HL Deb 03 December 1974 vol 355 cc71-81

3.8 p.m.

Lord CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. In moving the Second Reading of this Bill for the third time, I feel somewhat inhibited. To make my speech too short would be presuming that your Lordships would do what you have done twice already and give it an unopposed Second Reading, and I do not wish to be presumptuous; by the same token, I never want to be too long. However, I am now dealing in this matter with the fourth Minister. The first was the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, then the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, God rest his soul, then the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, and now the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt. I welcome him, not least because he comes from my alma mater, Oxford, but more specifically because he comes from Exeter College, with which my family have had connections going back 400 years. Doubtless, today, he will try to educate me in the bureaucratic reasons for not doing what I and my friends consider to be eminently suitable and desirable. I shall endeavour to educate him in the social necessity and justice of my cause.

The Bill aims to allow a small, often isolated, community whose only village centre is the school hall to retain it rather than allow it to be sold to the highest bidder and the proceeds to go elsewhere in the diocese. There are dozens of examples in my file from all over the country, but I will quote again to your Lordships as an example our local community; and remember that I can quote, as I have on other occasions, many other examples where it can be proved that the villagers themselves built and paid for the hall in the first place.

In 1856 a certain Mr. Templer gave a plot of land to be a site for the village school hall. I produced the deeds for your Lordships at the first Second Reading. The local inhabitants clubbed together, my ancestor giving about the biggest dollop, and provided the school hall. To cut my story short, for 118 years that hall has been the meeting place of everything to do with the parish—the parish council, the youth club, the Sunday School (a part specifically mentioned in the original deed for the gift of the land), the keep-fit class, the Women's Institute, in fact the lot. We have no other meeting place. There is nowhere else to go in the evening except the pub, and the bar there is not large enough to hold the Women's Institute—not that I think it would be suitable anyway. The bus service to Newton Abbot runs twice a week in the afternoon.

In July, 1973, they closed the school and under the rules of the Education Act 1944 the school hall, our parish hall, was to be handed over to the diocesan board of finance to sell to the highest bidder. We all know that the 1944 Act was repealed by the 1973 Act, but Section 2 of that Act carries on the same function. My first complaint was, and is, to ask what right anyone has to hand over somebody else's hall to the diocesan board of finance? If one asks the bureaucrats the answer one receives is, "It's the law". That was the answer which the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, gave when I asked a question 18 months ago. The noble Earl, Lord Onslow, then rose and said, "Then change the law". This is what this Bill is trying to do. But it is no use the Minister saying (when I say the Minister I am referring to the collective body) on 18th January at column 102, that the Church does not like being cast in the role of Shylock when the parrotlike answer I received from the solicitor to the diocesan board of finance, as well as from each Minister in turn, was "It's the law". I can refer your Lordships to the Merchant of Venice, Act 1, scene 4, which contains the words: I stand here for the law; you know the law; I charge you by the law.…. Secondly, my Lords, I should like to know what moral right anyone has to take away the heart of a small community? The great grandson of the James Templer who gave the land on which we built the hall wrote to me as follows: I can only say that my great grandfather who was by no means a wealthy man would turn in his grave if he knew the sacrifice he made for Ideford … was to be sold to the highest bidder without any regard to the local community. While I appreciate that he was not the largest contributor he did contribute the only asset he had, which was land. To sell the land now under these Acts can be described only as immoral and little short of legalised plunder.

My Lords, there are many such places—small, isolated, comparatively impoverished—and many of them felt in a hopeless situation until the BBC in an item on Nationwide showed the village, including the only centre, the activities that go on there, and an interview with myself explaining what I was hoping to achieve by this Bill. Since then we have been inundated with examples from all over the country. People I do not know have come up to me to ask me, "Has the village saved its hall?" I am sure that I must be looked on as a pain in the neck by the bureaucrats for persisting in this, but if they and the Minister have any heart—which I begin to doubt-surely they must see what a worm I would feel if I let down these small communities and people, if I did not make one last attempt to persuade big brother Govemment to listen to the pleas of the far off peasantry.

