§ Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee, read.
§ Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Hylton.)
564§ MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEWith your Lordships' permission, I should like upon this Motion to say a few words with regard to this Bill. I promised my noble friend Lord Salisbury last night that I would make inquiries in order to ascertain whether there was any degree of urgency attached to the measure. I have made these inquiries, and I am now able to give him the result of them. In the first place, it is obvious that unless there are strong reasons to the contrary it is desirable that this £1,000,000 should be placed as soon as possible at the disposal of the Statutory Committee. Those of your Lordships who noticed what passed in the House of Commons last night will have observed that new responsibilities are about to be thrown upon them, and this is an additional reason why they should be placed in funds without loss of time. But there is another reason. If your Lordships will look at the first clause of the Bill you will see that it requires that there shall be charged on and issued out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom in the year ending March 31, 1916, the sum of £1,000,000. Therefore that £1,000,000 has to be charged before the expiration of to-morrow. If it should not be so charged, I am advised that it would be necessary to go to the House of Commons again for a further Resolution; and I need not press upon noble Lords who have had experience of the House of Commons that that is not a matter to be lightly undertaken. But I readily admit that arguments of this kind, based upon the convenience of either House of Parliament or of Ministers, ought not to be allowed to prevail unless we are able to show not only that there is a substantial necessity for taking the step which we propose, but that its adoption will not deprive this House of opportunities to which it is entitled for criticising and examining the legislation proposed by the Government of the day.
I should like to examine very briefly what the case urged for delay in this instance amounts to. In the speeches to which we listened last night many arguments were used which were directed not so much at the Bill on the Table as at the Naval and Military Pensions Act of 1915. Some members of the House notoriously dislike that Act and believe that it proceeded upon an altogether wrong principle. But I would ask those noble Lords who have 565 that feeling, and who, because they dislike the parent Act, dislike its offspring also, whether they have any hope of obtaining at this moment the repeal of the Act of 1915. Of course, such a thing is not to be thought of as a serious proposition. Nor again, I take it, do any of the noble Lords who criticise this Bill really desire that the Statutory Committee should be deprived of this £1,000,000 which we desire to put at their disposal. Questions are raised as to the manner in which this figure of £1,000,000 was arrived at, and they are perfectly fair questions for discussion. But again I ask, Do any members of your Lordships' House really desire that this Bill should be held up, still less that it should be thrown out, because you are not satisfied that the particular sum of 1,000,000 mentioned in it is an appropriate sum for the purpose? I think that no one in this House would venture to name any sum as one which could be considered as accurately and scientifically corresponding with the probable requirements of the case. As I tried to show last night, there are so many unknown factors in the calculation that it is absolutely impossible that any one should take upon himself to say that this or that sum will suffice.
Lord Devonport, who is not in the House to-night, told your Lordships yesterday that my noble friend the Leader of the House, when the Act of 1915 was being discussed, had assured your Lordships that it was our intention to propose the expenditure of what he called a lump sum and therefore a final sum for this purpose. I told the noble Lord that I was quite convinced that my noble friend had never said anything of the kind. Lord Devonport treated me very fairly. He sent me the Hansard reports of what had been said by my noble friend, and I will venture, in order to clear up the matter, to read to your Lordships what the actual words were. Speaking on September 29 my noble friend said—
I shall be told that public money would be needed to carry out, in all probability, part of the work entrusted to this new body. That is undoubtedly true. But the intention of the framers and promoters of the Bill was that if a public grant had to be made it should be made in the form of a large single contribution from the Exchequer to the funds of the body entrusted with the distribution, and not by undertaking a regular annual payment for the purpose.Then when the debate was renewed in October my noble friend said— 566It was also recognised that, owing to the causes which the noble Viscount has mentioned and to others, it might happen that before the end of the war the sums voluntarily subscribed would not be sufficient to carry on the supplementary grants on the scale on which they have been contributed hitherto; and the Government therefore stated that they would be willing by way of grant—that is to say, by allocating from public funds a lump Sum to be handed over to this body and used in addition to its own resources—to do what they could to maintain those supplementary allowances on the scale of the past.My noble friend went on to say—That, the noble Viscount will clearly see, is a totally different proposition from the Government saying, 'We will give each year from the Votes to a public departmental body such a sum as would be needed for continuing these supplementary allowances on precisely their present scale.'I think my noble friend could not