§ 3.12 p.m.
§ Read 3a (according to Order).
§ Clause 2:
§ Definition of river board areas and constitution of river boards.
§ (2) An order establishing a river board shall provide for the appointment of such number of members not exceeding forty as may be specified in the order, who shall be appointed as follows:
§ (b) such number, not being less than three-fifths or more than two-thirds of the remaining members, as may be specified in the order shall be appointed, whether from their own members or not, by the councils of the counties and county boroughs whose area, or any part of whose area, is included in the river board area;
§ LORD LLEWELLIN moved in paragraph (b) of subsection (2), to leave out "three-fifths" and insert "one-half." The noble Lord said: My Lords, you will 357 have seen that I have an Amendment down to deal with a point which was raised on the Report stage. As your Lordships who were here may remember, on that occasion the Amendment dealt with the composition of the river boards and proposed substituting one-third for three-fifths as the number of members who should necessarily be appointed by the councils of the counties and county boroughs. After the discussion I withdrew that Amendment and said I would put down a written Amendment on Third Reading, proposing one-half instead of the one-third which I then proposed. I think it is clear—and indeed with his usual frankness the Parliamentary Secretary made it quite clear—that in the two cases of the Welland and the Great Ouse areas drainage interests will contribute to a very large extent. He said: "… in fact their contributions will be in excess of any other contributions to the finances of the board." I am reading the words the noble Earl used.
§ The point we are putting from this side of the House is that, in such cases the drainage interests should be able, if the Minister wishes, to have a larger representation than that which I quite agree is the normal one over the country as a whole. By leaving the proportions as they are in this Bill at the present time, there is no power in either this Minister, or any successor to him as Minister of Agriculture to do the fair thing in the Welland case, the Ouse case, or perhaps some other case which may arise in the future. That is the sole reason for putting down this Amendment. We are not saying that in those cases the Minister must give these; interests greater representation, but we are leaving it permissive in the hands of the Minister. If he thinks it right, if this Amendment is adopted, he will not be precluded by the words of the Statute from doing what is right in those exceptional cases.
§ I know—and here again, as one always expects, the noble Earl has been quite frank about it—this figure of three-fifths is, in a way, a compromise figure. I think those are the words he used on the Report stage, and he said: "I stress that." I do not want to take up the time of this House by stressing the fact—which I think needs no stressing here or in another place—that what eventually goes into a Bill must be our responsi- 358 bility and our concern, and not that of any arrangement which has previously been made, whether with the county councils or with any other body. I appreciate that in a case like this it is desirable—and I make no criticism of it—to have negotiations with the county council, but it is for Parliament to decide what eventually goes into a Statute, and not for any other body outside either this House or another place.
§ My sole basis for moving this Amendment is that, in the view of a number of noble Lords who sit on this side of the House, the Minister will not be in a position to give a fair proportion of representation on these river boards, and we are here suggesting that he should have a much wider latitude than he is willing to give himself. That is what we are suggesting. In a way, it is an odd thing that the Government should resist it, but they are resisting it. They resisted the Amendment on Committee stage and on Report stage, but, of coarse, the noble Earl will realize that I have considerably modified the proposal which was put forward on Report stage. I have modified it in. the hope that we can, in the good old British way, compromise by adopting the compromise suggestion which I now put forward, and allow the Bill to go from this House as an agreed Measure. I have put the Amendment down in the hope that that result may be achieved. If it is not, then no great harm will be done.
§ If we insert this alteration in the Bill in this House—if a majority of noble Lords think that a wise thing to do—no conflict will arise in that way between the two Houses of Parliament, because the Bill originates in this House. Conflict could only arise if the House of Commons sent it back to us and said: "We do not like what you have put in." Then it will not be noble Lords who have raised the conflict but quite clearly the other place. I do hope we may come to agreement on a little measure of this sort. If we do not, and if noble Lords think fit to support the Amendment I now propose, I hope that the other place will think it wise not to raise a conflict with your Lordships upon a matter of this kind. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 14, leave out ("three-fifths") and insert ("one-half").—(Lord Llewellin.)
THE EARL OF PERTHMy Lords, I should like to support the Amendment which has been proposed. Your Lordships will remember that the original proposal made by the Government was for three-fifths. I calculate that that would mean twenty-three members. The Amendment proposed was to have one-third; that would be fifteen members. The exact halfway house between these two figures is nineteen. Therefore I am sure that this represents a really genuine compromise.
§ The Earl of HUNTINGDONMy Lords, the noble Viscount the Leader of the House promised on the Report stage to consider this Amendment very carefully. I should like to say that I appreciate the courtesy of the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, the moderate way in which he moved this Amendment and also the fact that he has gone some way to meet us in altering the proportion to one-half. That has been gratifying to me and to other noble Lords on these Benches. We all appreciate the friendly way in which this Bill has been received, and it was in that spirit that we looked at this Amendment to see if we could meet noble Lords on the matter. In spite of long discussions, how-over, we were forced most reluctantly to the conclusion that we should have to resist this Amendment. If noble Lords feel that they must put it in, they must put it in. But I should have liked, after the great measure of support we have received, to have an agreed Bill to send to the other place. I think that on the whole this has not been a Party issue, but an issue on which we are all agreed.
§ LORD LLEWELLINI do not think it is a Party issue.
§ THE EARL OF HUNTINGDONI quite agree. There are, therefore, one or two points which I should like to bring before your Lordships. Like the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, I do not want to recapitulate all the arguments which have already been heard; but there are one or two things that I should like your Lordships to consider before finally making up your minds on this rather difficult subject.
