§ 3.45 p.m.
§ Debate resumed.
§ LORD LATHAMMy Lords, we now descend from the relatively rarefied atmosphere of nuclear energy to the relatively pedestrian problem of rating and valuation. I am sure that the House is greatly indebted to the noble Earl, Lord Munster, for his clear and concise, if decidedly brief, explanation of this Bill. Apart from his recognised talents in exposition, the noble Earl to-day, in dealing with the question of valuation, can usefully draw upon his past experience as a member for six years of the London County Council, which is always, if I may say so, a liberal education in local government affairs. I recall with pleasure that we were members of the 195 L.C.C. together. To remove misunderstanding I should say at once that, as here in your Lordships' House, so in County Hall, we were on opposite sides. From a proper sense of balance it fell out that for his first three years I was in opposition, but for his second three years he was in opposition. Now, in your Lordships' House, he is of the Government and I am of the Opposition; but I am encouraged by the knowledge that there are gathering outward and visible signs that time and circumstance may before long lead to a change in the location of us both in this House. So be it; the people giveth, the people taketh away; blessed be the name of the people!
My Lords, this is a bad Bill. It is bad because of the proposal contained in Clause 1. It is noteworthy that the noble Earl made practically no pretence whatever to defend the proposal contained in Clause 1. He may have to admit, with his accustomed intellectual honesty, that in fact there is no defence that can be made in regard to this clause, which is both objectionable and indefensible. It proposes to create a new class of ratepayer entitled to pay on only 80 per cent. of the assessed value of his premises, and the loss occasioned thereby will fall principally on the householder ratepayer. Moreover, this proposal will seriously complicate the rating system, which is already sufficiently complicated in all conscience.
Further, it is a patchwork proposal. Leaving aside for the moment the grave demerits of the proposal, why do it now, in the midst of the long overdue comprehensive review of local government finance, which we are told is well under way? Surely, if the position of the business ratepayer calls for special consideration (which I do not for one moment admit) it should be dealt with as a part of this review, and not as an ad hoc matter in advance of it. Instead. Her Majesty's Government, apparently yielding to pressures, are proposing forthwith to extend de-rating to another class of ratepayer, without any semblance of the justification which was prayed in aid for the de-rating of industry in 1929, which de-rating, I would recall, many of us engaged in local government at that time very strenuously opposed.
196 To-day, commercial activity and the consumer trades generally are not depressed, as industry was in 1929. On the contrary, they are booming and expanding—so much so that it has been thought necessary to impose a monetary squeeze upon them to restrain and curtail them. There is therefore, in my submission, no case on the grounds of economic need for this rebate to the business ratepayer. And as I have said, Her Majesty's Government are doing this at a time when they propose to reduce the de-rating of industrial premises. Really, my Lords, this is topsy-turvydom. This proposal will further distort the rating system on the very eve, as one hopes, of its greater rationalisation. From statements made by Ministers in another place, it appears that the review will take place this year. I therefore submit that the position is likely to be that, whatever new scheme of local government finance emerges from this review, it will have to be revised in 1961, when, as we are told, it is intended to bring to an end the proposed de-rating of business premises. This really is a muddle, moving, I fear, into a jumble.
Now what is the case put forward by Her Majesty's Government in justification of this proposal? It is that the assessments on shops and business premises have, as the noble Earl has stated, gone up by 125 per cent. and domestic premises by only 40 per cent.; and that the share of the former in the total rateable value is now one-third higher than it was. From this Her Majesty's Government argue that it is an injustice calling for redress. But is it an injustice? Let me examine the facts of this increase. It is an increase on assessments which are twenty years old, and which go back as far as 1934—assessments which, but for the war, would have been adjusted, and undoubtedly increased, in 1940 and at each subsequent quinquennial valuation. These new assessments made, I would stress, by independent valuers for the first time, do no more than bring the assessments of business premises up to the level of their current values—namely, the rents which such premises can currently command. Is that an injustice? On the contrary, I submit that it is an act of justice to correct gross under-assessments which business ratepayers have enjoyed for over fifteen years—through no fault 197 of their own, I readily admit; but from the circumstances of the case.
