HL Deb 15 July 1926 vol 64 cc1149-63

Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.

THIS UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (THE EARL OF ONSLOW)

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill. As your Lordships will remember, my noble friend, the noble Marquess who leads the House, promised that the discussion on the Second Reading of this Bill should take place on the Motion to go into Committee. I venture, therefore, to make the speech I should have delivered to your Lordships in moving the Second Heading last night had there been time. As your Lordships will see it is a short Bill, but it is a Hill of some importance. It has been described as a Bill which raises fundamental questions of local government and the relations of Parliament towards local authorities. No one would be disposed to controvert such a statement, but, in addition to that, it has been said that the proposals which are contained in this Bill are of a novel character, that there are in the Bill proposals for which there is no adequate precedent, and that those proposals tend to destroy local government and trench severely upon the rights and duties of local authorities, and, therefore, upon the rights of local government electors.

I venture to deny this second proposition entirely. This Bill does not trench upon the independence of local authorities. On the contrary, the principle which this Bill contains is one that has been maintained in legislation connected with local government on many previous occasions for many years. It is, indeed, a principle which must be maintained if you are going to continue the very wide powers which are possessed by local authorities. If you are to give local authorities these wide powers—and I am sure no member of your Lordships' House would wish to curtail them; indeed, modern legislation has extended them very widely—there must be some means of seeing that a particular local authority which does not carry out its duties satisfactorily is brought into line with the vast majority of the local authorities which do perform their duties satisfactorily and carry out their difficult and important tasks in a manner which justifies their selection by local electors.

I could call your Lordships' attention to Acts which show that there is nothing new in the principle of this Bill. There is, for instance, the Act of 1870, which set up school boards. Under Section 63 of that Act similar powers to these were granted to the Committee of the Privy Council, which was in charge of education at that time, to enable it to deal with any school board which was in default. When the Act of 1870 was repealed similar powers were conferred upon the Board of Education, enabling them to put pressure upon local education authorities to carry out their duties. Over fifty years ago, therefore, this precedent was introduced. It may have existed in former Acts, but as to that I am not able to speak. Then we come to the great Public Health Act of 1875. Under selection 299 similar powers to those in this Bill were given to the Local Government Board to enable them to see that the duty of a local authority was carried out.

Coming to move modern times we have the Housing Act of 1919, which is now consolidated in the Housing Act of 1925. In that we find that legislation goes even further, for the Minister is given power to act in the place of a defaulting authority. These are Acts actually on the Statute Book. We see again, in 1923 and 1925, that Bills were introduced by members of the Party to which noble Lords opposite belong that went even further than this. Their suggestion was that power should be given to the Government to act in place of a local authority which may have defaulted. I think I may fairly say, then, that there is really no new precedent in this Bill and that the principle which it enshrines is to be found in several other very important Statutes that have been in existence for a considerable period.

The object of this Bill is to provide for the administration of poor relief in a union where the guardians have ceased to perform their functions, or are acting in a manner which may render them unable to discharge them. In such, a case the Bill gives power to the Minister of Health to appoint a body of persons to carry out the duties which the guardians have failed to perform and to carry on the administration of the union. The noble and learned Viscount opposite referred to the question of Poor Law reform and said that it had been deferred for a large number of years. Perhaps many Governments, including that of which the noble and learned Viscount himself was a member, may have had opportunities for passing Poor Law reform but were unable to carry out any reform. I think your Lordships are well aware that His Majesty's present Government have taken up the matter practically. The Government propose to introduce next year a general measure of Poor Law reform under which Poor Law guardians will be abolished and their functions transferred to other authorities. In view of the fact that it is proposed to bring in such a measure next year your Lordships might consider that at any rate an attempt might be made to carry on under the present system for another year without a Bill of this kind. But circumstances have arisen—and those circumstances have already been mentioned this afternoon in your Lordships' House by Leaders of all three Parties—which have rendered absolutely necessary the introduction of a measure of this kind, which provides for the possibility of immediate action.

The union which has rendered this Bill necessary, as has been mentioned several times, is the Union of West Ham. Before I go into the matter any further I should like to say, quite frankly, that the Union of West Ham is in a very peculiar position compared with the vast majority of Poor Law unions throughout the country. Most of it is situated within the area of what is called Greater London—that is to say, the area which was dealt with by the Royal Commission over which my noble friend Lord Ullswater presided some years ago. This Union has a population of over three-quarters of a million—I think the exact figure is 765,000—and it includes very large districts, such as the two County Boroughs of East and West Ham and the urban districts of Waltham-stow (which I believe itself has a population of nearly a quarter of a million), Leyton, Woodford and Wanstead. West Ham lies, as your Lordships are aware, adjacent to another Union in regard to which there have been difficulties of this kind and that Union is the Poplar Union. But West Ham is in a very different position from Poplar and it is at a disadvantage as compared with Poplar. West Ham lies outside the area of the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund.

