LOCAL GOVERNMENT (BOUNDARY COMMISSION) BILL. (Hansard, 8 June 1945)

§ LORD WOOLTON
My Lords, this Bill gives effect to the policy set out in a White Paper that was published on the 3rd January and was generally welcomed. I hope your Lordships will think that the Bill has been clearly drafted and is easily understandable. Its objects are to ensure that there shall be a co-ordinated and comprehensive review of the circumstances of our local government areas, 517 both major and minor, outside London, and more expeditious and less costly procedure for the adjustment of those areas (and where necessary the status of the authority administering them) to the needs of the community in the period of reconstruction.
It is a defect inherent in the present system that the adjustment of the boundaries of county districts, and of the boundaries between counties and county boroughs, is handled, in the absence of full agreement, by different tribunals under wholly different procedure. At present county councils are responsible for reviewing the circumstances of their counties and initiating any internal re-arrangements of the district boundaries, but the creation of county boroughs and, in the absence of agreement, the extension of county boroughs has been reserved to Parliament itself by the Local Government (County Boroughs and Adjustments) Act, 1926, with the result that both the Parliamentary Committee which is examining a Bill for these purposes and the county council which is reviewing county are called upon to deal with part only of a problem which really ought to be considered as a whole. The Boundary Commission to be set up by the Bill will have authority to deal with the whole problem but the existing control by Parliament (in the last resort) of major alterations — that is adjustments between a county and a county borough or between neighbouring counties and county boroughs — will be preserved inasmuch as any order made by the Commission effecting or refusing such an alteration cannot take effect without submission to Parliament.
It is hoped that the Bill will reduce substantially the time occupied and the expense to which local authorities may be put under the existing law, either when they wish for an alteration of their boundaries or when they feel it to be their duty to resist such an alteration. At present the creation or extension of a county borough must be by Bill. This involves consideration in Committee not merely of the details but also of the preamble of the Bill — the whole question, that is to say, whether the Bill ought to proceed at all. And this work may have to be done twice over, first in one House and then in the other. The arrangements which the Government have in mind are designed to simplify this pro- 518 cedure and, it is hoped, to make it less expensive. The existing machinery for dealing with county districts involves in any contested case a dual investigation — in the first instance by the county council; and secondly by the Minister of Health as the confirming authority. The county council's investigation often takes the form, and sometimes is required to take the form, of a public local inquiry. Under the present Bill the Local Government Boundary Commission will take over the powers both of the county council and of the Minister, and in those matters where its orders do not have to come before Parliament for confirmation there will accordingly be only one inquiry stage. The establishment of the Boundary Commission should, therefore, relieve the local authorities, particularly the smaller ones, of expense and of much work which would divert their efforts from the vital task of reconstruction.
This Bill has now been debated on three occasions in another place and it may be convenient if I remind your Lordships of certain pledges that have been given on behalf of the Government during the course of the debate. Firstly, no decision involving alteration of area or status which is opposed by any local authority affected, will be made without a public local inquiry. I hope I have made that clear. Secondly, no such alteration will involve the loss of its Charter by any borough, save in the case of an amalgamation of two boroughs. Thirdly, the Commission will be guided by general principles to be prescribed by the Minister of Health and requiring approval —I think this is very important — by affirmative Resolution in each House. Fourthly, the Commission will not operate as regards the County of London, where the structure of local government differs widely from that in the rest of England and Wales. But an inquiry as to certain problems of London government has been instituted.
I think, my Lords, it may be convenient if, quite rapidly, I run over some of the clauses now and perhaps that might save subsequent discussions, if your Lordships would be good enough to bear with me. The purpose and effect of Clauses 1 and 2 appear from the marginal notes in the printed Bill and do not call for any explanation on my part. Clause 3 is the main procedural provision. Your Lordships' attention should be drawn 519 especially, I think, to subsection (3). It is a provision added in the House of Commons in order to meet certain fears which had been expressed on behalf of minor local authorities that they would not have a fair chance to be heard before the Commission. Subsection (4) relates especially to county boroughs. The Local Government Act, 1888, which created county boroughs, fixed a minimum population limit of 50,000 and authorized the creation of such county boroughs by Provisional Order of the Local Government Board. In 1926 the population limit was raised to 75,000 and it was enacted that no new county borough should be created except by Act of Parliament. This is the existing law. The Bill proposes, as already mentioned, that it shall be possible for a county borough to be created without the promotion in every case of a separate Bill for the purpose, by recourse to the Commission, and it raises the limit for a borough council to be entitled to demand that the Commission shall consider the question to 100,000 population This does not, of course, mean that a town of this size will have the right to county borough status. It will be for the Commission, subject to any guiding principles laid down for them under the procedure of the Bill, to decide in each case whether a case for county borough status has been made out.