Nor are these assessments limited to old pre-war properties, for if am informed that in many cases the basis of old assessments has been applied on the first valuation in the old list to new buildings, on the ground that, although they command increased rents, they must be, and have been, valued in many cases by reference to the rateable value of surrounding properties. That is to say, these costly buildings, fetching high post-war rents, have been paying up to March, 1956, on assessments related to 1934.
This is also one of the inequities which the new assessments have corrected. Now, Her Majesty's Government propose to restore the inequity and to nullify this correction to the extent of 20 per cent., not at the expense of the de-rated industrial ratepayer (except as to 25 per cent.) but mainly at the expense of the domestic ratepayer, by reducing the rateable value of business and commercial premises by about £44 million. Her Majesty's Government are proposing to remedy an illusory injustice by imposing a real one on the residential ratepayer.
Nor is that the limit of injustice, for it is made the greater by the fact that the business ratepayer will recover up to 50 per cent. of his increase in rates, and in many cases more, from the Exchequer (because rates are a deduction from profits assessable to income tax and, as regards companies, to profits tax also), whereas the unhappy householder must pay his rates out of taxed income without any tax relief whatsoever. This is a consideration always to be borne in mind, for it is very material. The householder will subsidise the rates of businesses and, at the same time, will subsidise the National Exchequer. On the basis of the new valuation lists he is already doing this to the tune of £66 million a year, divided more or less equally between industry and the Exchequer, as a result of de-rating of industrial property.
The relief to be given to shops and business premises in reduced rateable value is estimated at £44 million, but only three-eighths of that will go to the shopkeeper; five-eighths will go to the business ratepayer. I mention that because most of the arguments which have been prayed in aid of this proposal have been based upon the supposed burdens 198 imposed upon shopkeepers. The shopkeepers, however, will get only three-eighths. As to the shops, a very large proportion, if not the greater proportion, will go to the chain, multiple and departmental stores, which own an ever-increasing proportion of shops and retail businesses.
It is said in justification of this proposal that under the old lists shops and other business properties provided 33 per cent. and domestic properties 60 per cent. of the rateable value, and that if this Bill goes through the proportions will be 36 per cent. and 52 per cent respectively. But these two comparative proportions take no account of the taxation relief that businesses will get; and, in any case, the old lists were twenty years out of date and grossly understated the real values of business properties. It has also been objected—indeed the noble Earl made an oblique allusion to it—that domestic properties are under-assessed on 1939 values; but those values are the actual current values, because of rent control. This 1939 basis for domestic properties was prescribed by an Act of 1948 and was reaffirmed by an Act of 1953. Both Governments are, therefore, committed to this basis for domestic properties. The values of 1939 for dwellings remain current because, as I have said, of rent control.
But there is no such rent control covering commercial properties, and, as everyone knows, the rents of these have gone up, not by 125 per cent. but by 200 per cent. or 300 per cent.—in some cases even more. Many of us renting this kind of premises, know how great these increases of rent have been. When the 1939 basis was approved in 1948 and confirmed in 1953 there was no intention or mention of granting any relief to business properties, although it was manifest to anyone informed on this matter that a revaluation on up-to-date rental values would inevitably result in heavy increases. But it would, nevertheless, do no more than bring assessments up to the current value basis, and would merely correct the prevailing gross under-assessment and the partial, but nevertheless substantial, relief from rates which businesses had been enjoying since 1940—that is for over fifteen years. Under this Bill, they will continue to pay until 1961 at 20 per cent. less than they should properly be required to do. Really, 199 is not this proposal getting pretty close to sharp practice—sharp practice on the domestic ratepayer and sharp practice on the local authorities, expressed as an uncovenanted gift to business and a subsidy to the Exchequer? All local government associations have protested strongly against this mischievous and indefensible proposal.
