GENERAL DUTIES

HC Deb 21 June 1971 vol 819 cc1147-53

Mr. English

I beg to move Amendment No. 3, in page 9, line 33, after 'to' insert 'operate the port and docks of Liverpool and to'. I am glad that the Minister for Transport Industries gave us the assurance that he did earlier in speaking on the Money Resolution. Had he not given it, I think this is the one Amendment that I and my hon. Friends would have been very keen on. The Committee was assured in evidence that the present Board is under a statutory duty to operate the port and docks of Liverpool. We took this in the general sense, not as meaning that each individual dock had to stay open but that the port as a whole had to stay open. It is certainly true that there is no provision in the existing Acts for the liquidation of the Board or the docks as an undertaking. That is precisely one of the reasons why the Bill is being brought before us.

It is not clear that under the Bill that obligation, whatever it may be in strict law, continues. For example, the Clause says: (1) It shall be the duty of the Company— (a) to take such action as it considers necessary or desirable for or incidental to the maintenance, operation and improvement of—

1. (i) the docks; and
2. (ii) the conservancy of the port of Liverpool…".

It is not clear to us that such action as the company which will replace the board considers necessary or desirable for the operation of the port is the same thing as the operation of the port. The present situation under the law is that the existing Board cannot be liquidated except by recourse to this House and to another place.

I realise that the Minister cannot give an off-the-cuff answer because the legal point is somewhat technical. However, we should like to know that the present obligation, whatever its extent, will not be reduced as a result of the passage of this Bill through Parliament. I took it that that was what the Minister meant; namely, that the existing obligation will continue as a statutory duty on the new company to operate the port, and that it will not be possible at some future time for the new company to liquidate itself and to close the Port of Liverpool without recourse to the Government of the day and to this and another place. This is the gist of our point. If we can be assured that this basic point will be put in in another place, I think we shall be reasonably happy.

Mr. James A. Dunn (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

The Amendment seeks to lay down certain criteria. We were obliged for the Minister's assurance on the general considerations affecting the Bill. Indeed, had we not received those assurances, there would have been a very different response, because this matter hinges on a wealth of other matters of consequence. We are fearful that the Clause, as drafted, does not place an obligation on the newly-organised Board and company to discharge the same functions as have been discharged hitherto.

I wish to make two general references. The first is on the Pilotage Order. If these specific obligations were not placed on the new company, the Pilotage Order, 1920, could go by default because there would be nobody to undertake that responsibility.

My second point relates to continuation of employment in the port. I hope that the Minister will make certain that his assurance is discharged in another place and that obligations will be embodied in much stronger terms than they are at present.

Mr. Heffer

The Minister was not here at the time but it was said that the Liverpool City Council may well be holding a special meeting on this specific point. Perhaps I can quote a letter of 17th June this year which was sent by the City of Liverpool to all the members of the City Council. The letter is headed "Mersey Docks and Harbour Bill" and reads: The Policy and Finance Committee, at its meeting to be held on 23rd June, 1971, will be considering the Council's attitude towards the Mersey Docks and Harbour Bill, deposited in Parliament in the present Session by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. The Committee will be considering particularly the nature of the duty of the proposed new Mersey Docks and Harbour company to continue to operate its undertaking, and the methods whereby the company may be wound up and the disposal of its assets authorised. If the Committee should consider that these provisions are not satisfactory, consideration will be given to the question of petitioning against the Bill. It goes on to point out that a special meeting of the City Council, if the committee thinks necessary, will be held on Wednesday, 30th June.

The right hon. Gentleman should know about this. It is not only hon. Members on this side of the House who are concerned but members of all three parties on the Finance Committee of the City of Liverpool. If he could make a suitable statement on this it would satisfy the Liverpool City Council as well as hon. Members.

11.30 p.m.

Mr. Peyton

I am much obliged to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) for calling my attention to that last point and for the understanding way in which he did it.

I must put this with some care since I am reluctant to give an undertaking which I cannot honour completely. Let me explain why I cannot accept this Amendment.

In the view of the Government it would place too positive a duty, too much of a limiting influence upon their discretion. I do not believe that this is the intention behind the Amendment.

I do not believe that it was in the minds of the promoters to reduce the duty upon them to run the port of Liverpool. It is certainly not the Government's intention to connive at bringing about a state of affairs whereby they would not be consulted should the company be minded to seek to wind up its newly-found business. I would be glad to look at this in full, in collaboration with the promoters of the Bill, to see whether it is necessary to give weight to this point, and, if necessary, to introduce an Amendment in another place. I hope that this will satisfy the Opposition. I understand the anxiety here, and will look at this with the utmost care.

