. But it would be his Order, not the Order of the inquiry. This was not a tribunal; it was an inquiry. We are always having committees of inquiry these days. This was a one-man inquiry.

During the course of the inquiry the two matters canvassed were, first, whether there should be the amalgamation and, secondly, the financial arrangements. Buckinghamshire was against the amalgamation and was contending for a population basis for the financing of the scheme. The Inspector found against Buckinghamshire on both those matters. He advised in favour of amalgamation and a rateable value basis for the contributions.

In the progress of the proceedings the question of transitional arrangements was raised both in evidence and in argument. Attempts have been made to minimise that, but it was because the transitional arrangements were raised that Mr. Mars-Jones asked, in effect: What is the procedure here; will there be an appeal on the transitional arrangements; how does it work? He addressed this question to counsel appearing for the Home Office who, at that time, did not know the answer, but said he would try to find out. As is known, on the last day of the inquiry he gave an answer to the effect that the Inspector need not bother about this matter, because it was something arranged afterwards by the Home Secretary. He said that the Home Secretary would not advise on the transitional scheme unless all the parties were agreed on it. The Inspector, having asked and been told that this was dealt with subsequently and otherwise, did not report on it.

When the report came out and went to the Secretary of State, he, in the execution of his duty, drew up a draft scheme. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford has referred to the sly conduct of the Buckinghamshire County Council in making private representations to the Secretary of State. I suggest that that is misconceived, because, when the draft scheme was sent to all the authorities concerned, they were asked to submit their observations on it. They were asked for their comments, so the County of Buckingham—and, I dare say, the others, too—sent a letter to the Home Secretary containing the comments for which it had been asked. There is nothing sly about that. It is the proper procedure. I do not see what else Buckinghamshire could have done, but say, as it did: "We do not like this bit of the scheme which deals with the financial arrangements, because there is no transitional period".

The Home Office replied, be it remembered, "We are sorry, but we are not going to change that, because this matter was raised before the Inspector and he has not recommended a transitional scheme". In other words, the Home Office said, "We brush aside this objection of yours, because the Inspector considered it and did not recommend this".

Buckinghamshire then said, "But this is quite wrong, because he was told by counsel for the Home Office in effect not to recommend on this point. We have, therefore, been greatly damaged if you will not consider our representations on a transitional scheme on the ground that the Inspector had evidence and argument about it before him and did not make a recommendation".

Buckinghamshire said that the Inspector was misled on this point by the answer that was given to him on the last day. I do not think there is any dispute about that, but the hon. Member for Oxford says, "What of it? If the Inspector was misled, may not everyone at the inquiry have been misled so that they lost the opportunity of making representations", but that is not so, because the answer by counsel for the Home Office was given at the end of the inquiry. The inquiry, with its examination and cross-examination, had taken place. The only person who was materially misled was Mr. Mars-Jones.

On being told this, the Home Office did the only thing it could. It wrote to the Inspector and said, "Bucks says that in effect you were told by counsel for the Home Office not to recommend on this point because it was dealt with by another procedure". Mr. Mars-Jones replied, "That is true. I understood that I should not recommend on this, but, had I known that I could recommend, or should recommend, this is what I would have recommended", and then he set out the arrangement in the Order being prayed against.

I can see no shadow of improprietory here. I ask myself where this illusion has come from, and I think I probably know the answer. It appears in a phrase in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Henley when he said: …one is bound to say that although these were not judicial proceedings, the attitude shown by the Inspector was not exactly a judicial attitude."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th March, 1968; Vol. 761, c. 190.] The reference is to the Inspector's reply to the Home Office letter. I invite the House to consider those words a little carefully: One is bound to say that although these were not judicial proceedings, the attitude shown by the Inspector was not exactly a judicial attitude. There is an implication that although the proceedings were not judicial, nevertheless the principles and procedure governing them should have been judicial. Indeed, my hon. Friend took that view, because he went on to say that he knew what sort of reply he would have got if he had written to a High Court judge after an action in which he was not satisfied with the outcome, if he got any answer at all. That is right, because one does not write to a High Court judge saying that one is not pleased with the result of an action, or to ask what he meant by this or that, because they were judicial proceedings. But these are not judicial proceedings, and I am glad to have the opportunity of speaking in this debate because I can say something that I have wanted to say for a long time, and that is that while I am happy to be a member of the legal profession, I think that lawyers talk a lot of humbug about this matter of administrative proceedings, usually prefaced by the word "quasi" or "semi". They are not quasi-judicial. They are not semi-judicial. They are not judicial at all.