Your Lordships may, possibly, be aware that about five or six years ago I had the honour to introduce a Bill into your Lordships' House dealing with the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund. That was in 1921. Before 1921 the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund only dealt with indoor relief, but by that Act, which was passed by your Lordships, the fund was extended to out-relief. Under that Act Poplar benefited in 1921 by a relief to its rates of 2s. 4d. in the pound for the half year. Obviously that is a material assistance to a union not meeting its liabilities. But West Ham, unfortunately for it and for its guardians, does not enjoy this benefit and it has been obliged to apply to the Ministry of Health, under the manner which is laid down, for money to assist it in carrying out its duties.

The Poor Rate at West Ham is perhaps high. It is 9s. is the £—4s. 6d. for the half year—and the Guardians of West Ham say, doubtless with truth, that this 9s. is the greatest amount that the area can bear. I should say that 9s. is only the Poor Rate. It is not the total rate. The total rate is, I think, 24s in the £. Again, they may say that West Ham is a very poor area and it has a low assessment per head of the population. That is true. The assessment is £4 5s., I think, compared with £6 10s. throughout England and Wales and compared with an assessable value in Kensington of £14 10s. That is an additional difficulty. Further, there is a considerable amount of unemployment in West. Ham, and it is unemployment of a difficult character to deal with because a large number of the inhabitants of West Ham gain their livelihood by casual labour at the docks. That adds to the difficulties which present themselves in West Ham.

I have done my best to be perfectly fair to West Ham and the undoubted difficulties with which they are confronted, but, as we all admit these difficulties, we must all admit that in order to deal with them great skill, care and economy in administration are essential. If the Board of Guardians at West Ham had exercised strict care, economy and skill in administration, and if they had seen that relief was properly given and given only to those really entitled to it, there would have been no need for this Bill. This Bill proposes that the people whom the Minister shall appoint to carry out the duties of the Guardians in West Ham, or in any other Union where difficulties of the same kind may arise, shall carry them out and meet the difficulties which exist with the skill, care and economy which I have mentioned. It does not do anything more than that. It makes no change in the law, only in the personality of the administrators of the law. If the people who take the place of the Guardians cannot carry out their finance by means of the rates they, of course, will have to borrow money from the Ministry of Health.

The point about the West Ham Guardians is that they have failed in their administration. For a number of years they have gone to the Ministry and borrowed a certain amount of money, in accordance with the powers of the Ministry for the time being, in order that they may carry out their duties. That has been spread over a long time now. They have been granted very considerable loans. The amount of their indebtedness now is £2,400,000. Recently they applied for a further £425,000 and that is where the breaking point came. In a few moments I will, with your Lordships' permission, go a little further into detail as regards the inefficiency of the administration, but for the moment. I will ask your Lordships to assume that the administration of the Guardians—in, as I have said, difficult conditions—was not of a nature to justify the Ministry of Health in placing a further charge upon the taxpayer. Of course, when the Guardians borrow money in this manner with the consent of the Ministry of Health, they borrow it from the Exchequer, and if they borrow more than the rates can finance then it practically means bankruptcy and the whole charge falls upon the taxpayer.

In these circumstances there are three courses which are possible to conceive. The first one would be to say, "No, we will not lend any more; we decline to lend the Guardians any more." Such a course would be obviously impossible. It would mean that no relief of any kind could be given, and the people who would suffer would not be the people who are getting out-relief to which they are not entitled or more out-relief than they are entitled to, but people who are genuinely and properly entitled to out-relief, of whom there are many in West Ham. They would be the people to suffer, not the people who, although getting relief, are able to do without it. Such a course would be impossible. The next course would be to grant the request and lend this £425,000 and let them go on. That is to say, they would be lent more money than they could pos- sibly repay, and thereby a very heavy charge would be placed upon the general body of taxpayers. If that course had been followed, I think that ultimately any Government would have been obliged to take a course analogous to the one proposed, because if a very heavy charge had been placed upon the taxpayer and the taxpayer had been made to carry the debt, he would very naturally ask that some sort of control over the expenditure should be given him and that his money should not be allowed to be spent by a body over whom he had no authority whatever.

