LORDS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 24 July 1978)

§ Lord ELTON
My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 52 to which the Commons have disagreed but propose the following Amendments in lieu thereof: Page 23, line 17, at beginning insert ("(1)") Page 23, line 23, at end insert— ("and (2) a statement in such form and manner as the Treasury may direct of the total amount paid under section 44(1) above for the purposes of section 58(1) below.") 698 We are now considering the handling of very large sums of money indeed. The Welsh Assembly is, as we know, going to be the body that decides how the whole of that part of the national revenue that is devoted to Wales is to be spent. It will have no say in raising the money, only in spending it. It will be like watering a garden: the taxpayer fills the cistern, Westminster provides the tap, and the Assembly holds the end of the hosepipe. The counties and other recipients of the fortifying stream of money stand like flowers on a hot day awaiting the flow. They are, not unnaturally, anxious to see they get a fair share of it; until today, after all, it has not been the Assembly but they themselves who have put their case and urged their needs to the Secretary of State, the man on the tap, and he held the hosepipe himself. A very large proportion of this supply of cash is determined in the form of rate support grant. It is specifically 699 referred to in Clause 58(1) and hitherto negotiations over rate support grant were, as I say, made directly between local authorities and central Government. They were negotiations of great importance because they determined in effect either the standard of service local authorities could give to their electors or the rates they had to charge them, or indeed both. Both socially and politically, rate support grant is therefore of the greatest importance and every local authority was a party to the determination of the amount by means of direct consultation. Now that consultation with central Government is to be carried out not by the local authorities but by the Welsh Assembly, that is an important means by which the Bill shifts Wales further away from Westminster, and the local authorities are, naturally, concerned by it.
They have every reason to be concerned because as soon as these clauses take effect they will be shut out from the negotiations and, what is more, there is no requirement for their result to be published in detail and no need for any correlation to be made between the size of that part of the block grant provided in response to the need for rate support grant over Wales as a whole and the size of the payment made for that purpose to any particular local authority. In those circumstances, we think it right that the local authorities should at least be granted the right to know what is the total sum from which their share is drawn so that, by contrasting it with that given to other authorities, they can learn for themselves and inform their electors, and indeed inform the electors of the Welsh Assembly, whether or not they are being fairly treated.
Our original Amendment sought to do that but the effect, we were told, and rightly, was that every single weekly payment would have to be earmarked specifically with the proportion thereof which represented rate support grant. That was not our intention. All that is needed is an annual declaration. The substitute Amendment now before the House provides for just that; one annual declaration of the amount of rate support grant for that year. Supplemental declarations would he needed only in the event of supplemental payments, and by supplemental payments I mean payments in addition to the total originally arrived at.
700 In these days of nominal devotion to open government, I suggest that it is a very little thing that we ask and, as always, the Government's resistance to such a small request is in itself profoundly suspect. If they wish to clear the air of suspicion and so make things not more difficult but easier for the incoming Assembly, they would be well advised to agree to our proposals.

§ Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH
My Lords, despite the attractive gardening metaphors of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, I am afraid we are not attracted by the Amendment. In fact, we feel this is a case of distinction without difference, or the other way round. We find it rather difficult to understand what noble Lords opposite believe would be achieved by an Amendment on these lines and I hope that, for the reasons I shall give, the House will not support the form of words proposed, though I am sure that if Lord Elton chooses to divide the House he will secure a majority.
I do not begin to see what Lord Elton believes would be achieved by this form of words. The Bill provides for the devolution to the Assembly of ministerial functions in connection with the fixing of the total of rate support grant for any year and its distribution among local authorities; the total will be fixed before the beginning of the financial year by way of an order made not by the Secretary of State but by the Assembly itself meeting in plenary session following on the statutory consultations with the local authority associations. I emphasise that it is a matter not for the Secretary of State but for the Welsh Assembly.
The figure determined by the Assembly for rate support grant may of course be increased as the year goes on if the statutory pre-conditions for an increase order are met and such an order is then made by the Assembly; I repeat, the Assembly and not anybody else. Accordingly, everybody will know—the Assembly, local authorities, Parliament and the Government—how much is paid to local authorities under the first order or, if more than one is made, both orders. 701 What value therefore would there be in requiring the Secretary of State to produce an annual statement to the effect that the already well-known figure has been included within the larger total of the block fund? Frankly, we do not understand what merit there is in the Amendment. Lord Elton is absolutely right to say that substantial sums of public money will be involved—there is no difference between us on that—but we do not follow the logic of his argument. As I indicated at the outset, we have come to the conclusion that the Amendment would in no way improve the Bill, and for that reason I must advise the House to reject it if it is pressed to a Division.

