Local Government (Interim Provisions) Bill (Hansard, 30 July 1984)

§ Dr. John Cunningham (Copeland)
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. My point of order involves how we should proceed on some of the amendments which the House is to be asked to approve this afternoon. I seek clarification before the House votes on these matters.
On 24 July 1984 the Secretary of State for the Environment announced that he would seek powers in the main GLC abolition Bill—not yet published—to take powers retrospectively to annul any financial transaction of which he disapproved by the GLC, and presumably by the metropolitan counties, with the boroughs. The amendments which we are asked to consider include unprecedented penal sanctions against councillors. These sanctions would give the power to disbar people from public office for life.
Apparently, the Secretary of State is proposing that the House should be asked to approve those powers without knowing in detail what he has in mind. His statement was vague and referred to arrangements requiring his retrospective consent. Because the GLC and the metropolitan counties can make lawful financial arrangements without consent, a retrospective requirement of consent should not apply. The effect of the measure would be that the Secretary of State would have the right to determine retrospectively which transactions he approved or disapproved. That is a second unprecedented power. It is interesting to note that the European Convention on Human Rights outlaws retrospective penal legislation. If the Secretary of State is not falling foul of the letter of that convention, he is certainly coming close to doing so.
During consideration of the 1978 Finance Bill the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the present Administration said that retrospective legislation was destructive of civilised life. Why I say that this is destructive of civilised life is because in an ordered society we are all surely entitled to proceed in the certitude that the law is as it is declared at the present moment of time and that it is not going to be altered, capriciously and retrospectively, to attach to our actions a consequence which we could not have foreseen." — [Official Report, Standing Committee A, 6 June 1978, c. 717–78.] That is a very important statement, and it neatly encapsulates what the Secretary of State is now apparently proposing. He is asking the House to approve amendments which will lead to the possibility of people being barred from public office for life for actions which they take in the ensuing weeks and months which may be perfectly lawful at the time they are taken but which he will give himself powers in his major Bill to deem retrospectively unlawful.
That again is an unprecedented act by any Government of any political persuasion, and I ask that the House should have the matter clarified before we proceed to discuss and vote on these amendments.

§ Mr. Speaker
I listened with care to what the hon. Gentleman said on this important matter. I do not think that it is a matter for me. It is one for the Government. Has the Secretary of State any comment to make about it?

§ The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Patrick Jenkin)
The hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) has misdescribed—if I may so put it—the proposal that I made in a written reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby), but perhaps I can set the hon. Gentleman's mind at rest. At a suitable point in our debates—and I suspect that it may arise on the second Lords amendment or on the amendments dealing specifically with counter-obstruction measures—I shall be perfectly prepared to defend and to describe, the proposal that I put to the House on 24 July. Technically and strictly speaking it does not arise on this Bill, but I accept the point made by the hon. Gentleman that it is part of the general measures which we are having to take following the wildly irresponsible behaviour of the GLC and some of the other metropolitan authorities. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman has not got it right. No question of disqualification will arise under this provision and, at the appropriate time, I shall be happy to describe and defend my proposal.

§ Dr. Cunningham
Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. There is no point of order that can arise on this. The hon. Gentleman may respond to the Secretary of State, but there is no point of order for me to decide.

§ Dr. Cunningham
I always raise points of order in the Chamber with great reluctance, but what the Secretary of State has said has alarmed me and my hon. Friends even more. He appeared to be saying that he would give an assurance in the House that no elected councillor would be removed and barred from public office for life as a result of any of the right hon. Gentleman's retrospective decisions.
With respect, that assurance is not worth the paper on which it is written, and the right hon. Gentleman knows that perfectly well. The effect of his proposals would be to give statutory force to retrospective powers in the hands of the Secretary of State and his successors to deem unlawful decisions which then had consequences for the people who had made those decisions. The right hon. Gentleman has confirmed that in responding to my point of order.

§ Mr. Jenkin
Again the hon. Gentleman is wrong. I suggest that it is not very satisfactory that the matter should be discussed on a point of order. I am prepared and had intended to deal with it in later debates.
The only proposal is that we gave notice, as has been done frequently, including in legislation passed by a Labour Government——

§ Mr. Jack Straw (Blackburn)
Would the right hon. Gentleman care to deal with tax avoidance?

§ Mr. Jenkin
I am perfectly prepared to quote a number of other examples which have nothing to do with tax avoidance.
If an abolition authority makes payments to a borough council or a district council, the purpose of the notice is to say that the main abolition Bill will contain a provision that, if that has been done without my consent, I may require the recipient council to repay the sum that has been paid to it. I shall justify that. I shall justify it by reference to legislation which a Labour Government put before the 35 House. In the face of all the evidence of the grossly irresponsible financial shenanigans currently going on at county hall and elsewhere, I stand firmly by the view that for the defence of ratepayers and for the defence of the successor authorities, regrettably this measure is essential.

§ Mr. Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed)
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Although the matter raised by the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) is extremely important, I recognise that it presents you with difficulties in dealing with it. I suggest that there are ways in which we could deal with it. There are matters arising which ought not be dealt with in the way that the Secretary of State described—in debates on later amendments in the Bill — but ought to be considered before we consider the details of the Bill itself.
I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that there are two ways in which we could accommodate this difficulty. One would be to suspend the sitting for a period to enable some formal exchange of information and to enable the Secretary of State to take further advice—I think that he needs further advice. The other is that we table a motion to adjourn consideration of the Lords amendments while we resolve this matter. Arguments could be advanced why consideration of the Lords amendments should be postponed until we have resolved this question of retrospective legislation. Therefore, I wonder whether you would be open to the suggestion that an hon. Member might move such a motion.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am not prepared to do that at this stage.
We must move to consider Lords amendment No. 1. I draw attention to the fact that it is on a very narrow point about whether the procedure for naming an appointed day should be by means of an affirmative resolution. It will not be appropriate to raise wider issues on this narrow point. However, I shall be prepared to allow a wider debate on Lords amendment No. 2, which deals with the major issue of the Bill.