HC Deb 02 May 1973 vol 855 cc1290-302

Amendment made: No. 82, in page 45, line 2, leave out' members of a water authority ' and insert: 'chairman of a water authority and the other members '.—[Mr. Eldon Griffiths.]

Mr. Eldon Griffiths

I beg to move Amendment No. 83, in page 47, line 25. after 'authority', insert— '(a)'.

Mr. Speaker

With this amendment it will be convenient to take Amendment No. 84.

Mr. Griffiths

These amendments will authorise the payment of pensions, and so on, to the chairman of a water authority or of a regional land drainage committee or of a local land drainage committee. This provision parallels the existing arrangements relating to members of the National Water Council.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment made: No. 84, in page 47, line 29, at end insert:

'and— (b) if the Ministers with the consent of the Minister for the Civil Service so determine in the case of any person who is or has been chairman of a water authority or any such committee, shall pay or make arrangements for the payment of a pension, allowance or gratuity to or in respect of that person in accordance with the determination'.—[Mr. Eldon Griffiths.]

Mr. Arthur Jones

I beg to move Amendment No. 85, in page 47, line 36. leave out '115 and' and insert 'to'.

Mr. Speaker

With this amendment it will be convenient to take Amendment No. 110, in Schedule 4, page 61, line 1, after '10', insert ', 12, 15 '.

Mr. Arthur Jones

Paragraph 12 of Schedule 3 deals with officers of regional water authorities and applies to them certain of the provisions of the Local Government Act 1972, including those concerning security, accountability, and the disclosure by officers of their interests in contracts. There seems no good reason why a similar provision should not apply to members of regional water authorities and their officers.

Paragraph 9 of the schedule provides, as in the corresponding provision for local authorities, that a paid officer may not be a member of the authority. It is suggested that the application of Section 116 of the 1972 Act to officers of water authorities is reasonable and desirable. I hope that my right hon. Friend will agree.

Amendment No. 110 refers to paragraph 8 of Schedule 4 and applies to members of regional and local land drainage committees a number of provisions in Schedule 3 which apply to members of regional water authorities, dealing with vacation of office, appointment to fill casual vacancies and disqualification for reappointment to membership.

There are several omissions from the paragraphs in Schedule 3 which are applied to the land drainage committees. The first relates to the application to officers of a number of provisions in the Local Government Act 1972 which apply to officers of local authorities. There seems no reason why these provisions should not apply not only to officers of regional water authorities but to any officers who may be employed by the regional and local land drainage committees.

It seems desirable that the provisions of paragraph 15 of Schedule 3, which relate to the pecuniary interests of members of local authorities and apply to members of regional water authorities, should apply equally to members of regional and local land drainage committees.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths

I am happy to advise the House, on behalf of my right hon. Friend, that it should accept Amendment No. 85 for the reasons advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Northants, South (Mr. Arthur Jones). However, Amendment No. 110 is considered to be unnecessary.

My hon. Friend explained the provisions of Section 116 of the 1972 Act which, in plain terms, are designed to prevent political jobbery. The idea is to prevent a member resigning his seat to take up an immediate appointment and reaping direct financial advantage from his election to an authority. The Government accept that a person should not at the same time be both a member and a paid officer of a water authority. The question at issue is whether someone who is a member of an authority should then be prevented from taking a position as a paid officer of that authority, granted that this would involve his resignation as a member.

The amendment would introduce a limitation into the search by water authorities for the best available talent. In certain cases this could have undesirable or at least unfortunate effects. For example, as the Bill is drafted, local authorities can, if they wish, appoint one of their officers as their representative on the water authority. The local authority associations appear to have accepted this. A post with the water authority might subsequently be advertised and such an officer might wish to apply for it, but the amendment would prevent his doing so. The same would apply to someone in industry who held an office connected with water pollution, was a member of a water authority, and wished to apply for a vacant post with that authority.

But these are fairly esoteric cases. It is the sort of thing which can be thought up as a technical possibility but is unlikely to occur. The disadvantages that would arise are considerable, and therefore, taking the rough with the smooth, as it were, I think it right to accept my hon. Friend's amendment, which I believe has the support of the local authority associations.

Amendment No. 110 is not necessary, because it is not necessary to apply paragraph 12 to regional or local land drainage committees. They will be serviced by officers of the water authority who are covered by that paragraph.

I hope my hon. Friend will agree that his second amendment is not necessary. On the whole, I think it right to accept the first one.