Local authorities have had to increase their rate poundages in order to off-set the loss of rate income which will result. These increases have ranged from 9d. in the £ to 2s. 1½d. The London County Council increase due to this factor and this factor alone—is no less than a 1s. rate. Over the metropolitan boroughs of London it will (including precepts) range from 1s. 4½d. in Westminster to 2s. 0½d. in Bethnal Green. As is not unusual, the poorer the districts, the poorer the people, the more do they normally suffer. As the Cockney would sigh: "They always cop it". And these unnecessary, unexpected and unjustified additional rate burdens are cast upon the harassed householders at the very time when other heavy increases of rates have arisen from the higher cost of municipal services, especially education and housing—the latter arising particularly from the reduction of subsidies and the high rates of interest flowing from the Government's ill-conceived financial policy. As I have said, everyone knew perfectly well that assessments based on values of twenty years ago would go up sharply. No one contemplated that because of that steps would be taken to vitiate to the extent of 20 per cent. this fair and overdue adjustment of assessments.
Why have the Government promoted this Bill? Not, I submit, because of any real injustice to the business ratepayer; for it is no injustice that he should be required henceforth to pay his fair share of rates based on current values. It may well be that he got a shock when he received his new assessment. But the measure of his shock was really the measure of his former under-assessment, which he had, rather providentially, been enjoying for some fifteen years. What this Bill does is not to redress a wrong: what it does is to do a wrong to the domestic ratepayer—a grievous wrong which can find no justification, I submit, either in 200 fairmindedness or in equity. In addition, it distorts in one more particular the rating system of the country, which is already something of a jig-saw puzzle. If this Bill goes through, the rating system will have these Alice in Wonderland characteristics. Agricultural land and farm premises derated 100 per cent.; industrial premises derated 75 per cent. (soon to be reduced to 50 per cent.); shops and miscellaneous premises derated 20 per cent.; premises used for charitable, educational and similar purposes having sundry abatements (or in some cases complete exemption) of rateable value; three nationalised undertakings with special bases of assessment. And, so far as one can judge from sundry Ministerial announcements and from this legislation, however much local government finance may be recast, these discordant and distorting elements will continue to form part of the rating system—industrial derating as a continuing feature at 50 per cent. from some unprescribed future date: commercial derating as proposed by this Bill until 1961 and maybe after, and the other anomalous elements mentioned to an uncertain future. What an untidy state of affairs! It is more of a hotch-potch than a system.
But let me return to the proposal to derate forthwith by 20 per cent. business properties. Apart from being unjustified on merits, it is also precipitate for another reason. As the Government well know, there are, up and down the country, thousands of appeals against these new assessments, of which, I gather, the majority are still outstanding and will not be settled for many months—maybe not this year. This is causing financial difficulty and embarrassment to the local authorities by reason of the loss of income received by them. But who can say what the cumulative result of these appeals may be? It may well be that they will greatly reduce the total of business assessments, thereby altering, maybe very appreciably, the proportions of rateable values between the two classes of property—it may be against the householder and in favour of the business ratepayer. Yet, if this be so, the business ratepayer will still get his 20 per cent. relief—if this Bill becomes an Act—on the reduced assessment. This will mean that he will, in fact, be paying rates on an assessment adjudged to be fair and proper on appeal but, 201 nevertheless, arbitrarily reduced by 20 per cent.