In the first place, as I have said, this is a compromise measure and I would like noble Lords to consider this question from that point of view. We have 360 drafted this Bill so that it will be workable and will satisfy the various interests which are and will be affected by it. In this connexion I should like to refer to the Land Drainage Act of 1930, which set up the catchment boards. The noble Lord talked of the Yorkshire Ouse area and the Welland area. Under that Act the drainage authorities have only six members out of thirty; that is to say one-fifth of the board. In this Bill, instead of one-fifth we are giving them one-third. That is a big advance. At the same time, we are giving the river boards far more functions which are really broader local authority interests rather than purely drainage interests. We have thus given less representation to the local authorities while increasing the burden of their functions. It is true that we have had representations by the Association of Municipal Corporations and others, some of whom are anxious that the present provision should stand in the Bill. But others think that we should go back to the old formula, and that may well be pressed in another place. At the same time I would like to correct an impression, which I think was given erroneously or which at any rate was due to a misunderstanding. His Majesty's Government have made no pledge or commitment in regard to this Bill. We have had very full discussions with the interested parties, but we have not pledged ourselves in any way.
The Milne Committee, on whose Report we have based our national water policy, proposed separate representation for the various interests on the board. We felt that we had to refuse that, since it would make the boards much too unwieldy; but if we accept this Amendment, those interests may well press to come on to the boards. It is rather like a jig-saw puzzle. If we alter one part, the other parts may have to be rearranged, and we should be extremely reluctant to have to do that. That is a matter I must point out to your Lordships. On the whole, the real question—and I think this is the line which divides His Majesty's Government from the noble Lords opposite—is whether the principle of this Bill shall rest on a voting basis. The drainage authorities concerned in this question contribute large sums to the boards; the question is whether they shall form a large proportion of the boards, or whether we should adhere to the Government principle that 361 the boards shall be built up on specialized knowledge, to work as a team, looking after their areas and protecting the interests of the river board in general. That, I think, is the big issue between us; whether the issues shall be decided by sectional voting or whether we shall collect the necessary specialized knowledge and incorporate it into the best board we can find to work as a team.
If we are to alter the proportion as is suggested, it would be almost impossible to resist the demands of the other side. You cannot have the argument one way, without conceding it the other.
§ LORD LLEWELLINIf I may interrupt the noble Earl, we are not seeking to alter the number to more than two-thirds.
§ THE EARL OF HUNTINGDONI know that the noble Lord is not seeking to alter that. But if we accept his Amendment others will certainly press their alternatives, and it will be difficult to resist them. I think that on balance it would leave drainage authorities in a very bad position in most parts of the country. Even in these areas, the two areas which are causing the whole of the trouble, I cannot conceive that the local authorities themselves will not appoint people with drainage knowledge on the board, so that we shall have representatives with drainage interests appointed by the Minister, with representation of the drainage people themselves. I submit that that should give the boards all the drainage interests and the knowledge they want. I will once again stress that this is a compromise Bill, built up with a great deal of trouble and after much consultation. I do very earnestly beg noble Lords not to destroy the unity which we have achieved so well on the Bill. Perhaps, in view of these arguments, the noble Lord may be induced to withdraw his Amendment.
§ 3.30 p.m.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYMy Lords, I take it, from the trend of the noble Earl's speech, that the House of Lords should never disagree with anything done by the Government! In fact, there has been a very happy spirit of unity and good will throughout, and the whole point of this Amendment is whether or not, on the whole, it gives a fair deal to the local authorities. The noble Earl himself said just now that the local author- 362 ities would resent it very much if they were placed in a minority. They cannot be placed in a minority under our Amendment, because the minimum representation they can get is 50 per cent.; and, in the vast majority of cases, they can have considerably more. It is a question of striking a fair balance between local authorities and other interests concerned.
We should like to insert our words, not with a view to embarrassing the Government (I do not think they will), but because we believe that it is necessary that there should be this power in the hands of the Minister instituting these boards to vary a little more that he does at present the representation on the individual boards. We are in the happy position of knowing that this Bill has been inaugurated in your Lordships' House. It is not a question of disagreeing with something that has been done in another place. We are trying to do something which we believe will improve the Bill, and then it is merely for the consideration of another place when it gets there. After that, we shall have to examine the position further. I do not pretend that this is a very important Amendment, but we believe that on balance, just from the point of view of revising and improving the Bill, it would be useful to adopt this Amendment. Therefore we propose, we hope with No 111-will on either side, to press for its adoption.
§ Viscount ADDISONMy Lords, I would ask the noble Marquess not to press it. After all, what is it all about? It affects only two boards out of a total of, I believe, twenty-nine; that is all. The dispute is as to whether the minimum should be one-half or three-fifths. In the Welland and Ouse districts, the two cases which were conjured up, drainage is their very life. In view of their subjection to the inundations of the present year, it is unthinkable that the county councils or local authorities in those places will not be fully alive to these matters. They have, in fact, suffered grievously from such things in the last twelve months. It is unthinkable that in those two cases, which are the only cases for which this provision is proposed, it will be of the slightest use. The scheme is all built up by good will and compromise. There is really nothing in this, and I do hope 363 that the noble Lord opposite will not press his Amendment.
§ The Marquess of SALISBURYIf there is nothing in it, I cannot see why this Amendment should not be accepted. I think we must put it in, if only for the technical purpose of improving the Bill. No great moral principle or differences
§ Resolved in the negative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
§ An Amendment (Privilege) made: Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.