have made more clear to his hearers that the antithesis which he desired to make was the antithesis between, on the one hand, the payment of a lump sum when required from the Exchequer, and on the other a constant steady flow of subventions intended to make good from month to month the deficiencies in the resources already at the disposal of the Statutory Committee. I apologise for taking up so much of your Lordships' time, but I was so distinctly challenged by Lord Devonport that it was impossible for me not to take notice of what he had said. Parting with this point, I will only say that I am going to assume that, whatever your Lordships' feelings may be as to the adequacy or inadequacy of the £1,000,000 which it is proposed to spend under this Bill, none of your Lordships would desire that so far as that clause is concerned the Bill should fail to pass and fail to pass at an early period of time.I pass to a wholly different point, the point which was raised by my noble friend Lord Camperdown last night. The noble Earl and several other Peers who addressed the House took exception to the proposal that the local authorities should be allowed to provide out of the rates for the administration expenses of the local committees which are to be set up in different, parts of the country. Two objections were taken to that proposal. One was that it would be very difficult to draw a line between expenses which could properly be called expenses of administration and other expenses. The second objection was that it was a new and improper proceeding to allow money to be taken from the rates for 567 purposes of this kind. First, as to the difficulty of deciding what is and what is not expense connected with administration, I am assured by people who have had more experience of these matters than I have that this difficulty need not be apprehended; and I should certainly be inclined to think that if as time went on any difficulty was found in distinguishing between what was properly chargeable to administration and what was not, the matter could be settled in the way in which these questions are usually dealt with—namely, by Circulars and Regulations issued from the Local Government Board. But it is not the case, that these boards will be, so to speak, turned loose to spend what money they please upon administration. I think my noble friend Lord Salisbury suggested that we might have a local authority spending needless sums upon sumptuous offices and things of that kind. I would remind my noble friend that in the case of county councils, urban councils, and rural district councils the accounts have to go before an auditor, who, I imagine, would very properly disallow wholly extravagant expenditure upon objects such as my noble friend indicated. But I really would ask your Lordships whether there is sufficient reason for assuming that local bodies are going to run riot and be extravagant in matters of this kind. I should think not. At this moment everyone is trying to save money and not to throw needless burdens upon the rates, and I feel no doubt that if a local council found that a local committee was running riot and spending money in profligate manner the local council would be the first to come down upon it and to raise a very proper objection. At any rate, of this I feel firmly convinced, that there is a better chance of frugal administration if these expenses are placed under the control of the local councils than if they are provided for from the funds at the disposal of the Statutory Committee or if they are found by means of Treasury grants.
One word more upon that point. We were told last night that this was a wholly unprecedented provision. I have here what seems to me a precedent upon which it is quite reasonable to rely. The National Insurance Act of 1911 contains a clause to this effect—
It shall be lawful for any local authority, out of any fund or rate out of which the expenses of the authority are payable, to subscribe such sums as it may think fit towards the general purposes of the insurance committee.568 That is a much wider latitude than is given in this Bill, which only allows the rates to be drawn upon for purposes of administration. I therefore suggest to your Lordships that on this point, which is really the only point that is relevant so far as the Bill upon the Table is concerned—this question of the rates—there really is no chance whatever of the kind of abuse which some of my noble friends apprehend, and I trust that the presence of that clause in the Bill will not be considered as justifying the holding up of the measure by your Lordships' House.My noble friend Lord Salisbury, at the close of the debate last night, asked me a number of questions with regard to such matters as, for example, the money paid to soldiers on their discharge from the Army; the medical examination of recruits; the treatment of cases of disease not wholly due to, but aggravated by, service. I recognise that those are all proper questions for discussion in this House, but I suggest to your Lordships that they can really be discussed, not only as well separately and on their own merits as in connection with a Bill of this kind, but a great deal better; because if any noble Lord will put upon the Paper Questions raising the specific points to which my noble friend Lord Salisbury called attention he will have a much better chance of getting the whole thing thoroughly threshed out than if the points are merely debated as more or less connected with the substance of a Bill on its way through your Lordships' House. I have troubled your Lordships with these observations because I am extremely anxious that you should not suppose that I am asking for the suspension of the Standing Order in connection with this Bill without a sufficient reason for taking a course which, I frankly admit, ought not to be taken except in cases of distinct necessity.