Even if the Government felt that they could not wholly and ultimately withstand the pressure of their friends and supporters, why, in modest decency, did they not wait at least until the appeals were generally dealt with, the new valuation lists were more or less settled and the real position were known, before they proceeded, with unbecoming haste, to give this concession of 20 per cent., which, in the result, may prove excessive even on the Government's own line of reasoning? Why, I ask, this overweening solicitude for one class of ratepayer at the expense of another? The Government have shown no such anxious regard for tenants in the matter of housing rents, despite the almost universal protests, the indignant force and expression of which is manifest in recent by-election results, and which will in no less vigorous a measure show itself, I do not doubt, in the by-elections still to take place. The householder has also expressed his opposition to this proposal. He has done this directly through his local government associations, whose business it is to protect his interests. Their opposition is unanimous and energetic to Clause 1 of the Bill. This is the objectionable, unjust and, indeed, indefensible clause to which my noble friends on this side of the House cannot give assent.
About the other clauses, I have little to say. Clauses 2 and 3, dealing with the three nationalised industries, are relatively unobjectionable. They purport to make certain adjustments of liability which are comparatively of a minor order and upon which I do not wish to say anything, at this stage at all events. As to Clause 4, this has the purpose, as the noble Earl said, of remedying a hardship in the calculation of equalisation grants in respect of rateable relief given to charities under Section 8 of the Rating and Valuation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1955. There can be no objection in principle, I think, to this.
Thus we are left with Clause 1. We on this side of your Lordships' House cannot concur in giving this Bill a Second Reading so long as this clause stands part. As I said at the outset, this Bill is a bad Bill. If passed, it will operate to do an injustice to the vast number of residential taxpayers. It is also precipitate. It 202 unnecessarily introduces another distorting element into the already distorted system of local rating. I feel bound to say, however, that it is all of a piece with the policy of Her Majesty's Government, which puts up the cost of living at a time when they hold out a desire to stabilise it on a so-called "plateau." If plateau there be, then it has all the characteristics, I submit, of a fast-moving lift with the changing attendants calling out, "Going up, going up?" With a determination which brooks no relent, they are busy in unison pushing the lift through the roof. I refrain from commenting on the fact that this seems to be one of the few fields where unity prevails among them; but we must draw the veil somewhere, even though it be only for pity's sake.
This Bill to increase the rate burden of the householder comes along with proposals to permit the increase of their rents by millions a year, to increase National Health Service contributions by something like £30 million a year, to increase the charge for school meals and to raise the cost of welfare milk by £14 million a year. A pretty piece of plateau stabilisation work, I must say! And, if you please, at the same time as this is being done, the public are being constantly deluged with ineffectual appeals to refrain from seeking wage and salary increases to meet these increasing expenses. Out of ingrained courtesy, I forbear from any reference to the Crazy Gang, but really, this is a crazy business, and the proposal in this Bill is not the least among its crazy elements. We on this side cannot assent to giving this Bill a Second Reading.
§ 4.16 p.m.
§ LORD JESSELMy Lords, I cannot follow the noble Lord, Lord Latham, in any L.C.C. reminiscences, as I was never a member of that body, but my father for years played a great part in local government in London and I can assure the noble Lord that for many years I heard of his activities. Therefore, I am not at all surprised to-day to listen to his slashing and, if I may say so, rather wandering attack on this Bill.
I should like to make a few remarks on one aspect of Clause 1. As the noble Earl, Lord Munster, has said, the object of Clause 1 is to reduce by one-fifth the rateable values of shops, offices and other commercial properties. There is one group 203 of commercial properties which, it appears to me, have been kept outside the scope of this clause—namely, advertising stations, where hoardings are erected for advertisements, and piers at the seaside. They are commercial properties just like shops. Why have these been excluded from the benefit of this 20 per cent. reduction? I am told that advertising stations have had their valuations increased by as much as 167 per cent., and the highest increase in the valuation of shops is 120 to 125 per cent. Yet these properties, which have had their assessments increased by 167 per cent., are not going to get the benefit of the 20 per cent. concession under this Bill. I would ask Her Majesty's Government to reconsider the case of these types of property. I would go no further at this moment, as I have hopes that the noble Earl may consider this problem sympathetically; but, in case he does not, I feel that I should make it clear that I reserve the right to put down an Amendment on Committee stage if necessary.
§ 4.19 p.m.
§ LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCHMy Lords, this is the latest of a long series of Bills amending the basis of the rating system, and it certainly will not be the last. As my noble friend Lord Latham has said, the rating system has become extremely erratic and arbitrary. Its original basis, whether just or unjust, was at any rate comparatively simple: it was, an assessment of the annual value of an immovable property, according to what it was deemed to be capable of being let for in its existing condition. Since 1896, however, when agricultural land was derated by 50 per cent., there have been a succession of alterations. In 1923, agricultural land was derated by 75 per cent.; then in 1929 industrial and freight transport hereditaments were derated by 75 per cent., and agricultural land completely. Now we have a basis of assessment in which some property is rated upon a pre-war value and some is rated upon a present-day value; and, in addition, shops and commercial properties are now to be rated upon 80 per cent. of their current value. There is no economic justification for all these various adjustments in the basis of local taxation. The Government, apparently, are going to deal presently with the derating of industrial properties, and are going to 204 diminish it. But it is all completely arbitrary; there is no economic basis underlying it of any pattern whatsoever.
It is true that the basis of local taxation is open to criticism, but the defects cannot be remedied by the kind of means which have been adopted in the past. The basis of criticism is of an entirely different nature. It is that an assessment of a movable property is an assessment of two totally different things: it is an assessment of the land, and also of the permanent improvements which are placed upon it. There is undoubtedly a long history, not only in this country but in many other countries of local taxes being based upon a valuation of immovable property. That basis certainly has the advantage of being related to something which is peculiar to the locality, and undoubtedly it is far more equitable than such devices as excise duties or other taxation upon commodities, or attempts to localise income tax or inheritance duties.
But it still remains the fact that the basis of local taxation, in not discriminating between the value of the site and that which is placed upon it, is inherently faulty. It has the effect, especially as it is operated in this country where the assessment is related to the existing use of property, entirely disregarding its potentialities for better use, of exempting the valuable property which is undeveloped; of giving, in effect, a partial exemption to old, obsolete properties, whether commercial or slums, or what they may be, and, conversely, of imposing a penalty of higher taxation upon the improvement and the redevelopment of land. That is entirely a mistake. It is, in effect, a tax imposed upon a commodity of universal consumption—dwellings in which people live; shops, offices, factories and other business premises in which they carry on their industries—which becomes, in effect, an increase in the one case, in the cost of living, and in the other an increase in the cost of production.
It is surely high time that, instead of bringing in periodically these entirely arbitrary adjustments of the rateable values of certain classes of property, the Government gave serious consideration to what, after all, has been done in many countries 205 already; that is to say, separating the value of the site from the value of the improvement; and imposing a uniform rate upon the value of the site and reducing the amount which falls upon the improvements. There is ample precedent and experience for such a course. It is done in most of the British Dominions; it is done in Denmark, in parts of the United States and in other countries. It is practicable and simple; it has given satisfaction where it has been adopted, and it is fortified by economic arguments of a simple and decisive character. In the study which is being given to local government financial reform, here is something of a constructive nature which ought to receive attention, so that we can put our system of local rating upon a coherent and scientific basis. For those reasons, as well as for the reasons given by my noble friend Lord Latham, I too am entirely opposed to this Bill.
§ 4.28 p.m.
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWELMy Lords, I have only a few words to say as the last speaker on this side of the House. I think your Lordships will agree, however much some noble Lords may have differed from the views expressed by my noble friend Lord Latham, that he made a quite exceptionally able speech—such a speech as one would expect from someone with an outstanding experience of local government finance. Indeed, he has left little for other speakers to add to the case he made. My only regret is that all the opponents of the Bill seem to have been kitting on this side of the House, because I am sure that the objections to this Bill, on grounds of local government finance and social justice, are even more important than the political objection to the policy of the Government which has been raised by the Opposition here this afternoon. I am sorry that sonic other noble Lords—and so many noble Lords are independent in these matters—did not criticise this Bill purely from the angles of local government finance and the desirability of having a just proportion of the burden of rating between different sections of the community.