In the last Second Reading I quoted Kipling's description of Norman and Saxon. He said: The Saxon is not like us Normans, His manners are not so polite; But he never means anything serious till he, Talks about justice and right; When he stands like an ox in the furrow, With his sullen set eyes on your own; And grumbles ' This ain't fair dealing, My son leave the saxon alone'. My noble friend Lord Fortescue, having read of the intervention of the Bishops, finished it off by sending me another couple of lines from the same poem. It reads: Be polite, but not friendly to Bishops Be kind to all poor parish priests. In our case our local rector has been in the forefront of our fight to save the hall. For one thing he would have nowhere else to go for his Sunday School; this was a point specifically mentioned in the deed of Mr. Templer.

That brings me to the point which I should have thought would really appeal to the present Front Bench. When the Tories were to bring in museum charges, the Labour Party argued again and again that many of the exhibits were given by private donors for free exhibition to the local populace. I agree with that argument, especially when applied to this case. I am sufficiently old fashioned to believe that wills and trusts should not be interfered with and that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I quoted previously what was said by the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord De L'Isle, when writing to me on the subject. He wrote: Government departments simply love engrossing property which is originally the result of private charity. Surely the Minister should be warned.

My Lords, I have a long list of similar places which have been lost, which are being lost and which could be lost to local communities, and it would take me a month of Sundays to go through all the letters I have about these problems. But I should like to read one letter—an umbrella to the lot—from the Secretary of the National Association of Local Councils, formerly the National Association of Parish Councils. He writes: Education (Amendment) Bill. Dear Lord Clifford, I understand from the village halls department of the National Council of Social Service that you are reintroducing your Bill to enable communities to have special preference in purchasing for community use a disused school to which the community has in the past subscribed Our Association would very much support such a provision because we have seen examples of schools which have been very suitable for a village hall being sold at the market price, to the anger of all the inhabitants, and at considerable expense in fund raising or borrowing, although the original cost of the building has been subscribed by the inhabitants. The price at which the school is sold is then not devoted to charitable purposes in the village but over some much wider area. If we can help you in any way with the campaign for your Bill please let us know. (Signed) Secretary. My Lords, it would take too long to read all the letters, but I may have a go at place names when I am winding up if the Minister should suggest that I am referring only to isolated cases, although I suggest he take my word and avoid an all-night Sitting. On a point which I think was originally raised by the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, one barrister writes from 11, New Square, Lincolns Inn, that having often dealt with cases within the School Sites Act he has no doubt that inequitable and often successful efforts are made to defeat the statutory reverter under the third proviso to Section 2 of the 1841 Act. I quote: Sometimes such efforts are made or fomented by diocesan boards of finance. Their reputation does not I think stand well with many a well-intentioned successor of Victorian donors. That, I would reckon, was the understatement of the year. He goes on: Nevertheless it is dangerous stuff"— here he is referring to a certain Bishop's maiden speech— seemingly to put administrative convenience before the ethic of equity. I should like to repeat that statement: … seemingly to put administrative convenience before the ethic of equity. He goes on: It is noted that the Education Department Under-Secretary drew a distinction between school sites which revert and those that do not. In the former alternative, however, he failed to acknowledge the unedifying efforts made by authority to defeat the reverter and in the latter he made a false point of law. This letter was dated 30th January, so your Lordships can work out which Second Reading the writer was referring to, but the advisers are still the same. He then encloses the solicitor's letter for the National Society published in Law Notes of 1956, and further comments: You will observe the devious machinery commonly employed to ensure that the statutory reverter under Section 2 is defeated by an unintended use of Section 14 of the 1841 Act. My Lords, I feel that this is not the time or the place to argue the niceties of the law. But I think that this is the time and place for us to take the advice given in our previous debates by several noble Lords such as the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, and, during the Committee stage, the noble Lord, Lord Raglan; that is, that all parties concerned should come together to solve this problem under Government aegis and that if this Bill is wrongly drafted it is for the Government to have their experts draft it properly. It is because this advice has not been taken that I am left with no alternative but to go on with my Bill (poor thing though it may be; but 'tis not solely mine own) if only not to let down the large number of people who look to your Lordships' House to right an injustice. To my mind legalised robbery of the heart of a small community stands very high in the list of crimes against society. My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Clifford of Chudleigh.)

3.24 p.m.

The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord CROWTHER-HUNT)

My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, for the kind remarks he made about myself and about our joint West Country links. May I say, too, how much I appreciate both the determination and the restraint with which the noble Lord is carrying on this fight from Minister to Minister. We are like a series of moving targets for him, but I appreciate both the determination and the restraint which he is displaying.

