HL Deb 29 March 1949 vol 161 cc812-8

6.9 p.m.

Amendments reported (according to Order).

Clause 11 [Expenses of local authority supplying water in district of another authority]:

LORD MORRISON

My Lords, this Amendment is a drafting Amendment, made necessary by the proposed insertion of a new clause after Clause 12. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 6, line 44, leave out ("next following section") and insert ("two next succeeding sections").—(Lord Morrison.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD MORRISON

My Lords, may I point out that there is a misprint on the Marshalled List and that this Amendment is to page 7, line 29? The noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, will recognise this Amendment, which puts right an inconsistency in the wording to which he drew attention in Committee. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 7, line 29, leave out ("could") and insert ("should").—(Lord Morrison.)

LORD POLWARTH

My Lords, may I congratulate the noble Lord in having corrected one misprint and on having committed another?

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD MORRISON moved, after Clause 12 to insert the following new clause:

Temporary provisions as to defrayal of expenses where requisite information etc., not available.

13.—(1) If the Secretary of State, on a representation made to him by one of the authorities concerned, is satisfied that it will be impracticable for a supplying authority, notwithstanding the exercise by them of all due diligence, to obtain the information required to enable them in the year beginning on the appointed day to allocate within the required time their expenses in supplying water in the district or part of the district of another local authority and in their own district in manner provided by subsection (2) of section eleven of this Act and to furnish such information as under subsection (5) of section twelve of this Act they may be required to furnish, he may, subject to the provisions of this section, make an order modifying the provisions of this Part of this Act in relation to the defrayal of the expenses of that supplying authority.

(2) An order made under this section shall provide that the expenses of the supplying authority in supplying water in the district or part of the district of another local authority and in their own district shall in the year beginning on the appointed day be defrayed—

  1. (a) as to such part of the said expenses as is equal to the total product of the water rate levied by the supplying authority in the district of that other authority in the year beginning on the sixteenth day of May, 1948, by that other authority; and
  2. (b) as to the remainder of the said expenses, by the supplying authority.

(3) An order made under this section shall provide for the issue by the supplying authority to any other authority to whom part of the said expenses are under the order allocated as aforesaid, of a requisition for the payment by that other authority of that part of the said expenses and any requisition so issued shall have the like force and effect as a requisition issued under subsection (2) of section eleven of this Act:

Provided that notwithstanding anything in the foregoing provisions of this Part of this Act any domestic water rate levied by a local authority to whom a requisition is issued in pursuance of an order made under this section shall in so far as it falls to be levied in respect of premises within the limits of supply of the supplying authority be levied only in respect of premises in respect of which a water rate was levied by the supplying authority in the year beginning on the sixteenth day of May, 1948.

(4) Where a supply of water for domestic purposes was provided in the year beginning on 16th May, 1948, by a supplying authority to premises in the district of another local authority and no payment otherwise than by way of a charge calculated by reference to the amount of water consumed or payable under an agreement or otherwise was recovered in that year by the supplying authority in respect of that supply, an order made under this section in relation to the defrayal of the expenses of that supplying authority shall provide that, notwithstanding anything in this Part of this Act or in the principal Act, the supplying authority shall, for the purpose of defraying that part of their said expenses falling to be defrayed by them, be entitled to recover in the year beginning on the appointed day a charge calculated or payable as aforesaid in respect of that supply.

(5) An order made under this section may contain such incidental, consequential and supplementary provisions as the Secretary of State may consider necessary or expedient for the purposes of the order."

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this new clause is introduced in order to meet the difficulties of the Dundee Corporation, to which reference was made in Committee. I think the noble Earl, Lord Airlie, was the first member of your Lordships' House to raise this point. The Corporation supply water within the districts of seven other authorities, and they have made representations that it will be impracticable for them to put into operation the provisions of Clauses 11 and 12 for 1949 and 1950. These clauses would require the Corporation to be able to say exactly what houses outside the city they supply with water. This precise information has not hitherto been required, and will take some time to obtain. The object of the new clause (which I may tell your Lordships has been accepted in principle at a meeting of the eight local authorities concerned, held in Dundee as recently as March 22) is to provide a means by which the general provisions of the Bill regarding rating and requisitioning can be put into effect on the appointed day in the Dundee area, but at the same time modified where it would be otherwise impossible to operate them. Although the new clause has been drafted with the Dundee problem in mind, it is generally worded and it will be open to any authority to make representations to the Secretary of State for an order under it modifying the provisions of Clause 11. If your Lordships would desire me to go through the clause in detail I should be willing to do so. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 9, line 18, at end insert the said new clause.—(Lord Morrison.)

