HL Deb 20 June 1961 vol 232 cc499-504

3.4 p.m.

Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.

Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Craigton.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly.

[The LORD MERTHYR in the Chair.]

Clause 1 [Amendment of s. 339 of 10 & 11 Geo. 6., c. 43]:

LORD HUGHES moved, in the proposed new subsection (1 A), in paragraph (c), to leave out "in Scotland or directly affecting persons residing in Scotland". The noble Lord said: I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name. The purpose of this Amendment is quite simple. It is to restore in its entirety the powers which Scottish local authorities had prior to 1956. Your Lordships will recollect that on Second Reading we were informed that the need for this Bill arose from advice which the Secretary of State had received in 1956, when local authorities sought to make contributions for Hungarian relief. The advice was that it could not properly be done out-with their own immediate areas.

The Bill, among other things, makes it possible for local authorities to contribute to funds raised in certain circumstances, but limited to Scotland itself. It is only in that direction that the Bill does not restore the powers formerly possessed by the Scottish local authorities. Your Lordships may recollect that on Second Reading I said that I thought the Bill was not necessary and would not have been necessary if the Secretary of State had not been badly advised in 1956. I have had the most unexpected, but strong, confirmation of that point of view only yesterday upstairs, where I am sitting as a member of a Committee. In justification of a clause of a Bill which is before your Lordships' House counsel stated: The words 'in their opinion' are put in for this reason. If those words were not in, if it just read"— so and so— then it would be open to anyone to challenge that in the courts, because it could be said in this particular case it was not for the proper discharge of their duties, and therefore an uncertainty is created in regard to that. There is a lot of precedent for these words. If the words 'in their opinion' are put in, provided the authority acts bona fide, then you cannot go behind them. If, of course, it does not act bona fide in this, then you can go behind it; but putting in that precludes everything in fact being capable of being challenged in the courts. I have drawn counsel's attention to-day to the fact that the Secretary of State was advised five years ago that these words, in Scotland at any rate, do not have the importance that apparently attach to them here.

I am afraid that, so far as the special purposes in Scotland were concerned, it has gone beyond redemption. I therefore appeal to the Minister to accept the Amendment which I have proposed. The only argument advanced against it in another place, and on Second Reading, is that it is desirable to place the boundary somewhere. It struck me that "boundary" had another meaning than just geographical, and I looked up the exact meaning in the Library. It is quite simply defined as: That which serves to indicate the limits of anything; the limit itself. This power is limited in other ways. In the first instance, the local authorities can do these things only provided they receive the consent of the Secretary of State. That is the first limit which is imposed. Secondly, they can do so only provided the expenditure for this purpose and on purposes (a) and (b) of the section, and for the other purposes of Section 339 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1947, are all comprised within a limit of a twopenny rate. That is the second boundary which is applied.

It therefore seems to me that there is no reason to import this third boundary, because the geographical boundary is one which is quite unnecessary in this day and age, surely as between England and Scotland. When the Scottish Office, in the memorandum which was issued, consulted the Scottish local authority associations about their intention to seek amending legislation, the attention of local authorities was directed to the fact that the Secretary of State proposed to retain the limitation of the twopenny rate and retain the limitation that he must approve expenditure—at least, so I am informed. But I am also informed that in that memorandum there is no indication at any place of the Secretary of State's intention to import a limitation within the Scottish border. So that, from that point of view, the local authorities in Scotland have not been consulted. It would therefore be quite improper to suggest that that is what they want. I believe, that it would be reasonable to do as my Amendment proposes.

I do not imagine that the Scottish local authorities are going to start throwing their money about, left, right and centre, for English objects, no matter how desirable they may be: it is not believed that that is quite in the Scottish character. But there have in the past been occasions when in Scotland we have wished to show our support when considerable disasters have taken place outwith our own borders. What I envisage taking place in that connection is that, as has frequently happened in the past, on those occasions when the Lord Mayor of London finds it necessary to open a National Fund the Lord Provost of Edinburgh will open a Scottish equivalent to which many local authorities would wish to contribute.

I do not wish to suggest to your Lordships that the contribution made from the rate funds to these disaster funds are a major part of the monies ultimately realised. For instance, the Broughty Ferry Lifeboat Disaster Fund, brought in not only from the area involved, not only from Scotland or the United Kingdom, but from all over the world, a sum of money which, within a period of five weeks, when the fund closed, approached £100,000. The contribution which the local authorities made from the rate fund, which was made immediately, within twelve hours, of the disaster taking place, was —2,000—only 2 per cent. of the total. But its importance lay in the fact that it gave an immediate lead to the generosity of the citizens from whom the bulk of the money for these funds must come. I am quite certain that if such a move were made in Scotland on projects such as I have indicated, the lead which would be given by the local authorities would be followed by the citizens, by the prominent companies and firms, and the like; and at the end of the day what the local authorities put in would have value, not from the amount of their contribution but from the lead which they had given. In those circumstances I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, will find it possible to accept this Amendment in the spirit in which I have moved it.