There is a third course—and that is the one we propose to follow—to substitute for the Guardians of West Ham, or any other board which may act in a like manner, persons who can carry out the administration in accordance with the law and give right and proper relief to those who are entitled to it in accordance with the manner that is pursued by the vast majority—I may say the overwhelming majority—of the boards of guardians throughout the country. They should, at the same time, effect such economies as may be reasonably possible and place the finances of the Union upon a really sound footing. It may be said perhaps—it has been said—that the West Ham Guardians have done all they possibly could, and that it is not their fault; that in a poor district like theirs, with high charges for relief, they could not do anything else but were obliged to borrow all this money from the Government. It may be said that if you pass this Bill, and put anybody else in their place, exactly the same thing will happen and the other persons who have to administer the finances of the Union will not find themselves any better off than the Guardians. That remains to be proved.

I think the information which we have received from West Ham shows that the administration of the Union can be improved, and improved very considerably indeed. I should like in the first place to quote to you a statement made by Mr. Killip at a meeting of the Guardians. I may explain that Mr. Killip is vice-chairman of the Board of Guardians, and I think I am not doing him an injustice in saying that he is perhaps one of the more extreme members of the Party to which noble Lords opposite belong. This is what he says— Some of the things that have been done in the name of the West Ham Guardians—well, the least we can do is to be ashamed of them. When you are elected to the Guardians you do not go there to give out-relief as though you were giving away handbills. … We have been landed in this position by people who have entirely abused their membership of the Board of Guardians. Again, he says— It is my honest opinion that our present position is due to the fact, not that we are giving what is in the opinion of the Ministry an extravagant scale of relief, but that individual members of the Board have completely forgotten their duty as guardians, and have been usurping that of the relieving officers. That shows, at any rate, that criticism of the Board is not confined to any political Party.

I think my noble friend Earl Beauchamp approves of this Bill. I gather that he considers that the administration of West Ham is not up to the level of administration of other boards of guardians. There has been plenty of criticism from members of the Party to which I belong, and I have said Mr. Killip belongs to the Party to which noble Lords opposite belong. I think we may say, therefore, that the general view is that the administration of West Ham does not by any means come up to the high level which is so marked in other Poor Law unions throughout the country. Our opinion is based not only on the general experience of the Ministry of Health of the administration of Poor Law guardians, but also on the definite report of the Auditor. It has been said, I know, that the Auditor's report only refers to a certain number of cases. That is perfectly true. He does not give a schedule of all cases in which extravagance may have occurred, but he gives typical cases and examples of the more extreme extravagance in administration.

I should like to see for a moment what is the general result of the Auditor's report, dealing with the administration not only of West Ham but of other unions. I do not want to trouble your Lordships with figures, but I fear that I must quote one or two. In West Ham persons receiving Poor Law relief on May 1 numbered 919 per ten thousand throughout the Union, as compared with 481 per ten thousand in London and 248 in Birmingham. I have admitted fully that West Ham is a necessitous area, but there are other such areas, such as Middlesbrough, where there is a great deal of unemployment and much distress, and in Middlesbrough the figure is 598 per ten thousand, as compared with 919 in West Ham. It seems clear from these figures that something is to be desired in the administration of relief in West Ham.

Then again, it does not seem that proper care has been taken in West Ham to ensure that relief has been given in accordance with the demand for relief. There has been a tendency to work to a scale. The tendency has been that anybody in receipt of relief may receive the maximum scale, and so it has been pushed up till everybody seems to be receiving one scale, whatever the circumstances of the case may be. I think it is fairly clear, therefore, that the circumstances of each case have not been sufficiently explored by those who are obliged to do so. The greatest extravagance has occurred, I think, in cases where people have been in receipt of relief who are not entitled to it, and where people have received, as I say, the full scale of relief when they are entitled to relief only at a lesser scale. Indeed, according to the report, there are families in receipt of relief who, with the other income that they may have, make up something like £5, £6 or £7 a week, which is clearly more than the general run of income of families who are not in receipt of out-relief at all.

There is another practice which seems to be very undesirable, and that is the practice of considering single men over 18, living at home or with their families, as single applicants and giving them the full scale, or very nearly the full scale, of relief. This brings the total in West Ham above the maximum scale of 55s. laid down in the relief scale. And there are many cases in which it seems that relief has been given where it does not appear to have been necessary at all if proper care in administration had been shown and the whole circumstances of the case properly examined.