There are two kinds of tribunal. The first is an administrative tribunal which decides something. The classic example of this is the Lands Tribunal. This is not the High Court of Justice, nor any part of it, but a tribunal, and it decides something. The other kind of body is best not called a tribunal. It is an inquiry. The purpose of it is to report, and the responsibility rests fairly and squarely on a political officer of State who decides, acts, and proposed to Parliament, as here, and in the end Parliament decides.

The frequent implications from some of my hon. and learned Friends that those proceedings should be described as quasi-judicial, that the Council on Tribunals, of all things, should go broody over them, is ridiculous. The whole purpose of the inquiry is to advise the Secretary of State by a report, because he cannot go down and snuffle around himself. He decides after someone reports. Then it is suggested that there is an impropriety in the Secretary of State writing to his man, who is paid to advise him, to ask whether he had thought about any additional point! This is the greatest humbug.

My profession, of which I am very proud, has the fault that it always tries to interpret away discretions. Show them a discretion and they will establish rules for exercising it. If there is one good logical rule about discretions, it is that, if they are exercised according to rules. they do not exist.

I am sorry about these general words, but I was provoked by my hon. Friend's remark: …although these were not judicial proceedings, the attitude shown by the Inspector was not exactly a judicial attitude."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th March, 1968; Vol. 761, c. 190.] That is quite a gem in its way, because it puts in a nutshell that mental attitude—

Mr. Hay

Would my hon. and learned Friend not agree that, whether it is right or wrong, the ordinary man in the street, seeing an inquiry held by a Queen's Counsel, with a number of other Queen's Counsel arrayed before him, with witnesses called to give detailed evidence and being subject to cross-examination, with lengthy and no doubt well-paid speeches by counsel at the end, would be tempted to think that these were quasi-judicial proceedings?

Mr. Bell

Yes, which is why I welcomed the opportunity to say what I did. These illusions are quickly implanted. Whereas I forgive the man in the street for thinking that, I do not forgive my honourable colleagues at the Bar for the same mistake. We must take a firm line if every kind of inquiry is not to be "judicialised"—if I may coin a horrible word—so that their whole point disappears.

My hon. Friend knows that the same thing can be said about licensing proceedings, which actually take place in a court, under an apparently judicial procedure, but are administrative: not only can the justices ignore the evidence completely, but they are often right to do so. It is important that we should keep our minds clear on this point. I say that on general principle, because in this particular case it is very simple. Bearing in mind that the material date was 1st April and that the Inspector had made up his mind anyway about transitional arrangements and that he would have recommended transitional arrangements of this kind if he had been asked to recommend, I cannot see what all the fuss and bother is about. I hope that the Under-Secretary will stand firm in a good cause, and not be put off by all the wool and splutter which has been put forward in this bad case.

10.44 p.m.

Mr. John Astor (Newbury)

I support my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Hay). My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) was not quite right that those supporting the Prayer were only those who represented the constituencies which would stand to lose by the present transitional arrangements. Berkshire, for example, would stand to gain. On Monday, the Under-Secretary relied a good deal on the evidence presented at the inquiry by the Berkshire representatives about the transitional arrangements. He sought to make out the case that this dispute was not between the Home Office and any of the local authorities by saying: This is…a dispute between Buckinghamshire, and, possibly, Berkshire, on the one hand and the other constituent authorities on the Other."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th March, 1968; Vol 761, c. 199.] I wish to make it clear that Berkshire accepted the original findings of the inquiry and, as far as I know, has never sought to protest about this or to be associated in any way with the representations which have been made by Buckinghamshire, which some hon. Members have suggested took place behind the scenes. There is certainly in this instance no question of a dispute between Berkshire and its neighbouring authorities.

I support the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. John Lee) who referred particularly to the way in which the question of the police office there has been handled. The Home Office demanded that there should be 100 per cent. terminal compensation, which seems a big demand since less than one-quarter of the cost of purchasing and adapting the police station was borne by the Exchequer, and the police authority contributed nothing whatever towards it. I understand that the police are now proposing to use this station for an interim period rent-free, which seems to be adding insult to injury and I hope that the Home Office will reconsider this point, the circumstances of which were carefully and fully set out by the hon. Member for Reading earlier this week.

A small point to which I must refer is the way in which the Home Office has handled the position concerning the Newbury police station and court house. On 21st December the Home Office submitted what it claimed was the final draft. This would have had the effect of transferring the police station to the police authority and leaving the court house in the possession of the county council. It is interesting to note that in the letter accompanying the draft scheme, it was written: I hope that no changes will be necessary since the draft reflects the various comments made at earlier stages and the points made in recent correspondence about property. Obviously, therefore, this decision had been taken after taking into account all the representations which had been made, and this decision was acceptable to the Berkshire County Council.