Mr. Dell

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that assurance. Consequently, I would certainly recommend my hon. Friends not to divide on the Amendment. Therefore, the Government Whips can inform all members of the Government who have been standing by to support this Private Bill that they can go home, their duty having been done.

The right hon. Gentleman should appreciate that it is not at all clear from what he has said why he is unable to accept the Amendment. Earlier he said that if the Amendment were accepted it would mean that the new statutory company would have to operate all the docks in Liverpool and, therefore, would not be able to close any of them as may be economically necessary from time to time. I do not understand why, if that is the consequence of the Amendment, it is not a consequence of the existing wording, which says: It shall be the duty of the Company— (a) to take such action as it considers necessary or desirable for or incidental to the maintenance, operation and improvement of— (i) the docks". I do not know why the word "docks" in that context is more flexible than the word "docks" in the Amendment. There seems to be some reduction in the statutory duty.

Mr. Peyton

The Amendment contains the words: operate the port and docks". I am concerned whether "the port" might not be a somewhat comprehensive phrase which would mean the port of Liverpool as it now exists.

Mr. Dell

That is a somewhat extreme interpretation of my hon. Friend's Amendment. However, if the Minister is right, we should be prepared to accept alternative words which nevertheless gave us the guarantee that there was a continuing statutory duty on the statutory company. The Bill is worded in a very subjective form. It seems to take away from the Board's previous obligations. We should like the right hon. Gentleman to look at the matter. In view of his assurance, I think that my hon. Friend will be prepared to withdraw the Amendment.

Mr. Temple

On behalf of the promoters, may I tell the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) that the promoters' legal advisers quite independently came to exactly the same view of the Amendment as the Government's legal advisers. They advised me at an early hour this morning that acceptance of the Amendment would mean—and I am sure that this was not its intention—that the whole of the dock organisation as it exists would have to be maintained in perpetuity. I had no reason to suppose that that was the intention of the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English).

May I give an undertaking on behalf of the promoters to reinforce the assurance given by my right hon. Friend the Minister? During a conference which I had with the promoters earlier tonight, they made it clear to me that they would willingly give the assurance required, but they did not think it was necessary.

I draw attention to two precedents. The responsibility of the British Transport Docks Board is to provide to such extent as they may think expedient port facilities at harbours owned and managed by them". The Port of London Authority has a statutory obligation to provide, maintain, operate and improve such port and harbour facilities as they"— that is, the Board— consider necessary or desirable". Those are highly respectable precedents. They are followed to a large extent by Clause 8 of the Bill. I give the assurance that we shall look at the matter again to see whether it is necessary to strengthen the provision, but we believe that it is adequate as it stands.

Mr. Heffer

The hon. Gentleman said that the Port of London Authority had a statutory obligation to do certain things. That is precisely our point: no statutory obligation is clearly laid down in the Bill. That is why we want something on the lines of the Amendment written into the Bill.

Mr. Temple

Clause 8 clearly says that It shall be the duty of the Company to do certain things. A clear duty is laid down. I should have thought that "duty" and "obligation" were synonyms. I am not a lawyer, but I have given an undertaking which I hope will be acceptable.

Mr. English

I am much happier with the Minister's assurance than I am with the last remarks of the hon. Member for the City of Chester (Mr. Temple).

An implied repeal of the existing statutory duty has been imported into the Bill. The existing statutory duty was in an Act which had no provision for the liquidation of the Board concerned. Consequently, to get rid of anything contained in it, the promoters had to present a Bill such as this. Here we have a provision which, among other things, replaces that Board by a company which, like other companies, can be liquidated. If it is liquidated, its business can be carried on by someone else, or it may fail, as happened with Rolls-Royce.

Clause 8 states: such action as it considers necessary or desirable for or incidental to the maintenance, operation and improvement". As the hon. Member for City of Chester says, that is a duty laid on the company so long as it exists and is not liquidated, but it is not a statement that it should actually operate what in the loose non-legal sense I call the Port of Liverpool, without meaning every single dinghy in every small dock. This is somewhat weaker than the existing provision.

I realise that the point is legally complicated as well as being of an essential nature from the point of view of the operation of the port, its employees and all the traders and shippers who use it. I am, therefore, happy with the right hon. Gentleman's assurance that this will be looked at, since he has the legal resources to do so, and will be dealt with in another place.

An obligation needs to be placed upon the company not to liquidate itself or cease to operate the port without the Government and without the House being consulted, possibly by an Order laid by the Minister. This would be a much better procedure than the company being allowed to cease to operate such a vital port.

Having heard the assurance of the right hon. Gentleman, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.