I want to make it quite clear that what has happened is this. Whatever may be the reasons, the Board of Guardians of West Ham are in such a position that they cannot carry on relief by means of the rates and that shortly they will have borrowed more money—if they have not already done so—than they can possibly ever repay. The inevitable consequence, if these things continue, must be that the cost of relief will fall upon the taxpayers. The only chance that the taxpayers will not be saddled with this expenditure, over which they have no control, is provided by this Bill, which, in West Ham or in any other union—I do not single out West Ham particularly—makes it possible to reform the administration and put the finances of the union on a solid footing. I hope very much that this Bill will be only a temporary measure, that the general reform of the Poor Law will take place next year and that by that general reform such cases as this will be rendered impossible. But some immediate action is absolutely necessary and something must be done to prevent the development of the state of affairs in regard to the taxpayer that I have described. I think the only way of doing it is by this measure, and accordingly I trust that your Lordships will pass this Bill.

Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Earl of Onslow.)

EARL DE LA WARR

My Lords, the noble Earl, in urging your Lordships to accept this Bill, has called on certain precedents. He reminded us particularly of precedents under the Housing Acts of recent years. But is he really quite sure that it is fair to do so? I think he will find, on looking into the matter, that the discretion of the Minister is permitted only after due public local inquiry, whereas in this Bill we are asked to give to the Minister absolute power, without any conditions whatsoever, to supersede any board of guardians which in his opinion has ceased to operate as he thinks fit. The noble Earl really admitted in his speech the reason why he has introduced this Bill, and in doing so I think he altogether failed to make out a case for the passage of the Bill into law. He has based the whole of his case on the particular circumstances that are in exist-once to-day in West Ham.

THE EARL OF ONSLOW

And in any other union where similar conditions might arise. I point out West Ham as an example.

EARL DE LA WARR

I am sorry if I speak rather slowly. I was just going to add "and other necessitous areas."

THE EARL OF ONSLOW

Not necessitous areas. They need not be necessitous.

EARL DE LA WARR

I think the noble Earl will admit that it is far more likely to occur in the case of necessitous areas than in the case of any other—

THE EARL OF ONSLOW

I admit that.

EARL DE LA WARR

—and that in the past disputes have arisen only in connection with necessitous areas. I think it is fair to assume, therefore, that it is unlikely that this procedure will be changed. I noticed that the noble Earl was particularly careful, as was the Minister of Health in another place, not to mention that the Board of Guardians in West Ham were Labour men, that there is a Labour majority on the Guardians. Unfortunately, his restraint has not been followed by his own Press, the Conservative Press. They have made the occurrences in West Ham the excuse for the most scurrilous propaganda against the Labour Party, and in doing so they have neglected altogether the true facts of the situation. They have not even mentioned that the situation was beginning to arise before there was a Labour majority on the Guardians in West Ham, and that the debt was already beginning to pile up. Conditions there were too strong for the Guardians, to whatever particular Party they might belong. I challenge the noble Earl and the Minister of Health to send down their most efficient administrator to West Ham and then to come back in six months, or a year, and say that he has been able to effect any very real change in the local budget.

Of course, it is perfectly possible to argue that some members of the Guardians, living as they are under the conditions that exist in West Ham, seeing around them all the poverty and distress, may have been carried away—that their hearts were too soft—but I am not so sure that the noble Earl, whoever he sends down to West Ham, will not find that any reasonable, decent-minded man who goes down there will act very much as the Guardians have done. But what is the next body in the list that was given by the Minister of Health to the House of Commons in the order of the size of its debts? You find that Sheffield is the next worst area to West Ham—Sheffield, which has never had a Labour or Socialist majority. I am putting this not merely from a Party point of view, not merely to justify the Party to which I belong, although I intend to do so, but in order to reinforce my point that no matter whom you put in these areas they are going to be compelled, by the conditions and situation with which they are faced, to pile up debt after debt with the Ministry of Health, until the nation is prepared to undertake its full responsibilities in the reform of the Poor Law and in the maintenance of the unemployed.