§ Lord ELTON
My Lords, the noble Lord is always elegant when he speaks more in sorrow than in anger. It is unusual for him, though, not to understand what one is driving at; I have always considered him very quick in the uptake, and I am sorry that I failed on this occasion to make my intentions clear. The Amendment would simply add to Clause 57 a requirement that the Secretary of State shall name the size of a particular sum, and of course it is not the sum to which the noble Lord referred. He referred to the sum which the Assembly will arrive at and disperse as rate support grant. What I thought I had made clear was that when they go to the tap, as I put it, to get this global sum from central Government, central Government will be listening to arguments which include an argument asking for so many million pounds as rate support grant.

§ Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH
My Lords, whatever may be said in the course of an argument between the Assembly, or the representatives of the Assembly, and the Secretary of State about what the size of the block grant should be, that is not a matter on which the Secretary of State will decide; it is a matter wholly within the decision of the Assembly and therefore we are unable to understand the effect of the Amendment. I fear I must come back to this point because I emphasise once again that this is not a decision for the central Government. That is the point which I endeavoured to make.

§ Lord ELTON
My Lords, the noble Lord and I look into different crystal 702 balls and it is not surprising that we see different versions of the future. What I see is Welsh Assemblymen going in deputation to the Secretary of State, or the Treasury, or both, and saying, "We need so much" and the Treasury and the Secretary of State saying in unison or not in unison, "Well, you can have £X million because that is what you normally get in rate support grant and you must keep your rates down". Then they would say, "Yes but we need something else for other purposes". The whole lot then goes into a bucket or a cistern, as I put it, and comes out undifferentiated at the other end of the hosepipe. We want it to be established how much the United Kingdom Government are giving as rate support grant so that at the other end—but the noble Lord is not content with my explanation. I can see. I shall give way again.

§ Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH
My Lords, I apologise because I do not want to abuse the procedures of the House where one is supposed to speak only once. Therefore this will be the last time that I seek to intervene. The noble Lord has used a form of words which I regret to say indicates that he is working under a misapprehension; that is, that the rate support grant is in some way going to be decided on by Ministers of the United Kingdom Government. What I have said during the course of this debate, and repeated, is that this is not so. Members of the Welsh Assembly can draw attention to the general level of problem facing them because of inflationary pressures and so on, but it will not be for the Secretary of State to decide the size of the rate support grant nor the way in which it should be apportioned between, let us say, the urban and rural parts of Wales. That is exclusively for the Assembly. Therefore the procedure which the noble Lord is advocating does not have the effect that I believe he has in mind.

§ Lord DAVIES of LEEK
My Lords—

§ Lord ELTON
My Lords, I am in the middle of a speech. I wonder whether I should conclude it. We seem to be a little confused. One cannot hear too often from the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, and I am sorry he is limiting his replies. Again, one cannot hear too 703 often from the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, but if we may go on a little more quickly. This debate is extremely useful. I wish I had been myself attending to the exchanges on the financial provisions at an earlier stage, because it now appears that the Assembly will go to central Government not as a board of directors going to a bank and saying, "We need so much for one purpose and so much for another, and how much can we have?", but rather in the misguidedly optimistic way that I used to approach my father when I first had a bank account by saying," I need a lot more money. How much could I have?"
According to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, they are not going to have to argue particular cases for particular purposes. Well, my Lords, we have extracted what I regard as very fettle material for further inquiry from this debate. I was not intending to press it further but I feel that it has served its purpose by endorsing the metaphor which I used at the beginning, rather to my regret, and leaving it very much in doubt as to what the basis will be upon which the amount of the block grant is going to be determined. That is a matter perhaps for discussion at other times and in other places. That being so, my Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.