Not much later, on 1st February, a letter was received from the Home Office informing the county council that the Department had changed its mind and that the police station and court house were to be transferred to the ownership of the police authority. At no stage was there any consultation with the county council concerning this change of policy. The county council then wrote several times objecting—on 7th and 16th February and again on 1st March—and while a reply was not received until 14th March, the implication of that reply was that the change of mind had occurred because the local authorities could not agree among themselves, a suggestion entirely without foundation.

I refer to this matter only because it seems to reflect the way in which the Home Office has handled this whole affair. I am sure that the answer is that the Department has tried to rush through this amalgamation much too speedily and against the advice of the local authorities concerned. Having accepted the inquiry, the local authorities are anxious to make a success of the new amalgamated police authority, but unfortunately the attitude of the Home Office has rather militated against this. I trust, therefore, that the Minister will go some way towards meeting the points which have been made.

10.50 p.m.

Sir David Renton (Huntingdonshire)

I hope that I may have leave of the House to speak again, bearing in mind that I had spoken for only 30 seconds when Mr. Speaker was good enough to adjourn the debate on Monday night.

I am reluctant to intervene in a dispute which even divides some of my hon. Friends, but no one is more jealous than I am of the good name of the Home Office and I feel that, for reasons which had been given at some length in this debate, there is a question of principle at stake as to the handling of this matter. I refer to the procedure—or rather, lack of procedure—which occurred after the inquiry had been held. I think that what was done was quite contrary to the spirit of the Tribunals and Inquiries Act, which all parties supported, and contrary to the practice which has grown up as a result of it.

I do not propose to argue the merits of the scheme. I am not concerned or interested in them, but I am interested in seeing that police amalgamations take place in a way which gives satisfaction to all concerned and do not give rise to feelings of injustice. My hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) said that this scheme, which I want to see come into existence as soon as possible, will have an unhappy start. Whether that is so or not, I think we should be sufficiently alerted by what has happened on this occasion to make sure that it is put right if possible so that those who enter into negotiation on future schemes will not have their confidence destroyed.

The only point on which there has been an attack against this Order is on the transitional relief which will go to Buckinghamshire. Having studied the matter, there was in my opinion obviously a misunderstanding at the Mars-Jones inquiry. Although he was invited at the inquiry to do so, Mr. Mars-Jones made no recommendation about transitional relief in his Report. The Home Office, quite rightly in my opinion, tried to clear up that misunderstanding, but it did so in the wrong way.

I assure my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) that in my opinion the Buckinghamshire authority was absolutely right and entitled to raise the matter, but once they had raised it, I think that the Home Office should have consulted all the authorities and asked Mr. Mars-Jones to reconsider the transitional relief afresh by reopening the inquiry on that point, and should not have referred the further representations made only by Buckinghamshire to Mr. Mars-Jones without the knowledge of the others. He having made a further recommendation to the Home Office, again without the knowledge of the others, the Home Office then accepted that recommendation without any further consultation with the other authorities whose ratepayers were concerned to a very considerable financial extent.

It is true that on 17th January a letter was sent to the other authorities by the Home Office telling them of the Home Office decision on the further recommendation and asking for their replies by 1st February. As my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Hay) pointed out, this was the first that the other authorities knew of the matter. They were at that time finalising their estimates for the coming financial year and doing so on the basis of Mr. Mars-Jones's original recommendations which they had been led by the Home Office to believe had been accepted. Naturally, they could not and did not, reply as quickly as they were asked, on 1st February. They replied about 10 days later. It is rather interesting that the very day after Oxfordshire replied to the Home Office protesting, the Home Office replied saying, "objection overruled". I did not know that the Home Office could act so quickly!

That was not consultation with all concerned; it was an imposition of a decision made in favour of one authority behind the backs of the others who were given no chance of making representations to the person by whom the decision was made. That is the wrong procedure. My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall), who made a spirited defence of Buckinghamshire, which, as I said, is not to blame, said in effect that justice was done, judging by the figures. Even on the figures, I do not know whether that was right. I am not that inspector and I do not intend to usurp his functions. But to those authorities in Oxfordshire. Oxford City and Reading, and possibly at first sight in Berkshire even, although my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. Astor) has very fairly put that matter right, it cannot have appeared that justice was done.