If your Lordships will look at subsection (5) you will see it empowers the Minister to give directions to the Commission as to the order in which cases shall be considered. Your Lordships probably will remember that a strong claim for early consideration was pressed by some of the "blitzed" towns when the Town and Country Planning Bill was before Parliament last year, and I undertook in your Lordships' House in reply to the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, that when the Local Boundary Commission was set up these towns should have some measure of preference. Moreover, in the present Session, two Private Bills have been withdrawn on the footing that the case of the promoters would be considered when the Commission is set up. The powers of the subsection will enable the Minister to secure that cases of this kind have a proper priority. Subsection (9) is the provision for bringing orders of the Commissioners before Parliament. Sub- 520 section (10) empowers the Minister, by Regulations approved by each House of Parliament, to govern the procedure of the Commission and, in particular, ensures that no local authority shall lose territory or status without the holding of a local inquiry. Subsection (11) requires that the Commissioners shall, in relation to any order which has to go before Parliament, transmit to the Minister, to be laid before Parliament, a statement summarizing the proceedings and the considerations which have led them to make their order. Subsection (12) was added in the House of Commons, as a logical consequence of subsection (3).
It would be inappropriate for the council of a non-county borough, which had no enforceable claim to be heard by the Commission, to be able to go direct to Parliament by Bill. Under the Bill Parliament has at its disposal the means for keeping under regular review the work of the Commission; first, because under subsection (9) of Clause 3 the major orders will themselves come before it accompanied by a report of the proceedings which have led to their being made; secondly, because under Clause 5 the Commission will have to submit an annual report; and thirdly, because the general principles which are to guide the Commission and the main heads of its procedure are to be embodied in Regulations which require approval by affirmative Resolution.
Clause 7 is a new clause added in the House of Commons, to remove any apprehension of indirect effects upon the status of municipal boroughs. It follows in principle similar savings which occurred in the Local Government Acts of 1888 and 1933.
In conclusion, it may again be pointed out that the proposals made in the Bill are designed to meet the immediate needs of the post-war situation. Whether or not the Commission will form a permanent element in our Constitution is a question which will have to be judged in the light of experience, but though the proposals of the Bill represent an experiment they have won general acceptance by those authorized to speak on behalf of the local authorities of the country, and there are solid grounds on which the Bill may be commended to the House. The Bill represents a middle course, between those who are content to carry on with the existing machinery as it now stands and 521 those who demand a radical recasting of the local government structure which would probably involve the supersession of most, if not all, of the existing types of local authorities. The Bill will relieve Parliament of a heavy burden of detailed work — a burden which might well impede the vastly more important and urgent tasks of national reconstruction. But it will at the same time ensure that when, in the case of the major adjustments to be carried out by the Commission. Parliament has the responsibility of taking the final decision, it is fortified with the considered advice of an independent and expert body which has heard and considered the views of all the interests concerned. And finally the Bill leaves to the Minister responsible to Parliament and to Parliament itself the right of deciding the general principles which are to govern the work of the Commission.
I hope that with that rather full explanation which I have thought it necessary to give, your Lordships will pass the Second Reading of the Bill to-day and will facilitate its passage through the remaining stages. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.

§ LORD HARLECH
My Lords, I am very glad that this Bill is to be proceeded with in this Session in order that the Commission may get to work as soon as possible. I am sorry my noble friend Viscount Astor, who takes a passionate interest in the Bill, is not able to be here to-day. I have heard quite recently from him how urgently it is required in places like Plymouth, which cannot possibly after its experience have proper redevelopment unless the boundaries between Plymouth and urban and rural districts in both Devon and Cornwall are put on a different footing to what they are now. I was a Regional Commissioner for eighteen months and I saw something of the consequences of the old system.