Amendment agreed to.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. Graham Page

I beg to move Amendment No. 86, in page 48, line 1 at end insert: '13A.—(1) In paragraph (1) of the Schedule to the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960 (bodies to which in England and Wales that Act applies), for paragraph (c) there shall be substituted the following paragraph:— (c) water authorities ". (2) Without prejudice to section 2(1) of that Act (application of section 1 of that Act to any committee of a body whose members consist of or include all members of that body), section I of that Act shall apply to every committee appointed or established by one or more water authorities under any provision of this Act or otherwise. (3) Where section 1 of this Act applies to a committee by virtue of this paragraph, then, for the purposes of subsection (4)(c) of that section, premises belonging to the water authority or one or more of the water authorities which established or appointed the committee shall be treated as belonging to the committee'.

Mr. Speaker

With this we are to take Amendment No. 137.

Mr. Page

These amendments fulfil an undertaking which I gave in Committee in response to an amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for North-ants South (Mr. Arthur Jones).

The Bill as originally drawn up applied the legislation concerning the admission of the public and the Press to meetings, but we failed, as my hon. Friend said by his amendment, to apply the development of that legislation, as it occurred in the Local Government Act 1972, to the admission of the public and the Press to committees.

I think it right that water authorities should be brought into line with local authorities on this matter, and that is what the amendment does. It achieves what my hon. Friend intended to do with his amendment. If I may put it in a rude way, parliamentary counsel have mucked about with his amendment and produced something a little better.

Mr. Arthur Jones

Have they improved it, and not merely mucked about with it?

Mr. Page

I always accuse them of mucking about, but they always improve both my hon. Friend's amendments and those which I try to draft.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Arthur Jones

I beg to move Amendment No. 88 in page 50, line 29 leave out "except sub-paragraph 1(a) of paragraph 9".

Part II of the schedule deals with the status of the National Water Council and its membership. Paragraph 9(l)(a) properly provides that a person shall be disqualified for appointment as a member of a water authority if he is a paid officer of that authority. However, when dealing with the National Water Council this principle is set aside, so that it will be possible for officers of the council also to be members of it. It seems desirable that the provisions which apply to the regional water authorities should no less apply to the National Water Council, and that is the purpose of the amendment.

Mr. Graham Page

I realise that the local authority associations have described the position under the Bill whereby a paid officer of a local authority can be a member of the National Water Council or, indeed, a paid officer of the council can be a member of the council, as thoroughly objectionable, but I cannot agree with that. I draw a distinction between the water authorities and the National Water Council. The water authorities are analogous to local authorities, and I think the rule ought to apply that a paid officer should not be a member of them, but the National Water Council is not a local authority type of body. It is an appointed body to advise the Secretary of State.

A case could conceivably arise in which the Secretary of State wished to make one of the chief executives of a council one of his appointees on the National Water Council. I say that it could occasionally arise, but perhaps I may give an example of what I mean.

In our earlier debates we rightly paid tribute to the Water Resources Board, but I call attention to the fact that the present director, Sir Norman Rowntree, is also a member of the board and I think that we would have been loth to lose his services as a member. On councils of this kind, with their many important functions, it will always be particularly important to find the best people available to fill posts as appointed members. The amendment would create an arbitrary barrier to doing so. and I therefore ask the House to reject it.

I do this reluctantly, because my hon. Friend has almost rewritten the Bill on Report. I have been able to accept many of his amendments, and I have been grateful for the constructive way in which he has put them forward. I regret that I have to ask the House to reject one of his amendments.

Mr. Oakes

I join the right hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to the hon. Member for Northants, South (Mr. Arthur Jones) for the tremendous amount of work that he has done not only on Report but in Committee. It is a pity that the Government have not accepted some of the hon. Gentleman's excellent amendments. The Committee accepted them but, unfortunately, they have been rejected by the House on Report.

I am not sure that I agree with the right hon. Gentleman in the distinction that he draws between a regional water authority, which he describes as basically a local government body—the way in which regional water authorities are constituted makes one feel somewhat reluctant so to describe them—and the National Water Council. I do not think that it is a fair parallel to use the example of a member of the Water Resources Board, which is a totally independent body in a way that the National Water Council is not.

Bearing in mind the composition of the National Water Council, which consists of a chairman appointed by the Secretary of State, the chairman of each and every water authority who is appointed by the Secretary of State and the 10 other members appointed by the Secretary of State or by the Minister—and there is now the possibility of chief executives of regional water authorities sitting on that body—though it may well be rare for such appointments to be made I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman, as so often, was being logical in what he has suggested, and that it would be wise for the Minister to accept the amendment if it is to deal with only a limited number of cases.

