HL Deb 28 July 1930 vol 78 cc958-63

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE

My Lords, this is quite a normal annual event and is of a perfectly formal character. The Bill fixes the maximum sum which may be issued to the Public Works Loan Commissioners. In this case the figure is £30,000,000 under Clause 2, and it is expected to be sufficient to meet the requirements until August of next year. Every five years the Commissioners under the Bill have to be re-appointed. On this occasion His Majesty's Government have re-appointed the former Commissioners, and have added four further names. I do not want for a moment to enter into the rather acrimonious discussions on this point which have taken place in another place, and I am quite sure your Lordships do not want to indulge in any recriminations here.

It will be enough for me to say that the Government, recognising the services of the former Commissioners, were ready to appoint them all again, and at the same time, on further consideration, the Government thought that in addition to what may be called the City view of bankers and directors of insurance companies and issuing houses, gentlemen with other points of view and other experiences on the Board of Commission would be useful. Therefore they have nominated for service on the Commission four gentlemen who have rather different experience—Mr. Latham, who is an alderman of the London County Council, Mr. Harrison Barrow, and Mr. W. T. Jackson, who are respectively members of the Birmingham and Manchester Corporations, and Mr. Neville, who has been secretary of the Woolwich Cooperative Society for some fourteen years, and was a member of the Committee under Lord Hunter appointed under the Ministry of Reconstruction to make recommendations with regard to rents and mortgages under the Rent Restrictions Act. Except for that, I think that the Bill, to which I now ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading, is purely formal.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede.)

LORD HUNSDON OF HUNSDON

My Lords, I think there is a little more to be said about this Bill than the points which the noble Lord has raised. He has pointed out that four new members are to be placed on the Board, or it is suggested they should be placed on the Board. I might inform your Lordships that this is an entirely unprecedented act on the part of the Government, and, therefore, your Lordships may wish to consider it. Hitherto the Board have carried on their work in happy obscurity, and I dare say your Lordships may not be aware of the reasons for their existence. In 1875 the Board were appointed to act as a sort of buffer between the Government of the day and would-be borrowers, as it was felt that if the work were entrusted to the ordinary Depart- ments of State or any of them, they might be subjected to uncomfortable pressure. Thus I think it is clear that the essential qualifications for members of the Board are, first, competence of judging of security, and then, indifference to the criticism of any individual or body other than Parliament, to whom alone they are responsible.

No doubt the four new members proposed have these qualifications, and I am quite certain that the Board would have had no objection whatever to them on any political ground, because the Board have nothing whatever to do with politics. If I might, instance myself, I was appointed as a member of the Board, and again as Deputy Chairman, under a Liberal Administration. The present Deputy-Chairman is, or was, Chairman of the City of London Liberal Association, and there are other Liberals on the Board, including my noble friend Lord Clwyd. Since 1884, when I was appointed, the only occasion on which any Government has interfered in any way with the composition of the Board was in 1890, when a Conservative Government asked us to appoint Mr. Lloyd George as a member of the Board. There could be no Party reason obviously for that. The reason was, as a matter of fact, that they wished that the Welsh view should be represented by him, as it is now represented by Lord Clwyd. I may perhaps add that Mr. Lloyd George found himself unable to attend any meetings, and finally withdrew his name. Anyhow, the Board readily agreed to his appointment to meet the wishes of the Government, just as they would have been most anxious to meet the wishes of the present Government, if they had been consulted; but they were never consulted on this matter.

I venture to think they should have been consulted before the names were put forward, and I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me if I say that in my opinion the long, voluntary and efficient services of the Board deserved that courtesy. We had a meeting last Friday, and the Board decided they would continue their services if Parliament considered they would be useful to the country, but I hope that in future the appointments may be made, as hitherto, by the Board with the collaboration and consent of the Treasury, for if appointments are to be made by Party Governments it is open to the suggestion that they are made for Party purposes, and as neither the present or any preceding Government have ever had any occasion to criticise the work of the Board, these appointments are peculiarly liable to that interpretation.