On this point of the maintenance of the unemployed, the noble Earl who spoke for the Government has already informed your Lordships that we have in West Ham an enormous number of unemployed, of a particular type for whom it is especially hard to find employment. Can the noble Earl really assure us that the Government during their last two years of office, have done everything in their power to assist this type of area, by seeing that the nation did pay for its unemployed? I want to assert the exact opposite, and to say that the whole policy of the Government during the last two years has been such as to accentuate the very problem with which the noble Lord is attempting to deal in this Bill, to-day. But why? For a very simple reason. It was, I think, over a year ago that the Government introduced their Unemployment Insurance. Act, and I remember that at the time I spoke, and was very severely rated afterwards for what I said by the noble Viscount, Lord Ceil of Chelwood. I said that the policy of the Government was such that by decreasing the drain on the Unemployment Insurance Fund they were going to increase the dram on the local rates.

In justification of that remark I will ask your Lordships' permission to read a short extract from the Poor Law Officers' Journal. It has nothing to do with the Labour Party, or with politics. What does it say? It says:— The unemployment figures of the Ministry of Labour (the General Strike excluded) are decreasing at the rate of 125,000 a year in England and Wales. The Poor Law figures have increased at the rate of over 250,000. In other words, we have once more ample confirmation of the fact that the Treasury, that is to say, the taxpayer, is gaining at the expense of the ratepayer. Further on it says:— The black spots, the necessitous areas"— such a one as is West Ham— are getting steadily blacker. If, in opposing this Bill, we were asked what we would do instead, we would say first of all that we would reverse that policy of the Government, and we would stop making the problem of these necessitous areas still mores grave. We would go further than that, and we would say that unemployment is a national burden and must be borne by the nation. The need, or so-called need, for this Bill has arisen simply and solely because we have not as yet recognised that vital principle. Until we do recognise that principle we are going on having what we call necessitous areas, and the process which these necessitous areas are going through, of getting blacker and blacker, is bound to continue with us.

It is all very well saying to the West Ham Guardians, or to any other body of guardians: "Do as we tell you." We know it is not really going to help. The noble Earl really admitted as much. It cannot help because that policy of increasing local burdens for the benefit of the national Exchequer is continuing. It may be useful propaganda against Socialist boards of guardians, but I submit to noble Lords on the Government Bench that it is an extremely dangerous policy to adopt, to say that when there is a Labour board of guardians, which is forced by circumstances over which it has no control to carry out a policy of which the Minister of Health disapproves, then Parliament is going to give to the Minister of Health power to supersede that board of guardians. We in this Party have to use a good deal of our energies in working against a certain Party which has nothing to do with us, but which is very anxious to join us—the Communist Party. What is the case they put up? They say this: "It is no good you people—meaning us—thinking you are going to attain your end by constitutional means, because the moment you are able to get hold of the Constitution, or a part of the Constitution in the case of the guardians, you will find that that part of the Constitution will be changed." That is exactly what has happened. My Lords, we hold that the policy contained in this Bill is ineffective and dangerous, dangerous in its constitutional bearings, most dangerous, and we therefore intend to oppose the Bill, and hope that your Lordships will not allow it to pass through this House.

THE EARL OF ONSLOW

My Lords, I should like to apologise to the noble Earl opposite for having interrupted him when he mentioned necessitous areas, but of course he is quite right. Difficulties of this sort are bound to arise in necessitous areas more than in others, but it is not an absolute necessity that they should arise. He said that he thought that the system of appeals introduced into other Acts against the Minister before he takes power to substitute others for existing local authorities should be introduced into this Bill. If that had been done and the matter had been subject to legal proceedings, and even an appeal to your Lordships' House, the delay would rob the Bill of any efficiency, and that is why it has been drawn in the manner it has been.

The noble Earl seemed also to think that this Bill was an attack upon the Party to which he belonged. I thought I had made it clear that it seemed to us that there was a general consensus of opinion, including the opinion of the vice-chairman of the Board of Guardians of West Ham, who is a member of the Party to which the noble Earl belongs, that the administration was not satisfactory. Then he said, as I thought he would do, that nobody else would do any better. That remains to be seen. If under the Bill the Minister of Health should send some other people to take the place of the Board of Guardians and they did not do any better then of course the Bill would have failed, but that is a matter which has to be proved. Anyway, some measure will have to be taken to protect the taxpayer until the measure for Poor Law reform is introduced, which we trust will happen next year. Then, the noble Earl asked me if the Government had done all they could do to relieve unemployment. I would answer that we have done everything that we thought possible for that purpose, and indeed it is proved by the fact that until recent events unemployment was steadily on the decrease. I trust that your Lordships will pass this Bill. I think it is the only measure that can be taken in the circumstances to relieve this trouble in West Ham and in other similar unions, if any exist.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly:

[The EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]

Bill reported without amendment.

Then (Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended), Bill read 3a and passed.