I should like to endorse what my noble friend Lord Latham said about the effect of Clause 1 of this Bill on London. The essential unfairness of this clause is that the ordinary householder in London will 206 have to carry the rate burden carried until now by non-industrial buildings—or, to be quite accurate, the major part of the rate burden. This unfairness will be felt more acutely in London than in many other towns in other parts of the country, because so large a proportion of rateable property in London consists of shops, offices, public buildings, banks and so on, all of which will have their rateable value reduced by one-fifth. The effect of this Bill, as the Minister said in another place, will be to reduce the total rateable value of England and Wales by about 7 per cent.; but the reduction of what a 1d. rate will produce in the county of London will be about 12½ per cent.
To-day is Budget Day for the County of London. To-day we (I say "we," because I have the honour to be a member of the London County Council at the present time) are asking Londoners face the higher rate which we feel obliged to impose in order to meet our increased expenditure. The Council are being asked to increase the present rate to a figure for the coming year which will be higher by 2s. 4d. in the £. The ratepayer in London will therefore have to find a record figure of 9s. in the £ for the County rate. Of this extra 2s. 4d. on the present London rate, 1s. 4d. will be needed to cover the higher cost of running the Council's services, while 1s., as my noble friend Lord Latham mentioned, will be an increase due directly and entirely to the 20 per cent. reduction in the rating of shops and offices proposed in Clause 1 of this Bill.
It seems to me, as I am sure it must to any fair-minded person, grossly unjust that this tax burden should be shifted from the onus of commercial and office property to the London householder. It is unfair because it could easily have been avoided if the Government had waited until the increase of rateable value in industry had come into effect, or, better still, until there had been a general review of local government finance. The second objection is that this method of altering rateable value is contrary to a reasonable system of local government finance. Why are we getting these piecemeal alterations in rateable value? Industry is about to go up, and commercial premises are about to go down. Surely, it would have been far better to wait 207 until all classes of property were assessed according to their current value, and then rate relief could be given as desired in relation to real social need. I cannot help wishing that the Government had been willing to wait for a proper and considered review of local government finance, which would at last bring uniformity into our rating system. With those few words, I strongly support the case that has been made by noble Lords who sit on this side of the House.
§ 4.33 p.m.
§ THE EARL OF MUNSTERMy Lords, I rise for only a very few moments to reply to this debate, and to try to answer some of the questions that have been addressed to me. The House will not be surprised when I say that the noble Lord, Lord Latham, expressed views with which I think the greater mass of the Members of this House would profoundly disagree. To say, as he did, that Her Majesty's Government are giving birth to a separate body of ratepayers has, in point of fact, no foundation in evidence at all. The noble Lord knows far better than I do that houses are already separately assessed on a completely different basis—namely, at their 1939 values. Industry is paying on current value, but at only 25 per cent. of its full rating and agriculture is not rated at all. The shops and offices had been singled out, as we see it, for specially severe treatment.
What in point of fact happened was this. The assessments on businesses, offices and shops were, as I have said, increased by an average of over 120 per cent., which will undoubtedly cause serious financial burdens and embarrassments to many of the smaller shops and businesses. Indeed, no other class of ratepayer—none which the noble Lord, Lord Latham, cited, and none which the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, cited—has, in fact, been asked to pay on that basis. One of the complaints which was raised by all noble Lords who have spoken, except my noble friend Lord Jessel, was: Why should Her Majesty's Government give this relief by a small measure such as the one I have presented to-day? The answer, I think, is very simple, and one which I endeavoured to give in my observations when I moved the Second Reading. We were satisfied that the revaluation which took place transferred too 208 large a share of the rate burden on to shops and offices, and we considered that it should not be allowed to continue for a further year—indeed, it might have continued until the next quinquennial, which would take place in 1961.