LORD CLYDESMUIR

My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lord Airlie who drew attention to the fact that Dundee was being, inadvertently I think, asked to do the impossible, I would like to thank the noble Lord for introducing this clause, which meets the difficulty. In addition, it is a useful additional clause for any other authority who may be similarly situated. I do not think we shall ask the noble Lord at this time of night to go through the clause in detail. It has been agreed by the authorities, and I know that it is acceptable to my noble friend.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 16:

Transport and electricity hereditaments

(2) Where a water rate was in the year 1947–48 levied in respect of premises being a railway or canal hereditament or a hereditament occupied by the British Electricity Authority, an Area Electricity Board or the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, on the fifteenth day of May, nineteen hundred and forty-eight, and no charge calculated by reference to the amount of water consumed was made, no charge by way of meter or otherwise shall be made in the year 1948–49 or in any subsequent year during which the premises are occupied as such a hereditament as aforesaid in respect of a supply of water (whether for domestic purposes or otherwise) to those premises by a local water authority.

6.15 p.m.

LORD POLWARTH moved to add to subsection (2): Provided that the local water authority shall have the option in the year 1948–49 or in any subsequent year of making in respect of any supply of water to those premises a charge calculated by reference to the amount of water consumed thereon reduced by any sum levied as water rate in the year 1947–48.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I will be as brief as possible in moving this Amendment. Your Lordships will remember that on the last stage of the Bill we were rather concerned about the position of certain nationalised undertakings, such as electricity works and railways, who were being supplied with water by local authorities and were paying for that through the global sum which they paid by way of rating. As a result, there might be cases where the undertaking could draw a considerably greater quantity of water and still not pay any greater sum to the local authority. At that time the noble Lord, Lord Morrison, pointed out quite rightly that any arrangement for an additional rate in respect of extra water would in fact mean that the undertaking was paying twice for their water. We have tried to get round this difficulty—I admit it is not a very successful effort—by providing that, where a local authority decides that one of these undertakings shall have its water supply metered to it, the supply shall be measured to it and it would pay accordingly, less the amount of any sum which was rated on it for water beforehand; so that in fact it would be paying only once for the water. That would give a fair return to the local authority who might be called upon to supply a much greater volume of water. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 11, line 20, at end insert the said proviso.—(Lord Polwarth.)

LORD MORRISON

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, has given a brief but completely fair description of what was the position in regard to this Amendment, and at the end of the Committee stage I promised to look at it again. I can assure him that I have done so, with the result that I recognise that there is a difficulty here, inasmuch as an agreed sum is being paid by the British Transport Commission, the British Electricity Authority and the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board. As a result of the working out of that system, it may be that some local authorities will be rather worse off and others better off. The noble Lord's Amendment, however, provides only, if I may say so, a lopsided solution, inasmuch as it proposes to compensate those who may be worse off but not to take away anything from those who may be better off as a result of the arrangement. I have done my best to look into it, and the conclusion is that the local authorities cannot have it both ways. The subsection as it stands, coupled with the provisions of the 1948 Act, represent a fair settlement for both the local authorities and the British Transport Commission and Electricity Boards. The Amendment proposed would be unfair to the latter, and I am sorry that I cannot accept it, the principal reason being that, in my opinion and in the opinion of those who advised me, the present Bill is not an appropriate place for the revision of the principles of the 1948 Act which was so recently accepted by Parliament. Obviously the remedy for the grievances to which the noble Lord has drawn the attention of the House cannot be in this Bill, but must be by an amendment of the 1948 Act. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord will not be disposed to press his Amendment.

LORD CLYDESMUIR

My Lords, I can see that the noble Lord is clearly unhappy about this. He realises that there is a hardship involved.

LORD MORRISON

There may be.

LORD CLYDESMUIR

To take an example, suppose that Perth is doing well out of supplying water to an electrical or railway undertaking, and that Aberdeen is doing badly; it is no consolation to Aberdeen that Perth is doing well, and I cannot see Aberdeen "sitting down under it." I think they would probably complain most vehemently. The noble Lord said that the local authorities cannot have it both ways, but each authority has it only one way at a time. This is the kind of difficulty we are running into in this country with our schemes of nationalisation. It draws into sharp notice what will happen to local authorities when the payments to the nationalised undertaking are on a global basis. But there is no provision for compensating a local authority in whose area the nationalised undertaking increases its operations and uses more water. As I have said, I can see that the noble Lord is unhappy about this matter, and my noble friend will agree that this is hardly the place where we can amend the 1948 Act. But I trust that what has been raised to-night will be sufficient to draw to the notice of the Government the anomolies which are likely to arise through this difficulty.

LORD POLWARTH

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply. He appreciates the difficulty, and I can see that it would be a question of amending the 1948 Act. I think, however, that we should watch this position and see what the effect in fact is. Various local authorities may see in the course of a year or two whether in fact it is going to have a serious effect; and no doubt at the end of that time it may be possible to make some suitable alteration. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.