Hon. Members on both sides of the House have suggested a reasonable and sensible way out of the difficulty. If I were in the hon. and learned Gentleman's position I should jump at it, instead of leaving the matter in its present unsatisfactory state. Let him ask for the leave of the House to speak again, which I am sure would be as freely granted to him as it has been to me, and tell us that if the Prayer is withdrawn, or even if it is not, he will cause an inquiry to be reopened on the narrow point of transitional relief, and that the Order meanwhile should take effect. That is a good way out of the obvious difficulty. In that way he will show himself to be open-minded, which I believe he wants to be. The honour of the Home Office will be upheld, and justice can both be done and appear to be done. If he does not do that one wonders what the Council on Tribunals may have to say on the matter.

Other amalgamations are to take place, and it is essential that the authorities concerned should feel confident that there will be fair and open dealing. For that reason above all others, and quite apart from the circumstances surrounding the Order, I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will respond to the suggestion made.

10.58 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Dick Taverne)

With the leave of the House, perhaps I could comment on some of the points made.

First, on the merits of the transitional provisions, it is quite clear that those who are adversely affected by them think that they are bad and that those who are favourably affected think that they are good. I explained earlier that the Home Office is neutral in this. Whether or not it was right to soften the blow to Buckinghamshire was not a matter on which we should have wanted to hold any strong opinions either way. It was eminently a matter on which it was sensible to take the Inspector's advice. He said that it was right to soften the blow, and we are happy to accept his advice.

The main dispute, therefore, is not really on the merits but on the procedure. My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Luard) has once again raised matters already put forward. He said that other authorities had no opportunities of expressing their view and that the Home Office counsel might have misled others. He said that if the possibility had been raised that an interim order might be made one would have expected the others to comment. That is the whole case made against the Home Office letter to Mr. Mars-Jones and acceptance of his recommendation. It all depends, as do the remarks of the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton), on the suggestion that an opportunity should have been given to others to comment. But they had had their opportunity to do so. The hon. and learned Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) is absolutely right. The matter had been raised. They had not used their opportunity to comment, and the only person who was misled was the only person who still came into it at that stage—the Inspector.

It was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford that the Home Office witness himself had stated that it would not normally recommend transitional provisions of this kind. If one looks at the evidence given by this witness when he was cross-examined by counsel for Berkshire after referring to the benefit which would accrue to Oxford County Council and Oxfordshire—and, after all, the effect of the transitional provisions is not that they do not give benefit to Oxfordshire but that they give it more slowly—one reads that he was asked specifically if it was felt that by adopting this method it would be unfair to Buckinghamshire. Q. It would be possible to safeguard people, would it not, by transitional arrangements over two or three years? A. That would be possible, yes. There was a further question: Q. For example, by doing it on a 50 per cent. adjusted rate product and 50 per cent. of the 1966 to 1967 expenditure? A. That would be possible. Any combination within reason is possible. So again and again all the arguments against this Order fall down in this respect—that the matter was argued out, that it was considered closed, that the argument was ended, and that the only person misled and affected by the misleading advice was the Inspector himself.

Mr. Luard

Is it not a fact that either the same witness or another also said that financial arrangements of this kind were normally made by agreement between the parties?

Mr. Taverne

It was particularly in relation to the capital arrangements that reference to agreement was made. There was argument to some extent. The point is that the whole thing was argued out and it was eminently a question for the Inspector as to whether he thought it right and fair that such transitional arrangements should be made.

Mr. Hay

The hon. and learned Gentleman has referred to the evidence of Mr. Goringe, the Home Office financial witness. He should look at page 44 of the transcript. Mr. Goringe was asked: …would you anticipate that if the learned Inspector recommended to the Home Secretary to make this order and he did, such provisions would be inserted in the final order—the transitional financial provisions?". Mr. Goringe replied: They would certainly be put into the final Order if there were agreement of all the partis, but if all the parties did not agree then one of them might want to implement the provisions of the 1964 Act as to appeal. That was the Home Office witness, not counsel.

Mr. Taverne

A number of provisions—the Schedule 4 provisions—were referred to. I do not think that one can quote a particular argument of that kind. In the course of the cross-examination of the Home Office witness, a number of different points were put to him. But no one can argue that the question of transitional arrangements was not raised. It was clearly raised. It was raised in the final speech and if hon. Members are to say that something raised in the final speech by one of the parties and that one of the specific recommendations asked for has not been discussed, they are living in cloud-cuckoo-land.