The noble Lord also pointed out that the increases in assessments are the first which have occurred for, I think he said, a period of twenty years, and that that merely brings the assessments up to current levels—in other words, we are correcting an under-assessment. That is perfectly true. I would not quarrel with the noble Lord at all, but the injustice here arises because houses which were also greatly under-assessed have not been brought up to their current levels. When they are brought up to their current levels, the need for this temporary relief will disappear. That is why it is only temporary, and that is why it expires altogether, if I may use that expression, in 1961.
Another remark which we have heard to-day is that Clause 1 of this Bill is grossly unfair to householders. I wonder if it is? Householders will still be bearing a share of the burden which is 13 per cent. smaller in this coming year, 1957–58, than it was before the revaluation which took place in 1955–56. Those shops and other premises which we are relieving by this Bill will still be bearing a share 13 per cent. larger than it was before revaluation occurred. It seems to me that it is only right that, in these circumstances, the Government should endeavour to remedy an obvious injustice by doing justice to that particular class of occupier.
§ LORD LATHAMMay I interrupt the noble Earl? Is not a large proportion of that 13 per cent. due to the expansion of commerce, and not necessarily due to higher assessments of individual property?
§ THE EARL OF MUNSTERI could not break down the figure of 13 per cent. any further. There is always a difficulty when one gets into these percentages. The ones I quoted must be percentages over the country as a whole. It may well be that part of it is due to larger business premises, or an increase in business premises, and the other part to the erection of a large number of houses since the assessment was made twenty years 209 ago. But I could not at the moment break down those figures any further.
It was also suggested that there may be a large number of appeals. We were asked: why not wait and see what the appeals decisions are like, and how many have been received? By the end of December, so I am informed, nearly 350,000 proposals to reduce assessments had been settled, and scrutiny of the results achieved indicates clearly that the broad distribution of the rate burden indicated in the White Paper published a short time ago is not likely to be materially disturbed. The noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, raised the subject of rating of site values. He will, I hope, forgive me if I do not go into that matter on this occasion, because it has nothing whatever to do with this Bill. But on any other occasion I should be quite prepared to argue with the noble Lord in this House whether or not the rating of site values would be a useful addition to the rating system.
I could not help thinking, having known the noble Lord, Lord Latham, so long, that, with his eye on the local elections which are so near, the noble Lord and his colleague in front of him perhaps felt it politically expedient at this moment to impress upon the electors as best they could that almost the whole of the increase in the rate poundage in local authority areas can be traced entirely to Clause 1 of this measure.
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWELI am sure the noble Earl did not wish to misrepresent me. I was not thinking of local elections. Indeed, I dealt with London; and in London, as the noble Earl is aware, there will be no elections for another year.
§ THE EARL OF MUNSTERI beg the noble Earl's pardon. I am talking about the other elections which are due to take place in this country from April onwards. As I say, knowing the noble Lord, Lord Latham, so well and knowing his art of conducting politics even better, I am quite certain that he hoped to be able to impress upon the electors that the whole of this increase in the rate poundage can be traced to this measure.
§ LORD LATHAMI never said that.
§ THE EARL OF MUNSTERI did not say that the noble Lord did say that.
§ LORD LATHAMThe noble Earl got as near to saying it as is possible.
§ THE EARL OF MUNSTERI said I could not help thinking, knowing the noble Lord so well, that that was possibly at the back of his mind.
§ LORD LATHAMI am comforted by the noble Earl's compliments.
§ THE EARL OF MUNSTERPerhaps what he really required to do was to cover up the maladministration of so many Socialist-controlled councils. What he was seeking to achieve I am not clear. The noble Lord, Lord Jessel, asked me whether piers and hoardings come under Clause 1 of the Bill. The answer is that they do not. My right honourable friend would not be prepared at the moment to extend that clause to cover this particular point. I hope I have answered some of the more important questions addressed to me, and trust that your Lordships will now give the Bill a Second Reading.
§ On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.