§ 11.25 a.m.
§ The Lord President of the Council (Viscount Whitelaw)My Lords, with the leave of the House I should like to make a Statement concerning yesterday's business. Yesterday afternoon, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science made a Statement in another place on government proposals to prevent local authorities from depriving polytechnics or colleges under their control of their assets. This Statement was later repeated in this House by my noble friend Lord Arran.
I have since received a complaint from noble Lords opposite that my noble friend had been reluctant to give to the House information covering Nottinghamshire County Council which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State had in fact already given in another place. It has been put to me that the Government had hesitated in laying before this House information which had already been divulged in another place, and that this was improper.
I have to say that as a general rule when a junior Minister repeats in one House a Statement being made at about the same time in the other House by the Secretary of State, it is quite possible for the information given to each House to differ slightly. Indeed, I must say that when I repeat a Statement made by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister that may very well happen too, and I should be accused of it as well. The Secretary of State, as the man in charge of his department, has a certain degree of discretion to modify his answers, which of course the junior Minister repeating the Statement does not have. This is inevitable, and I am sure that all noble Lords understand this.
Yesterday, however, the Statement was taken in your Lordships' House as is our custom when we 1485 hold two short debates, after the end of the first debate—about one hour after the Statement had been made to the Commons. The opportunity did exist, therefore, for the proceedings in another place to be reported to my noble friend. But I regret to say that this did not happen. Consequently, when he came to repeat the Statement he was not in possession of the information which would have enabled him to convey the facts in question to this House.
I wish to apologise unreservedly to the House for this failure in communication on the part of the Government, for which of course I am responsible. I can assure the House that, where Statements are repeated in this House some time after they have been delivered in another place, I shall ensure that Lords Ministers are fully acquainted with what was said in another place so that such inconsistencies may be avoided for the future.
§ Lord McIntosh of HaringeyMy Lords, I should like to thank the Leader of the House for that Statement and for his usual courtesy and precision in making it. I should like to assure him that I accept what he has said unreservedly and without any qualification or hesitation. There are two further points which need to be made. First, in no sense were our comments yesterday intended as any personal criticism of the noble Earl, Lord Arran. So far as we are concerned, he played a perfectly straight bat and we have no complaint about his response to the question. The issue, as the noble Viscount knows and he has said, is wider than that.
Secondly, the Secretary of State made allegations in the Statement about the conduct of a small number of local authorities. If the Secretary of State makes a statement of that kind he must expect to be questioned on it and he must expect to have some kind of answer. It is not good enough for him to name as an example one local authority which has, he claims, transgressed.
In particular it is not good enough for him to name one Labour local authority when we are aware that there are at least two Conservative local authorities, Hampshire and Essex, which may be equally accused of transgression by the Secretary of State. Would it not be wise—I put this as a rhetorical question as I am not expecting an answer from the noble Viscount—for Secretaries of State in those circumstances in response to questions, not to make allegations which cannot be substantiated, and which of their very nature without substantiation draw into question the propriety of the actions of the other 104 local education authorities?
§ Viscount WhitelawMy Lords, I do not think that your Lordships will expect me to start entering into the controversy surrounding the Statement. I am grateful to the noble Lord for accepting my apology for something which I felt was within my responsibility and which I should ensure happens in future. I thought that I had already ensured that that would happen but as I apparently have not, I shall certainly see that it does in the future. That is why I made an apology.
I do not wish to argue with the rest of the noble Lord's remarks. I do not necessarily either accept or 1486 in any way agree with what he says, but I shall ensure that his remarks are passed on to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and he will obviously consider what has been said.
§ Lord DiamondMy Lords, I too participated in yesterday's proceedings and I should like on behalf of all on the Alliance Benches to say how grateful we are to the Leader of the House for having dealt with this matter in his usual masterly and responsible way.