LORD CLWYD

My Lords, perhaps the House will allow me very briefly to intervene in this discussion. I have had the honour of being a member of the Board for over twenty years, and nave some knowledge, at all events, of its work. I associate myself with what Lord Hunsdon has said with reference to its functions and work. I have no desire in any way to refer in an acrimonious manner to what has taken place, but I think the House will agree with me that it would be impossible for me, as a member of the Board and as a colleague of my noble friend Lord Hunsdon, to allow this occasion to pass without expressing not only my own regret, but the deep regret of all the members of the Public Works Loans Board, at the action which was taken some little time ago in another place with reference to the Chairman of the Board upon grounds which every one who knows Lord Hunsdon must know to be entirely devoid of foundation. It would be impossible for anybody who knows my noble friend Lord Hunsdon to think that he would be capable of being affected in any way by personal or political considerations in the discharge of his duties in connection with business matters as Chairman of the Board. I feel that I have perhaps a little greater freedom for expressing this view on this occasion as I happen to belong, as your Lordships know, to another Party, and I happen to be in disagreement with my noble friend upon, I suppose, all political questions.

There is this one further rather wider issue which possibly may have been raised by this controversy. We live in days of change, particularly in the sphere of Parliamentary debates, but there is one tradition, which has already been referred to in the previous debate this evening in this House, of which we are very proud as a nation, the tradition that any one who is appointed to a position of public trust or to a position on a Parliamentary Commission or any other body is regarded as being exempt from the suspicion of being influenced by Party or political considerations. I do not want to draw too general a conclusion from what has happened in regard to this unfortunate incident, but I regret very much if any action, which may have been taken in another place, should possibly convey the impression that the confidence of the country in this tradition has been weakened.

There are one or two criticisms I feel entitled to make with regard to the way this matter has been handled by the Government, particularly the procedure adopted in the appointment of new members, but I do not think it would serve any useful purpose to do so now. I hope the Government and Parliament will not lose sight of the fact that the main purpose for which the Public Works Loan Commission was set up nearly fifty years ago was with the object of securing, in relation to decisions in connection with certain categories of loans made to local authorities, the advantage of an impartial business judgment exercised independently of any possible political benefit. I concur with what my noble friend has said with regard to the necessity, if the usefulness and efficiency of the Board are to be maintained for the purpose for which it was set up, for the present system and practice with regard to the appointment of its members to be adhered to in essential respects.

If Parliament at a later stage should deem it desirable to examine the question either of extending or modifying this system of public service on a voluntary basis, that should not be done as the result of a heated discussion upon the floor of the House or as a result of a conjunction of difficult Parliamentary conditions, but after an adequate inquiry into all the facts of the case in the usual way and by the usual machinery of a Royal Commission or a Parliamentary inquiry. If and when the time comes for such a review of the work of the Local Loans Board, I say with some confidence that it will be found that this particular body has rendered a considerable service to our system of national finance and has stood for a principle of undoubted value—namely, the co-operation of impartial, independent and experienced business judgment in the service of the State.

On Question, Bill read 2ª and committed to a Committee of the whole House forthwith.

Then (Standing Order No. XXX1X having been suspended), House in Committee: Bill reported without amendment.

LORD JESSEL

My Lords, before passing the Third Reading, I and a great many of my friends are rather astonished that no reply has been made to the remarks of a member of the Commission or to what my noble friend Lord Hunsdon has said. Are we to have any reply?

LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. I had no intention of being discourteous to either of the noble Lords who spoke and I take advantage of the Third Reading of the Bill to say that I am sure the remarks that fell from Lord Hunsdon will be carefully noted by His Majesty's Government. With regard to what fell from my noble friend Lord Clwyd, I entirely agree with him that it is of the utmost importance that the Commissioners should be regarded as entirely impartial and that their impartial character should be preserved. At the same time, as I said in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, I am very anxious not to enter into any of the controversial matter and recriminations which took place in another place, and I am sure your Lordships would not wish me at this stage to say anything further.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 3ª.—(Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede.)

On Question, Bill read 3ª, and passed.