As the noble Lord said, this is the third occasion on which the House has been asked to give a Second Reading to the Bill which he has introduced for the amendment of Section 2 of the Education Act 1973. Both the principles of the noble Lord's Bill and the very substantial practical problems to which it gives rise have been fully debated on both previous occasions. Like the noble Lord, on this occasion I think I shall be justified in putting the Government's views before the House in a rather shorter form than might have been appropriate if this had been the first occasion on which we had been considering the matter. I will do my best in this context to avoid "bureaucratic arguments", against which the noble Lord carefully warned me.

I do not want to follow on the question of the merits of the case which has given rise to the introduction of the Bill. The decision of which the noble Lord complains was taken 25 years ago under a Statute which is now repealed, and was done in accordance with a practice which, as my predecessor explained from these Benches on the last occasion when the Bill was debated, the Department has subsequently and substantially modified. A further point is that there is now pending a statutory public inquiry into an appeal against the refusal of planning permission to develop the land on which the school is situated. So those are good reasons for not going into these points now.

But, in any case, this is not a private local Bill to put right what may or may not have gone wrong in the village of Ideford some 25 years ago. It is a public General Bill of general application and I want very much to deal with the general issues which it raises, which, of course, was also the import of the noble Lord's speech. I shall have to refer to what happened at Ideford, and, in particular to the trusts on which the village school there was held, in order to deal with some of the specific points which have been raised. But I do not accept that one can usefully generalise from what happened there. What is true of a voluntary school in the rural areas of Devon is not necessarily true of a voluntary school in the heart of Mayfair—and there is a voluntary school in the heart of Mayfair—nor is it true of a voluntary school in what was a rural area and has now become part of an urban complex.

In what I say, my Lords, I shall be critical of the provisions of the Bill that the noble Lord is bringing forward, and I want, therefore, to make it clear at the outset that what I have to say is not intended to imply any lack of sympathy for the community at Ideford with which the noble Lord is concerned. I gladly repeat, with all the emphasis which he gave them, the words of my predecessor, that the Government fully recognise the importance of that part played in community life by village halls and community centres. In particular, the Government recognise that the buildings of the village school often serve this purpose out of school hours.

So I come to the general issue raised by the Bill. The Bill, as the noble Lord said, amends Section 2 of the Education Act 1973. That section reproduces the substance of Section 86 of the Education Act 1944, which was enacted for the specific purpose of retaining within the public sector of education the endowments (including the proceeds of the sale of premises) of discontinued denominational voluntary schools. Statutory provision was required for this, because the ordinary law of charitable trust would have required the endowments of closed Anglican schools to be applied for purposes of denominational education in the village or parish in which the school had been situated; that is, that generally speaking they would have had to be applied for the purposes of a Sunday school. The same problem did not arise with Roman Catholic and Free Church schools which were to be discontinued, because the trusts under which such schools are provided are not usually limited in the geographical area of their application. This would have meant that as village schools closed there would have been a serious loss of the investment of the Church of England in the public sector and, indirectly, a serious loss of public funds spent on the maintenance of the schools concerned since the commencement of the dual system.

Section 86 of the 1944 Act accordingly enabled schemes to be made for the endowments to these schools to be applied by the appropriate diocesan committee or board for the purposes of aided schools elsewhere in the diocese. As I have said, Section 2 of the 1973 Act reproduces this provision of the 1944 Act, and the present position therefore—and this is the starting point, it seems to me, of the consideration we need to give to this Bill—is that when the premises of denominational voluntary schools are closed the Secretary of State can make a scheme authorising the local diocesan authority to sell the premises and apply the proceeds of the sale to the provision and maintenance of other denominational schools in the diocese. That is our starting point in looking at the changes which this Bill proposes.

In many cases buildings on the sites of schools established in the 19th century were financed by public subscription, and what the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Clifford, would do is to enable the scheme made by the Secretary of State to require the diocesan authority in such cases to offer the premises to the representatives of the local community at less than the market price, and provide for the use of the premises for purposes which are neither educational nor religious. By definition these schools are Church schools, and their endowments are held for the purposes of denominational education. As a practical matter, practically all the schools with which these schemes are concerned are schools provided in the 19th century which have been maintained wholly or partly at public expense throughout the whole of the 20th century. They represent a substantial investment by the Churches in the public sector of education, and a great deal of public money has been spent on them.