Mr. John Lee (Reading)

rose—

Mr. Taverne

My hon. Friend has had his say. I want to come to the arrangements. It is suggested that Mr. Mars-Jones should be asked to hear all the parties—not merely one of them—or that someone else should be asked to hear them. In the first place, Mr. Mars-Jones has already heard all the parties. In the second place, my right hon. Friend has no power to set up an arbitrator to arbitrate further on the issue of transitional relief. An arbitration without a statutory basis could only be established if all the parties requested that it should be. And it is clear that, in this case, Buckinghamshire would not join in a request for a voluntary arbitration.

There is no point in asking Mr. Mars-Jones to reopen the inquiry to hear further evidence and make a fresh recommendation. He has already heard the evidence and we have no power to arrange a rehearing. If another arbitrator were to be established and if this were done on the basis of a compulsory inquiry, he would clearly be embarrassed at having to rehear something already heard by Mr. Mars-Jones.

Sir D. Renton

If the hon. and learned Gentleman says that Mr. Mars-Jones has no power to reopen the inquiry now, as has been suggested, will he describe how he had power to consider the matter further at the request of the Home Office and to make a further recommendation?

Mr. Taverne

That is quite simple. The question at issue before was not whether we were going to have a new inquiry with new witnesses and new arguments but whether, having heard the witnesses and the arguments, he was misled by the Home Office. That would not be the subject matter of a new inquiry. A new inquiry would be non-statutory. The only issue at stake before was whether the proper statutory inquiry was one in which he was misled. There is no question of a new inquiry.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Huntingdonshire is, I know, keen to uphold the honour of the Home Office. There is no question about the honour of the Home Office. He has said that this would be something for the Council on Tribunals. I should be happy if they were to look at it if they felt that it was within their jurisdiction. But as to the justice of the inquiry and the recommendation and asking Mr. Mars-Jones whether he had been misled I have no regrets of any kind. It seems, as the hon. and learned Member for Buckinghamshire, South said, the procedure followed was perfectly proper.

11.7 p.m.

Mr. John Hay (Henley)

I am not only grievously disappointed by the reply of the Under-Secretary, but I am frankly astonished. I should have thought that after a debate which has gone on much longer than is normal on a Prayer and has extended over two days with a number of speeches, all fairly argued and reasoned, the hon. and learned Member would have said that this was a case for the Secretary of State to look at again. If the hon. and learned Member and his Department are as neutral as he says I would have thought that he would have seen whether there was some way in which he could remove the sense of grievance that these responsible authorities clearly feel over what has been done in his name.

I am astonished because I cannot see how the hon. and learned Member can continue to cling to the fiction—it is nothing more than a fiction—that what was done was legitimate, reasonable and honourable. I have never in all the time I have been in the House—which is not five minutes—known a case where a Government Department has behaved in quite the way the Home Office has here.

I regret it because it is a Department of State which has an enormous amount of respect from the people. If this is done, as I said when I opened the debate on Monday night, in what may seem to be a wrangle between local authorities over money, the authority of the Department and its standing in the eyes of the people will fall.

The hon. and learned Member should look at this again. There were a number of occasions when it would have been open to the Home Office to say to the local authorities that they were consulting Mr. Mars-Jones. I was told today by a representative of Oxfordshire County Council who attended several conferences of the authorities involved that, during the conferences between the time Mr. Mars-Jones' report was published and the time it was suddenly announced that Mr. Mars-Jones had been consulted, not one word was said about the question of transitional relief being considered.

As has been said, the sensible thing to do now would be to allow the local authorities to get together to see if they can agree a scheme that has some element of transitional relief in it. What is wrong is for the Home Office to claim that it is too late in the day and that nothing whatever can be done to correct this manifest injustice.

It is true that the time when the Order comes into force is only a couple of days away, some time next week. It is true that it would be a complication of life, but a change even at this late stage in the transitional arrangements would not be impossible. The Order would come into force as it stands. The Secretary of State has power, under the Police Acts, to make an amending Order if he so wishes. He could easily convene a conference of local authorities, under his aegis or the aegis of the hon. and learned Gentleman, or a senior official and the thing could be hammered out and a fresh scheme for transitional relief could be decided upon.

That could be incorporated in a new Order. That is a course which seems too simple to the hon. and learned Gentleman, because, he says, we are short of time, the whole thing has happened too late in the day and we have not got the opportunity of debating this. That will not do. We gave a certain undertaking to Mr. Speaker about how we would close the debate and for that reason I will not ask my hon. and right hon. Friends to divide the House. I ask the leave of the House to withdraw the Motion, but I must say that it leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.