DEDUCTIONS FROM MINING RENTS, ETC. IN RESPECT OF FULL RATE CONTRIBUTIONS (Hansard, 19 July 1971)

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris)
We come now to Amendment No. 2. Mr. Heseltine.

§ Mr. Alan Williams
On a point of Order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Would it not be preferable for us to adjourn our proceedings now and continue on another day? In Committee the hon. Gentleman gave a commitment in these terms : … I should perhaps on Report take the opportunity to make a detailed statement".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E, 29th June, 1971 ; c. 71.] Obviously, a detailed statement on something as intricate as this Clause will take 1208 some time. In the circumstances, would it not be for the convenience of the House to adjourn consideration now and conclude on another day?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
In the circumstances, I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's suggestion.

§ Mr. Lawson
Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Under-Secretary could not explain his Bill, and Clause 2 in particular. Perhaps we could have the hon. Gentleman's attention.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I thought that the hon. Gentleman was addressing me on a point of order. I have dealt with the point of order raised by the hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Alan Williams).

§ Mr. Lawson
I am wondering whether the House has any protection from a Minister who gives an undertaking in Committee which, seemingly, he has no intention to fulfil. Does the House have any protection, Mr. Deputy Speaker?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
The hon. Gentleman has raised no point of order for the Chair. Nothing out of order has been done this evening.

§ Mr. Heseltine
I beg to move Amendment No. 2, in page 3, line 12, at end insert : (5) Every order under this section shall be so framed as to secure that the amount which, by virtue of the order, may be deducted from payments under a mining lease or mineral rights order by the lessee or other person concerned in respect of each ton of ironstone extracted under that lease or order is not less than the amount which he was entitled to deduct under section 3(2A) of the Act of 1951 in respect of each ton so extracted in the year ending 31st March, 1971. I hope that we can make progress with this Amendment. I undertook in Committee that I would move it in order to clarify our intention, which was not provided for in the original draft. The purpose of the Amendment is to ensure that any changes made in the charges to owners of the land shall not be in the form of reductions but can be only increases in charges. I think that it needs no further explanation than that. It was never our intention that the charges to the owners should be reduced, but it was pointed out that, as the original Bill was drafted, they could have been. To make sure that they cannot be, we propose this Amendment, which has that effect.
In Committee I undertook also to see whether there was anything further which could be said about the relative proportions of the charges to be made to operators and owners under this part of the Bill. I made it clear that I doubted very much whether there would be any further information, since we were dealing with enabling legislation. I pointed out that the legislation provided for consultations with the bodies concerned and that until the Government had the information which at the moment is exclusively in the hands of, for example, the owners of leases, and that until we discovered precisely the terms of those leases, it was not possible to be precise.
1210 In Committee I gave as much information as I could but always within the very careful restriction that the consultations of my right hon. Friend could not be pre-judged.
As I anticipated, it is not possible to give any further information. Although I was only too anxious to look again, in view of the interest of hon. Gentlemen opposite, having looked again, there is in the circumstances, no information for me to give save only a repetition of what is clear already, and that is my right hon. Friend's determination that there shall be full consultations with the owners of leases and operators, and that in the light of those consultations the various figures provided for under the relevant Clauses shall be determined and laid before Parliament.

§ Mr. Alan Williams
I must tell the hon. Gentleman that this behaviour is not good enough. We co-operated with him in Committee, and we got through the remaining Amendment very rapidly, on the understanding that he would give a detailed statement on Report.
I can understand the hon. Gentlemen saying that matters are not finalised. In the short space of time no one would expect the whole process to be finalised. On the other hand, he has not even given us any general information which would be helpful.
I am grateful for the specific Amendment, which achieves a point that we raised in Committee. I am sure that it was not the Government's intention to reduce the share paid by the royalty owners, but that was not clear in the Bill.
However, in Committee, the hon. Gentleman made it clear that it would not be …difficult to devise an Amendment on a subject which had not been dealt with in this Committee which would be eligible to be called and discussed on Report. Perhaps by seeking to draw attention to some detail of Clause 2, we should be enabled to have the sort of discussion which I gave an assurance would be possible."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E, 29th June, 1971 ; c. 75.]