Amendment moved— Page 1, line 20, leave, out ("in Scotland or directly affecting persons residing in Scotland")—(Lord Hughes.)

LORD CRAIGTON

I have listened with a great deal of sympathy to what the noble Lord has had to say. Although this is a comparatively small matter, I can assure him that since he raised it on Second Reading it is one which has given us much anxious thought. But in supporting the Bill as it stands, I think I must first satisfy your Lordships that the Scottish local authorities need have no fear that they will be in any worse a position, so far as the general law is concerned, than the local authorities South of the Border. I think I should, therefore, make clear what the English position is. The general power of local authorities in England and Wales to contribute to other bodies is contained in Section 136 of the Local Government Act, 1948, and is limited to the making of contributions to bodies carrying on activities within the area of the authority concerned. Some local authorities have taken powers in private Act which are in rather wider terms. Furthermore, under Section 228 of the Local Government Act, 1933, the Minister of Housing and Local Government may sanction items of expenditure which might otherwise be disallowed by the district auditor because they were contrary to law. Sanctions of this kind are granted only where the circumstances are exceptional and have only been granted for giving to England and Wales. That is the English position.

The noble Lord is correct in saying that the restriction which he seeks to cancel was not mentioned when the local authority associations were consulted about this Bill, although the omission, I can assure him, was certainly not an intentional one. But the matter was fully ventilated during the Second Reading in another place and neither his friends nor mine sought to put down such an Amendment in Committee. We could assume from this that there was no pressure either way from the Scottish local authorities, but after the noble Lord raised the point I have taken steps to ascertain the local authorities' views. The noble Lord, with his great knowledge of local authority work in Scotland, will know that I could obtain no more than an indication in the time available.

The County Councils' Association, whom we have consulted, say they would be opposed to his Amendment, and three of the cities would be opposed, because they were opposed to any extension of Section 339. The City of Glasgow, whom we consulted, appear to take the same attitude towards this Amendment as they did to the Bill as a whole: they cannot be said to be either for it or against it. Although there has not been time for him to consult his members, the Clerk of the Convention of Royal Burghs, with whom we spoke, considers that the burghs would not agree with the noble Lord. One provost of a large burgh with whom I talked endorsed this opinion.

My Lords, what is the real position here? Section 339 deals with the spending of ratepayers' money within the area for the many small purposes not covered by other Acts, and, after this Bill is passed, the spending of ratepayers' money for charitable purposes within the area and within Scotland. There is no suggestion that money should never be given to charities and disaster funds outside Scotland—only that Section 339 is not the right channel. If the local authority feels that money should be given, many of them have a common good fund. If they have not, or if they feel so inclined, the councillors can themselves promote activities to gather special funds for the purpose. Clearly a line has to be drawn somewhere between the case where the majority of ratepayers generally will want their council to contribute from the rates and the case where local feeling is sufficiently satisfied by individual contributions from those who feel specially concerned. In the case of a Scottish Bill it does seem right to draw the line at the Border. My Lords, that is the position. The majority of Scottish local authorities do not want this Amendment. For this and for the other reasons I have given I must advise your Lordships to reject the Amendment; and I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw it.

LORD HUGHES

I am sorry, I do not with to withdraw the Amendment. In the first instance, I am quite certain that the consultation which has taken place has not (because time has prevented it) been other than a consultation with officers of the three local authorities' associations. The difficulty of having consultation with some 300 burghs, some 30-odd county councils and the members of the Association of Counties of Cities has made it impossible for the views of any of the local authorities to be ascertained. I should think the nearest approach to the real ascertainment of local authorities' opinion, was the opinion of the provost of the burgh who was personally consulted by the Minister. I am not surprised that the Minister has not accepted my Amendment, because I did not fail to notice that the next stage of the Bill, as printed in Business for this week, is the Third Reading on Thursday, not a Report of an Amendment. So there was an assumption that there would be no Amendment to report. I therefore cannot express any astonishment. All I can do is express regret that what I have put forward as a perfectly reasonable position, one with which the local authorities were perfectly happy from 1947 until 1956, when the power was suddenly withdrawn from them, should not now be restored to them by the amending legislation. I feel that I should not be doing my duty, as I see it, if I withdrew my Amendment.

On Question, Amendment negatived.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Remaining clauses agreed to.

House resumed: Bill reported without amendment.