Parliament was very capricious in the way it dealt in the inter-war years with this problem of the extension of county borough boundaries, inevitably at the expense of the adjoining county. Sometimes the county won and sometimes the county borough won the very expensive and prolonged fights over Private Bills 522 in both Houses of Parliament. Of course there is one vested interest which stands to lose under this Bill a very lucrative income, and that is the learned gentlemen at the Parliamentary Bar. Otherwise the fantastic expenditure of time and money that was involved benefited nobody. I have a vivid recollection of the fight backwards and forwards between the two Houses of Parliament over the Bill for the extension of Halifax. The West Riding County Council finally won after a tremendous fight with Halifax, and bad blood remains to-day as the result of that prolonged contest. Then at the other end of the scale you have, inside counties, a multiplicity of small urban and rural district councils and ancient boroughs.
I know of one case, not in the West Riding but in another part of England, where coterminous with a large and growing county borough there is an ancient borough with its Charter. That ancient borough with 1,600 inhabitants is a full municipality with mayor and corporation and all that kind of thing. It is alongside this new district, which is not merely a county borough but a city. The result is really deplorable. I am all for keeping the mace and the ancient plate and the civic dignity of the little borough, but it can only afford the part-time services of part-time officials. When it comes to the provision of housing and water supply and matters of that kind how can an authority of that size provide public services as they should be provided? Again, inside counties you often find by purely historical accident a little town which is itself an urban district and has a rural district of the same name all round it. You have two sets of officials, hardly ever on speaking terms, with great rivalry between them. They are interdependent and they ought to be merged, but of course one knows that all the officials have a vested interest in maintaining the present position.
That state of affairs was all very well in the times we lived in before the last war but we have seen since then through the development of social services the disadvantages in many ways of such a multiplicity of local authorities. As the result of the Act of 1926 and a later measure great progress was made in the right direction in the review of boundaries by county councils but, now faced with the results of this war and the things we have to do 523 in the next five years, speed and efficiency must be increased. Every one who has watched local government from the large cities down to the smallest rural district must realize that many things that have got to be done cannot be done under the elaborate, expensive and slow processes of the past. Something in the nature of this Bill was required. Everything will depend of course on the Commission. You will want men on the Commission who have real drive and real vision in order to do this work effectively. The substitution of an affirmative Resolution by both Houses of Parliament for the complicated Private Bill procedure is a great gain both in the matter of saving Parliamentary time and ensuring the efficient working of local government in the country.
Therefore I am delighted that this Bill is to be put on the Statute Book before the Dissolution of this Parliament so that the Commission can get to work at the earliest possible moment. It really is a vital element in our future procedure. Of course one does not like these rather rougher measures—undoubtedly those who have instincts of a conservative sort do not. But we are up against it, and, unless something of this kind is done, we shall have very much needed schemes of reconstruction, rehousing, construction of roads, provision of water, gas, electricity and all that kind of thing held up by reason of the old procedure. Therefore, I welcome this Bill, and I hope that it will become the Statute law of the land at the earliest possible date.

THE MARQUESS OF READING
My Lords, I am not intervening in order to protect, in any way, the interests of those of my colleagues, or perhaps I should say now those of my former colleagues, who have the good fortune — and not infrequently the large fortune — to practise at the Parliamentary Bar. But in the course of my own experience I was, on one or two occasions, rather suspiciously, permitted to enter that preserve, and I confess that I always came away struck by the monumentally laborious and gratifyingly lucrative experience that it provided. I think one must welcome the principle of this Bill to cut away the very expensive and very laborious machinery which hitherto has been in use. But really, I 524 only intervene to ask the noble Lord who is in charge of the measure two questions They both relate to the Commission. Obviously, as the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, said, it is important that the personnel of that Commission should be people of drive and energy, but there is nothing in the Bill which gives any indication upon two points. If a conclusion has been reached it might be of some interest, and indeed of some value, to the House to know whether any decision has been arrived at as to the number of members who will compose the Commission, and whether it is the intention that any special qualification should be possessed by those persons whom it is intended to appoint. I should add that I am sorry not to have given the noble Lord notice that I was going to ask these questions. It was, perhaps, not through lack of opportunity but through lack of diligence that I only saw the Bill this morning.

§ LORD WOOLTON
My Lords, I am sorry that I cannot give the noble Marquess a proper answer now. But perhaps he will allow me to do so in the Committee stage on Monday — if that will meet the convenience of your Lordships. You will see that the First Schedule states: The Commission shall be a body corporate by the name of the Local Government Boundary Commission and shall consist of a chairman, a deputy chairman, and three other members. That, I am afraid, does not completely answer the questions which the noble Marquess put to me, but I will deal with them—if the Department has come to any conclusion on the matter — on Monday, if that will meet the pleasure of your Lordships.