§ Mr. Heseltine
That is true, and we are having such a discussion. But the whole discussion was contingent on there being something further to add. There 1211 is nothing further to add. I could produce the figures and arguments that I put forward in Committee, but they could not be described as new information. I explained that, in the context of enabling legislation, it was unlikely that there would be anything further to add. There is nothing further to add.

§ Mr. Williams
The hon. Gentleman may say that there is not anything to add, but we think that there are a lot of things which it should have been possible to add. We are talking about the share of the increased contribution which will be borne by the operators and by the royalty owners.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but lest we should get into difficulty I should remind him that only what is on the Order Paper is in order, not what might appear or what the hon. Gentleman thinks ought to appear on the Order Paper.

§ Mr. Lawson
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We cannot make sense of the Amendment unless it is related to Clause 2. This is a statement regarding the apportioning, or a certain feature that will be applied, regarding the people who are expected to pay. The whole set-up leaves the matter quite without the possibility of understanding unless set in the context of the Clause.

§ Mr. Heseltine
Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I submit that the Amendment is clear. It is a very narrow Amendment making clear that we cannot amend downwards a certain rate but only upwards.

Mr. Eddie Griffiths
Further to that point of order——

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I think I can deal with the matter now and hasten business. It is not for me to say anything about the merits of the Amendment or whether it is clear to everyone or not. What I have to do is to ensure that the House discusses nothing else but what is actually in the Amendment, and I am bound to administer that rule. Although I appreciate the difficulty of the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Law-son), there is nothing I can do about it. We must keep to the terms of the Amendment.

§ Mr. Williams
Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In Committee the hon. Gentleman gave an assurance. He said : It is not for me to say what could be done to ensure that there was a debate on this at the Report stage, but I do not think that I should find it difficult to devise an Amendment on a subject which had not been dealt with in the Committee."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E, 29th June, 1971 ; c. 75.] Since the hon. Gentleman now admits that this is only a narrow Amendment, and since you seem to be saying the same thing, does this not mean that his assurance in Committee is meaningless?

§ Mr. Heseltine
Further to that point of order——

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I am not to be the judge of that. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Alan Williams) has addressed a point of order specifically to me, and I cannot possibly be the judge of the argument he has put. All I am here to do is to administer the rules of the House as they are. He will, I am sure, understand when I say that it is to the Amendment and the Amendment alone that any remarks in the debate must be addressed.

§ Mr. Williams
Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There is here a genuine difficulty which hon. Members encounter, regardless of a particular commitment. On 29th June in Committee we took the hon. Gentleman's assurance at its face value. We felt that he meant it, and I then asked the Chairman of the Committee for his guidance. I made no comment as to the integrity of the Under-Secretary of State ; that I took for granted, and I will say more about that later. What I wanted to know from the Chairman was whether that assurance had any significance for us in the Committee. The Chairman said that he could not, of course, give us guidance. Now we are on Report on the basis of the hon. Gentleman's assurance and find ourselves exactly where we were in Committee. Can hon. Members get any form of guidance which is meaningful on commitments given by Ministers upstairs in Committee?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
It is not the function of the Chair to help in these circumstances. It is the function of the Chair to carry out strictly what it is instructed 1213 to do by Standing Orders, and that is to see that the debate concerns the Amendment on the Order Paper. Of course, if there has been an agreement to group Amendments or Mr. Speaker has agreed to group Amendments, that is another matter. In this case, however, all the Amendments on the Order Paper have been selected for separate discussion. Therefore, the only items which are in order on this Amendment is strictly the substance of the new subsection (5) which is proposed. I am sorry that I cannot help the hon. Gentleman, because I understand his difficulty. I am in a difficulty, too. I have to keep the rules of order.

§ Mr. Williams
I understand that you, like us, Mr. Deputy Speaker, have been placed in a difficulty by an assurance being given by the Minister which he has not carried out.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
The hon. Gentleman must not read that into what I said, because that would put the Chair in a wrong position. I am simply saying that the discussion must be confined to the terms of the Amendment. When I say that I understand the hon. Gentleman's difficulty, I mean that I understand his difficulty with me in doing just that. That is not to say that I would express any comment about the merits of what has happened in Committee, or of any of the undertakings which may have been given.