§ VISCOUNT MIDLETONMy Lords, nobody carries so much weight in your Lordships' House as the noble Marquess when he rises to make an appeal such as he has made on behalf of this Bill. It is an appeal which is the more difficult to resist because there is not a member of your Lordships' House who does not desire the distribution of this money accelerated, and who would not be sorry if it were put off for a single day. But I think that my noble friend will realise that never and he put a body of men into a more difficult position if our debates are to be worth anything at all, First of all, the necessity for this 569 measure was recognised in the House of Commons as well as in this House as long ago as last September. The pledge on which the original Bill was passed in this House was a declaration in the House of Commons—I think made by Mr. Hayes Fisher—that at the earliest possible moment a comprehensive Bill would be brought in dealing with the whole question. That pledge has not yet been made good, and we are this afternoon asked to pass a sort of ad interim measure based on no calculation of probable expenditure but merely assigning £1,000,000 for the service of pensions. We might come back to the old point on which we discussed this matter last year—that once you give Government money private contributions are liable to be dried up. But whatever advantage there might be in our discussion, it is rendered quite fruitless by the circumstances in which we meet this Bill to-day. This Bill, although so simple, was not introduced into the House of Commons until March 8. I must enter a protest against the idea that it was only on March 8 that the Chancellor of the Exchequer realised that he would have £1,000,000 to spare in this financial year. When we are spending at the rate of £5,000,000 a day, it really becomes almost laughable. At all events, there being only from March 8 to March 31 available, the House of Commons usurped twenty-one days and left us a day and a-half before the end of the financial year. Therefore our discussion really might as well not take place at all.
We had two pledges from the Government on this matter. We had a pledge from the noble Marquess the Leader of the House at the beginning of the session that, so far as he could control it, we should not be asked again to pass with this precipitate haste measures of importance which we might desire to discuss. What use was it to bring in this measure at the tail end of the discussions last evening, and then to tell us that if we do not pass it through all its stages by half-past five or six o'clock to-night the money must be lost for this year? Is that treating the House fairly? I know that nobody regrets it more than my noble friend who has just spoken; but here is a concrete case. The second pledge was that, so far as they could, the Government would not allow unlimited powers either to Departments or to local authorities to get together staffs for the purpose of an Act of Parliament. Here 570 we have a definite case. My noble friend found one instance which he read to the House in which local authorities had this power without any control from the Local Government Board or the Treasury. If that is so, I venture to say it is a very bad case and a very bad precedent. It is a precedent which requires to be arrested. I sat for six years on the London County Council, and I know the difficulty continually creeping into Acts of Parliament regarding the setting up of various administrative authorities to be paid for out of the rates. Even when under the control of the Local Government Board, the pressure to appoint fresh officials and to increase our staff was enormous. I do not see how you are to have any homogeneous action in this matter throughout the country except with control by the Local Government Board.
I am not going into the whole question of the Bill, but what I wish to ask the Government is this. Will they not agree in Clause 2, when the time comes, to insert the words "subject to the consent of the Local Government Board"? There is no difficulty whatever. The House of Commons is sitting, the Bill can go back there, the words can be agreed to, and the Royal Assent can be given this evening. The course which I venture humbly to suggest is preferable to the entire abandonment of the privileges of your Lordships' House on a subject which You have discussed to a great extent and on which your debates ranged over a considerable time last autumn. That is the only alternative I can see to the entire abandonment of our rights. I am not certain whether the Lord Chancellor would hold that such an Amendment was a breach of privilege. I hope not. It does not in any way alter the amount of the rate or charge, its duration, its mode of assessment, its levy or collection, or the limits within Which it is leviable; but it does give control by a Public Department, it is in consonance with past Acts of Parliament, and it affords what at the present time is a much needed limitation of a power of expenditure which is only too likely to be exceeded. I do not want to reiterate what I believe is felt by us all. We do not desire in the least to be obstructive. We wish to meet the appeal of my noble friend in the best possible spirit. At the same time we feel that, if this system is to be continuing, the sittings of your Lordships' House with 571 regard to legislation are absolutely futile. For my part I would much rather that this were recognised and that we frankly put the whole matter into the hands of the Coalition Government than that we should be held responsible for legislation which we are quite unable to control.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYMy Lords, my noble friend Lord Midleton has put to the Government a question conceived in a very conciliatory spirit, representing an effort on his part to do his best to come to an agreement in the very difficult circumstances in which we stand. I am most anxious to facilitate the business of the Government for every reason, but most of all because the appeal has been made by my noble friend Lord Lansdowne. I should be very sorry indeed to be instrumental in any way in thwarting the Government. But here is the proposal which has been made—that if we allow the whole of our privileges of discussion to be abandoned in deference to the Government, they in their turn should consent to three or four words being inserted to protect the ratepayers.