By not accepting what, to my mind, is a logical amendment one is faced with the possibility of the National Water Council's being even more a creature of the Secretary of State. If the amendment were accepted the council would be on all fours with the regional water authorities from the point of view of its officers and members.

Mr. Graham Page

I hope that I may have the leave of the House to speak again.

Having regard to what was said by the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes), I should not like it to be thought that we were doing anything that would make the public think that the National Water Council was not an independent body, but was in some way a creature of the Secretary of State.

I have listened to the arguments advanced by my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Widnes. I should like to think about this matter again. Points have been made which make me feel that the issue may need a little more thought and if that is so we could make the necessary amendments in another place. I do not give any undertakings on this but I am impressed by the arguments.

Mr. Arthur Jones

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister and to the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) for his advocacy on the amendment. I should not like to think that a precedent led to the terms in which the Bill is drawn. In addition to the points raised by the hon. Member there is a difficulty in relationships on a regional water authority between an officer and the members of the council, and perhaps even the chairman of the council, if, when the chairmen gets on to the council, he sees with him round the table one of the officers from his regional water authority. That could be a difficulty and could lead to embarrassment for both individuals.

Perhaps that is a further point that my right hon. Friend could consider. I am grateful to him for saying that he will look at the matter again, and in view of that I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Arthur Jones

I beg to move Amendment No. 89, in page 52, line 20, leave out paragraph 30.

We have heard on many occasions that the Government's intentions for local government—and I think they apply to the water cycle, too—are to reduce the responsibility of central control. That is not so evident in the regional water arrangements as it is in local government. Paragraph (30)(a), (b) and (c) contain substantial powers which remain with the Ministers and the Treasury on the whole question of reserves, re-allocation of reserves and the application of amounts allocated to reserves. They contain a restrictive condition. I know that we have discussed in Committee and on Report to a limited degree the question of financial control, but there need to be strong reasons for the maintenance of these powers, and it is with a view to questioning them that I moved the amendment.

Mr. Graham Page

The effect of the amendment would be, as my hon. Friend said, to remove from Ministers any power of direction over the water authorities' allocations to reserves. Paragraph (30) enables Ministers to give directions to water authorities, with the approval of the Treasury and following consultation with the National Water Council, on the amount to be allocated to reserve and the application of these allocations. Up to the time when the regional water authorities take over the existing bodies the powers of the present water undertakers and river authorities to establish reserve funds are closely prescribed either in local legislation or in general legislation.

Therefore, under the Bill they will go and in this respect the new authorities will have much greater freedom in organising and managing their reserves as they consider appropriate. The only control over the management of their reserves will be the Ministers' powers under paragraph (30). The provision is a standard one. It is contained in various forms in most nationalised industry legislation. The power is purely permissive and gives Ministers the position of long stop so that they are able to use the power if it is necessary.

5.45 p.m.

I know that it can be argued that given the need for some form of central control over the reserves policies of the water authorities any directions made by Ministers under paragraph (30) should be given, perhaps by order, subject to the approval of Parliament. But the powers of ministerial direction over the reserve policies of the relevant authorities in past nationalised industry legislation has not been made subject to parliamentary control. Furthermore, the reserves policy of the water authorities will need to be intimately connected with their financial objectives and obligations, formal expression to which will be given by directions under Clause 25(2).

The House has already accepted that these directions, which will cover a very wide-ranging area of the water authorities' financial obligations, should be subject to parliamentary control. So to that extent directions of Ministers can come before Parliament, but we need to take it one step further for Ministers to have a normal standard permissive power to give directions about reserves. It is standard form with nationalised industries and although water authorities cannot be put on exactly the same basis as a nationalised industry, having removed the legislative restrictions by the Bill we need something which I have already described as a long stop—a fallback provision to enable direction to be made.

Mr. Arthur Jones

I am grateful for that explanation of the need for these powers. What my right hon. Friend has said is the case in the context of the relationship between central Government and the regional water authorities. In view of that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Graham Page

I beg to move Amendment No. 90, in page 52, line 32, leave out from ' Council' to ' by ' in line 33 and insert: 'shall, so far as not defrayed out of their own resources, to be defrayed, if it is properly chargeable to revenue account,". The amendment applies to the paragraph which at present provides that expenditure of the National Water Council, which is properly chargeable to revenue accounts, shall be defrayed by the water authorities. The amendment merely makes it plain that the expenditure to which the paragraph refers is the net expenditure of the National Water Council in revenue account after allowing for any part of the expenditure met from the council's own resources. It is not a matter of the authorities paying a gross amount and the National Water Council, as it were, pocketing the money from its own resources. We are concerned with the net amount, and the amendment makes that plain.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Graham Page

I beg to move Amendment No. 91, in page 55, line 39, leave out' exercise and performance' and insert' discharge'.