§ Mr. Williams
I am not surprised, Sir Robert, that you resist the challenge of having to find any alternative interpretation to put on the situation which has arisen. But it does not matter, because there is a way of raising things of importance, even in the context of this narrow Amendment. We were not expecting a narrow Amendment, or the Under-Secretary to hide behind calling it narrow.
It deals with the amount to be deducted in lieu of contributions to the fund. Contributions to the fund last year by operators and owners were about £100,000. The net effect of the contribution change, which is to treble the amount of annual contribution, would have meant that last year the extra charge to operators and royalty owners would have been £200,000.
The maximum that could be contributed by the royalty owners would be half 1214 that. But, on examining the ownerships in more detail, we see that the B.S.C. owns one third of the ironstone. So, on a 50–50 basis the maximum that could be obtained from the royalty owners would be an extra £67,000.
But the hon. Gentleman has rightly said that some royalties are so low that no further deduction of the old 1⅛d. may be possible. There are other cases where the full 50 per cent. deduction may be possible.
How is it intended to range the extra contribution between those who can pay no extra and those who can pay the full 50 per cent.? Is there to be a sliding scale? What criteria are to be observed by the Department? If there is to be a sliding scale, it probably means that the extra charge on the Corporation to meet the concession being made to certain royalty owners may well range between £30,000 and £40,000.
The hon. Gentleman can tell us whether this is the magnitude he has in mind. We are not asking for a detailed outline of how the Bill is to apply to individual leases. The Under-Secretary is having consultations and can surely tell us the basis upon which they are taking place. Apportionment is involved, but so far we have had no advice from the hon. Gentleman.
We do not expect the Minister to give a mass of information. We recognise that that could not be done in the tune which has elapsed since the Committee stage. We expected an attempt to fulfil the obligation, which we took at its face value, and we curtailed discussion on the later stages of the Bill because he assured us that he would move an appropriate Amendment and give us all the information he could.
I have been able to give more information on the problems facing the Government over apportionment than the hon. Gentleman has, and that is an absurd situation.

§ Mr. Lawson
My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Alan Williams) was right to say that it was astonishing that he should be able to bring out more facts and figures than the Under-Secretary, that he should show more knowledge than that possessed by the hon. Member in charge of the Bill with all the Department behind him. 1215 With all those resources, the Under-Secretary has given false figures, and on that confusion upon confusion the Bill rests.
My hon. Friend asked a simple question. He said : I seek a little guidance on the criteria to be applied in apportioning the shares of contributions. That was something to be expected from someone with a little knowledge. My hon. Friend was modestly asking not for a detailed explanation, but only for a little guidance. However, the hon. Gentleman replied : This is an important question. He had the grace to admit that. He added : If the hon. Member wished me to go into it in detail, I should perhaps on Report take the opportunity to make a detailed statement."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E, 29th June, 1971 ; c. 71.] My hon. Friend did not ask him to go into detail about every lease and every royalty owner and every charity, but to give a little guidance generally. The hon. Gentleman could not then do so, and he still cannot do so.
The hon. Gentleman is escaping under the rules of the House which make it difficult to discuss these matters on Report. He is getting away with a clear inability to explain the principle on which the division is to be made. Apparently, royalty owners are not to be held to their binding contracts, although that will not be true of the British Steel Corporation—it will not matter for just a nationalised industry. Another criterion will be if the person drawing the royalty and paying small sums on the extracted ore cannot afford the amount and would have to borrow from an outside source to pay.
The Minister says that the amount will be : … not less than the amount which he was entitled to deduct under section 3 (2A) of the Act of 1951 in respect of each ton so exracted in the year ending 31st March 1971. What is said is that he will not pay less per ton. This is the other side of the penny from the National Coal Board. The royalty owner will not be paying less per ton than he was asked to pay in 1951. I wonder what the value of the £ was then compared with now? 1216 When the hon. Gentleman says that he will not pay less does he mean less in 1971 than in 1951? Does it mean the lessee will pay, in terms of 1951 pennies, or are those pennies scaled up so that some other amount is paid in terms of value? Is it pennies or scaled-up value? If he is paying on the basis of what he would have paid at that time he is paying less.