My noble friend Lord Lansdowne said he believed that if undue expenditure was incurred by the local authorities under this clause the auditor would surcharge the amount. I speak with great submission, but I am afraid that my noble friend is under a complete misapprehension as to the power of the auditor in this respect. An auditor can surcharge any illegal expenditure, but he cannot surcharge extravagant expenditure which is within the law. That is entirely under the control of the local authorities. They might spend any amount of money upon offices and secretaries, and all the rest of it, the kind of thing we are very familiar with in local administration, unless there are some words in some other Act controlling them. In this Bill there is nothing at all to control them.
My noble friend Lord Midleton has shown that the provision in the Bill is, if not unprecedented—Lord Lansdowne quoted one precedent—at any rate very nearly unprecedented. And these are the days of economy! These are the days when the Government urge us to save every penny of public and private money that we can. Every day we come down to your Lordships' House and urge that the Govern- 572 ment should carry out this principle, but for some extraordinary reason night after night there are difficulties put in the way. I suggest that the Government should engage to insert the words suggested by Lord Midleton unless there are some other words in an existing Act which render them unnecessary. If they would agree to the insertion of these words we could come to an agreement on the matter.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHMy Lords, I would point out the urgency of inserting the words suggested by Lord Midleton, for a particular reason. The noble Marquess urged that this expenditure would be audited and that the auditor could surcharge. This may be all very well as far as county councils, district councils, and parish councils are concerned; but if my information is not wrong there is a large number of municipal bodies who are not under audit at all, and unless some such words as those suggested were inserted in this Bill the local authorities might, if they choose, escape control altogether.
§ THE EARL OF CROMERMy Lords, we have had many cases in this House of hustling, but I think this is the worst case of all. When this matter was under discussion nearly a year ago the opinion was generally expressed that there should be some general control over expenditure and that it should not be left entirely to local authorities. I do not think a pledge was given at the time that this control would be exercised, but the proposal was somewhat favourably received. I cannot say, with every wish to get the Bill through soon, that I have the same confidence as that expressed by the noble Marquess as regards the control which will be exercised over this expenditure by the local authorities, and I should be glad to see Lord Midleton's proposal accepted. I hope, anyhow, that before we are asked to vote on the matter the noble Marquess or the Leader of the House will give us a definite assurance as to how this proposal is going to be received.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE MARQUESS OF CREWE)My Lords, two separate questions have been raised in the speeches of the noble Lords who have spoken from the Front Bench opposite—one the general question as to whether your Lordships' House has been fairly treated in being asked to take 573 this Bill through its remaining stages to-day; the other the specific question relating to control of local authorities in the administration of the Bill. On the first matter I cannot help expressing the opinion that the noble Lords who have spoken have overstated the case in regarding this as an extreme attempt to pass a measure rapidly through your Lordships' House. It appears to me, on the contrary, to be a very mild attempt. This Bill contains practically two provisions only—one the voting of a sum of money, which was discussed, as I understand, at some length yesterday in connection with its adequacy; and the other the question of the body to whom the administration of the funds should be locally entrusted. I find it very hard to persuade myself that a great number of days or of hours are required for the sufficient discussion of these two simple propositions; and I confess I would urge noble Lords opposite when selecting a case—and there have been, we are all aware of it, cases when both Parties have been in power in the past where your Lordships have been cavalierly treated in being denied what we considered sufficient time to discuss questions—to choose a somewhat stronger case than this.
