POST OFFICE BILL (Hansard, 16 March 1961)

§ LORD LATHAM
I gather that the noble Lord said, towards the end of his reply, that the Government were unable to accept my second Amendment. Is that so?

LORD ST. OSWALD
Yes: I thought it would be for the convenience of the noble Lord if I mentioned our attitude towards his second Amendment. The noble Lord can move only one at a time, but as he had thought it convenient to discuss both Amendments together I thought it proper to indicate our attitude towards both at the same time.

§ LORD LATHAM
Does that mean that the Government are prepared to accept my first Amendment, which provides as regards rateable property what already is provided as regards taxable property.

LORD ST. OSWALD
If I failed to answer that, I am sorry. I said that, in our opinion, the noble Lord's Amendment was totally unnecessary.

§ LORD LATHAM
I do not follow why it should be unnecessary as regards third party rating authorities and yet necessary as regards the Treasury and the Inland Revenue.

LORD ST. OSWALD
We consider it unnecessary because local authorities will continue to receive the amount they would receive under the noble Lord's Amendment.

§ LORD LATHAM
That is probably the situation with regard to tax; they continue to receive as they have formerly received. Why not have this for rates as well as for tax?

LORD ST. OSWALD
We have been discussing rates on this Amendment, not tax. I am only putting our arguments against the noble Lord's Amendments, which relate entirely to the rates of local authorities, and I have put the reasons we consider adequate for asking the noble Lord to withdraw his Amendment—that is, that it would not benefit local authorities or anyone else.

§ LORD LATHAM
That is quite unconvincing. For instance, paragraph 8 of the White Paper says: Unlike other publicly-owned industries, the Post Office remains a Crown department directly under a Minister and therefore will continue to be free from direct legal liability for the taxes and duties to which industry in general is subject. It is not intended however that the Exchequer should be deprived of what would accrue to it if Post Office activities were subject to normal tax law. The noble Lord has indicated that the Government cannot accept my second Amendment, but what objection could there be to a statement in the Act as regards rates similar to that which is in the Bill as regards taxes? What is the difference?

LORD ST. OSWALD
Neither the Treasury, in the form of taxes, nor the local authorities, in the form of rates, are going to lose by these provisions. They will have as much as they had before, and therefore we think that the provisions proposed by the noble Lord are unnecessary.

§ LORD LATHAM
Yes, but the Bill states it as regards taxes, but not as regards rates. That does not increase the confidence of local authorities in the fairness of the Treasury. What is the objection?

LORD ST. OSWALD
I cannot usefully go into any greater detail or add to what I have said already. I have explained, to the best of my perhaps inadequate ability, why this is not necessary, and the noble Lord has not explained to me, perhaps because of my inadequate ability to understand him, what local authorities would gain if his Amendment were passed.

§ LORD LATHAM
They would gain this. They would be in a much stronger position than they now are, or have been, in negotiating with the Treasury as regards the sums to be paid in lieu of the rates which would otherwise be payable by the Post Office. Their experience in the past has been more than a little unfortunate, to say the least of it. The noble Lord said that he could not follow my arguments. I thought they were fairly clear. He said that kiosks ought not to be rated because they are a public convenience. So are many other things. A coal depot is a public convenience.

LORD ST. OSWALD
But a coal depot is not run at a loss.

§ LORD LATHAM
A coal depot, as part of the Coal Board's activities, may involve a loss: indeed, the distribution of coal is involving the Coal Board in a considerable loss. Stations are a great public convenience. Should they be excluded because of that? This notion that because something is a public convenience it ought to escape rates is a little humorous. Hull pay rates on their kiosks.

LORD ST. OSWALD
But Hull do not pay a corresponding sum. They have a private telephone system of their own and, in those circumstances, pay rates on their property. But they do not pay their share of what the Treasury will be paying to local authorities and for which they would be reimbursed from the General Post Office.

§ LORD LATHAM
Precisely. Hull meet their liabilities for rates; the Treasury do not. The Treasury make a demand in lieu, and in the mind and the view of those concerned, the sum paid in lieu is not adequate. That is the difference. What I ask is: why should Hull be asked to pay on their separate 969 assessment in respect of a kiosk, when the General Post Office are exempt as regards its underground railway and as regards overhead wires? If you are going to put the Post Office on a commercial basis, put it on a commercial basis. Do not ask local government to subsidise it by inadequacy of rate demands by the Post Office. That will not be putting it on a commercial basis. I hoped that the Government would accept the first Amendment, which merely declares a situation which the noble Lord has stated the Government intend to take up and maintain.

LORD ST. OSWALD
What I have stated is that the local authorities are not to be the loser by it. It seems to me that the operative argument of what the noble Lord is saying is that what is to be paid by the Treasury, if it amounts only to the same as has been paid up to now, is not adequate. My information is that it is adequate, and local authorities consider that the £3½ million for Post Office property, plus £500,C00 for wires, some of which are no longer there, is perfectly adequate and a perfectly fair payment.

§ LORD SILKIN
I should not like it to be felt that my noble friend is fighting this battle all alone, because some of us are very much behind him. This is, in my view, a quite simple issue. It is recognised that the State pay rates in respect of Post Office buildings, which we are discussing, but their method of payment is to decide for themselves what is the right amount, and to pay a global sum. The object of this Amendment is that the Government should be in exactly the same position as anybody else: that they should be rated by the local authority: that, if they consider the rateable value excessive, they should have the right of appeal, which would be heard by an independent tribunal; and that whatever sum is finally fixed should be the amount they pay. It may be the same as they are paying to-day: it may be more or less. But that is not the point. It is the fact that the Government are taking upon themselves the arbitrary decision as to what they are going to pay—and in some cases obviously inadequately—that we feel should be questioned. We feel that since the Post Office is getting on to a com- 970 mercial basis in all other respects, it should also be on a commercial basis as regards rates.

LORD ST. OSWALD
I think the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, is being unfair in the use of the word "arbitrary". It is not an arbitrary payment, but something which is worked out between the Treasury and the local authorities. I should have thought, in all fairness, that the Treasury were a perfectly suitable arbiter and assessor to decide what the payment should be, what sum they would later have to collect from the Post Office. The Post Office has agreed that it will pay what the Treasury and the local authorities between them consider is a suitable amount.

§ LORD LATHAM
May I ask the noble Lord whether he has seen the recent correspondence between the local authority associations and the Treasury? If he had, he certainly could not say that it was not arbitrary. Then I should like to put another question to the noble Lord. He prayed in aid, in justification of the exclusion of the kiosks from rating, that they were making a loss. Is it the view of the Government that any undertaking making a loss should be exempt from rates?

LORD ST. OSWALD
No; so far as I know, it is not.

§ LORD LATHAM
So we single out the Post Office on a commercial basis.

LORD ST. OSWALD
We single out the provision of kiosks, which operate at a considerable loss but are in general demand. If it were decided, on commercial grounds, to withdraw these kiosks, it would be to the general detriment of public facilities.

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES
Unless any noble Lord wishes to speak on any of the remaining clauses in this Bill I propose, with the leave of the Committee, to put the question that Clauses 3 to 30 inclusive stand part of the Bill.