If no special provision had been made for them in 1944, as the schools closed and were replaced by modern schools, in the great majority of cases this investment in the public sector would have been lost. So that Section 86 of the 1944 Act was enacted for the specific purpose of retaining within the public sector of education the endowments of discontinued denominational voluntary schools which would otherwise have become available to the community in a very limited sense only. The importance of Section 86 to the dual system was recognised in 1973 when, with some amendment, it was re-enacted as Section 2 of the 1973 Act.

The Churches had, and have, an important part to play in the provision of education in the maintained sector, and these schools represent an important part of their capital provision for that purpose. The anxiety of the Churches that their ability to participate in the dual system should not be undermined by economic difficulties is obviously understandable. They are under very great pressure in this respect at the present time. This is partly why, two weeks ago, the other place gave a Second Reading to an Education Bill enabling my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to increase the rate of grant payable to, among others, the schools maintained by the Churches. Clause 2 of that Bill, which was introduced in another place, enables the Secretary of State to make capital grants and contributions of 85 per cent. of the cost of certain expenses to the managers or governors of the voluntary schools. At present, my Lords, the limit is 80 per cent., so this is an increase of 5 per cent. in the grant which the Government will be able to make when this Bill has been passed.

The specific purpose of that provision is to enable the Churches to continue to play their full part notwithstanding the pressure of inflation, and I have no doubt that when that Bill comes before your Lordships it will be welcomed in this House. I also have no doubt that your Lordships will therefore recognise today that it would be quite inconsistent with that Bill—because here we would be increasing the charge on public funds for the benefit of the denominations—to take away from the Churches, as is provided in the noble Lord's Bill, an important source of their own funds. It would be inconsistent with the idea of providing additional State funds to pass this Bill and take away funds which themselves would otherwise belong to the Churches.

Section 2 of the Education Act 1973 is concerned with endowments, held wholly or partly for or in connection with the provision at a voluntary school of religious education in accordance with the tenets of a particular religious denomination". We are therefore concerned by definition with trusts for the provision of denominational education at voluntary schools. It is a fundamental principle of charity law that property given for charitable purposes must be held for those purposes in perpetuity. If it is no longer possible for that property to be applied for the particular charitable purposes for which it was given, it is the duty of the trustees of the charity to take such steps as are necessary—in practice, this usually means an application to the Charity Commissioners for a scheme—to enable the property to be applied (as the legal phrase is) cy-prés; that is, for purposes as like as possible to the original ones. It does not follow from this that the school premises forming part of an endowment for denominational education must themselves be used for the purposes of a school in perpetuity. But it does follow that, when the school premises are sold, the proceeds of sale must be used for those purposes for which the original endowment was enacted. The whole purpose of the noble Lord's Bill is to enable the representatives of the local community to buy the trust property at less than its full value. To the extent that the price which they pay is less than the price which the trustees could obtain for it if they were free to sell to anyone willing to pay, there is therefore a diversion of the assets of the trust to purposes not covered by the trust.

So far, my Lords, I have dealt with the principles of the Bill, but finally I must say something very briefly about the practical problems which it would create. In our view, the Bill is in certain respects unworkable, and in any event would involve the Department in very considerable additional administrative burdens. It would be necessary, for example, to make detailed inquiries into the way in which every school whose premises fell within a scheme under Section 2 of the 1973 Act was financed. Such inquiries, it would seem, would even have to extend to the religious beliefs of the original subscribers to funds out of which the schools were built; and the application of any such criteria would lead to indefensible anomalies between one school and another, according to whether or not the information could be discovered.

It is right that I should acknowledge that the Bill now before the House does, in fact, meet a number of the technical objections which were made from these Benches to its predecessor. There are, however, I suggest, serious objections of principle to the Bill. The provisions of the existing law which it seeks to amend are an essential part of the statutory provision for denominational schools. The Bill provides for endowments for denominational education to be applied for purposes which are neither denominational nor educational. In practice, it would be difficult to work the proposed legislation satisfactorily or fairly, and therefore I have to tell your Lordships that I cannot, and the Government cannot, commend this Bill to your Lordships' House.