On the particular point of the control to be exercised over the local committees in respect, not of the grants they make, but of their administrative expenses, we shall be glad to do something to meet the complaints of noble Lords opposite. It is not, I fear, possible, if the Bill is to pass at all, to take the course which the noble viscount suggested of inserting an Amendment. I understand that the House of Commons is not likely to be sitting long enough to receive the measure so amended, and therefore the result would be for the time being the destruction of the Bill. But there is a measure, the Local Government (Emergency Provisions) Bill, in which a safeguard such as noble lords think necessary could be inserted, and we are prepared to see that some such provision is so inserted.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYIs that a Bill now before Parliament?
§ THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIREIt was read a second time yesterday in other House.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWEI am bound to say that I consider the fears of noble Lords on this particular point to be groundless. I believe that the local authorities are far more likely to adopt too low a scale than too high a one. It is precisely the kind of affair on which local authorities are inclined to be somewhat over careful about the expenditure of the rates, and therefore I do not think that on the merits the request of noble Lords opposite deserves the consideration we are prepared to show it. The point which my noble friend opposite mentioned regarding the audit is no doubt one of substance. It is quite true that, though certain local authorities are subject to Local Government Board audit, there are many which are not; and it may be argued that in the case of those authorities there is no such check as exists, not merely in the power of the Local Government Board to surcharge particular expenditure, but in the general moral pressure which is exercised on local authorities by the existence of that audit. However, we are, as I say, prepared to meet noble Lords opposite by inserting suitable words in the Bill which I have mentioned, and I trust that the noble Lords who have made this complaint will consider that course to be satisfactory.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNCould the noble Marquess give us any idea as to the sort of words which he proposes to introduce in the other Bill?
§ VISCOUNT MIDLETONMight I ask the noble Marquess when the Bill in which he has promised to introduce this provision is likely to reach this House?
THE MARQUESS OF CREWEThe Bill was read a second time in another place yesterday, and therefore I conceive that it will not be very long before it reaches this House.
§ VISCOUNT MIDLETONAnd we may count upon all these expenses being brought under the control of the Local Government Board?
THE MARQUESS OF CREWEI am not prepared to say that those specific words will be used. I am afraid we must ask for a little time to consider the form in 575 which the kind of control that the noble Lords desire will be exercised.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYThe Government, I say it with great respect, are asking rather a strong thing of your Lordships' House at this moment; and so far as we are concerned we are quite willing to grant it to them, but they must be a little forthcoming about it, and must not ride off on general words. What we want to know specifically is whether they will undertake that no local authority will be allowed to incur administrative expenses under this Bill without the consent of the Local Government Board. We do not ask for specific words. If the noble Marquess who leads the House will say definitely that he will secure this in the other Bill, that will be quite sufficient. I am sure the noble Marquess will realise that we are not unreasonable. We want to have his assurance, which, of course, we should accept absolutely, that this will be achieved in the other Bill.
§ VISCOUNT PEELMy Lords, I suppose there is no question that this can be done in the Bill to which the noble Marquess has referred. I understand that this other Bill is one conferring new powers in relation to other matters upon the Statutory Committee, and I think it was stated in another place that none of the money for these new purposes was to come out of the £1,000,000 voted under this Bill, but was to be separate altogether. I presume it is quite clear that the proposed restriction will apply to the money expended under this Bill.
§ THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEI think we must reserve the right of considering the precise language to be used, but as to the intention I do not think there is any difference of opinion between us. We desire that in this other measure words shall be inserted effectually limiting the expenditure of the local authorities to items of administration within the sanction of the Local Government Board.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYNot merely that they should be legal, but that they should not be excessive.
§ THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEThat the whole thing should be subject to the Local Government Board. The Bill in question will come before your Lordships at an early date, and you will then have full opportunity of requiring us to make good our pledge.
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.
§ House in Committee accordingly.
§ [Lord STANMORE in the Chair.]
§ Bill reported without amendment: Then Standing Order No. XXXIX considered (according to Order), and dispensed with Bill read 3a, and passed.