§ Mr. Guy BarnettI beg to move Amendment No. 17, in page 11, line 41, at end insert:
'(4) The accounts of a local authority by which expenditure is incurred under any of the provisions of the preceding section and this section shall include a separate account of that expenditure and of any income connected with functions conferred on the authority by those provisions'.105 The effect of the Amendment would be to require local authorities to keep a separate account of income and expenditure incurred in respect of a district heating project. The requirement is in general terms and does not attempt to specify in any detail the costs and the income which should be attributed to such an account.Amendments requiring the keeping of separate accounts were introduced by the hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Neubert) in Committee. Although the Government's initial position was to resist the amendments, my predecessor in office undertook to reconsider the issue in the light of the Committee's views. The present amendment is an attempt to deal with the situation and a result of that reconsideration.
The principle behind the proposed statutory requirement was never in doubt. There is no question but that local authorities should be publicly accountable in the costing of their district heating operations and that a proper separation and identification of costs is an essential element in such accountability. In resisting the original amendment the Government merely felt that the desired separation would occur as a matter of good accounting practice and that any statutory requirement was therefore superfluous.
Though the inclusion or otherwise of the hon. Member's amendments was not felt to be of major significance, the Committee was not content that the matter should be dropped. It was felt that the district heating proposals in Clause 10 involved a definite extension of local authorities' powers and of their potential capital investment and that in these circumstances it was important that proper accounting should be seen to be done. The force of this argument is accepted and the present amendment consequently introduced.
§ Mr. Michael Neubert (Romford)After three hours of sustained silence, perhaps I may take 30 seconds to thank the Minister for meeting the point raised in Committee. Such magnanimity of spirit is relatively rare in the realms of the Executive and is to be welcomed.
§ Amendment agreed to