I will read the exact line from my brief on this. It says: This amendment corrects a small drafting infelicity.

Amendment agreed to.

Sir D. Renton

I beg to move Amendment No. 170, in page 56, line 15, after ' Ministers ', insert ' and the Council'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson)

With this it will be convenient to discuss Amendment No. 171 to line 18, which is in similar terms.

Sir D. Renton

The effect of this simple amendment would be to provide that every water authority would have a duty to furnish the National Water Council as well as Ministers with such information as the National Water Council may from time to time require about matters mentioned in the authority's area. The matters mentioned are set out in the later lines of paragraph 39.

I should have thought that was an obvious and reasonable thing to do.

If the Amendment No. 171 were also accepted, every water authority would have the duty to afford facilities to the National Water Council, just as they will have the duty to afford facilities to the Ministers for the verification of information so obtained. That also seems to be a reasonable provision.

There are good precedents which are already on the statute book. They are precedents which have stood the test of time and have become common form. One which strikes me as being suitable to quote is that in Section 8(6) of the Electricity Act 1957, which I had the honour of piloting through the House with my right hon. Friend the Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling). I reckon that what we did then is good enough for the Government of today. Therefore, I hope that both amendments will be accepted.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths

With such a precedent, who am I to resist my right hon. and learned Friend's blandishments? It must be right for the National Water Council as well to be able to obtain the information which it needs from the regional water authorities to do its job as the principal adviser on water policy to the Secretary of State and, indeed, to the whole country. There can be no argument about that.

This matter was discussed in Committee, and at that time my right hon. Friend felt that he could not accept the amendments then moved. I advise the House to accept gratefully what my right hon. and learned Friend has said about Amendment No. 170, and to accept the amendment.

There is a greater difficulty, which my right hon. and learned Friend will be one of the first to appreciate, about Amendment No. 171. In Amendment No. 170 we have the National Water Council requesting and requiring information from the regional water authorities. But Amendment No. 171 would create the impression that from time to time the regional water authorities would give inaccurate, inadequate or even misleading information which the National Water Council in its wisdom would need to verify. It would be in a position where it would be checking the information provided by the regional water authorities. I cannot believe that that would be a good relationship, bearing in mind that the chairman of each regional water authority is serving by right as a member of the National Water Council.

Sir D. Renton

I understand the point that my hon. Friend is making. But surely Ministers are being placed in the position to which he is raising objection? I do not understand why we should place the National Water Council in a different position from Ministers in this matter.

Mr. Griffiths

With respect to my right hon. and learned Friend, there is a difference. The Secretary of State is charged under Clause 1 with an overall national responsibility for establishing the water policy and for securing, with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, its efficient prosecution. The National Water Council is an advisory body. It has a number of rôoles, but in the end it is essentially the principal source of advice to my right hon. and learned Friend and, indeed, to the industry on all matters pertaining.

However, there is a difference. At the end of the day my right hon. and learned Friend has the executive responsibility to this House for the national water strategy and the policy which is required to achieve it. As he must answer to this House he must be in a position at all times not only to acquire information but, of his own right, to establish its authenticity and correctness. I stress to my right hon. and learned Friend that the chairmen of the regional water authorities will sit by right upon the National Water Council. Indeed, they will constitute a large proportion of that council. The Secretary of State is not in a like position. He is not a member of the National Water Council. On the contrary, he appoints it. It is difficult to visualise that the information which such persons will give to my right hon. and learned Friend will be inaccurate or misleading to the extent that he will need to verify it.

It is right to accept the first of my right hon. and learned Friend's amendments. I hope he will accept that there is a distinction between the position of the National Water Council and the position of the Secretary of State in this matter.

Sir D. Renton

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for saying that he will accept Amendment No. 170. However, I am surprised that he wishes to break with a good precedent. It is one which has worked well. I do not accept his reasons for doing so. It is a fact that the chairmen of the electricity boards are members of the Electricity Council. They are, therefore, in exactly the same position as the chairmen of the regional water authorities will be in relation to the National Water Council. I cannot see the force of the argument which my hon. Friend puts forward. I do not wish to divide the House on this important amendment, and I shall, therefore, refrain from pressing Amendment No. 171 in the comforting knowledge that Amendment No. 170 will be accepted.

Amendment agreed to.

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